On Monday 24 January 2005 18:50, Jeff Vian wrote: >On Mon, 2005-01-24 at 18:28 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: >> On Monday 24 January 2005 17:28, Jeff Vian wrote: >> >On Mon, 2005-01-24 at 15:31 -0600, akonstam@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote: >> >> On Mon, Jan 24, 2005 at 01:00:04PM -0500, William Hooper wrote: >> >> > Timothy Murphy said: >> >> > > Emmanuel Seyman wrote: >> >> > >> Fdisk has never been removed. It has always been availible >> >> > >> for people who want more control over their partitioning >> >> > >> than Disk Druid provides. >> >> > > >> >> > > What you are saying is that there is a secret code known to >> >> > > experts for doing this. >> >> > >> >> > Again, the "secret code" is the standard keystroke for >> >> > changing virtual terminals. >> >> > >> >> > [snip] >> >> > >> >> > > If you tell them >> >> > > that something is dangerous you should assume that they >> >> > > have heard you, and will either take care or else avoid >> >> > > that method altogether. >> >> > >> >> > Unfortunately this isn't the case. As a real-world example: >> >> > https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2003-July/ms >> >> >g00 574.html >> >> > >> >> > > Incidentally, to the many people who have told me >> >> > > I should have used Ctr-Alt-F2 rather than Alt-F2, >> >> > > I actually explained at one point that I was installing in >> >> > > text mode, as the X that comes with Fedora does not run >> >> > > properly on my Sony Picturebook (C1VFK). >> >> > > But Alt-F2 did not work for me either. >> >> > >> >> > WORKSFORME. Perhaps your hardware has issues changing >> >> > virtual terminals? >> >> >> >> Ok. if you are going from X to an alternate terminal you have >> >> to type ALT- CTL- Fx . To back to X or another terminal then >> >> ALT - Fx is enough. F7 usually represents the X terminal. In a >> >> text install F1 and F2 will surfice. I just did this a week ago >> >> and I think F2 will take you out of the text install and F1 >> >> take you back to the install. At worst I have the F1 and F2 >> >> reversed. But that certainly works. >> >> ------------------------------------------- >> > >> >Exactly my point. >> > >> >It seems Gene and others would like fdisk as one of the options >> > during the install instead of *forcing* all those who have no >> > clue about getting to a shell (Shall we say newbies) to use only >> > the one tool someone has deemed safe (DD) or allowing it to >> > autopartition. Both of which choose their own way of organizing >> > the partitons, and it seems to me that autopartitioning uses LVM >> > (in addition to destroying existing partitions), which may not >> > be ideal for some. >> > >> >What I do not understand is why choices are being removed from >> > menus and hidden. I thought this was about freedom to choose, >> > as well as making it attractive and easy for new users. >> >> Very well said, Jeff. And to illustrate a similar problem, I've >> made 5 (unsuccessfull) passes at installing BDI-Live-RC46 again >> today, on a seperate hard drive in this same machine, which uses >> cfdisk as its partitioning tool. Its a little bit better than DD >> in my opinion, but its still flakey. In 5 installs, only one run >> would allow me to set /dev/hda1 as the /boot partition, the other >> 4 refused to show me anything in the primary partition camp, >> starting at /dev/hda5 in its pulldown choices. It looks as if one >> could type his answer into the box as the cursor can be placed >> there, but if focused on the text bos, it appears the keyboard is >> disabled. At any rate, going after it with your favorite bug >> swatter would seem to be a pretty good idea, particularly if it >> can be made a bit more intuitive to run. >> >> The lack of success is the installer script is not apparently >> setting its paths correctly, so when it comes time to setup the >> root and user, all of those useradd/groupadd/chpasswd etc tools >> aren't being found, so the passwd and group files are not being >> updated. So on the reboot to actually run it, no passwords are >> recognized and you are locked out from logging in forever. And it >> seems rather self-explanatory that you cannot get a great amount >> of work out of a machine you cannot run. > >Although I support you on the request for fdisk to be back in the >installer as an option, the rest of your problems has me stumped. > >I have never had the sort of problem you report with any hardware >combination I have used. That leads me to believe you may have >something that is actually hardware related that pops up its ugly > head during the install and hides otherwise. > >Some of the items you have related seem possibly power, memory or MB >related. > >1. Have you run memtest86 on this machine - deepest and most extreme >test it has - for at least 24 hours? yes, flawless in 36 hours > >2. Have you done an identical install on different hardware? Just > to rule out the intermittent or conditional hardware issue? no the only unusual item in that box is a pci card that thinks its an isa card. >3. What are you using as a power supply? I know that some power >supplies work perfectly *except* in some cases. I had one machine > that gave me intermittent hangs/reboots with nothing to indicate > the reason. I finally gave in and tried a different power supply > and the problem disappeared. Power supplies that are marginal on > the power/voltages can give weird results in the fringe cases. > Athalon CPUs are known to be especially sensitive to that. new antec 430 watt psu a month ago. >Hope this gives you some things to try and consider. >Jeff -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) 99.32% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly Yahoo.com attorneys please note, additions to this message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.
