ISC 2.2 Installation Troubles

[Art Neilson]

In article <542 at csource.OZ.AU> david at csource.OZ.AU (david nugent) writes:
>In <1990Jun22.052443.184 at pilikia.pegasus.com> art at pilikia.pegasus.com (Art Neilson) writes:
>
>>Has anyone had any difficulties installing the new ISC 2.2 release ??
>>The install procedure hangs on me every time I attempt installation.
>>I insert the boot disk into my drive, power up the system, and insert
>>the install disk when prompted to do so.  After inserting the install
>>disk, I hit enter and an INTERACTIVE Operating Systems copyright
>>notice appears.  The system reads the floppy for a minute or so after
>>this, and another copyright notice appears.  The system reads the floppy
>>for about 30 seconds more, then stops.  forever.
>
>
>AHHH!  Another fellow suffer.  :-(
>
>I lived with this for literally days trying to figure i out.  I poked
>around the install disk for a few hours using "echo *" (to display
>files :-)), then eventually mounted it for a better look.
>
>Tried repeatedly all sorts of things.  It apparently hangs somewhere in
>/usr/lib/ui/init.sh after being called by /INSTALL.  Why, I can't figure
>it out.  Eventually, I grabbed the drive, used another machine and 
>the whole upgrade when flawlessly using the same set of disks.
>
>Damned if I can explain it...
>
>My config had a couple of things in common with yours:
>
>>I suppose some configuration info may be helpful, so here goes ;^) I have
>>a 33MHz 386 TransComputer main board with 8MB RAM, and a ST4383E hard
>>disk driven by an Adaptec 2322B-8 controller.
>
>The machine I had problems with was:
>
>	33MHZ 386 Micronics motherboard
>	16 Meg RAM (taking out RAM made no diff)
>	Hercules card/monitor (a clone), changing it to a
>		VGA didn't help either
>	Future Domain TNC 830 SCSI controller
>	Maxtor drive (can't recall the exact model, XT-4380 I think)
>	Anvil 4-port Brumby
>	WD8003E Ethernet card
>
>Took out the peripherls, and went through all the usual things.
>
>One other thing I might mention is that when I broke out of install
>as soon as the second copyright came up, I could shut down ok.  But
>if I broke out after it had hung, it caused a panic trap 0x0000000E
>when I executed 'shutdown'.
>
>Transferring it all to another Micronics (different model) motherboard
>running at 20MHZ solved all problems.  Once it was on the drive, I
>transferred it back to the 33MHZ one, and it's been purring like that
>for a few days since without an ounce of problem.  That same machine 
>is now running not only the 4-port Brumby, but 36-40 Telnet sessions 
>at once, Archives QC tape drive and a parallel printer quite nicely 
>(in fact, we HAD to upgrade the Unix, since 2.0.2 couldn't support 
>more than 16 Telnet sessions). 
>
>
>>I'd like to know if my problem is an isolated incident
>>or a problem many of us are experiencing.
>
>Apparently not.  I think ISC have something to fix.
>
>Hope this helps track it down.  I'm likely to do a few more 2.2.0
>installations in the very near future.  Having to use a different
>motherboard for the install tends to make clients a little nervous. 
>;-)
>
>
>david
>
>-- 
>         * Unique Computing Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia. *
>       david at csource.oz.au  3:632/348 at fidonet  28:4100/1 at signet

YES ... This is *exactly* what is happening to me.  I also tried the
echo * trick suggested to me by several individuals in response to my
original article.  I also tracked the problem down to the script
/usr/lib/ui/init.sh, which the INSTALL script dots in right at the
beginning of the main body of the script (after all the shell function
definitions).  I have thought of trying what you did, that is put my
drive on another box and do the install there.  Now that I know it
worked for you, I'll go attempt that myself.  I hope ISC is reading
these articles and responds ;^) I'd really like to have the problem
fixed.  I did report the problem to ISC last week, they promised to
mail me *another* replacement disk today.  Based on your response
however, the problem is probably a hardware incompatability.  Thanks
again for the response, nice to know I'm not the only one in this
boat!!
-- 
Arthur W. Neilson III		| ARPA: art at pilikia.pegasus.com
Bank of Hawaii Tech Support	| UUCP: uunet!ucsd!nosc!pegasus!pilikia!art