Bug 689140

Summary: F15 installer needs more RAM than documented
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: thatdoesntworkhere
Component: anacondaAssignee: Anaconda Maintenance Team <anaconda-maint-list>
Status: CLOSED DUPLICATE QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: unspecified Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 15CC: anaconda-maint-list, gansalmon, itamar, johannbg, jonathan, kernel-maint, lpoetter, madhu.chinakonda, metherid, mschmidt, nareshsukhija, notting, plautrba, vanmeeuwen+fedora
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: Unspecified   
OS: Unspecified   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2011-04-26 15:24:28 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Flags
The oops messages with Fedora i386 beta netinst under Qemu none

Description thatdoesntworkhere 2011-03-19 20:32:50 UTC 
Description of problem:
during F15a i386 DVD boot after loading initrd.img the boot process stops at 10.4xxxxx [<c040377e>] kernel_thread_helper +0x6/0x10 (line number varies i.e.: 10.455187, 10.466780, 10.470995) 

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
Fedora 15 alpha i386 DVD

How reproducible:
every time attempt to boot from DVD

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.
  
Actual results:


Expected results:


Additional info:
Chipset: SIS735 
Board: ECS K7S5A 
CPU: AMD Duron 1100
RAM: 512 MB
Video: AGP ATI GC-R7000L-B3 Radeon-7000 (RV100)
(DVD download passed SHA256 checksum)
Comment 1 Michal Schmidt 2011-03-20 09:56:10 UTC 
The varying number is a timestamp. The line "[<c040377e>] kernel_thread_helper +0x6/0x10" is a part of a kernel stack trace. It is the least informative part of it though. Could you please capture the complete trace (say, using a digita camera)?
There's no indication why systemd should be blamed. I'll reassign to kernel for now.
Comment 2 Chuck Ebbert 2011-03-22 00:15:48 UTC 
You need at least 1GB of memory to boot the install disk.
Comment 3 Naresh Sukhija 2011-04-24 22:23:49 UTC 
Not sure why fedora suddenly started needing 1GB RAM just to boot into Anaconda in GUI or Text interface. It used to work even with 256 MB RAM till F14
Comment 4 Naresh Sukhija 2011-04-24 23:25:12 UTC 
Created attachment 494584 [details]
The oops messages with Fedora i386 beta netinst under Qemu

The oops messages with Fedora i386 beta netinst under Qemu
Comment 5 Naresh Sukhija 2011-04-24 23:31:14 UTC 
How reproducible:
every time attempt to boot from CD

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Boot Fedora 15 beta netinst CD into Qemu with 512 MB RAM
2. See the oops messages (screenshot already attached)
3.

Actual results:
System hangs

Expected results:
Anaconda installer needs to run
Comment 6 Michal Schmidt 2011-04-26 06:00:15 UTC 
(In reply to comment #3)
> Not sure why fedora suddenly started needing 1GB RAM just to boot into Anaconda
> in GUI or Text interface. It used to work even with 256 MB RAM till F14

The trace shows it failed at unpacking the initramfs.
It's likely because of the much bigger initramfs in F15 (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/Features/UnifiedInitrd)

The release notes say:
  Recommended RAM for graphical: 512 MiB
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/15/html/Release_Notes/sect-Release_Notes-Welcome_to_Fedora_15.html#sect-Release_Notes-Hardware_Overview

It's unfortunate that 512 MiB is not enough anymore, because that's what virt-manager gives you by default for a new VM.

Either anaconda should be fixed to require less RAM, or at least the release notes must be updated to state the true requirements.
Comment 7 David Lehman 2011-04-26 15:24:28 UTC 

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 699770 ***