Re: [CentOS] C7 basic install, HATE

2019-02-15 Thread J Martin Rushton via CentOS
On 15/02/2019 18:36, Warren Young wrote:
> On Feb 15, 2019, at 11:08 AM, mark  wrote:
>>
>> To say "spend $20..." does not relate to "have to find a workaround to do
>> it *today*", nor to "this is a  work system, I'm not driving out to
>> Microcenter to buy one”.
> 
> What’s your hourly rate?  How much did *not* driving out to Microcenter cost 
> your employer?
> 
> If you’re salaried, there’s the opportunity costs: what work did you *not* do 
> while trying to save that $20 and hour round trip?
> 
> RHEL drops old hardware constantly, roughly aligning with its ~10 year 
> support window.  It doesn’t surprise me that the early Matrox cards have 
> fallen out of support by now.
> 
> The last such deprecation to bite me was the 3ware 8000 series cards, last 
> supported on EL5 or 6.  When resuscitating such systems, we either have to 
> stick with the old OS or upgrade them to 9000 series cards — which won’t 
> attach 8000 series RAID sets — or switch array technologies entirely.
> 
> Doubtless you can throw heroic efforts at getting old X drivers to build with 
> current software, but is that a good use of your time, given the alternatives?
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> 
Not an uncommon situation though.  "Driving" - that's hugely expensive
requiring a hire car (never let ordinary grunts use their own vehicles,
it might cost more). "out" - 'elf'n'safety, have they signed off the
appropriate bit of paper, and who is checking up on the time?
"Microcenter" - do we have a preferred supplier agreement with them.
Are they even on the SAP system?  Far better to use corporate's method
since then no-one can be blamed for wastage.  "Employer" - Ahh, do you
mean the shareholders, the local business manager, or the local team
manager.  If the latter, can he shift the cost elsewhere and wring his
hands effectively?

I would add an "", but it wouldn't be appropriate here.

-- 
J Martin Rushton MBCS



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Re: [CentOS] C7 basic install, HATE

2019-02-15 Thread Stephen John Smoogen
On Fri, 15 Feb 2019 at 13:09, mark  wrote:
>
> Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
> > On Thu, 14 Feb 2019 at 15:48, mark  wrote:
> >>
> >> I've got an old server, that I'm *trying* to rebuild from C6. Our
> >> regular key, with the kickstarts, etc, simply won't boot. Just a blank
> >> screen, and it never goes anywhere.
> >>
> >> So I'm trying to build it from a year-old regular installer.
> >>
> >> 100% of the time, the graphical screen is screwed. Resolution's so big
> >> that I cannot see the right-hand 10% or 15% of the screen. There doesn't
> >>  seem to be any way that I've found yet to make it higher res, so I can
> >>  read it.
> >>
> >> It's *not* the monitor's fault. It is an ancient Matrox video card...
> >> but I would have thought the VESA driver could handle it.
> >
> > Easiest would be put $20.00 into an old video card to replace the
> > Matrox. Matrox support seems to have degraded in X11 after 2010 or so.
>
> To me, this is a non-sequitur. I'm at work, and was fighting for far too
> long yesterday - hours - to get this system built and up. I got it up -
> that *also* required another USB key with an archived kmod-forcedeth rpm,
> but it wasn't ready to do backups LAST NIGHT. I've gotten it to that point
> this morning.
>

I figured you wanted an answer you wanted to enact within a day.
Anything else is going to take lots of trial and error of whatever
kernel options are needed for your particular card, motherboard, etc
etc. The Matrox X drivers and kernel items were considered end of
lifed sometime after Fedora 12 or CentOS-6. Anything that does work is
considered that the hardware gods smiled on you. If it doesn't, it is
a cost analysis of whether getting the company to pay for a cheap
supported card or you spending 2 weeks and then buying a card.


> To say "spend $20..." does not relate to "have to find a workaround to do
> it *today*", nor to "this is a  work system, I'm not driving out to
> Microcenter to buy one".
> >
> > The next solution would be to try the text mode and stick to that.
>
> Oh, right, I tried that. Text mode does NOT allow you to encrypt your
> drive.   Missing option.
>
> When I did the second? rebuild, I chose a basic server, after, when I
> tried to install kmod-forcedeth, and realized it needed kernel-devel and
> kernel-headers... and when I tried to install them, it told me there was
> no perl.
>
> Trying to think of what "minimal system" would be used for - a hacked
> Roomba (tm)?
>
> > The third is to find kernel vesa modes on the bootline which may help
> >
> > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=466318
> >
> > vga=0x318
> >
> > looks like an option?
>
> Found that I could put resolution=640x480, or vga=(same). 100% of the
> time, on boot, it came up telling me it didn't recognize anything, but
> gave me about 20 options. I tried several, and it seemed to get a good
> resolution... but after it switched root, it went back to the original
> resolution, and *nothing* - trust me on this, I rebooted at least 4 times
> *nothing* changed the resolution on the GUI installer; it *always* came up
> with the right hand side chopped.
>
> At least the system's doing backups again, now. But I thought I'd be done
> the rebuild before lunch *yesterday*, not fighting it until I left last
> night.
>
>   mark
>
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Re: [CentOS] C7 basic install, HATE

2019-02-15 Thread Warren Young
On Feb 15, 2019, at 11:08 AM, mark  wrote:
> 
> To say "spend $20..." does not relate to "have to find a workaround to do
> it *today*", nor to "this is a  work system, I'm not driving out to
> Microcenter to buy one”.

What’s your hourly rate?  How much did *not* driving out to Microcenter cost 
your employer?

If you’re salaried, there’s the opportunity costs: what work did you *not* do 
while trying to save that $20 and hour round trip?

RHEL drops old hardware constantly, roughly aligning with its ~10 year support 
window.  It doesn’t surprise me that the early Matrox cards have fallen out of 
support by now.

The last such deprecation to bite me was the 3ware 8000 series cards, last 
supported on EL5 or 6.  When resuscitating such systems, we either have to 
stick with the old OS or upgrade them to 9000 series cards — which won’t attach 
8000 series RAID sets — or switch array technologies entirely.

Doubtless you can throw heroic efforts at getting old X drivers to build with 
current software, but is that a good use of your time, given the alternatives?
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Re: [CentOS] C7 basic install, HATE

2019-02-15 Thread mark
Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Feb 2019 at 15:48, mark  wrote:
>>
>> I've got an old server, that I'm *trying* to rebuild from C6. Our
>> regular key, with the kickstarts, etc, simply won't boot. Just a blank
>> screen, and it never goes anywhere.
>>
>> So I'm trying to build it from a year-old regular installer.
>>
>> 100% of the time, the graphical screen is screwed. Resolution's so big
>> that I cannot see the right-hand 10% or 15% of the screen. There doesn't
>>  seem to be any way that I've found yet to make it higher res, so I can
>>  read it.
>>
>> It's *not* the monitor's fault. It is an ancient Matrox video card...
>> but I would have thought the VESA driver could handle it.
>
> Easiest would be put $20.00 into an old video card to replace the
> Matrox. Matrox support seems to have degraded in X11 after 2010 or so.

To me, this is a non-sequitur. I'm at work, and was fighting for far too
long yesterday - hours - to get this system built and up. I got it up -
that *also* required another USB key with an archived kmod-forcedeth rpm,
but it wasn't ready to do backups LAST NIGHT. I've gotten it to that point
this morning.

To say "spend $20..." does not relate to "have to find a workaround to do
it *today*", nor to "this is a  work system, I'm not driving out to
Microcenter to buy one".
>
> The next solution would be to try the text mode and stick to that.

Oh, right, I tried that. Text mode does NOT allow you to encrypt your
drive.   Missing option.

When I did the second? rebuild, I chose a basic server, after, when I
tried to install kmod-forcedeth, and realized it needed kernel-devel and
kernel-headers... and when I tried to install them, it told me there was
no perl.

Trying to think of what "minimal system" would be used for - a hacked
Roomba (tm)?

> The third is to find kernel vesa modes on the bootline which may help
>
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=466318
>
> vga=0x318
>
> looks like an option?

Found that I could put resolution=640x480, or vga=(same). 100% of the
time, on boot, it came up telling me it didn't recognize anything, but
gave me about 20 options. I tried several, and it seemed to get a good
resolution... but after it switched root, it went back to the original
resolution, and *nothing* - trust me on this, I rebooted at least 4 times
*nothing* changed the resolution on the GUI installer; it *always* came up
with the right hand side chopped.

At least the system's doing backups again, now. But I thought I'd be done
the rebuild before lunch *yesterday*, not fighting it until I left last
night.

  mark

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Re: [CentOS] C7 basic install, HATE

2019-02-15 Thread Stephen John Smoogen
On Thu, 14 Feb 2019 at 15:48, mark  wrote:
>
> I've got an old server, that I'm *trying* to rebuild from C6. Our regular
> key, with the kickstarts, etc, simply won't boot. Just a blank screen, and
> it never goes anywhere.
>
> So I'm trying to build it from a year-old regular installer.
>
> 100% of the time, the graphical screen is screwed. Resolution's so big
> that I cannot see the right-hand 10% or 15% of the screen. There doesn't
> seem to be any way that I've found yet to make it higher res, so I can
> read it.
>
> It's *not* the monitor's fault. It is an ancient Matrox video card... but
> I would have thought the VESA driver could handle it.
>

Easiest would be put $20.00 into an old video card to replace the
Matrox. Matrox support seems to have degraded in X11 after 2010 or so.

The next solution would be to try the text mode and stick to that.
The third is to find kernel vesa modes on the bootline which may help

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=466318

vga=0x318

looks like an option?



> Any suggestions?
>
> mark
>
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Re: [CentOS] C7 basic install, HATE

2019-02-14 Thread John R. Dennison
On Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 06:30:40PM -0700, Warren Young wrote:
> Do a text install: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/361935/138

If you think he's frustrated now...  The text installer is garbage and
has been since EL5 days, the only reason it even exists is because
it's part of the kickstart framework.

I would suggest a vnc-based install.





John
-- 
"Here's what I do know.  I don't care.  I'm sick of it.  I'm sick of needy,
crazy, stupid liars.  Seriously, I can't take it anymore.  I grew up with
them, I live with them, I work with them.  And no matter how fast I run
or how far I go they breed and come after me.  It's like a zombie movie
except the only scary part is it never ends."

-- 13 seconds of dialogue from Mary McCormack as Mary Shannon in USA's
   "In Plain Sight"


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Re: [CentOS] C7 basic install, HATE

2019-02-14 Thread Warren Young
On Feb 14, 2019, at 1:47 PM, mark  wrote:
> 
> Any suggestions?

Do a text install: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/361935/138
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