Very Computer

     A couple of weeks ago I posted the following:

Quote:>    I am experiencing some difficulty installing what I believe is the
>latest version of SLS linux on my Gateway 2000 system.  The system
>is now more than two years old.  It is a 33 MHz 486 DX, EISA, with 16 Mb of RAM
>and an AdapTek 1742 SCSI controller. The boot floppy seems to properly identify
>all of the hardware, including the two 530 MB drives, one Max Tour and one
>Quantum. The problem appears to be a memory problem, but it is not clear.
>The final messages issued are:

>Kernel panic :
>In swapper task - not syncing
>Unable to initialize buffer free list

Does anyone have a better idea?

:      A couple of weeks ago I posted the following:

: >    I am experiencing some difficulty installing what I believe is the
: >latest version of SLS linux on my Gateway 2000 system.  The system
: >is now more than two years old.  It is a 33 MHz 486 DX, EISA, with 16 Mb of RAM
: >and an AdapTek 1742 SCSI controller. The boot floppy seems to properly identify
: >all of the hardware, including the two 530 MB drives, one Max Tour and one
: >Quantum. The problem appears to be a memory problem, but it is not clear.
: >The final messages issued are:
: >
: >Kernel panic :
: >In swapper task - not syncing
: >Unable to initialize buffer free list
: >
: >

:     A couple of people suggested that I try one of the slakware boot
: floppies.  This I have done with a similar result.  I wonder if anyone out
: there has successfully installed linux on a Gateway 2000 486 EISA
: that is about the same age as mine.  I have a couple of other reasons to
: think that my particular system board is a piece-a-junk.  I think I am
: going to resolve the problem by replacing my system board.

: Does anyone have a better idea?

Nope... you could have a flakey cache chip or a bad cache addressing line.
I went through two bizarrely behaving motherboards (not Gateways, but another
clone) before finding one that would work properly!  Of course the BIOS checks
ran fine (they're NWAS) and the boot-virus (DOS) was too stupid to detect any
errors, but the Linux swapper task would fail almost immediately.  You might
try turning off the cache and see if it is fixed or not, but I'd be inclined
to get another motherboard.

-- Mark

--
"Linux!     Guerrilla UNIX Development     Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus."
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My question is how do I get Linux to recognize my SCSI controller and
cards?  Linux Setup gives me an error and fdisk does not recognize
/dev/sda1.  I seem to be missing a step toward completing the
installation of the  OS.

Thanks in advance.

John Horton