Fedora Core 4 test 3 and Dell Optiplex GX280

[maximusGeek]

I am having problems installing Fedora Core 4 test 3 on my Optiplex GX280, 3.0Ghz, 515 RAM, SATA HD.

I have had frequent failures during installation with the Bios set to "native" SATA mode. I switched it to "Combined" mode as I read there is problems with the SATA support. Now I can't find the drive at all. Any one know if my box will be supported by the full release of FC4? Any work around? I have heard reports that Debian 3.1 will work on my box with the SATA BIOS set to "Combined" mode. Should I switch to Debian?

[birger]

FC3 works out of the box with default bios settings on the GX280. No problems with the sata disk there.
I have several of these running without problems. Scientific Linux at the latest version also works (Scientific Linux is a recompile-from-source of RHEL).

[maximusGeek]

I had trouble the first time arround with FC3 (for some reason it saw my mouse as PS2 and my comp does nt have any PS2 ports). This morning FC3 installed just fine. Ill give FC4 a run when it comes out next week.

Thanks!

[devoz]

Hi,

I bought a book on Fedora core 3 with a DVD install. It wouldn't install on my GX280, presumably because the SATA support. I switched the drives to PATA compatability and I could boot successfully. However, when I upgraded my kernel, the new kernel wouldn't boot, so I had to (and wanted to) switch back to normal SATA mode for the drives. I dual-boot XP-Pro (first drive) and Fedora Core 3 (second drive), very nicely now.

[maximusGeek]

I am still having problems with my GX280. I have tried FC3, FC4 test 3, debian 3.1, Solaris 10 x86. They all crash at diffrent times durring the installation. I got FC3 running for a cople of days but it crashed several times and then would not boot. I am at a loss.

[devoz]

I can't comment on Fedora Core 4. Only that once I got past the "have to install in compatibility" mode followed by a new kernel not working unless I went back to serial ata mode. I didn't just install the kernel, I updated my installation, and part of the update was a newer kernel than what is on the FC3 release (on my DVD, which had the formal FC3 release iso's). I have an 80G Sata with XP-Pro as the first drive, and a 120G Maxtor as the second drive running Linux. I use the loadable module for NTFS to see the XP drive, I use system commander to boot grub from the boot partition of the linux drive. I have a 3.0 Gig GX280, I updated my BIOS before I even started down this path, (is yours up to date? go to the Dell site to see), etc.

[maximusGeek]

Thanks for all the posts.....

turns out... its a hardware problem. Looks like bad RAM. I got my hands on a second GX280 and loaded FC4 on it with no problems.

[devoz]

How did you determine it was bad ram? Run memtest86 on it? Just curious.

[maximusGeek]

Well, I had to install windows on it to convince my company service center that it was not a Linux issue, they wont talk to you unless your talking Windows. I got the blue screen of death on the first login with a PFN_LIST_CORUPT error.