Installing Linux

[ZeNitH]

Processor:

AMD K6tm w/ multimedia extensions @ 233MHz

Mainboard and BIOS:

System BIOS:

Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG

System Chipset:

Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) SiS5597 CPU to PCI Bridge

Installed Memory:

128MB

Video System:

Monitor:

AcerView 55L

Adapter S3ViRGE/VX

Drives and Storage Devices:

Floppy a:, Quantum Fireball ST3.2A c:; ST34342A d:,e:,f:
LITE-ON LTR-16102B CDRW

Peripherals:

Serial/Parallel Port(s):

3 COM/1 LPT

Multimedia Devices:

Voodoo 2 3D (PCI)
Aztech 2316 Compatible Legacy Audio (WDM) (ISA)

+

Modem: SupraExpress 56i PRO (PCI)

OS: Windows 2000

The problem is that when I try to install any distribution of Linux I've
tried (IT Linux 2002, SOT Linux 2002, Red Hat 7.3, Mandrake 8.2) the
installing just freezes on booting the kernel.

ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7, 0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177, 0x376 on irq 15

Those are the last two lines...Before those lines the kernel found my hard
disks and cd-rom drive. I've tried to turn off the LBA from BIOS and I've
tried to take all of my pci and isa cards out, except my video card, and
there's no effect. :( So, would someone very kind human possibly want to
help me? I WANT LINUX!!! :)

[Gero H. Marten]

> I WANT LINUX!!! :)

Not with that CPU. Linux was designed for i386 compatible processors.
The K6 has long been identified to have big problems with Linux. Some
people claim to have installed Linux successfully on a K6. I don't
believe that. At least they were not able to do serious computing on
these machines. Looking through the hardware news forums, 90% of the
reported Problems occurred on K6-CPU's.

--

Gero H. Marten

[Ian Northeast]

This is not true here. We have a K6-2 450 which has been running Linux
successfully for a couple of years, now on 2.4.18. I'm not sure what you
mean by "serious computing" but this machine does some CPU intensive
stuff like running Bochs. The K6 is an i386 compatible processor. It has
to be treated as a 586 though - it is not a 686 (essentially it is a PI
not a PII or higher). So some recent Linux distros may not install on it
directly, if their default kernels have been compiled for 686. To the OP
- have you tried something a little older such as RH6.2? If you can
install it successfully, you can always upgrade the kernel and so forth
later.

Regards, Ian

[Denilson Alves de Oliveira]

Gero H. Marten wrote:

I have a similar machine (PCCHIPS motherboard based in a SiS' chipset)
with K6-2 350 Mhz, 128 Mbytes of RAM and a Voodoo 3K(pci). I have no
serius problems in the last two years. I'm using Mandrake 8.2 currently
but Debian 2.x, RedHat 6.x, RedHat 7.x, Suse 7.x and Slackware (all
versions) work too.

I do not do serius computing but Xine, Doom 2, Quake 1, Quake 2 and
Quake 3 work well :-).

ua

Denilson

[Denilson Alves de Oliveira]

I have a similar machine and I didn't have any trouble to install
Slackware, Debian, Conectiva, Redhat and Mandrake. I tried all them and
I'm using Mandrake 8.2 currently.

If you can boot M$-DOS or M$-Windows try ZipSlack. ZipSlack is a short
Slackware Distribution (~100MB) that you can install in a FAT partition.
ZipSlack came with text interface only but once installed you can
install X, Gnome, KDE etc.

Give a try to old kernels (2.2.x) if the new version (2.4.x) fail.

If possible change the video board and make a BIOS update.

good luck.

Denilson

[nea]

I am experiencing the same problem on a different system
configuration. Here follows the description.

I have a problem when I insert the Mandrake boot disk for installing
Linux. The startup messages get up to a point and then the system
hangs (as if it doesn't recognize something in the hardware and it
probes continuously).

The exact messages I get on screen are:
....................................................................
PCI: Probing PCI harware
Uknown bridge resource0: assuming transparent
PCI: Using IRQ router VIA [1106/0686] at 00:07.0
Applying VIA southbridge workaround.
...................................................................
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with
idebus=xx
VP_IDE: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 39
VP_IDE: chipset revision 6
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with
idebus=xx
VP_IDE : VIA vt82c686b (rev 40) IDE UDMA100 controller on pci00:07.1
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xc000-0xc007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xc008-0xc00f, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdd:pio

AND HERE IT BLOCKS...

I've tried disabling the PnP option on the BIOS, but nothing changes.

My PC configuration is the following:
Athlon XP 1500+ with 512 MB of RAM
LEGEND KinetiZ 7T/7B/7E motherboard with VIA KT133 chipset (The Legend
Kinetiz 7A is listed as supported by Mandrake).
NVidia GeForce2 MX/MX 400 with 64MB

How can I overcome this problem?

[Gregory D. Horne]

On Wed, 12 Jun 2002 09:20:22 -0400, nea scribbled these words:

> I am experiencing the same problem on a different system configuration.
> Here follows the description.
>
> I have a problem when I insert the Mandrake boot disk for installing
> Linux. The startup messages get up to a point and then the system hangs
> (as if it doesn't recognize something in the hardware and it probes
> continuously).
>

<deletia>

> vt82c686b (rev 40) IDE UDMA100 controller on pci00:07.1
> ide0: BM-DMA at 0xc000-0xc007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio ide1:
> BM-DMA at 0xc008-0xc00f, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdd:pio
>

Could you try using the boot disk for Debian GNU/Linux and see whether
the problem persists? I think Debian even has special boot disks for
UDMA 100 controlled hard drives.

Report back on your findings and perhaps then someone can offer further
guidance. Your hardware seems very typical based upon what other people
in these newsgroups have been using.