[CentOS] Kickstart hang trying to install CentOS 5.3

Sun May 17 22:19:21 UTC 2009
Clint Dilks <clintd at scms.waikato.ac.nz>

Alfred von Campe wrote:
> On May 14, 2009, at 23:36, nate wrote:
>
>   
>> hmm, is your package selection particularly complex? In my case
>> I list hundreds of packages in my %packages section I don't have
>> groups and stuff. I assume your using a stock CentOS install
>> and you didn't put any of your own 3rd party rpms in the installation
>> and update the comps.xml(?) file to include them?
>>     
>
> No, it's not very complex (see below).  I use a stock CentOS install  
> for kickstart, but I do install some packages from the RPMforge repo  
> during the post installation phase.  I've been using this package  
> list for years with some minor modifications:
>
> %packages
> @ admin-tools
> @ authoring-and-publishing
> @ base
> @ base-x
> @ development-tools
> @ editors
> @ emacs
> @ engineering-and-scientific
> @ games
> @ gnome-desktop
> @ gnome-software-development
> @ graphical-internet
> @ graphics
> @ kde-desktop
> @ kde-software-development
> @ legacy-software-development
> @ office
> @ printing
> @ server-cfg
> @ smb-server
> @ sound-and-video
> @ system-tools
> @ text-internet
> @ web-server
> @ x-software-development
> -dmraid
> -yum-updatesd
> boost
> boost-devel
> dejagnu
> ElectricFence
> foomatic
> expect
> minicom
> mkisofs
> ncurses-devel
> openmotif
> system-config-boot
> system-config-kickstart
> system-switch-mail
> system-switch-mail-gnome
> vim-X11
> wireshark-gnome
>
>   
>> I'm not sure what to suggest..if your packages selection is complex
>> try simplifying it. I believe what is going on during that stage is
>> it's calculating all of the dependencies and stuff.
>>     
>
> I've tried removing a few things from the package list, but it still  
> hung.  Maybe I'll check the list archives for how to do a minimal  
> install and try that, and then manually add all the remaining  
> packages I need to see if that fixes the problem.
>
> Alfred
>
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>
>   
Hi,

I haven't read all of this thread, but if you are seeing that your 
installs start but hangs when installing a particular RPM then I have 
seen this in 5.{1,2,3}.  In my particular case I have noticed that it 
generally seems to be larger RPMS such as the CentOS Openoffice RPMS on 
machines with a small amount of RAM. 

Removing the RPMS that your system gets stuck on can be painful to work 
out but at the very least I would recommend that you remove any custom 
RPMS you have created and then the Open Office ones.

Installing these RPMS in the Post-install section seems to work fine.

I hope this helps :)

Good Luck