i have tried to install red hat linux 9 quite a few times but it always comes up with the following error message:

Code: Bad EIP value
<0> Kernal panic: Attempted to kill init

i am trying to install it from cd. it gets to the point where it asks me whether i want to install in graphical or text mode.

can someone please help me?

I have no idea to be honest.. Could it be a bad ISO perhaps?

ISO? (i have no clue what u r talking about)

Did you download it or buy it?

I downloaded it and burned it to a cd. (i got it from www.linuxiso.org)

Two options:

1: Your CD image is bad. Either there is a unnoticed error in the ISO image, or an error burned on the CD. The first is unlikely because I think there is some serious error protection built in the ISO and checked before it is unpacked. (Not sure though). The second is more likely. CD's are terribly error prone (despite of what many people say) and errors go undetected by CD readers. Been there, done that. Try to download again and burn the CD again.

2: Your computer has a hardware error, most likely in the memory. I had this once before, installation crashed every time, but not always at the same point. The box was running fine in Windoze, so that is no acid test!

Since your installation always crashes at the same point, I would think option #1 is most likely.

Good luck
jlinkels

i tried re-burning it but it still doesn't work
what should i do?

Did you check sum .iso files for integrity??? Installation can fail if MD5 checksum value does not match the values posted on the linuxiso.org. I downloaded RH9 from linuxiso.org and everything is up and running. No troubles at all.

you also might want to try reburning the ISOs at 8x and no faster. for some reason some media will not take a good ISO at speeds faster then 8x.

also depends on the quality of your burner. name brands do not matter its the quality of the lazer so even some of the best known names can have this issue.

check the sum first, and if that is ok, then reburn at the slower speed.

how do i check it?

I downloaded RH9 in windows (from linuxiso.org) and then used a windows version of MD5 checking utility (available on linuxiso.org) to check the MD5 in the windows and then burnt the cd's. I am not sure how you do it in linux. Yet I think there is info on how to do it linux on linuxiso.org.

Hope this helps

here's a link that talks about verifying ISO's
http://www.linuxiso.org/viewdoc.php/verifyiso.html

i check the md5 it was correct. what should i try next?

Well buddy I seriously have no idea what else can be wrong. There may be other issues but i am only aware of the two (bad ISO and MD5) discussed here.

what is printed to the screen just before you get the bad eip value error message? is there mention to a particular .c file from the kernel? this error message is generated from the "traps.c" file from the kernel source. basically, from how i read the code, the abort happens when the control unit is unable to store a meaningful value in the eip register. which stores memory locations where exceptions are encountered. this would point to a hardware compatibility issue and according to this thread (mandrade example with similar error) and others the offending device can be a motherboard or usb device that is not fully supported.

i would try to take note of what file is mentioned just before the error and if it is something like usb.c, then you have an unsupported usb device that is fouling the boot.

hope this helps.