[ltp] Problems installing RedHat 7.0 on 755CD

[Mitchell Kirschner]

Hello,

I'm trying to put my 755CD to good use as a personal Linux development
server, and I'm growing bald as I tear my hair out.

*Problem: I can't get past basic Linux installation!
The kernel starts loading into RAM disk, and teases me by getting quite far
into the loading process. It recognizes the hard drive and so on, but then
it stumbles for some reason. The final screen output reads:

"Kernel panic: Attempted to kill the idle task!"
"In swapper task - not syncing"

Sometimes I'm even able to get through several installation screens
(keyboard, native and swap partition initiatlization, etc) before I'm rudely
interrupted by that message. Other times the failure occurs before I even
get to the first (post-kernel-loading) setup screen.

I've tried a variety of boot methods with both Debian 2.2 and Redhat 7.0. I
believe they both use the 2.2 series kernel.

-With a RedHat 7.0 boot floppy; suspend the machine just as kernel starts
loading; switch to cd-rom drive; wake machine up (a technique I found
described in this list's archives)
-With a RedHat 7.0 boot floppy all by itself, no attempts to suspend machine
-With an install.bat script launched from DOS (with CD-ROM drive & disk
loaded)
-I've also tried making different rescue disks from the various images
(compact, safe, etc), all with the same end result

I'm guessing the problem is somehow related to memory allocation or
configuration, or maybe it's a more endemic motherboard incompatibility. But
I haven't a clue beyond that, and I wouldn't know how to mess around with
changing memory settings, assuming that were even possible. Can anything be
done? One thing I wanted to try was using an older kernel image file (2.0)
but had difficulty finding one that was already compiled for an initial
install.

*Machine info:
- Processor is i486 DX4@100Mhz.
- BIOS part number 91G2006 (the latest BIOS available as far as I can tell)
- This thinkpad has a single internal bay for the hot-swappable CD-ROM and
floppy drives
- The CD-ROM drive is NOT bootable
- 24 Mb memory total
- 1.2 Gb hard drive, containing these partitions:
	About a 12 Mb DOS partition (PC-DOS 7.0)
	Approx 900 Mb Linux native partition
	Approx 125 Mb Linux swap partition

*Linux info:
- Debian 2.2 or RedHat 7.0 (tried both with same results)

Sorry for the lengthy message, but I thought more info would be better than
less. Any insight or pointers would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Mitch Kirschner


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