fc4 install/first run issues

[owakroeger]

I tried a fresh install of FC4-test1-i386 a couple of days ago, and the install hung on "installing boot loader" for almost an hour. I reset the computer and it very slowwwwwly booted to the black-screen white-letters login screen. From there I couldn't get Xwindows to load. I could log in as root, but only as root, as the first-boot never loaded, and I never had the opportunity to name myself as a user.
Rather than wade through the multiple problems of that, I first made a mirror copy of my entire FC3 setup which resides on hd1 onto hd0. Then I tried another install, this time upgrading the /dev/hda installation of FC3 to FC4. This worked much better. The install was extremely slow, taking almost 4 hours to complete, but it completed.
Now, FC4 boots completely but won't configure eth0, and it says it can't find any mixer elements for sound.
One thing at a time; eth0; If I do a hardware search, it correctly sees my
hardware, including eth0
$ /sbin/lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8375 [KM266/KL266] Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8633 [Apollo Pro266 AGP]
00:08.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 0a)
00:08.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! MIDI/Game Port (rev 0a)
00:09.0 Serial controller: 3Com Corp, Modem Division (formerly US Robotics) 56K FaxModem Model 5610 (rev 01)
00:0e.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233A ISA Bridge
00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
00:11.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 23)
00:11.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 23)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. VT8375 [ProSavage8 KM266/KL266]

If I do Main Menu > System Tools > Internet Configuration Wizard I set up eth0, but when I try to activate it, it returns an error that it can't find eth0.

Now, about sound; My sound card, as above, is correctly identified, but when I do Main Menu > Applications > Sound & Video > Volume Control it returns an error that no sound or mixing elements are installed. Yet, alsa is installed.

Any suggestions to either problem? Thanks in advance,
owa

[owakroeger]

Well, unable to resolve these problems, I blew it away, and did a fresh install again. This time I did a fresh install via net. Perhaps I missed the prompt, but the net install arbitrarily chose text-mode. I would have preferred graphic-mode, but I went ahead. In the text-mode install, again, I might have missed something, but I didn't see where I could select extra packages to install.
The install went smoothly, installing each package after it had downloaded, and then moving on to the next package. Over-all, the complete install took about four hours or so. Compared to downloading all five iso's, burning them, and installing from cd's there was a considerable savings of time and bandwidth. but at the sacrifice of choices, unless, as I say, I missed the prompts.
First boot was uneventful, except I had grown accustomed to hearing no sound when firstboot tested the sound card. Usually, I have to go to volume control and unmute things to get sound to work. I was really surprised when I heard sound when I clicked 'test.'
After I figured out how to get yum going, (I've always used apt/synaptic.) I was able to 'yum install', one-at-a-time all the dependency issues to get everything installed and running that wasn't included in the main packages. Several packages have been moved from the standard group to extras. And, since I couldn't see any way of selecting extras from the text-mode install, I spent a lot of time searching for extras and getting them installed.
So..... fc4t2 is installed. I prefer Mozilla-suite to Firefox/Thunderbird as Moz-suite comes complete with mozmail and most of the plugins pre-installed. And the j2re, java, flash, etc plugins are available as moz-*.rpm's, so that when you install them they get installed correctly the way they need to work with mozilla. Reading all the posts on this forum about the wrestling matches folks have had just trying to get the pluggins to work with Firefox will lend support to my choice to leave Firefox alone till they package it complete with pluggins the way Moz-suite does.
I got RealPlayer10GOLD installed and running right after I got Moz going so that I could listen to my favorite jazz station while I fooled around with the rest of this project.
I got my favorite little setnumlock program installed, so that numlock sets at login.
I had some problems finding all the dependencies needed to compile a kernel for Win4Lin. I had to use menuconfig instead of xconfig because of failed dependencies, but I was able to successfully build and install a vanilla 2.6.11 kernel, patch it for Win4Lin, and install it.
So far, so good. It seems stable enough.... at least it hasn't crashed on me, yet. And, all the stuff I have to have works.
I was pleasantly surprised at how quick yum is working on fc4. I had gotten so frustrated with how slow it is, both on fc2 and fc3, that I finally stopped using it altogether, and use apt/synaptic since about a month after installing fc2. up2date is a sad joke. I stopped using that pos while I still had RedHat9.
When fc4 final is released, I don't know if I'll try the net install again, or burn cd's. I'd really like to install in graphic-mode and be able to select extra packages at time of install, instead of having to get them one at a time, later.
owa