hI ALL!
There have been a large enough number of people posting here about difficulties
when upgrading from 7. to 7.6 that I'm being somewhat paranoid about it.
I have several machines to upgrade, but so far the only one I've dared
to work on (least critical if it goes bad) is my new-to-me-but-used
laptop.
First I did a 'dd' backup of the whole drive onto an external USB drive
then did the upgrade. Since I use the Mate desktop, I enabled the
epel testing repo (per postings on Mate troubles at the time of the
upgrade).
Result: Boots to GDM just fine, but Mate is a black screen. Switching
to Gnome, works fine, but I can't stand Gnome. Not knowing what else
to try I restored the dd backup.
Later I inserted a spare HD and did a new install from the DVD
media. This installed without issue, but now no desktop works.
Switching to a console (CTRL-ALT-F2) I did a full "yum update",
which installed quite a few packages, but upon reboot nothing had
improved. So I added the epel repo (and testing) and installed Mate.
Ditto, nothing had changed.
This laptop is fairly old, and according to lshw, has a RV635/M86
[Mobility Radeon HD 3650]I] video chipset, in case it matters.
CPU is identified as: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T9400 @ 2.53GHz
Having previously installed 7.5 on it without trouble, on which Mate
works just fine, I wonder what could have become so broken that neither
an upgrade nor a fresh install works.
I have, as I said, several other machines to upgrade, too, some of them
have Nvidia grahics (esp. my main desktop box, which also uses Linux
software RAID-1) and all run Mate. Then there is a netbook (low priority)
a couple of VMs (in virtualbox) and at work several other VMS as well as
bare-metal on a Lenovo deskside machine, and I'm afraid to do an update
on all of them because I need them to be in usable condition. The Lenovo
box in my office is somewhat urgent, as I am about to retire and turn
it over to someone else who doesn't know much about Linux.
I'd appreciate any advice I can get on how to get these systems upgraded
without breaking them.
thanks in advance for your help!
Fred
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> -----Original Message----- > From: CentOS <centos-bounces at centos.org> On Behalf Of Fred Smith > I have, as I said, several other machines to upgrade, too, some of them...> a couple of VMs (in virtualbox) and at work several other VMS as well as...> I'd appreciate any advice I can get on how to get these systems upgraded > without breaking them.Can you clone the VMs first? That will give you machines to bang on until you've hammered out all the bumps in the upgrade process. Then for the production VM, take a pre-upgrade snapshot you can roll back to when the process finds a new way to go sideways.
On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 01:50:06PM -0500, Fred Smith wrote:> hI ALL! > > There have been a large enough number of people posting here about difficulties when upgrading from 7. to 7.6 that I'm being somewhat paranoid about it. > > I have several machines to upgrade, but so far the only one I've dared > to work on (least critical if it goes bad) is my new-to-me-but-used > laptop. > > First I did a 'dd' backup of the whole drive onto an external USB drive > then did the upgrade. Since I use the Mate desktop, I enabled the > epel testing repo (per postings on Mate troubles at the time of the > upgrade). > > Result: Boots to GDM just fine, but Mate is a black screen. Switching > to Gnome, works fine, but I can't stand Gnome. Not knowing what else > to try I restored the dd backup. > > Later I inserted a spare HD and did a new install from the DVD > media. This installed without issue, but now no desktop works. > Switching to a console (CTRL-ALT-F2) I did a full "yum update", > which installed quite a few packages, but upon reboot nothing had > improved. So I added the epel repo (and testing) and installed Mate. > Ditto, nothing had changed. > > This laptop is fairly old, and according to lshw, has a RV635/M86 > [Mobility Radeon HD 3650]I] video chipset, in case it matters. > CPU is identified as: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T9400 @ 2.53GHz > > Having previously installed 7.5 on it without trouble, on which Mate > works just fine, I wonder what could have become so broken that neither > an upgrade nor a fresh install works. > > I have, as I said, several other machines to upgrade, too, some of them > have Nvidia grahics (esp. my main desktop box, which also uses Linux > software RAID-1) and all run Mate. Then there is a netbook (low priority) > a couple of VMs (in virtualbox) and at work several other VMS as well as > bare-metal on a Lenovo deskside machine, and I'm afraid to do an update > on all of them because I need them to be in usable condition. The Lenovo > box in my office is somewhat urgent, as I am about to retire and turn > it over to someone else who doesn't know much about Linux. > > I'd appreciate any advice I can get on how to get these systems upgraded > without breaking them. > > thanks in advance for your help! > > FredOne more data point: After taking a dd backup of the HD in my Acer Aspire One netbook (screaming 1.6 GHz Atom, dual core!!), I did the 7.5 to 7.6 update and it went perfectly fine, although it had 800 packages to update, so it was kinda slow. Do any of you know if the various Nvidia issues, and problems upgrading software RAID1 systems have reached resolution? I haven't seen postings here regarding solutions for those problems, and knowing my luck, I would hit both of 'em on my personal desktop. Thanks in advance for any response! Fred -- ---- Fred Smith -- fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us ----------------------------- The Lord detests the way of the wicked but he loves those who pursue righteousness. ----------------------------- Proverbs 15:9 (niv) -----------------------------
> On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 01:50:06PM -0500, Fred Smith wrote: >> hI ALL! >> >> There have been a large enough number of people posting here about >> difficulties when upgrading from 7. to 7.6 that I'm being somewhat >> paranoid about it. >> >> I have several machines to upgrade, but so far the only one I've dared >> to work on (least critical if it goes bad) is my new-to-me-but-used >> laptop. >> >> First I did a 'dd' backup of the whole drive onto an external USB drive >> then did the upgrade. Since I use the Mate desktop, I enabled the >> epel testing repo (per postings on Mate troubles at the time of the >> upgrade). >> >> Result: Boots to GDM just fine, but Mate is a black screen. Switching >> to Gnome, works fine, but I can't stand Gnome. Not knowing what else >> to try I restored the dd backup. >> >> Later I inserted a spare HD and did a new install from the DVD >> media. This installed without issue, but now no desktop works. >> Switching to a console (CTRL-ALT-F2) I did a full "yum update", >> which installed quite a few packages, but upon reboot nothing had >> improved. So I added the epel repo (and testing) and installed Mate. >> Ditto, nothing had changed. >> >> This laptop is fairly old, and according to lshw, has a RV635/M86 >> [Mobility Radeon HD 3650]I] video chipset, in case it matters. >> CPU is identified as: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T9400 @ 2.53GHz >> >> Having previously installed 7.5 on it without trouble, on which Mate >> works just fine, I wonder what could have become so broken that neither >> an upgrade nor a fresh install works. >> >> I have, as I said, several other machines to upgrade, too, some of them >> have Nvidia grahics (esp. my main desktop box, which also uses Linux >> software RAID-1) and all run Mate. Then there is a netbook (low >> priority) >> a couple of VMs (in virtualbox) and at work several other VMS as well as >> bare-metal on a Lenovo deskside machine, and I'm afraid to do an update >> on all of them because I need them to be in usable condition. The Lenovo >> box in my office is somewhat urgent, as I am about to retire and turn >> it over to someone else who doesn't know much about Linux. >> >> I'd appreciate any advice I can get on how to get these systems upgraded >> without breaking them. >> >> thanks in advance for your help! >> >> Fred > > One more data point: After taking a dd backup of the HD in my Acer > Aspire One netbook (screaming 1.6 GHz Atom, dual core!!), I did the > 7.5 to 7.6 update and it went perfectly fine, although it had 800 > packages to update, so it was kinda slow. > > Do any of you know if the various Nvidia issues, and problems upgrading > software RAID1 systems have reached resolution? I haven't seen postings > here regarding solutions for those problems, and knowing my luck, I would > hit both of 'em on my personal desktop.I didn't see any issues with RAID. I think those problems arise only if you have old RAID devices created with older CentOS releases than 7. Those were probably created with 0.9 metadata version which may be a problem. Currently 1.2 metadata version is created and I didn't see any issues with it. Maybe others can confirm my conclution. Regards, Simon
On 21/12/18 5:21 PM, Fred Smith wrote:> On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 01:50:06PM -0500, Fred Smith wrote: >> hI ALL! >> >> There have been a large enough number of people posting here about difficulties when upgrading from 7. to 7.6 that I'm being somewhat paranoid about it. >> >> I have several machines to upgrade, but so far the only one I've dared >> to work on (least critical if it goes bad) is my new-to-me-but-used >> laptop. >> >> First I did a 'dd' backup of the whole drive onto an external USB drive >> then did the upgrade. Since I use the Mate desktop, I enabled the >> epel testing repo (per postings on Mate troubles at the time of the >> upgrade). >> >> Result: Boots to GDM just fine, but Mate is a black screen. Switching >> to Gnome, works fine, but I can't stand Gnome. Not knowing what else >> to try I restored the dd backup. >> >> Later I inserted a spare HD and did a new install from the DVD >> media. This installed without issue, but now no desktop works. >> Switching to a console (CTRL-ALT-F2) I did a full "yum update", >> which installed quite a few packages, but upon reboot nothing had >> improved. So I added the epel repo (and testing) and installed Mate. >> Ditto, nothing had changed. >> >> This laptop is fairly old, and according to lshw, has a RV635/M86 >> [Mobility Radeon HD 3650]I] video chipset, in case it matters. >> CPU is identified as: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T9400 @ 2.53GHz >> >> Having previously installed 7.5 on it without trouble, on which Mate >> works just fine, I wonder what could have become so broken that neither >> an upgrade nor a fresh install works. >> >> I have, as I said, several other machines to upgrade, too, some of them >> have Nvidia grahics (esp. my main desktop box, which also uses Linux >> software RAID-1) and all run Mate. Then there is a netbook (low priority) >> a couple of VMs (in virtualbox) and at work several other VMS as well as >> bare-metal on a Lenovo deskside machine, and I'm afraid to do an update >> on all of them because I need them to be in usable condition. The Lenovo >> box in my office is somewhat urgent, as I am about to retire and turn >> it over to someone else who doesn't know much about Linux. >> >> I'd appreciate any advice I can get on how to get these systems upgraded >> without breaking them. >> >> thanks in advance for your help! >> >> Fred > One more data point: After taking a dd backup of the HD in my Acer > Aspire One netbook (screaming 1.6 GHz Atom, dual core!!), I did the > 7.5 to 7.6 update and it went perfectly fine, although it had 800 > packages to update, so it was kinda slow. > > Do any of you know if the various Nvidia issues, and problems upgrading > software RAID1 systems have reached resolution? I haven't seen postings > here regarding solutions for those problems, and knowing my luck, I would > hit both of 'em on my personal desktop. > > Thanks in advance for any response! > > FredI had major issues with two machines, both with nvidia cards. I found that the SL spin of CentOS 7 has fixes for the xorg problems. Akemi Yagi posted the solution which worked fine - it was just difficult to get the required files onto the broken device with no gui. <cut / paste>>> The only issue I've seen reported that sounds similar or possibly >> related is: >> >> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1650634 > Yes, seems this is the laptop issue, will prove tomorrow. >> There is a patch in that bug you might like to try. > Not too keen on this, would need to find a detailed howto as I have not > done any rebuilds for a number of years. I presume that RH will at some > point release a fix for this?The submitter of RHBZ 1650634 is a developer of Scientific Linux. The xorg packages in SL 7.6 have been published with the referenced patch applied. If you so wish, you could install their packages. ftp://linux1.fnal.gov/linux/scientific/7.6/x86_64/updates/security/ Note the "sl7" tag instead of "el7". Akemi </cut>
On 2018-12-19, Fred Smith <fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us> wrote: [...]> Result: Boots to GDM just fine, but Mate is a black screen. Switching > to Gnome, works fine, but I can't stand Gnome. Not knowing what else > to try I restored the dd backup.This is a known issue, and was mentioned on this list recently. The problem is that Mate in EPEL needs to be updated to work with CentOS 7.6. Perhaps keep an eye on changes to the EPEL repo before attempting the upgrade again.
On Fri, Dec 21, 2018 at 06:27:45PM +0000, Liam O'Toole wrote:> On 2018-12-19, Fred Smith > <fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us> wrote: > > [...] > > > Result: Boots to GDM just fine, but Mate is a black screen. Switching > > to Gnome, works fine, but I can't stand Gnome. Not knowing what else > > to try I restored the dd backup. > > This is a known issue, and was mentioned on this list recently. The > problem is that Mate in EPEL needs to be updated to work with CentOS > 7.6. Perhaps keep an eye on changes to the EPEL repo before attempting > the upgrade again.Thanks, Liam, for the info. Since it IS working on the netbook I'm hoping that means that whatever needed updating has been updated. So, I compared the versions on my desktop with those on the netbook, and find that mate_dictionary, mate-disk-usage-analyzer, mate-screenshot, mate-search-tool, mate-system-log, mate-system-monitor, mate-utilsk, mate-utils-common all had a minor version bump. Some from 1.16.1-1 to 1.16.1-2, one from 1.16.0-1 to 1.16.0-2. I know there are other packages that do not contain "mate" in their names, but I don't know which they are. So, do you (or anyone else) happen to know which Mate packages are/were in need of update? thanks again, in advance. -- ---- Fred Smith -- fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us ----------------------------- The Lord is like a strong tower. Those who do what is right can run to him for safety. --------------------------- Proverbs 18:10 (niv) -----------------------------