Okay, I'll try this again.  When I first posted, I'd not yet gotten far
enough to discover that RedHat removes both my mouse AND my keyboard at
first boot.  Here's the scenario:

First of all, I should mention that I had RedHat 5.1 on the machine in the
past and it worked fine.  I ran through the media check before installing
9.0, and the disks checked out fine.

The first machine I tried this on is a CTX box with a 350 Mhz AMDK6, 168 Meg
of Ram, and 16 Gig of Disk space. The keyboard is a standard Dell unit.  The
mouse is a Microsoft wheel mouse, which is recognized by the installation
program as a Generic PS/2 Wheel Mouse.  Both the keyboard and the mouse work
fine throughout the installation.

When the machine is booting, just after the "checking for new hardware"
message, I get a graphical screen that says:

The following mouse has been removed from your system: Generic PS/2 Wheel
Mouse

You can choose to:
1. Remove any existing configuration for the device,
2. Keep the existing configuration.  You will not be prompted again of the
device seems to be missing,
3. Do nothing--the configuration will not be removed, but if the device is
found missing on subsequent reboots, you will be prompted again.

I choose 3 (note that the keyboard is working at this point).

The computer then gets to the login prompt, and at that point, it isn't
responding to the keyboard either.

I next tried installing on a Dell Pentium-II 450 with a 10Gig SCSI drive,
512 Meg Ram.  (I also had RedHat 5.1 running on this machine some time
back).

In this case, everything installs fine, but when I go
to reboot, I get a "Can't load operating system" message.

Seems like RedHat may be Bill Gates' best advertisement.

Joe

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Exotic-Scales.com wrote:

> Okay, I'll try this again.  When I first posted, I'd not yet gotten far
> enough to discover that RedHat removes both my mouse AND my keyboard at
> first boot.  Here's the scenario:
>
> First of all, I should mention that I had RedHat 5.1 on the machine in the
> past and it worked fine.  I ran through the media check before installing
> 9.0, and the disks checked out fine.

"I performed an MD5sum check on my installation CDs, and all the CDs passed
this test." Yes, or no?

>
> The first machine I tried this on is a CTX box with a 350 Mhz AMDK6, 168
> Meg
> of Ram, and 16 Gig of Disk space. The keyboard is a standard Dell unit.

The keyboard is a ps2/USB/what kind of standard keyboard?

> The mouse is a Microsoft wheel mouse, which is recognized by the
> installation
> program as a Generic PS/2 Wheel Mouse.  Both the keyboard and the mouse
> work fine throughout the installation.

You left out your entire configuration procedure here. Which options did you
select?

Also, do these machines have any peculiarities or peripherals that might
conflict with standard hardware?

>
> When the machine is booting, just after the "checking for new hardware"
> message, I get a graphical screen that says:
>
> The following mouse has been removed from your system: Generic PS/2 Wheel
> Mouse
>
> You can choose to:
> 1. Remove any existing configuration for the device,
> 2. Keep the existing configuration.  You will not be prompted again of the
> device seems to be missing,
> 3. Do nothing--the configuration will not be removed, but if the device is
> found missing on subsequent reboots, you will be prompted again.
>
> I choose 3 (note that the keyboard is working at this point).
>
> The computer then gets to the login prompt, and at that point, it isn't
> responding to the keyboard either.

Have you tried disabling kudzu? Have you tried to boot into runlevel 1? If
so, is the keyboard still working?

If so (runlevel 1, keyboard working), do this in runlevel 1:

# chkconfig kudzu off

This will shut down the hardware detector "kudzu" and you may be able to get
to the login prompt.

>
> I next tried installing on a Dell Pentium-II 450 with a 10Gig SCSI drive,
> 512 Meg Ram.  (I also had RedHat 5.1 running on this machine some time
> back).
>
> In this case, everything installs fine, but when I go
> to reboot, I get a "Can't load operating system" message.

Need more details. Did it detect the SCSI drive correctly during
installation, and did you create a reasonable set of partitions?

> Seems like RedHat may be Bill Gates' best advertisement.

Not for most people.

--
Paul Lutus
http://www.arachnoid.com

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

> The keyboard is a ps2/USB/what kind of standard keyboard?

To me (an old guy) PS2 is 'standard'.  That's what it is.
>

> You left out your entire configuration procedure here. Which options did
> you
> select?

EVERYTHING, the first time. The second time I selected all of the available
options (which, they say, is not the same as selecting "everything")

>
> Also, do these machines have any peculiarities or peripherals that might
> conflict with standard hardware?
>
The CTX is a really bare bones box.  Nothing to speak of.  The Dell, as I
mentioned, has a SCSI drive, but the install program didn't seem to have any
problem with it.



> Have you tried disabling kudzu? Have you tried to boot into runlevel 1? If

Uhh, you lost me here.  How do I do that?

> Not for most people.

Yeah, well, I'm motivated at this point. I'm starting a Ph.D. program in
Computer Science at Binghamton university next semester, and would like to
get at least a familiarity with the operating system before I start.

I had good luck with RedHat 5.1 and 6.0 in the past -- always installed
without a hitch. At one point I even got Samba working & the box integrated
with my Windows domain.  That's why I'm so surprised that this one is
causing such problems.

Joe

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Exotic-Scales.com wrote:
 
>
> To me (an old guy) PS2 is 'standard'.  That's what it is. 
> 
>
> EVERYTHING, the first time. The second time I selected all of the
> available options (which, they say, is not the same as selecting
> "everything")
> 
> The CTX is a really bare bones box.  Nothing to speak of.  The Dell, as I
> mentioned, has a SCSI drive, but the install program didn't seem to have
> any problem with it.
>
>
> 
>
> Uhh, you lost me here.  How do I do that?

I put the detailed instructions in my first message, which you snipped.

--
Paul Lutus
http://www.arachnoid.com

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

> Need more details. Did it detect the SCSI drive correctly during
> installation, and did you create a reasonable set of partitions?

Yes, it detected the SCSI drive.  I accepted the default (automatic)
partitioning.

WIth respect to the other machine, you wrote:
[vbcol=seagreen] 

How do you boot into runlevel 1?

Thanks again,

Joe

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

On Wed, 06 Oct 2004 09:25:17 -0400, Exotic-Scales.com wrote:

> How do you boot into runlevel 1?

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/...ing-single.html


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[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Exotic-Scales.com wrote:

/ ...

> How do you boot into runlevel 1?

At the Grub boot screen, press "e", scroll down to the boot line, press "e"
again, move to the end of the line, add a space and a "1", press Enter,
press "b. Be careful in runlevel 1 -- you have root authority and no
password is needed to ruin your installation.

--
Paul Lutus
http://www.arachnoid.com

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]