Uh-oh. I Guess Now I Gotta Upgrade

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OldStrummer
Posts: 6
Joined: 2020/06/20 22:59:25

Re: Uh-oh. I Guess Now I Gotta Upgrade

Post by OldStrummer » 2020/07/02 14:40:34

SIgh. I'd like to say I enjoy a challenge, but why is it the challenges come unexpectedly?

The CentOS 8.2 ISO is too large to fit onto an 8GB USB drive, so I had to requisition a larger one from my supply. OK, no challenge. Just to be on the safe side, I created a UEFI thumb drive with the boot.ISO because I wanted to see if UEFI would work better. As it turns out, I can boot from either USB drive, but when the installation configuration starts, neither will see the hard disks (4 x 465GB SATA). Well, that's because I'm using Dell's PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) to virtualize them into RAID0 disk0 (1843GB) and disk1 (17GB).

I read somewhere that CentOS only recognizes AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface). Well, since I've already decided that this machine is going to be completely scrubbed, I guess I need to figure out where in the BIOS to change from the PERC to AHCI.

Didn't see that one coming...

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TrevorH
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Joined: 2009/09/24 10:40:56
Location: Brighton, UK

Re: Uh-oh. I Guess Now I Gotta Upgrade

Post by TrevorH » 2020/07/02 15:06:12

The CentOS isos are already UEFI enabled and you just need to dd them to a USB stick.

Your RAID controller has been deprecated in RHEL 8 but you can download drivers from ELRepo to make it work. You want the driver update disk they produce for it.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

OldStrummer
Posts: 6
Joined: 2020/06/20 22:59:25

Re: Uh-oh. I Guess Now I Gotta Upgrade

Post by OldStrummer » 2020/07/02 17:10:12

I guess I'm really headed down the rabbit hole now! So much has changed since 6.10.

Since I'm doing a "fresh" install onto (now) ancient hardware, how do apply ELRepo updates? Add another ISO to the thumb drive?

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jlehtone
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Joined: 2007/12/11 08:17:33
Location: Finland

Re: Uh-oh. I Guess Now I Gotta Upgrade

Post by jlehtone » 2020/07/02 19:00:49

I did encounter that (how to get driver) with another CentOS 6 => 8 update. I use PXE boot (because I can, but had to use BIOS). The driver for my RAID card was mptsas. Googling around, found that option is "inst.dd" and ELrepo URL is ...

Code: Select all

ip=dhcp inst.dd=https://elrepo.org/linux/dud/el8/x86_64/dd-mptsas-3.04.20-3.el8_2.elrepo.iso
One of the elrepo.org/linux/dud/el8/x86_64/dd-*.el8_2.elrepo.iso is probably what you need.
My previous encounter with "driver disk" is not from this millennia, so I can't tell how to supply it. (Luxury of having network spoils.)

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