NOTE:
This problem, which has never gone away, is a direct result of Intel refusing to release any information about their proprietary interrupt routing hardware on the 440GX motherboard. Please don't come to me asking when Red Hat or Linux is going to solve this problem because we can't, this is an Intel created problem that only Intel can solve!These boot disks:http://people.redhat.com/dledford/440gx/boot.imghttp://people.redhat.com/dledford/440gx/bootnet.imghttp://people.redhat.com/dledford/440gx/pcmcia.imgallow people to install Red Hat 7.1 on 440gx based motherboards. Instructions for using them to install Red Hat 7.1 are included below. Instructions on how to install Red Hat 7.2 and 7.3 on the same system are slightly different and included after the 7.1 instructions.
Red Hat 7.1 installation instructions
Using the appropriate boot image diskette for your system, when you boot the kernel, use the apic command line option, aka:boot: linux apicThis will force the UP-IOAPIC code on in the boot kernel and allow the interrupt routing to get properly fixed up. This allows you to install to these machines. However, there is a second issue.
If your machine only has 1 processor installed, then the SMP kernel will not automatically get installed. You will need to enable individual package selection, then go into the kernel packages and select the SMP kernel. You will then need to make sure that when you reboot the machine, you tell it to boot the SMP kernel. You can make the SMP kernel the default by changing the line:default = linuxtodefault = linux-smpin the /etc/lilo.conf file and then running the lilo command as root to re-initialize the master boot record on your hard disks.
Red Hat 7.2 installation instructions
Use the normal install disks, no special boot disks are needed for Red Hat 7.2. However, you will need to pass the apic option to the kernel on the boot disks, so for example when booting up the install disk you would type something like:boot: linux apicThis does the same thing as the special 7.1 install disks in that it enables IO-APIC support in the install kernel.
Follow the step 2 instructions for 7.1.
Red Hat 7.3 installation instructions
Use the normal install disks, no special boot disks are needed for Red Hat 7.3. However, you will need to pass the apic option to the kernel on the boot disks, so for example when booting up the install disk you would type something like:boot: linux apicThis does the same thing as the special 7.1 install disks in that it enables IO-APIC support in the install kernel.
Follow the step 2 instructions for 7.1. However, there is a special note that grub is now the default boot loader of choice, so configuring grub is slightly different than configuring lilo. Please read the regular install documents that come with Red Hat 7.3 to learn how to configure grub.
Red Hat 8.0 installation instructions
Use the normal install disks, no special boot disks are needed for Red Hat 8.0. However, you will need to pass the apic option to the kernel on the boot disks, so for example when booting up the install disk you would type something like:boot: linux apicThis does the same thing as the special 7.1 install disks in that it enables IO-APIC support in the install kernel.
WARNING! For Red Hat 8.0 the instructions change, so please don't blindly plow ahead like you would for 7.3! In order to get your system to boot up after installation, you either must have 2 real CPUs in the machine or you *MUST* install and use the debug kernel. THE SMP KERNEL NO LONGER WORKS ON UNIPROCESSOR 440GX MACHINES!! After you have installed the debug kernel and modified grub or lilo to boot the debug kernel as your default kernel, then your uniprocessor 440gx machine will work.
Red Hat 7.1 installation instructions
Using the appropriate boot image diskette for your system, when you boot the kernel, use the apic command line option, aka:boot: linux apicThis will force the UP-IOAPIC code on in the boot kernel and allow the interrupt routing to get properly fixed up. This allows you to install to these machines. However, there is a second issue.
If your machine only has 1 processor installed, then the SMP kernel will not automatically get installed. You will need to enable individual package selection, then go into the kernel packages and select the SMP kernel. You will then need to make sure that when you reboot the machine, you tell it to boot the SMP kernel. You can make the SMP kernel the default by changing the line:default = linuxtodefault = linux-smpin the /etc/lilo.conf file and then running the lilo command as root to re-initialize the master boot record on your hard disks.
Red Hat 7.2 installation instructions
Use the normal install disks, no special boot disks are needed for Red Hat 7.2. However, you will need to pass the apic option to the kernel on the boot disks, so for example when booting up the install disk you would type something like:boot: linux apicThis does the same thing as the special 7.1 install disks in that it enables IO-APIC support in the install kernel.
Follow the step 2 instructions for 7.1.
Red Hat 7.3 installation instructions
Use the normal install disks, no special boot disks are needed for Red Hat 7.3. However, you will need to pass the apic option to the kernel on the boot disks, so for example when booting up the install disk you would type something like:boot: linux apicThis does the same thing as the special 7.1 install disks in that it enables IO-APIC support in the install kernel.
Follow the step 2 instructions for 7.1. However, there is a special note that grub is now the default boot loader of choice, so configuring grub is slightly different than configuring lilo. Please read the regular install documents that come with Red Hat 7.3 to learn how to configure grub.
Red Hat 8.0 installation instructions
Use the normal install disks, no special boot disks are needed for Red Hat 8.0. However, you will need to pass the apic option to the kernel on the boot disks, so for example when booting up the install disk you would type something like:boot: linux apicThis does the same thing as the special 7.1 install disks in that it enables IO-APIC support in the install kernel.
WARNING! For Red Hat 8.0 the instructions change, so please don't blindly plow ahead like you would for 7.3! In order to get your system to boot up after installation, you either must have 2 real CPUs in the machine or you *MUST* install and use the debug kernel. THE SMP KERNEL NO LONGER WORKS ON UNIPROCESSOR 440GX MACHINES!! After you have installed the debug kernel and modified grub or lilo to boot the debug kernel as your default kernel, then your uniprocessor 440gx machine will work.
