Hi Everyone,

Eventhough I'm new to linux, I've taken enough classes and messed with things enough to know a little bit

Anyway, my problem is with Redhat 8.0. I verify the iso's and then burnt the cd, when I tried to install on my server, the install craps out with a message similar to this:

Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000001 printing EIP:

c0287300
*pde = 00000000
Oops: 0000
CPU: 0
EIP: 0010:[<c0287300>] Not tainted
EFLAGS: 00010287

EIP is at (2.4.18-14 BOOT)

And so forth.....

Code: 0f b6 44 d1 01 39 f8 74 13 42 39 f2 7c f2 bb ff ff ff ff 89
<0>Kernel Panic: Attempted to kill the idle task!
In idle task - not syncing

Also the keyboard light CAPS lock and scroll lock are flashing when the kernel fails.

The server's config is as follows:

Dell Poweredge 5166-2

Dual 166 Mhz processors
256 MB ECC RAM
8GB Seagate IDE HD
Two 10/100 Network cards Linksys/3com
On board PCI SCSI BUS (NCR)

Can anybody help me out?

Thanks Everyone, in advance!!

Cyan20

Note RH 7.3 didn't work either, server is currently running rh 7.2 without problems.

Is it possible to include more of the kernel panic? Nothing there helps me.... Are you running overclocked at all? I know some installations (ie win2K and XP in particular) wont install if your overclocked or have the ram speed set up high. Not sure if this would cause redhat to die as well, but worth a look. Also, I never tried redhat on a dual box, so i dont know if thats a problem as well, though it shouldnt be..

Thanks for your time...

At the very top it says
...changing IO-APIC physical APIC ID to 2...ok.

Under EIP is at....

The rest of the message says ....

eax: c027ff09 ebx:00001000 ecx: 00000000 edx:00000000
esi: 00000010 edi: 00000000 ebp:c02b0680 esp: c027ff7c
ds: 0018 es:0018 ss:0018

Process swapper (pid:0, stackpage=c027f000)

Stack 00001000 c02ac904 c027ffc0 0006e000 c02875d5 00000000 00000000 00000000 c027ffc0 0000000 0000008 00000001 00001000 00000000 000000001 00000000 00000000 00000900 01000000 00000000 c02ac904 c0105000 0006e000 c02880c1
Call Trace: [<c0105000>] (0xc027ffd0])

That's all that the error message really says....

In this BIOS, the only setting for the processors is 166 mhz or compataible, I tried both settings to no avail....

I'm not running overclocked or anything like that....

Hope this helps....

Check your install medium - it's nearly always the problem. Your hardware doesn't seem to be anything unusual - have you tried searching the compatibility lists?

Look at http://www.google.com/linux

for issues on linux with your hardware. Personally I found that taking responsibility for my system (by installing Linux) required some groundwork and searching first.

I verified the iso's before burning...

Additionally, I have begun setup in another machine and it worked fine....any thoughts?

Could this be a BIG problem for the SMP kernel....this isn't the only machine that this has failed on......Rh 7.3 failed on two smp machines.......

I had the same problem with a dual Pentium 100. Actually I thought I'd find the answer here, since Google brought me to this site :-)
Anyway, what works for me to solve the panic, is this. Boot from the install diskette (I take it CD ROM would mean the same). When appears:

boot:

type (quickly or it will move on automatically)

expert noapic

(just noapic doesn't work)

What this does is explained in the RedHat Install Guide in Appendix H.

Good luck!

well, I'm running dual boot win98 and RH 7.2 on this machine, and it has always worked beautifully, I've got a Duel 600mhz. So, being an smp machine has nothing to do with it. I haven't had to reboot or shutdown in some time now, since last shutdown, 161:10 hours so far,