SuSE 9.2 installation hangs on PCMCIA hardware detection.

[fletchjp 0]

I have already sent this to the SuSE support.

 

Quote:

PRODUCT: SuSE Linux AMD64 9.2 Professional

I am attempting a first install onto a laptop

 

Evesham Micros AMD64 3400

 

The installation hangs during an early phase shorlty after a line which says

 

>>> SUSE Linux installation v 1.7.17

Starting hardware detection

 

at a line

 

"Activating PCMCIA devices..."

 

even when there is no device in the slot.

 

It does the same with Netgear wireless card installed

 

I cannot see any way to disable PCMCIA in the BIOS setup, which was my only thought as to how to get around this.

 

Can anyone help, please?

 

John

 

[fletchjp 0]

Its funny. Fedora Core 3 (32 bit) does not have this problem and is currently instralling. Its a funny old world.

[fletchjp 0]

I think I am now getting somewhere with this but it has got somewhat complicated. I will share it while SuSE 9.2 (64 bit) is loading.

 

This has now become a Triple Boot system.

 

(1) I started with Windows XP and a big (80 Gbyte) NTFS partition with plenty of spare space. I carved off 20 Gbytes at the far end using Partition Magic. I was going to put SuSE there - see above.

(2) In fact I installed Fedora Core 3 in there. I was able to tell it what I wanted as default (Windows XP) and choose the software I wanted. When I looked at it with Partition Magic it had used the space to make two primary partitions, one for /boot and one for a LV setup containing the swap and the /root.

(3) I then did a yum update which took about two hours. In the process it loaded a new version of the kernel and decided it wanted that to be default. So I had to get into /boot and edit grub.conf to teach it good manners. (Worse is to come).

(4) I now decided to install SuSE after all using manual installation. Some experiments showed that I can get round the PCMCIA problem that way. So I am into the delights of YaST.

(5) For my first try I let YaST suggest what it wanted to do with the disk. I expected it would do something silly such as overwrite the Fedora, but no, it just wanted to take 25 Gbytes from Windows. So I did that job for it with Partition Magic and gave it 20 Gbytes. It accepts that and puts its swap and root into an extended partition. Fine.

(6) The problem is the way Yast wants to handle Grub. Although it knows the Fedora partitions are there none of the YaST options will copy in the boot menu from Fedora. I have had to manually edit it the two versions of the Fedora boot menu so that all the options will be there.

(7) Software packages. YaST does not give a full list of the options e.g. it assumes that gcc is there for C and C++ and ignores FORTRAN and objective C. There are some other things I want which I am going to have to dig out afterwards.

(8) Finally, will it be 64 bit? I expected it to ask me which I wanted, but it has silently done its thing without asking me.

 

I just hope it all works.

 

I hope this helps someone else.

 

I wonder what will happen next time the Fedora Core wants to update its kernel. My guess is that it will modify its own grub.conf which will not be the one in action.

 

I think the moral of the story is that everyone who does a distribution assumes that theirs will be the only one on the computer and that nothing else matters.

 

The next installment will be if it doesn't work.

 

John

[fletchjp 0]

It does all work - I can boot to

 

Windows XP (SP2)

SuSE Linux 9.2 (64 bit)

Fedora Core 3 (32 bit - although I would like it to be 64 bit)

 

Although I have answered my own query, having this community to work with has helped me to sort it out.

 

Thanks for being there

 

John