I have a new laptop (velocitymicro.com in case some of you have one from there) im trying to install RH9 on it and i could never get it to install it always froze on loading ohci1394(firewire i think) so i got support from redhat and they told me to install using "linux nofirewire" which i did and it installed perfectly. But after installation i got to boot up the machine and it freezes now at "finding module dependencies" im thinking maybe its trying to load firewire again and crashing. has anyone else had this problem do you know if theres a way to fix this (grub commands?) please help this is a $3500 dollar laptop thats going to go to waste if im forced to put some crappy microsoft OS back on it

Try booting this time also with "linux nofirewire" also might want to add "nohotplug", which is going to really suck as that won't add any modules at boot and you'll have to do that by hand.

This is also a situation where RedHat 9 is showing its age. RH did not compile in acpi support into their 2.4.20 build, figuring it too beta, which was arguably true. The downshot is that basically no laptop made in the past half year has old legacy apm in the BIOS and a lot of odd dependency built upon the existence of acpi support in the OS. A short list of distros that support acpi out of the box:

SuSe 8.2, although that will of course require a net-install as they don't give ISOs away for free.
Slackware 9.1
Gentoo 1.4

Yep... its annoying, Fedora 1.0 should render this a moot point as RH's new community supported distro tack is going to accomodate for laptops more now, but there's going to be a lag before its released as they build the organization somewhat, so you might think of a hop.

Cheers,

Finegan

This is how I get around it. First insert your Redhat CD 1 and boot with the option ' linux rescue nofirewire'. Then let it mount your installation. Goto /mnt/sysimage/etc and edit modules.conf ( I use pico ). Put a " # " infront of your line for ohci1394.

Now if you plan on using firewire then when you are up and load the module with ' insmod ohci1394 ' If system is still stable you can add the line ' insmod ohci1394 ' in your /etc/rc.local

Another issue you might run into is hotplug and I have info about that on my site.

I haven't finish my part on firewire, but there is a few things there.
Check it out http://www.fullnet.com/u/crusher9/usb.html

Have fun
Brian1

Im very new to linux how do i start it up with boot options i see the arguments command line thing but i dont knwo where to go

Actually i downloaded gentoo 1.4 now to give it a try on the laptop but it freezes too on the loading screen. so it wont even install either

Lets start over:

1. Insert your Redhat CD 1
2. Turn on your computer
3. When it comes up to the boot type ' linux nofirewire rescue ' and hit enter. Normally you would hit enter.
4. Now it will ask to monut your Redaht installation. Just let it
5. You will come to a terminal screen
6. type ' cd /mnt/sysimage/etc ' hit enter
7. type ' pico modules.conf ' hit enter
8. add the " # " followed by a space in front of the line for ohci1394 or ieee1394
9. hit ctrl-z and save and exit
10 type ' cd / ' hit enter
11. type ' umount /mnt/sysimage ' hit enter
12. restart computer
13. Once system is up you can try loading firewire module if you are going to use it. If not I would not bother trying it.

Let me know how it goes.
Brian1
" When in doubt, RTFM "

Okay i tried what you said but when i go to unmount sysimage it says its busy

okay i restarted, but theres no change it still stalls at Finding module dependencies... is this a lost cause should i just give up on linux and go back to windows. ive already tried RH9 suse8.1 gentoo 1.4 and they all freeze

Rem out your USB modules in /etc/modules.conf and see what that does.
Don't worry about unmounting.
Let me know what happens. If it boots look at my website on USB.

Brian1

Okay well it got passed the Finding module dependecies but now it freeze when it comes to the setup screen(first time you run x, where it asks for users and other postinstall setup info) Any suggestions on what i might wanna do now

Thanks so much for helping me out on this

Is this a NoteMagix S88?

It is the same design as my ProStar 8854, but it is using a ATI Radeon 9600 and I am using a Radeon 9000.

My guess here is to update X to 4.3+

Firstboot does a few things if you get past it. One it lets you create a none root account. The only way to run by the way. Root is just to dangereous.

To get past the firstboot as it is called, start the process you have done to disable USB FireWire. Now you will need to turn off firstboot. To do so goto /mnt/sysimage/etc/sysconfig and pico firstboot. Change the yes to no in this file. Save and Exit.

This is no guarnetee that the system will work here. If it still locks up, then I would download newer X11 server release for Redhat 9. Version 4.3. You will download these rpm's from some other machine and burn them to a CD. You will need to boot your system into run level 3, which will bring you to a prompt. Mount the CD and install the RPM's.

When you get this install done let me know your steps here.

actually mine has the 9000 also its an older model