Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 77476
Installation fails at choice of Workstation, Serve, etc.
Last modified: 2007-04-18 12:48:12 EDT
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows 98; F-5.0.1SP1- 20000718; F-5.0.1-20000221) Description of problem: We have hundreds of Dell Latitude laptops here, from CPx's to C600s. Of the 8 of us who have tried to install RH 8.0 so far, ALL have stopped at the point where you choose Workstation, Server, etc. When you click "Next", the "Install" radio button unchecks, the rest of the menu goes translucently gray, etc. but ABSOLUTELY NOTHING happens. You can re-click the "Install" radio button, and try again - over and over. You can click "Back" and you go back. But you cannot go forward. I seem to recall having had the same problem with 7.3 and having to use text mode. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Buy a Latitude C600, BIOS revs from A06 to A16 2. Insert RH 8.0 CD and begin graphical install 3. Select "Next" after choosing a type of install Actual Results: "Install" radio button unselects itself, screen menu area goes translucently gray. No drive activity, NADA. As if the code is in there to turn the screen gray when you click Next, but the code to actually DO something is commented out. Expected Results: Should have progressed to drive formatting/checking and package installation. Additional info: Haven't been able to test BIOS rev's beyond A16, but let's face it - how many users routinely bother to upgrade BIOS?
Have you tried a text mode install? Type 'linux text' at the boot command line. Have not had any reports like this for Dells other than sometimes the X server does not get the resolution we expect. You can try working around this by saying 'linux resolution=<res>', where <res> is somthing like '1024x768', and <res> is the native resolution of your LCD display.
Yes, I can do text mode installs. That's how I have had to do all of the Latitude installs, because of this problem. The X resultion should not be the problem, since I obviously get to the point of choosing install type (Workstation, Server, etc.) all in X. Considering that there is NO disk activity, the screen does NOT lock up (I can go Back, etc.), and that I can jump to console and see that no errors are listed, I don't think this is an X issue. It's gotten to the point that every day people walk up to my office and ask me how to fix it because they want to install Redhat for testing. So far, EVERY Dell Latitude C series laptop that I have tried to install 8.0 on (and 7.3, earlier) has done this.
Out of curiosity, could you try a Phoebe (our new beta) install on these machines and let me know if it acts differently?
Fraid not. These are not my machines, and the two laptops I use myself are dedicated to Advanced Server testing. This can't be new. It used to happen on 7.3 as well. Also, I have had a few desktops (Dell OptiPlex GX1 units) who have also reported the exact same problem. In all cases, text mode install went smoothly.
This is due to the X server not respecting the resolution we asked it to start in and so our calculated dpi is incorrect. We handle this in Phoebe by setting the dpi differently. A workaround for Red Hat Linux 8.0 is to boot with 'linux resolution=1024x768' (replace 1024x768 with the native panel resolution if the panel uses a different native resolution).
I'm going through Bugzilla closing some bugs that have been marked as Modified for some period of time. I believe that most of these issues have been fixed, so I'm resolving these bugs as Rawhide. If the bug you are seeing still exists, please reopen this report and mark it as Reopened.