Linux Install error

[Osyris]

Maybe this is something easy though I am not sure.&nbsp;&nbsp;I am very new to linux and want to learn so I was trying to set up Red Hat 6.0 on an old Compaq 486 sx with 16 megs of ram.&nbsp;&nbsp;all the minimum requirements are met.&nbsp;&nbsp;I can get through the first part of the installation (asking for keyboard type and language type and the selection of all the packages that I want installed) however when it gets to the point of actually installing the packages I get an error everytime &quot;Kernel Panic: Received signal 7&quot; then it sends all the kill commands to shut down the computer.&nbsp;&nbsp;I cna never get any further than this.&nbsp;&nbsp;Any Ideas?&nbsp;&nbsp;Anyone know what Signal 7 is?<br><br>thanx for helping a moron<br>Osyris

 

[AndyBo]

It could well be something to do with the hardware you are installing on to.&nbsp;&nbsp;Compaq have a habit of &quot;tweaking&quot; motherboards so that they provide all kinds of &quot;useful&quot; information to IT departments.<br><br>It may also be that the PC isn't powerful enough to handle Linux...&nbsp;&nbsp;I know - what happened to the &quot;You can run Linux on a hair-dryer!&quot; bit...&nbsp;&nbsp;Well, sure, if you tweak it to the nines you <i>can</i> run Linux on &quot;hair-dryer&quot;-like devices.&nbsp;&nbsp;However, I doubt that is the case with RedHat.<br><br>Unless anyone else has any better ideas, I think the best thing you could do would be to e-mail RedHat and see if they come back with an answer.&nbsp;&nbsp;Something to try in the meantime:&nbsp;&nbsp;Get one of the many &quot;Linux on a floppy&quot; distributions - Toms Root and Boot is good - and see if it will boot on the 486.&nbsp;&nbsp;If it does, then the problem is pointing more and more to RedHat, than it is to Linux or the PC. <p> <br><a href=mailto: > </a><br><a href= > </a><br>--<br>
0 1 - Just my two bits

 

[dfurm]

Signal 7's are errors indicating a hardware error in memory or on the bus. This can be due to problems in executables or with the hardware of the system. The Linux kernel uses a lot more capabilities of the CPU, Cache, and memory, and is more prone to faulting on marginal hardware. <br><br>The first thing to do is check to see if you have the latest installation and supplemental floppies from Red Hat. Check the errata for updates and also the FTP site to see if newer versions are available. If the latest images still fail, it may be due to hardware. Common suspects are memory or CPU-cache. Try turning off the CPU-cache in the BIOS and see if the problem goes away. Also try swapping memory around in the motherboard slots to see if it is either slot or memory related. <br><br>