I've found a couple of problems with RH Linux 7.0 on the VIA Cyrix III processor. Here's the summary: LILO problem: The install seems to run fine, but at the end, LILO can't open /dev/hda, and doesn't write MBR. Also will not write a boot floppy. Boot problem: boot process stops after loading kernel, before starting init. Last message is "Freeing unused kernel memory" I've narrowed this down by experimentation, and it looks like the most likely cause of these problems is that the installer picks a LILO binary and a kernel based on the Family of the CPU. Family 6 results in binaries that contain CMOV or other P6 specific code, probably because of "i686" compiler optimizations. The VIA Cyrix III processor does not support CMOV, and several other "optional" features. The presence of these features can be detected by reading the CPU Feature Flags through CPUID. More information about the Cyrix III processor can be found at: http://www.viatech.com/products/cyr3.htm Thank you, Brad Ferguson Centaur Technology brad
Assigned to a developer - thank you for the information.
I had this problem also, during a writeup for PC Magazine Australia. A little more digging into the /tmp/install.log shows that glibc was not installed, and about 3/4 of the packages after it were not installed either (probably due to dependancies on glibc). I love to see a resolution to this to print in a later addition of the magazine. Mark Snell RMIT IT Test Lab mark.snell.au
this behavior is confirmed for 7.0 & internal post-wolverine versions of Red Hat Linux ...
The problem is the cpu family indicates 6 (or Pentium II), but this machine does not have the "cmov" instruction that is present in other Pentium II instruction sets; So when the i686 package (such as glibc) is installed, it contains "illegal instructions" that cause the package to be unusable ... [root@test152 /root]# cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : CentaurHauls cpu family : 6 model : 6 model name : VIA Samuel stepping : 2 cpu MHz : 601.388 cache size : 128 KB fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 1 wp : yes flags : fpu de tsc msr mce cx8 mtrr pge mmx 3dnow bogomips : 1199.30 Here is a sample PII with the cmov instruction (see the flags field): processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 5 model name : Pentium II (Deschutes) stepping : 3 cpu MHz : 400.911 cache size : 512 KB fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 2 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr bogomips : 799.53
of course, this is just restating what mark said above (and said much better :) )
I mean, what brad said above ... :)
Tested in yesterday's and today's trees with successes. It appears this has been fixed.
verified fixed in qa0329.0, qa0330.0, qa0401.0 using the above 600 Mhz Via Samuel ...