I have a problem installing Red Hat 9.0 on my IBM ThinkPad. I'm wondering if anyone else has had this problem, and if there's a work-around?

The problem is that the installer correctly probes the machine for video, processor, RAM, disk, allows me to set up the partitioning and software packages, starts formatting partitions, and then *after having destroyed my previous dual-boot partitions* suddenly quits. It tells me something like this: "Error You are trying to install to a machine that's not supported by this version of Red Hat Linux." At this point, both my previous Win98 and Red Hat 7.1 systems were inoperable. So I installed Red Hat 7.3. Then I got some ideas for trying to install RH9, but it still wouldn't install, and I had to reinstall 7.3. Maybe I should just stick with 7.3, but I wanted the latest stuff for compatibility with my wireless card. I'm guessing that I'll get the same disappointing results if I try installing Fedora--doesn't it use Anaconda?

My machine is an IBM i1410 ThinkPad: 266 MHz Mobile Pentium, 256 MB RAM, 3 GB disk. I've successfully installed Red Hat 6.0 and 7.1 and 7.3 on this same machine. I know it's old and creaky, but it's all I've got, and it ought to at least be good enough to run a text-based linux.

I've tried installing via the text-based interface, as well as with the noprobe option, and with the option to tell it how much RAM there is (although I think it's getting that right). RH9 installs just fine to a friend's i1411 which is very similar (300 MHz instead of 266; slightly larger disk).

Help?

--David

Ah, redhat 9 is probably just a bit to, large, for that old a computer. Stick with 7.3 or lower

Well, 9 might solve some of my wireless card problems. Besides, don't we claim that linux makes more efficient use of hardware than certain (ahem! MS) bloatware OS's? Certainly my machine is well within the range for a text-interface system.

I want to know why the installer thinks my system is "unsupported"--why doesn't it give whatever details caused it to make that determination?

I want to know why the installer won't let me just proceed at my own risk, possibly recommending a text-only system.

And I really want to know who writes an installer that capriciously starts an install and then quits in the middle, leaving the poor user with a trashed system!

Mainly I want to know this: is there a work-around?

Thanks for reading,

davebot