Installing all packages leads to boot problems

If you decide to install all available packages, it also includes all kernel flavors (-default, -pae for example) which are available on the installation media. Different kernel flavors have different capabilities, are optimized for different hardware and may have specific requirements. This means that some of the kernel flavors will not provide optimal performance or may not even boot.

The kernel which is booted during second stage of the installation, if you have installed multiple kernel flavors, is determined from the order of installation of the packages; as there are no dependencies between different kernel flavors, different kernel flavors can be installed in any order and for second stage of the installation any kernel can be selected. Therefore it is strongly suggested, when selecting packages, not to select kernels which do not match the capabilities of the system.

If you happened to install a kernel which does not match your hardware and 2nd stage installation fails to boot, you still can select any kernel manually. When GRUB screen appears, first finish the graphical mode (via the 'Esc' key) if GRUB came up in graphical mode. In the text mode, select the section you want to boot and via the 'e' key enter the editor. Modify both 'kernel' and 'initrd' lines (select them and push the 'e' key again) and change the kernel and initrd to a flavor which matches your hardware. To boot the section, push 'b' after editing both kernel and initrd. After the installation finishes, review the boot menu (/boot/grub/menu.lst) to assure that it points to a wokring kernel. If you use different bootloader, use similar steps according to your bootloader.