Bug 153585

Try booting with hwinfo=-braille (as kernel append-line - press F3 at the boot prompt to enter it). Does it still lock?

OK, tried that - yep, it still locks. Same place. 

Does hwinfo=-all help?
If not this is not likely a problem with hwinfo.

Tried using hwinfo=-all - no change, still freezes solid in the same place.

hwinfo=-all should disable the hwinfo-run completely... boot into a rescue system and run hwinfo there, look if it locks up within the rescue system, too.

Booting the rescue system and running 'hwinfo --braille' makes the machine hang. I also tried booting with 'hwinfo=-braille' once more just to see that I hadn't made a typo the first time, but it still hung at the same place.  However, I've just looked up the hwinfo sources and it looks like the kernel paramater is "hwprobe", not "hwinfo" - so I'll go and see what happens with "hwprobe=-braille". 

OK, using "hwprobe=-braille" got me a little further - the system now hangs just after "Found Linux console on /dev/console (84x34).  I guess you'll be wanting the hwinfo output - I'll get back with that. 

Oh sorry it was hwprobe=<...>, not hwinfo=<...>

However the system still hangs. Are you sure this is not a hardware or BIOS-problem? What happens with the safe settings? How exactly does the system hang? Can you switch to a console (Ctrl+Alt+F2)? It is possible that you encounter network problems. Does a local installation from CD also hang/stall the system?

I'm not really suspecting BIOS nor hardware problems as the installation of 10.0 went just fine.  The only problem I have seen with this machine is bug 136742.  
When it hangs, it completely freezes up.  No console change possible, keyboard is dead etc.  
After the "braille" hang, I see some sort of badly formatted character printed, in 3-4 colors, but when I disable braille, it just hangs/freezes.

OK, I tried using "hwprobe=-braille,-video" which got the installation to continue.  
I still have no working mouse, see bug 132648.  I also noticed that I got no options for changing the language and the keyboard map of the installtion. 

OK I'm not quite sure how we can debug this. Steffen?
Per: You could try using the `siga' tool to obtain information about your system.

A complete freeze is probably a kernel problem. Please switch to console 4
in time and watch the kernel messages - maybe an oops?

Checked tty4 right up until the freeze - no sign of an oops or anything else that seemed out of place.  Given that "hwprobe=-braille,-video" gets me far enough to probably complete the install, might it not be easier to debug on a running system?  Especially since "hwinfo --braille" also causes a hang/freeze.

If that works, sure. BTW, there is no -video flag for hwprobe.

If 'hwinfo --braille' crashes your system (not just hanging hwinfo), the
last lines of 'strace hwinfo --braille' would be interesting.

OK, I've moved on to beta6 and things seem to have changed a bit.  I omitted the hwprobe=-braille and the installation now went fine until the first reboot.  
If I do a normal boot, I see the "Loading Linux ......... BIOS Data Check Successful" after which the screen blanks and the system appears to freeze up. 
I tried booting the Failsafe image - the only difference seems to be that the screen no longer blanks and the cursor keeps flashing - otherwise the system appears to be frozen.  

Sorry, I've lost track what exactly you are testing.

From your last comment I'd say that a normal install works until it reboots.
Then the kernel is loaded and shortly after hangs. Is that correct?

I'm installing Beta6 on a Compaq Proliant PL1600 with 512M.  And as you say, the installation works fine, until the first reboot at which point the system hangs.  I also tried the Failsafe image, but the system still hangs.

Could you try without framebuffer (vga=normal) to get some more kernel
messages?

OK, tried using vga=normal - doesn't change anything.  I also tried vga=ask, which produces the menu with the 6-7 different screen-sizes.  I chose the 80x50 option and noticed the screen changing size before the machine hung again. 

That indicates the kernel dies somewhere in its startup code.

Update - I've installed beta8, but the system still freezes in the same places.

FYI, I downgraded the kernel to 2.6.13-15-default (from 10.0), and the system now booted and continued the installation.  YaST2 went into text-mode and complained about something or other graphics module missing, and I can't yet tell if I get to complete the installation. 

without some kind of kernel log or messages, there's really nothing the 
kernel developers can do here.  So, any log messages?

There isn't even a log file anywhere - like I wrote earlier, after the change of video-mode (which works), nothing else happens.  I understand that you'll need some kind of diagnostics, but I don't know how to produce them.  It seems quite clear that something got regressed between 2.6.13-15-default and <whatever 10.1 has> - given that the startup really does not make it very far, isn't that something to go on? 

Also, I have no problem booting the rescue-system, which uses the same kernel-image/version AFAICS.  So is this somehow related to booting off the Compaq array controller?  Nothing fancy, a Smart-Array 3200 with two RAID1 mirrors.

Update - I've installed an ancient Realtek VGA-only ISA graphics card.  I booted up with "console=ttyS0,9600n8 vga=normal" just in case - and it went just fine!  I can't help thinking that vga=normal should disable the framebuffer, yet it doesn't look like it does (except with this relic of a graphics card).

I see. Can you please provide full hwinfo output (from 10.0) so that
we know what gfx card you're using?

Created attachment 75270 [details]
output of "hwinfo --all" using the 10.1 rescue system.

Created attachment 75271 [details]
output of "hwinfo --all" using the 10.0 rescue system.

We're still missing the strace of hwinfo --braille requested in comment #14, that might be our best bet so far; the hwinfo looks harmless enough.

I thought the --braille problem was gone with 10.1, so I didn't pursue the strace.  I'm just now doing another 10.1b8 install, but I'll get back to you with the strace asap.

Created attachment 75471 [details]
strace of hwinfo --braille

You're right, the braille thing was solved, my bad.

What's the status of this?  How to proceed wrt. 10.1 and SLE10, respectively?

I have no idea, am closing as it's too confusing to try to figure out if there
is any outstanding issue anymore.

If there still is a problem, please reopen with the new information.

Yes, there is still a problem.  The first phase of the installation works fine right up until the first reboot.  At this time, all I get is 

Loading Linux .....
BIOS data check successful.

after which the screen blanks and nothing else happens.
Using "vga=normal" as was suggested in comment #18 only results in the screen not blanking - the machine still freezes up.

I'm not sure what new information you are after.  The hardware is the same - Compaq Proliant PL1600R, 450MHz PII, 512Mb RAM. 

RC2: with vga=normal
Loading SL___._.........
BIOS data check successful

After which the screen background turns turqoise, and S in BIOS is displayed on a red background.

OK. Let's be brutally honest, this one has gotten so stuck we'll never resolve it ;-)

If it is still an issue with 10.2, which just might be the case, lets track it in a new bug.