From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.8) Gecko/20020204 Description of problem: Choosing X, GNOME and KDE with a basic server install hangs the display. The CD contiues to work (for 1 hour now) but the display is not updated and the install never completes. Using AMD XP 2100, Asus A7V333 with 2 x 36 gig IBM 15,000 rpm SCSI hdd and 1 gig memory. A fully loaded workstation install on this machine completes in about 10 minutes. This has happened twice now. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.select server install 2.select graphical interface in additon (X, GNOME and KDE) 3. Actual Results: The installation hangs. The display freezes but the cd continues to work endlessly doing who knows what. It appears this would continue for hours if I'd let it. Additional info: I'm classifying this as a "high" severity because it prevents a graphical server install on quite commonplace hardware.
Did you test the CDs? A bad CD will freeze the machine as the drive tries to do error correction?
Yes, I did media check and both applicable disks passed. Additionally, the disks worked on the same machine (with a different monitor) to install a workstation version. Please note I was using a ViewSonic VX800 for the workstation install and an IBM 9527 for the server install. Otherwise, all else remained constant. Appears to be something in the install program. The install program is not very robust in my experience. Many failures.
If you happened to choose a set of packages that included one that is bad on the CD it is possible for the CD drive to retry for quite some time to install it. By chosing a different install set you probably avoided the package causing the problem. The mediacheck will not catch intermittant errors from CDs, just outright bad CDs, so passing is no guarantee the CDs will always work.