Clean Dapper installation hangs on 'preconfiguring networking...' / problem w. 8139too

[Sam]

The machine is a Philips Freevents x52 laptop (unusual manufacturer), and the installation needs to be run in 'safe graphics mode' to get it past the configuration of X.

It then fails on 'preconfiguring networking...'

Adding the various options below did not help:
netcfg/disable_dhcp=true
hw-detect/start_pcmcia=false
DEBCONF_DEBUT=5
BOOT_DEBUG=3
noapic nolapic

At one point, I succeeded in passing the preparing networking statement, only for the install to hang a few lines further on with hardware initialisation...

I was unable to coax any further debug information out of the installer, even running in text mode.

[Sam (ubuntu-antilight)]

If I remove 'quiet splash' from boot command, I get more debug info, and the system crashes shortly after the following:

...
[4294720.632000] 8139cp: pci dev 0000:03:04.0 (id 10ec:8139 rev 10) is not an 8139C+ compatible chip
[4294720.632000] 8139cp: Try the "8139too" driver instead.
[4294720.634000] 8139too: Fast Ethernet driver 0.9.27
[4294720.634000] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:03:04.0[A] -> Link [LNKA] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10

Have tried the pci=noapci option, too, but that doesn't help either.

[Sam (ubuntu-antilight)]

Sorry for the doubled posting there.

Have tried several times with different options to get to a debug console, but so far have failed. I've therefore just tried installing the lastest Mandriva and can get a console running there. As soon as I run modprobe 8139too, the machine hangs, so there seems to be a problem with this module.

Any suggestions for ways to blacklist the module on boot? I've read various bug reports indicating that BOOT_DEBUG=3 should give a debug console or that ctrl-alt-f2 should give a console during bootup, but neither of these has worked for me so far.

Interestingly 8139cp seems to modprobe without any issues in Mandriva.

Hope you can help,
Cheers,
Sam

[cbrockman (mr-chuck)]

This problem appears to be similar if not identical to that reported in Bug #48456 (https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.15/+bug/48456).

[Sebastian Rode (sebastian-ro-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Can you try with latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[Sebastian Rode (sebastian-ro-deactivatedaccount)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!