CentOS

Yesterday (18/09/2019), my centos 7.6 workstation was updated to new kernel ( lsb_release -a : CentOS Linux release 7.7.1908). Ok
but, now at startup, each time I choose the new kernel, instead having as usual all scrooling text showing loading message (or warning) the screen turn black (nothing!)

After a long time, if I press the power button to suspend system and wack-up it pressing a second time it, I can see the GNOME logging screen and connect

So what's wrong with ??

prd_cv1 wrote: ↑

2019/09/18 07:22:53

Yesterday (18/09/2019), my centos 7.6 workstation was updated to new kernel ( lsb_release -a : CentOS Linux release 7.7.1908). Ok
but, now at startup, each time I choose the new kernel, instead having as usual all scrooling text showing loading message (or warning) the screen turn black (nothing!)

After a long time, if I press the power button to suspend system and wack-up it pressing a second time it, I can see the GNOME logging screen and connect

So what's wrong with ??

I haven't got a clue. Let's try to ferret out the answer:

1) You say, "my centos 7.6 workstation was updated to new kernel" Did you a) Do a NEW Install b) Rolled over your system to 7.7 from 7.6 using the yum update command?

2) You say, " I choose the new kernel. This is a BIG Clue: You should NOT have to CHOOSE the new kernel. The new kernel should become the DEFAULT kernel unless... 1) Do you have a dual boot Windows / CentOS system or 2) Is CentOS 7.x (7.6 in this case) the ONLY OS on the drive?

3) Are you using a Laptop or a Desktop system??

Here is my *GUESS*: If you have a dual boot Windows / CentOS 7 system when you rolled over your machine you *probably* overwrote the boot system, and your boot menu is probably scrambled. If CentOS 7.6 was the ONLY OS on the system, then you probably have a hardware problem.

OK Things to Try:

1) You DID backup your drive BEFORE you did the update?!? If you DID backup your drive BEFORE you rolled over the system, then your best option is to simply drop back 10, and punt and do a restore of 7.6, and see if you still have the problem. If you DID NOT backup your drive, SHAME ON YOU! You are about to find out why you should ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR DRIVE before a major point up date -- there is simply no going back.

2) If you DID NOT backup your drive before you rolled over the machine, your options are limited. The best thing to do right now is to download the CentOS 7.7 DVD.iso and do a total reinstall from scratch, BUT... during the install phase do a custom install, and keep your /home directory. During the install start over, create a new user, new password, etc., etc., etc. Once you have finished the install the NEWEST kernel will become the DEFAULT kernel -- you don't have to "Choose" it. After 5-10 seconds have timed out it will automatically load.

3) If you have a Dual Boot Windows /CentOS 7 system you'll have to ask for help how to unscramble your system. The black screen you describe *sounds* like the system is timing out and is dropping into a screen saver mode. This could be caused a scrambled grub2 menu, and YES the grub2 menu can become scrambled. One of the reasons I hate GRUB2. There is a nifty utility that EVERYONE should have called Grub Customizer, it can save you in the event of a scrambled menu. It is a GIANT PITA if you have a scrambled menu, that has to be unscrambled. I found a good piece of insurance to have on hand is to backup /boot, /etc/default, and /etc/grub.d and copy them to a safe place (I made a directory in /home/dcat called /Computers under which I created a Sub-directory called /Backup_config_files. If your files get scrambled go to where ever you have stored these copies of those files, then delete the corrupted files and copy your backups into the corresponding places and re-boot. It will save you hours of frustration.

4) You you did a new install from a 7.7 DVD.iso rather than a roll over via yum update, then it is possible the system is recognizing there are duplicate files that it is trying to figure out and untangle.

5) You could also have a hardware problem.

As I said what is WRONG with your system? I haven't got a clue. You are simply going to have to put in the research, checking log files etc. etc., etc., etc.

Hope you track down the problem.

I don't think the scrolling is default, so this probably is
something you have setup. Also, what's your graphics
card and driver?

Thank you all for your replies.

Some additions :

* I installed the centos 7.7 by the yum update on my 7.6 kernel

* I have two graphical cards (one internal Intel and another one radeon)

* Telling "When I choose the new kernel" was not necessary for my part. You are right, the new kernel become the first and default entry

* Yes, I have dual boot Centos / Windows 10. No, the 7.7 update has not distroyed the grub menu and I have had no problem with this at this level (but at the first install of W10 and CentOS 7, it was a nightware, each install removing the entry of the other system. I finished to find the solution

* Maybe I Haven't had the good reflexes (backup stuff...) as I am rather new on Linux

* I have a Dell Laptop bought few months ago and each system is installed on separate physical disks

* I could distroy my centos partition and do a fresh Centos 7.7 install but I think I will wait until the Centos 8.x to come soon I hope.

For the moment, I performed a yum remove kernel to deinstall 7.7 kernel. My 7.6 kernel carry on working as usual and If I try again the 7.7 upgrade again, I still face the same weird behviour. Very frustrating...

prd_cv1 wrote: ↑

2019/09/19 18:45:05

* I have two graphical cards (one internal Intel and another one radeon)

Are there third-party drivers for those (for older kernel), or just the open source drivers that come with CentOS?

There is a log file /var/log/Xorg.0.log that might contain clues about what happens when X11 starts.

More and more strange...

Tonight, I downloaded the new Centos 7.7 ISO and created a bootable USB key with Rufus prog in order to scratch my centos disk and reinstall in a clean way the Centos 7.7 new release.

When I boot on the USB key, I have only few loading messages before the moment I should see the grey splash screen but EXACTLY same behaviour appears: No scrolling messages, no grey splash screen, screen turns black as a basic screensaver and nothing more appends

So I am not able to carry on the Centos 7.7 setup process ! There is something the new kernel doesn't like with my hardware (Dell Precision 7530 which is not as exotic)

I think I will bypass the 7.7 Kernel hopping the next will be better

prd_cv1 wrote: ↑

2019/09/20 20:04:03

More and more strange...

Tonight, I downloaded the new Centos 7.7 ISO and created a bootable USB key with Rufus prog in order to scratch my centos disk and reinstall in a clean way the Centos 7.7 new release.

When I boot on the USB key, I have only few loading messages before the moment I should see the grey splash screen but EXACTLY same behaviour appears: No scrolling messages, no grey splash screen, screen turns black as a basic screensaver and nothing more appends

So I am not able to carry on the Centos 7.7 setup process ! There is something the new kernel doesn't like with my hardware (Dell Precision 7530 which is not as exotic)

I think I will bypass the 7.7 Kernel hopping the next will be better

I see you LIKE PAIN!!! If you can't get 7.7 to work, I doubt you will get 8.0 to work -- indeed if anything 8.0 is more likely to give you problems than 7.7, as, usually, EVERY Xyz.0 release is filled with bugs!! How many?!? Do you have a can of RAID on hand?!?

OK let's try to figure out what is going on, as the more you explain the more confused I become.

1) you say you have TWO graphics cards in a LAPTOP?!? In a LAPTOP?!? I suppose it might be able to be done, but I have never heard of a laptop with two graphics cards in it. Or do you mean the that the Laptop has built in graphics capability?!? ( A function of the the motherboard and the CPU which which combines both the CPU as well as a GPU in it). If you add a graphics CARD the CARD overrides the built in graphics, but you still have only ONE Graphics output. You say one is an Intel internal card. I suspect that the second you mentioned INTEL you are talking about a CPU+GPU unit that provides graphics capability, but you then mention that the other is a "Radeon" which is a well known maker of graphics cards.

2) You say you have two physical disks. Are they both INTERNAL, or one INTERNAL and the other EXTERNAL ?!? Are they SSD's or HDD's, or one of each?!? What is the CAPACITY of each?!?

3) As I suspected you had a Laptop, and most Laptops come with Windows Pre-installed. ( Most likely some version of Windows 10). You *say* that Windows is on one drive, and CentOS is on the OTHER drive. HOW DO YOU KNOW?!? The ONLY way you could know for SURE is if you DISCONNECTED the Windows drive leaving only the other drive connected. Indeed when when *I* install a system on a computer with multiple drives, that's EXACTLY what I do, so as not to ACCIDENTALLY overwrite another drive I have data on. And trust me ACCIDENTS DO HAPPEN!! If you run fdisk -l what type of output do you get?!?

4) Going back to your Graphics output for a second: What happens IF you hook your monitor into one output and try to to boot the machine?? What happens?? Now disconnect the monitor and hook it into the other output, and boot the machine?!? What happens?!? Given that this is a LAPTOP which usually has a built in monitor that should be the DEFAULT. The Radeon graphics card is for the installation of an EXTERNAL MONITOR. If you boot anything -- Windows, CentOS, etc -- IF you add an EXTERNAL Monitor do both the the Laptop Screen, *and* the EXTERNAL monitor show what is going on, or does it default ONLY to the EXTERNAL Monitor?!?

5) This is an insane question as laptops are getting so *thin*, so it is probably impossible, but manufacturers are actually making the adding of peripherals easier than in days gone by, so.... can you REMOVE the RADEON card? Can you disconnect the WINDOWS DRIVE leaving ONLY the CentOS drive connected?!?

6) Why did you choose to use Rufus rather than use the dd command?

https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-create ... -on-linux/

or

https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey

Let me quote from the latter:

"Applications known (2019) that do NOT work are: unetbootin, multibootusb and universal usb installler - do NOT use these. Also Rufus does not work correctly if the wrong options are chosen so the tool is best avoided."

I suspect that a lot of your problem has to do with self inflected wounds.

1> Yes, I have a CPU / GPU unit + a dedicated Radeon graphic card
2> Yes, I have two internal and separate SSD. One was provided with the laptop, with W10 and I added another one to install separate Centos System (about 520 Gb each)
3> Yes, I had W10 preinstalled on the SSD provided with the laptop and my first reflex was to format it and reinstall w10 clean fresh on the first SSD, then Centos on the second one. So I know that
4> Didn't tried yet, I will check it out soon
5> Maybe it is possible but I don't think I will try to remove Radeon graphical card. Just only to remove battery I have to remove the back of it so a graphic card...
6> Because I only knew this program. Ok, ok it has no good reputation I see. Promise, I will try soon the commands you mentioned and will tell you

Thank you again for your lines

By the way, Rufus is not particularly safe to use for our iso images, you should try one of the recommended programs on https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey and re-copy it to be sure it is correct. Also make sure you check the sha256sum of your downloaded iso image file against the list in the 7.7 Release Notes https://wiki.centos.org/Manuals/Release ... ntOS7.1908

Boot from the media. Highlight the "Install" entry and hit either tab (on non-UEFI machines which use syslinux to boot) or 'e' on UEFI machines which boot a copy of grub2. Remove the word 'quiet' from the kernel command line and then either press enter (syslinux) or Ctrl-x (grub2) to boot using the modified parameters.

Now you should see kernel messages about what it's doing. Check for the last things it says. If you are expecting it to go to GUI mode and it does not then try pinging it over the network from another machine and see if it is up and if so, ssh to it. Also you can try hitting Ctrl-Alt-F2 (or 3-6) to switch to a command line login session and see if you can get in that way.

Tried to create a USB bootable key using dd command but it's only boot into a grub command line.
Tried also to create with RUFUS (sorry, all people say it's bad) an install USB key with new Centos 8 iso. This time, the setup program is well launched and at the end display the first install screen and step (langage) as it was not possible to reach this first step with the 7.7 iso... So I will wait until an 8.x stable release in a few month and wait with my 7.6 during this time.

Thank you also for your "quiet" tips at startup in order to see message. Is there a way at this level also, to pipe all display message into a text file as the scrolling is a bit fast for my eyes and brain ?

Regards
Bernard