CentOS - Jul 2010 - CentOS 5.5/i386/32-bit CD installation hickups

Hello listmates,

I've got a few older 32-bit PC's that only have a CD drive (no DVD).
So I downloaded all the ISO's and I thought I'd install CentOS 5.5 on
this 1.25 GB P-3 (I think, don't remember what CPU it's got right off
hand, not that it should matter). So I tried it there, got a fatal
exception. OK, no problem - thinking that maybe  something was wrong
with that machine I decided to try it on a different one, a P-3 with
384 MB or RAM. Same thing happened.

So here's my question: has anybody successfully installed CentOS 5.5
on a 32-bit machine (i386) using individual CD's as their installation
media?

Thanks.

Boris.

Boris Epstein wrote:
> Hello listmates,
>
> I've got a few older 32-bit PC's that only have a CD drive (no
DVD).
> So I downloaded all the ISO's and I thought I'd install CentOS 5.5
on
> this 1.25 GB P-3 (I think, don't remember what CPU it's got right
off
> hand, not that it should matter). So I tried it there, got a fatal
> exception. OK, no problem - thinking that maybe  something was wrong
> with that machine I decided to try it on a different one, a P-3 with
> 384 MB or RAM. Same thing happened.
>
> So here's my question: has anybody successfully installed CentOS 5.5
> on a 32-bit machine (i386) using individual CD's as their installation
> media?
>
How much memory on the system? You *might* want to check the BIOS for some
weird setting - like the ones I had for OS2 installs....

         mark

On 07/27/2010 11:18 AM, Boris Epstein wrote:
> Hello listmates,
>
> I've got a few older 32-bit PC's that only have a CD drive (no
DVD).
> So I downloaded all the ISO's and I thought I'd install CentOS 5.5
on
> this 1.25 GB P-3 (I think, don't remember what CPU it's got right
off
> hand, not that it should matter). So I tried it there, got a fatal
> exception. OK, no problem - thinking that maybe  something was wrong
> with that machine I decided to try it on a different one, a P-3 with
> 384 MB or RAM. Same thing happened.
>
> So here's my question: has anybody successfully installed CentOS 5.5
> on a 32-bit machine (i386) using individual CD's as their installation
> media?
>    
The closest I have is a P3 with 1 GByte of RAM over HTTP using the 5.4 
netinstall CD that I installed several months ago (I keep a local mirror 
of the CentOS tree). That worked fine for me. My first thought on a 
machine that old would be either flaky memory or or a flaky CD drive. I 
would run memtest86+ on them and then try a network install. You can 
mount the DVD ISO on loopback on a webserver for an install source.

-- 
Benjamin Franz

Benjamin Franz wrote:
> On 07/27/2010 11:18 AM, Boris Epstein wrote:
>> Hello listmates,
>>
>> I've got a few older 32-bit PC's that only have a CD drive (no
DVD). So
I downloaded all the ISO's and I thought I'd install CentOS 5.5 on this
1.25 GB P-3 (I think, don't remember what CPU it's got right off hand,
not that it should matter). So I tried it there, got a fatal exception.
OK, no problem - thinking that maybe  something was wrong with that
machine I decided to try it on a different one, a P-3 with 384 MB or
RAM. Same thing happened.
<snip>
> of the CentOS tree). That worked fine for me. My first thought on a
machine that old would be either flaky memory or or a flaky CD drive. I
<snip>
Good thought. I had a *lot* of trouble with one older 32-bit system a few
months ago - I could *not* get it to install from the DVD. I finally used
my USB key, and that worked. Of course, for any other purposes, the drive
worked fine.

        mark