Fedora Core installer freezes (anaconda issue?)

[jefftheriffer]

I've tried installing Fedora Core 16 and even 17 beta on a new PC and the installer can only get as far as the point where it prompts for the media test. When I decline the media test, anaconda launches and a few seconds later the screen goes blank. The entire system is frozen at this point. Installation won't continue, I can't Ctrl-Alt-Del or get another virtual terminal to pop-up.

The PC is a HP Pavilion HPE h9-1100z Phoenix with a 256GB SSD for the primary drive and a 1TB 7200 RPM SATA for the secondary drive. It also has a Blu-Ray Burner drive (DH8B2SHB).

It's pretty frustrating. I've tested a few linux live CDs and they seem to work fine. And I've tried installing both from a bootable DVD and USB flash drive. And I've made sure the BIOS is up to date.

Any suggestions?

[tashirosgt]

Originally Posted by jefftheriffer

I've tried installing Fedora Core 16 and even 17 beta on a new PC and the installer can only get as far as the point where it prompts for the media test.

I've tested a few linux live CDs and they seem to work fine.

I don't understand whether the FC 16 LiveCD works on your machine. Did you tryi to install FC 16 from it?

The usual suspect in an installation freeze is a problem with video. If you boot from a liveCD or a linux based rescue CD, you can see what Linux thinks your hardware is. The method recommended for discovering the details of a pci video card given here http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-f...ideo-card-ram/ is to use

lspci

And find out that your graphics card info is something like:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GT218 [GeForce 210] (rev a2)

Then use the "01:00:0" (I don't know the technical term for what this number is) and lspci to get more details:

 

 lspci -v -s 01:00.0

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GT218 [GeForce 210] (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
	Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 8354
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
	Memory at fb000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
	Memory at c0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
	Memory at de000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
	I/O ports at bf00 [size=128]
	[virtual] Expansion ROM at d0000000 [disabled] [size=512K]
	Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 3
	Capabilities: [68] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
	Capabilities: [78] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
	Capabilities: [b4] Vendor Specific Information: Len=14 <?>
	Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel
	Capabilities: [128] Power Budgeting <?>
	Capabilities: [600] Vendor Specific Information: ID=0001 Rev=1 Len=024 <?>
	Kernel driver in use: nouveau
	Kernel modules: nouveau

Then search the forum and the web for problems with FC 16 and your particular video card, or post the output here and see if any forum member knows about them.

[GoinEasy9]

I had to remove my GTX550Ti card and repalce it with a GT9800 card in order to install. Seems the problem started with the Open Source drivers around kernel 3.2. I'm told that this is fixed in kernel 3.4, so I'm still hoping to use the new card.

It would be interesting to see what video card is in that new laptop.

[jefftheriffer]

Heh, it's not a laptop it's a full desktop system,

The card is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 TI (aka GF116) and yes there's a lot of issues with it in kernels 3.1 and beyond. Everytime one issue gets fixed another pops-up.

I downloaded FC17 since it was just released, put it on a USB drive, tried to boot... And got a "File not found" error. Frelling awesome,