Benq JoyBook 3000 and RedHat 9 - installation woes

[Drake]

Hello there,

This is my first post in here. Ironically enough, its me seeking help, instead of giving help. But then again, Linux is something which just caught my attention sometime back and looks like I'm hooked.

I have a Pentium 2.4Ghz Benq JoyBook 3000 laptop and I tried installing RedHat 9 on it. Strangely enough, I didnt get far in the installation process. After opting for the text based version of the installation process, all I get is a kernel panic error and thats it. And yes, I'm trying to boot via the floppy disks with the distros burnt on a handful of CDs. Is there something I might be doing wrong or is it that my laptop isnt suited for this particular distro? O_o

Thanks in advance,
Drake

[jeremy1701]

Where do you get the kernel panic? Is it during the startup of anaconda or do you get past there?

What happens if you boot from the CD?

Also, what happens if you try another install, like graphical?

Jeremy

Didn't mean to sound like a pirate, rrrr.

[Drake]

I used to get the kernel panic, even before Anaconda commenced. I reckon it had something to do with PCI. Anyways I used some of the options namely [noprobe, dma=off, pci=off] and I'm currently installing the packages. One gripe at this stage being, I'm unable to use both my mouse [Logitech wheel mouse] and my laptop pointer pad.

Am keeping my fingers crossed that when RH does finally get installed, the devices would be detected automatically. Else I'll have to manually do something about it =)

Btw can someone tell me whats the deal with Fedora? I just ran into the RH site, and got to know that they wouldnt be dishing out any further versions of RedHat freely. Instead Fedora is being offered for free.

[jeremy1701]

So you got it to install?

Long story short, Fedora Core is what Redhat became. You can think of Fedora Core 1 as Redhat 10.

Jeremy

[Drake]

Using linux askmethod dma=off pci=off at the initial installation prompt, I successfully managed to install RH 9 [Workstation]. On first reboot, I encountered the grub and I opted for linux. Immediately, I ran into a kernel panic:Attempted to kill init sequence.

My boot sequence contents are as follows:
root(hd0,6)
kernel /vmlinuz-24.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ hde=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img

What exactly am I doing wrong? O_o

[Drake]

Just for the sake of it, via the Grub console [grub>], I tried to see where exactly did Grub reside on my HD. I keyed in find /boot/grub/stage1 and I get an Error 15: File not found message