Hi everyone,

I've been using Linux (Fedora) since 2005 (when I happily abandoned Windows) and loved every minute of it. No installation or other unresolvable problems. But now, I am totally stuck.

A month ago, they just gave me a new desktop in the office: Dell Optiplex 960 with the Intel Core 2 Duo vPro chip. So I waited for Fedora 11 to come out, burned the x86-64 Install Media on a DVD, repartitioned the hard drive like I always do on new Windoze machines, and began installing. The install process gets to this announcement and stops:

mounting /tmp as tmpfs... done

Then, after a 5-minute wait, if I push the power button on the computer for a hard reboot, then it says:

running install
running /sbin/loader

and then stalls for good. Then all I can do is hard-reboot again.

So, out of curiosity (and for other reasons), I tried booting the machine from other linux disks: Knoppix, and SystemRescue (www.sysresccd.org). They all stall at different points. The funny thing is that both Fedora 11 x86-64 and SystemRescue happily boot on my personal one-year-old Lenovo T61 Intel Centrino Duo VPro laptop.

I get a feeling that somehow the Intel Core 2 Duo vPro is causing the problem. I also think that there is got to be someone else out there who either had this problem, or was able to install Linux on similar Dell box. Google search did not produce actionalbe answers for me... Any hints you all could provide would be really appreciated.

Thank you very much.

This is interesting, but I think it has nothing to do with the Intel Core 2 Duo vPro, there's nothing special about this processor that would prevent Linux from working on it. I think it's something else.

Can you post where knoppix and maybe some of the other live CDs stall. If they stall randomly, maybe run memtest86, I believe it is included on knoppix.

Thank you, TeXMeX, for your reply. I will get my hands on my office computer this morning and will report the results of the tests you suggest around noon today.

Dear TeXMeX,

When I try to run Fedora 11, it stops first at the screed shown in the attached file F11-1.jpg.

Then when I push the reboot button, it does not reboot, but stops at the F11-2.jpg screen, attached.

Then it stalls solid. I must hard-reboot.

Knoppix stops at the attached screen Knoppix.jpg. It dies there, and a hard reboot is needed.

Will continue in the next message shortly.

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System Rescue first stops at the screen SysResq1.jpg. Then, after pushing reboot, it stops at SysResq2.jpg. Then after another push of reboot, it stops at SysResq3.jpg. There it dies. Hard reboot necessary.

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Finally, trying to boot from my old Fedora-4 disks. Goes OK, till it complains that can't find a driver, please see the attached shot.

Computer details:

* Dell Optiplex 960 Desktop (Standard)
o Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0GHz,
o 2GB Memory
o 250GB Hard Drive
o 256MB ATI RADEON HD 3450 Video Card
o Dell 19" UltraSharp 1908WFP Widescreen Monitor
o 3-year Warranty

Any hints you could provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much!

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First thing I would do is go into the BIOS and see if there's a way to put the SATA controller in AHCI/RAID mode, if there is such a mode, if not change it to IDE/PATA/legacy, and maybe non-native mode. This will likely affect both HDD and CDROM drive.

Thank you for the tip. I went into BIOS, and the setting was on RAID/AHCI. Then I tried a setting called "RAID only" as well as a setting called "legacy." Unfortunately, that did not affect the outcome: same problems persisted. I also tried to install Ubuntu, but it got stuck while displaying the Ubuntu logo. Does this Intel AMT thing have to do with anything; can it be causing the problem? Thank you.

See:
http://www.symantec.com/connect/blog...-imaging-linux
check the comments and try some of those things.

Did you ever get a result from memtest86 ? A few options to try, when booting a kernel at the boot: prompt, add one or more of these afterwards:

nomsi
noapic
noioapic
nolapic
acpi=off

Not sure if any of those will help, but there's no harm in trying. As it's not halting at a predictable point in the startup, it's difficult to know what the problem really is.

Thank you. I'll try the tips on that link that you provided.

Memtest ran without errors: "pass complete, no errors, press Esc to exit"

I am sorry, I am not sure which boot: prompt you are referring to. When booting Fedora, I do not get this prompt. When booting a Memtest86 disk, I do get it, but it expects some image or something like that. So, I am not sure what it means to "add one or more of these afterwards." Add to what? And after(wards) what?

I know it's available for knoppix, go to the help screen and it will explain. There's usually a boot: prompt and you enter the name of the kernel followed by some parameters.

For example:
http://www.cyberciti.biz/nixcraft/vi...-user-mode.png

Usually for knoppix you press F2 or F3 for more options, and it will explain more.

Hi H_TeXMeX_H, you're the Guru. Turning off the acpi did the trick. That allowed me to boot Knoppix, SystemRescueDisk (which I needed for some partitioning and partition imaging work), and Fedora. Now my Optiplex 960 with Intel Core 2 Duo vPro is happily running Fedora. Thank you very much!

No problem, thanks for posting back with the resolution.