On a Compaq nx9010, I have installed Fedora core1. The install went through smoothly, however, upon reboot after 'Enabling swap space'
the next process was 'initializing firewire controller (ohci13940:' and it just freezes there.

Help!

the same thing happened to me...but i dont know how to fix it...i never ever used linux

i cant enter the interactive mode also...i press 'i' or 'I' (caps lock turned on)...but it doesnt work...

any one can tell me how to disable this firewire thing...i dont need it in linux...i am just testing some portable apps...

thanx in advance...

forgot to tell that i use redhat9 (i forgot the kernal version...)

I had the exact same problem when i tried to install mandrake 9.1...After a little research i discovered that the firewire card that we have is not supported by mandrake, and probably not you distro either...What you have to do is instead of lading the graphical installation interface, load the text interface...In order to load the text interface (at least on mandrake) you must go into a text interface and type "text" at the boot prompt. When you do this you should type "noauto" after the "text" part...This command should disable the installers ability to detect hardware. You must then specify your hardware later, but you can skip the firewire and install.
Hope that helps...
-Green penguin