Fedora 7 install hangs, flogging swap

[Joe Christy]

Gaack! Help!!

I've been trying to do a fresh install of Fedora 7 on my Thinkpad T42p,
which was happily running FC6 (and FC5 before that amd FC4 before that ...).

Everytime I try to install, anaconda slows down and eventually hangs.
Listening indicates that it is flogging the disc, and running top on
under the shell in an alternate window indicates that, as the end draws
near, kswapd and anaconda trade off as top running process, until
anaconda goes irretrievably into disc wait. This occurs independent of
whether I install from the DVD, or NFS or http from desktop, and I've
wiped and repartitioned the disc as well.

Has anyone else seen this? Any ideas?

I have 1GB RAM, and a 80 MB disc. I have a 100 MB /boot partition, two
2GB swap partitions, and the rest is one LVM physical volume with 5
logical partitions: 15GB / 2.5GB /var and /tmp, and 15GB /home and
/usr/local.

It occurred to me to try and boot into memtest86, but I can't seem to
achieve that with either the F7 rescue CD or install DVD. That had been
possible since at least FC2 as I recall. What changed?

Thanks,
	Joe


-- 
   If I can save you any time, give it to me, I'll keep it with mine.