Serial module hangs during installation

[Axel Stammler <h0755cid@rz.hu-berlin.de>]

Hi,

I have been using Linux for several years, but now I thought the time had come to get a new distribution; naturally, my
choice was Debian. Unfortunately, I do have problems getting even the kernel modules installed even though everything
used to work with Slackware and kernel version 2.0.30. Now, if I try to load the module 'serial', the process hangs.
This happens during the guided installation as well as if I just call 'modprobe serial'. If I do not include the
module, the kernel tries to load it manually upon start-up and hangs, too. If I remove the module file, the kernel
manages to give me a login, but obviously I cannot use my mouse nor the ISDN adaptor arttached to my second serial port.

I could not find any documentation on this on the installation CD, on my old system or searching the Debian website and
mailing lists, so I tried to give the module some arbitrary parameters like 'irq=3' or just '0' or '2', but it either
complains that there are no symbols for these arguments or it just hangs as before.

Please, if anyone could give me a hint, I'd be extremely grateful as I cannot do any work at the moment on my machine
if I do not want to reinstall my 1995 Slackware Linux. (I am writing this at the university.)

Axel Stammler