Kernel hang
 

I'm new to linux. I decided to switch to linux after having to format my windows machine quite a few times due to virus infections.

I bought a new Dell Inspiron 640m last week with following specs:

Intel core 2 duo T5600 processor
Intel 945 GM express chipset
Intel onboard graphics
2 GB DDR2 667MHz ram
80 GB HDD (Don't know if its SATA or IDE never checked)

Yesterday I installed fedora core 7 in a dual boot configuration with windows XP home that came with my Laptop. (I still kept windows cause I need to work on some software that works in windows only).

I installed both the default kernel chosen by installation program (I think its anaconda) and the Xen kernel as I'm learning Virtualisation.

When I rebooted after Installation the Xen 2.6.20 kernel booted fine. but when I choose the other non Xen 2.6.21 kernel it stopped after the following message.

Uncompressing Linux ...... ok.
booting the kernel

and then it hangs , nothing happens.

I searched around the net and came across a thread in some forum telling to disable the acpi.
So I passed on the acpi=off parameter to the kernel and it booted fine.

But what I'm concerned about is the aftereffects of it. I think this acpi is all about power management. and since I'm using a laptop I'd like to have these features.

So is there any solution other than disabling the acpi feature? will it decrease the operating hours of my laptop?
Please help me clear my doubts.

There are similar issues being found with the Fedora 7 Live CD and Installation DVD during boot. It seems that machines using SATA drives will get as far as "Ready." being displayed on the screen, and then go no further.

You can read more about the issue on the Fedora Forums at:
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=156491

There is also bugzilla report for this problem that can be found at:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla....cgi?id=239585

I'm having trouble on my two Dimension E510 machines that each only have a single SATA drive in them. I haven't yet gotten to try unplugging the drive until after the hang point and then plugging it back in, as has been suggested multiple times, but I will tonight.

It has also been suggested on some forums to add grub options maxcpus=1 and/or clocksource=acpi_pm to the kernel boot parameters on systems that were able to get F7 installed but not to properly boot on subsequent reboots.

Which version of the non-xen kernel is it? On my dell laptop, the default kernel shipped with Fedora 7 didn't boot exaclty as you described. I booted from the rescue CD, chrooted into the new install and updated to the newest kernel package there (I'm using build 3228 now). After that everything worked. As it seems you have gotten it to boot with the xen kernel, I would recommend running software update while connected to the net and installing all the updates (which should include the newer kernel package if you do not already have it.) If your kernel is already up to date, I have no idea what to do.

Good luck!

P.S. My laptop is a recent Dell E1405 with comparable specs as yours.