On Sat, Apr 2, 2016 at 12:00 AM, Yasha Karant <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> SL-72-x86_64-2016-02-03-LiveDVDkde.iso would not boot on a HP Pavilion
> Laptop Computer  model N5R26UA#ABA, although the list of hardware on the
> machine should have been supported by SL 7.  Fortunately, one of my students
> works at the store selling the machine, and his manager had a bootable USB
> flash drive with several 64 bit linuxes on it.  Both ubuntu and mint booted,
> so, presumably SL 7 should boot.  The DVD image was verified/tested before
> using it.
>
> Below is the (rather long) journalctl output from the attempt to boot SL 7
> -- can anyone identify what is failing and how to fix it?  We have 14 days
> to return the machine for full credit provided I do not modify the harddrive
> (that I shall not do unless we keep the machine and install SL 7).
>
> Any suggestions?  Is  there a way to test boot, without install, including
> X, from the 4 Gbyte regular SL7.2 install DVD (after burning the iso file to
> a DVD)?
>
> Yasha Karant

[Very long records deleted]

First: SL, like hte upsteam RHEL, is really a stable server grade
operating system. The kernels will never be bleeding edge, with the
latest support for the latest laptop chipsets, many of which tended to
be very leading edge and off-brand. And Ubuntu tends to be leading
edge: they're not very stable for server grade systems, but rather
tend to the latest chipsets.

Second. the heavily reduced kernel and configs used by Anaconda for
the boot operating configurations can be..... problematic. I've also
had problems with 7. and 7.2, that did *not* happen with 7.0. In fact,
I just installled a server with 7.0 successfully, and was able to
update, when 7.1 and 7.2 CD's were unable to boot it.

Third: the "rescue" mode should still be available, adding the word
"rescue" to the boot kernel options. I really wish they'd list rescue
mode, and *not* on that ghods-awful X based "spoke and wheel" logic
installer. The older, text based installer worked very well, took up
much less screen space, was easier to read, and had consistent layout.
It also worked *much better* for remote consoles and
virtualizatization consoles.