On Tue, 15 May 2007, Richard Karhuse wrote: > Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 09:26:46 -0400 > From: Richard Karhuse <rkarhuse at gmail.com> > Reply-To: CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> > To: CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> > Subject: Re: [CentOS] Re: Now I can't shutdown [was: Screen blanks after > initial setup (Centos 5)] > [snipped some good advice regarding memtest] > However, since your system is booting and working, I would > conjecture that everything is fine and should be able to work and > use the system. Do a "yum update" and make certain that all > things are installed (and up to date). Rich: thank you for the handholding. Unfortunately the machine doesn't work so well :-< Yester morning I got kernel panic - not syncing : Fatal exception. This was after being able to boot once (or twice - don't remember) into the installed centos. Now the box is shut down. So here is the information I have right now. I appologize if some of it will be proved irrelevant. ** Ran memtest for ~4h (5 passes) without errors. ** BIOS seems to be the latest (not sure if it's the greatest :-) ** I failed to mention earlier that the media check prior to installation *failed*. I decided to go on with the installation because my own experience so far, and others', showed that failure does not necessarily imply bad media. But see below. ** Also, this is a x86_64 machine, but the i386 distro (recommended for a desktop). **** ** Question: should I simply try a fresh installation using ** another copy of the DVD? **** Here are some things I dug out of /var/log/* files: anaconda.syslog seem to be more interesting =========================================== There are quite a few <4>hda: media error (bad sector): status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error } <4>hda: media error (bad sector): error=0x30 { LastFailedSense=0x03 } Followed by <3>Buffer I/O error on device hda, logical block ... (hda is my DVD drive, so I guess it is related to the failed media check above?) anaconda.log ============ ERROR : failed to insert /tmp/floppy.ko (Seems OK - we don't have a floppy device on this box) Numerous messages such as DEBUG : ignoring driverless device ... DEBUG : No package named ... available to be installed Few warnings about missing /etc files, and some others. For example: WARNING : /etc/rpm/macros doesn't exist install.log has these errors ============================ Installing vte - 0.14.0-2.el5.i386 error: unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/lib/libvte.so.9.1.5;4645e036: cpio: read Installing webalizer - 2.01_10-30.1.i386 error: unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/bin/webalizer;4645e036: cpio: read Installing wget - 1.10.2-7.el5.i386 error: unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/bin/wget;4645e036: cpio: read Installing openoffice.org-core - 1:2.0.4-5.4.17.i386 error: unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/lib/openoffice.org2.0/help/en/shared.jar;4645e036: cpio: read Installing kde-i18n-Hebrew - 1:3.5.4-1.noarch error: unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/share/locale/he/LC_MESSAGES/kbruch.mo;4645e036: cpio: read (Also related to the failed media check above?) Finally, the installation and boot logs reveal the following bug: ================================================================= ENABLING IO-APIC IRQs ..TIMER: vector=0x31 apic1=0 pin1=0 apic2=-1 pin2=-1 ..MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not connected to IO-APIC ...trying to set up timer (IRQ0) through the 8259A ... failed. ...trying to set up timer as Virtual Wire IRQ... failed. ...trying to set up timer as ExtINT IRQ... works. According to what I have found on the web, and as confirmed by the last line, this seems to be a harmless bug. > > Have fun ... > > Rich > Indeed, this is a learning experience. -- Itay Furman <centos at nospammail.net> --