Hey,

I have been using Linux for probably about 10 years. I probably haven't learned as much as I should, but I can get around pretty well and understand what's going on. Anyways, onto my problem.

I recently came into possession of a P3 850Mhz Machine. It has 384MB SDRAM, 80Gig harddrive, Tulip compatible ethernet card. That's really about it. Anyways, I wanted to install Slackware on it since that is the distro that I am most comfortable with.

I booted up the cd (v10.2) and started the install. During the install I noticed a quick flash go by and all I could see is Kernel Error and it said something about no panic. The install continued so I kind of ignored it. While I was just messing around in the console the error popped up again. It had a bunch of number and the only discernable thing was kernel error and no panic. It let me continue. I figured if I installed a new kernel I would be fine. So I tried to compile kernel 2.6.X.X, but I got a GCC Seg Fault Error. So I tried installpkg gcc-xxxxx.tgz to refresh the gcc package and tried to compile the kernel again. Still no luck another Seg Fault Error.

I tried Slackware v10.0 as well and it gave me the same error during install (and randomly in the console) and the same GCC error when trying to compile the new kernel.

I was at my end with Slackware so I booted up my Gentoo install cd. I managed to install the base system and successfully compile kernel 2.6 on my system. The problem is I don't really want to mess with Gentoo because it is slow to install everything and I really like Slackware.

So I was wonderring what you guys thought. Since I get a kernel error it can't just be a GCC error. Do you think I should take my bzImage from my gentoo install and try to put that on the Slackware and see if it makes any difference? I just want opinions and different things I should try because I am not real sure what to do. I guess I can always use Gentoo, but I prefer Slackware. I guess I can just let my computer compile all the Gentoo packages for about a week and it may be done.

I would really appreciate any opinions. If you want any more information that you think might help just let me know. I can post the specific kernel error, but it just looks like half a screen of numbers. I can also give you the exact GCC error, but it is just a seg fault. The one thing I did notice is that during the kernel compile the GCC seg fault is always during different things. Like onetime is will be compile a.o and it will seg fault, but the next time it will successfully get through a.o and seg fault on b.o. Obviously I am just making up a.o and b.o, but you should get my drift. I also tried a 2.4 kernel and it did the same thing. I know the CDs are good because I have used them before with no problems and I even tried downloading and reburning a brand new disk.

Any help??

Thanks

Maybe a faulty RAM stick?
Run memtest on it to see.

I ran memtest86 from the Gentoo install disk. It found no errors with the RAM.

Without more information it would be hard to give good suggestions. Here are a few shots in the dark.

Did you scan for bad clusters when you formatted it?
What else can you tell us about the computer, Was it DOA?
Have you tried cleaning the cdrom?