Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 14:34:32 -0500 (EST) From: Pat Barron <pat@transarc.ibm.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: 4.4-R Install hangs on IBM PC 300GL Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.96.1011220141753.24687A-100000@smithfield.transarc.ibm.com>
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I'm trying to install 4.4-RELEASE on an IBM PC 300GL, and the install
keeps hanging at various points in the installation (different every
time). Symptoms are as follows:
1) Boot machine from CD, go thru menus to select distributions, media,
etc.; all appears normal at this point.
2) Commit installation; sysinstall labels and newfs's filesystems. In
case it makes any difference, this machine has a bunch of SCSI
disks on it (no IDE at all). I have specified /, swap, /var, and
/usr on one 4 GB SCSI drive, /usr/src using all of a separate 4 GB
drive, and /usr/local using another separate 4 GB drive. As I
said, newfs of the filesystems for these partitions goes fine.
3) sysinstall begins to read chunks from the distributions, and load
them into the filesystems. For each distribution, however, the
transfer rate reported starts out quite high, stays there for a
bit, and then drops precipitously - apparently because, at various
points, the installation is hanging. If I switch to the emergency
holographic shell and run "ps" during one of these apparent hangs,
the "ps" command itself hangs for quite a while - usually at least
30 seconds, sometimes signifigantly more - before showing the process
list. At this point, the "cpio" process that sysinstall uses is
usually listed in 'D' state (waiting for some I/O to complete?)
4) This goes on for a while - the extraction of the distributions
will freeze - recover - freeze - recover - etc.... for quite
some time. But eventually, it just hangs forever; it gets into
the "freeze" state, and simply never comes out of it again.
If I then go to the emergency holographic shell and run "ps",
it too hangs forever.
Any guesses/hints/etc. on what the problem might be? I've installed
FreeBSD dozens of times, in various versions (all the way back to 1.1),
and on lots of different kinds of machines, and have never seen an
installation fail in quite this way. Then again, I have never tried
to install on a 300GL before, never tried to install on an all-SCSI system
before, and this is the first time I've ever tried to install 4.4 ......
We have tried a Linux distribution too, and an old version of Mandrake
Linux was found to install just fine.
Thanks for any help ....
--Pat.
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