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[Chrysalis]

Also in the newer versions of centos they are finally implementing methods to do online remote upgrades to the next centos version.

Unfortunately the CentOS implementation of that Red Hat tool is horribly broken and has caused significant problems for those who tried to use it.

Note the emboldened and underlined warning: CentOS Upgrade Tool

yeah I know its currently in development , not polished.  But the main thing is its at least now been worked on.

[AArdvark]

Attention to detail is superb, there is even a dual headed torx key clipped inside, to facilitate hardware maintenance.   It would be even better if the torx key actually matched the machine's screw sizes, but that would be expecting too much....   The disk caddies have old fashioned cross-headed screws, rendering the torx key useless for the most common maintenance of all.   

That is a bit of a slip as the older Microservers had the Torx key and it DID fit the screws !!. Very good build quality as well.
May be worth giving HP a call, their support is very very good and if the Torx is supposed to fit they will send you the right key and/or screws.
(At least the HP of old would. Very good Customer Support but must have cost them a lot as they sent out replacement kit for most problems, rather than make you wait for engineer visits.  )

[sevenlayermuddle]

That is a bit of a slip as the older Microservers had the Torx key and it DID fit the screws !!. Very good build quality as well.
May be worth giving HP a call, their support is very very good and if the Torx is supposed to fit they will send you the right key and/or screws.

Heh heh, the plot thickens.  I just noticed the user guide (dated Sep 2015) says the tool is T-15 one end Philips #2 the other.   But  mine's torx both ends.   With that famous attention to detail, the mounting slot is even labeled with the sizes, T-15 and T-10.

I'm guessing there may have been a manufacturing switch to all-torx screws at some time, and they didn't get the logistics quite right?   

Not that I'm worried, a Philips screwdriver is never far away in my cluttered study, and a 'proper' screwdriver will often get the job done in half the time anyway.

One thing that is worth mentioning, doesn't worry me but might worry some...  the Gen 8 ships with no optical drive.  The HP drive kit isn't cheap (£90-odd on Amazon) and it doesn't look easy to substitute a generic - all a bit too customised, fancy cabling etc.   Have HP been taken over by Apple while my back was turned?   

[roseway]

Do you actually need an optical drive? Most Linux distros these days will install from a USB stick, and you can always attach an external USB DVD drive if you need one (for about £20).

[loonylion]

mine runs nas4free from an internally mounted usb flash drive. it has a 5.25" bay at the top which I mounted a 5th hard disk in.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Do you actually need an optical drive? Most Linux distros these days will install from a USB stick, and you can always attach an external USB DVD drive if you need one (for about £20).

Personally, I don't, I have a decent USB drive that I can use.  That is why I said it doesn't worry me.

But reading my post again, it could be interpreted as saying that it didn't worry me because I am loaded and have money to burn. I can assure all that is not the case.   

[sevenlayermuddle]

mine runs nas4free from an internally mounted usb flash drive. it has a 5.25" bay at the top which I mounted a 5th hard disk in.

I have no need for a 5th disk thanks, but of interest... was yours a Gen 8?

Mine (Gen 8) only has space for an ultra slim laptop-style optical drive, which is another reason why I won't be bothering with one.

[loonylion]

mine runs nas4free from an internally mounted usb flash drive. it has a 5.25" bay at the top which I mounted a 5th hard disk in.

I have no need for a 5th disk thanks, but of interest... was yours a Gen 8?

Mine (Gen 8) only has space for an ultra slim laptop-style optical drive, which is another reason why I won't be bothering with one.

no it's an earlier one. 4 hard disk bays and a full size 5.25 at the top, and an internal USB A port. disks are configured as zfs raidz1

my biggest complaint about it is HP decided to use the one broadcom gigabit nic that doesn't support jumbo frames.

[sevenlayermuddle]

I know at least one member will be especially disappointed to hear it, but life with CentOS 7 has not got off to a good start.   

Installation was smooth and easy, and the system booted up fine.  I then logged in, played around with this and that such as software updates, and rebooted.  An that's when things went wrong...

kernel panic on boot.  I noticed a new kernel had appeared in the grub boot list and was able to get booted by manually selecting the old one, set by the installer.  It seemed to have got it's grub somewhat messed up, presumably as a result of initial updates.  The initramfs file, corresponding to the new default in grub, was missing from  /boot.  From some quick searches this seems to be a (supposedly) rare issue with RHEL & Centos, dating back some years.  Plenty of instances on the forums, similar and sometimes almost identical to mine. 

I could have tried to repair it, but I am more interested in regaining some confidence that the problem is genuinely 'rare' - my system will run 'headless' so I need to be able to trust it to boot up again on its own after updates.  So I am now doing another full install.  This time, instead of 'playing around' I will be a bit more methodical and record exactly the things I do.

It was also late when above took place, and I think I may have accidentally point forced an early power off during that reboot  by pressing the 'wrong' mains switch on the wall.  If that is what caused the problem then, while my confidence is dented a little, I will at least accept a portion of the blame myself.   Time will tell...

[sevenlayermuddle]

And the news this time is better.   

After the initial boot, I simply open a terminal window to confirm connectivity.  I didn't, so I (*)corrected that so I could ping bbc, and rebooted.  All OK, still on the original kernel.

I then selected 'System Tools'/'Software Update', and was offered 196 updates including the same kernel that caused grief last night:

 3.10.0-229.14.1.el7.x86-84

I allowed the updates to run and then checked whether the initramfs for the new kernel was installed in /boot.    Unlike last night it was indeed present , the subsequent reboot worked fine, uname confirms the new kernel is now running.

Having seen how long the updates took to install I wonder, with hindsight, whether I may have rebooted the system before they were done? Quite apart from the silly power-off, that may be another factor.   In my view, neither of these 'human error' explanations is a  terribly good explanation, but better than none. None of the other instances that I found from web searches had confessed to any human error.

FWIW, all file systems (except swap) are xfs, in 'traditional', non-LVM, partitions.

Anyway I will now proceed with a slightly dented confidence, but at least with fresh enthusiasm.   

* I have not detailed the issue with networking after today's install as I am sure it was not relevant.  Merely something I'd got wrong in the install sequence.

[burakkucat]

Anyway I will now proceed with a slightly dented confidence, but at least with fresh enthusiasm.   

Please knock out your slight dent.   

It was probably nothing you did but a peculiarity that has not yet been "tracked down". It has been known to occasionally occur on the first kernel update following a fresh installation. The problem, so I have been told, is finding the elusive, common, trigger. The simple solution is to boot the earlier kernel, remove the updated kernel and then re-install it. The more complicated way is to execute dracut to recreate the initramfs, etc.

However upon reflection of your confession of abruptly powering off the system, your choice to reinstall afresh was probably a wise choice. 

[sevenlayermuddle]

It has been known to occasionally occur on the first kernel update following a fresh installation. The problem, so I have been told, is finding the elusive, common, trigger.

And that, of course, is exactly what happened to me.   Another reason for reinstalling was of course, the possibility that it would happen every time.  While that would have annoyed me terribly I had a distinct feeling that, if I had indeed stumbled on an elusive common trigger,  'somebody out there' might have found my information useful.   

Today has been busy trying to install MythTV, building from source as there don't seem to be many repos hosting CentOS 7 RPMs.   It is challenging indeed with many obscure dependencies though I'm consoled that I did succeed another time, a few years ago.  And once I get myth built,  everything else really ought to be plain sailing.  In theory.

[burakkucat]

I hope you made the point of enabling the EPEL repository. It is just a yum install epel-release away as the epel-release package is available from the extras repository.

Rather than me typing out any more, I'll just point you to the Repositories page in the CentOS Wiki. Look for EPEL and nux-dextop as those two repositories should cover most multi-media requirements.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Yes I already have EPEL configured. 

I'm aware of nux-desktop too, but not yet encountered a problem that it solves - it does host versions of MythTV but not particularly recent whereas I am being quite fussy about vintage as some fixes have only recently gone in for the currently available crop of Freeview HD tuners.  That is one reason I decided to build from git source, I might even need to resort to a development build. 

Biggest headache so far was 'Lame' as in 'Lame Ain't an MP3 Encoder', of which I'd never heard before.  The only credible Repo I could find, supposed to host an El 7 version was ATrpms.  But the ATrpms server seems to be off the air and judging from other posts on various forums, has been mysteriously off the air for a good few weeks.

I eventually found a copy of the ATrpms' 'Lame' on University of Kent's www.mirrorservice.org, which is the last obstacle I cleared before stopping work for today.  Tomorrow, the chase will resume for whatever is the next dependency to surface.   

[sevenlayermuddle]

Once you have decided, perhaps you would update this thread with the final details of your new system's specifications, please? (Links would be appreciated, by me.) 

B'Cat I have not forgotten that request but have not yet settled on final system spec.   I know exactly where I am headed right down to HDD and tuner module part numbers but until I have MythTV working there will remain a risk of 'back to the drawing board'.

Meanwhile,  assuming eventual success, is there any particular level of detail you would like to be recorded especially in terms of software versioning and sources?   I am attempting to record everything in some detail, but feel free to emphasise any detail that would be especially useful..?