Kernel panic
 

I tried to install an old redhat distro I had lying around. The installation seemed to go smoothly. After the reboot I get:

<0>Kernel panic: Attempted to kill init!
<3>pc_keyb: controller jammed (0x15).

Sounds fatal!

Is it the keyboard? it works fine in windows:confused:

Sounds fatal...but hard to say. You don't say whether or not it continued, what "old distro" you've got, on what hardware.

If it's newer hardware with an old distro, that may be it. Alot of old OS'es have no idea about newer hardware, and will freak out when presented with it.

It froze, I had to reboot.

I was installing Red Hat 9 on a socket 775 celeron system on board graphics, LAN, quite old too I think.

Do you think this hardware is too new for RH 9?

I have no idea. It could be something to do with the disk controller, bad RAM, or many other system variables.

Out of curiosity, why load such an old distro? RH 9 is ancient...

Here in South Africa bandwidth is expensive. I have downloaded both F11 KDE Live CD and F12 KDE Live CD but both have an unresolved bug with Via Unichrome graphics devices. Which does not allow you to log in using the Live CD. I didn't want to download another distro. I had RH 9 lying around from years ago and decided to give it a try.

However it looks like I might as well save myself the hassles and download some more.

Thanks for the assistance.

From the message, it sounds like it IS the keyboard - the only thing I have to say is that Linux is more demanding on hardware than Windoze is - but if 'doze lets you in and type on it, I say that doesn't say much for Linux... :(