[CentOS] Fwd: CentOS on new Dell

Fri Oct 28 14:49:14 UTC 2016
Johnny Hughes <johnny at centos.org>

On 10/27/2016 04:22 PM, Michael B Allen wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 24, 2016 at 8:11 PM, Milos Blazevic <milos.blazevic at sbb.rs> wrote:
>> I've seen the thread(s) you started on CentOS mailing list about Dell and ThinkPad
>> laptops and running Centos on 'em.
>>
>> Not sure if you've seen my question, but I'm considering to purchase a laptop, run EL7 on it, and I'm weighing between the Thinkpad and Latitude, so:
>>
>> What was it to make you opt for E7470 over, say, Carbon X1? According to RedHat's Hardware compatility list Carbon models are certified,
>> while none of the Dell's aren't.
>>
>> Also, have you given up on CentOS over Fedora? I'd love to hear how's CentOS 7 support for E7470 hardware.
> 
> Hi Milos,
> 
> The Thinkpad T series and Latitude are *very* similar computers. They
> are both business "ultrabooks" with a 1600x1080 display option, nice
> keyboards (not "chicklet" style), a trackpoint and trackpad and RJ-45
> builtin.
> 
> I bought a Dell Latitude E7470 over the Lenovo for several reasons.
> One is this comment which is worth mentioning again:
> 
> On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 11:58 PM, Gordon Messmer
> <gordon.messmer at gmail.com> wrote:
>> It's worth mentioning again that Dell is one of the companies doing the
>> development for the bits that don't work, and that those drivers are often
>> the ones that get Lenovo equipment going, too. Lenovo does not, to the best
>> of my knowledge, do any Linux development.
> 
> Another reason is that I have heard about people having problems with
> Lenovo. Not just with software but with hardware malfunctions. I spoke
> to someone on the phone that had hardware problems with their new
> Thinkpad (although I suspect some of the problems could have been
> misdiagnosis by the user). After describing how nice the E7470 they're
> thinking about dumping their 1yo X250 and getting a Dell.
> 
> As for the Carbon, that is a very different computer. The Carbon is an
> ultralight / thin Macbook-like machine with Windows so I have no
> advice for you there.
> 
> I have not tried CentOS on the E7470 but I'm quite certain it would
> not work because I have tried the latest Fedora Live which is about
> 100 kernel revisions newer and even that doesn't completely work.
> Specifically, if I plug in an external display it freezes. My feeling
> is I need a newer display driver (and thus newer kernel). The only
> other issue I noticed was that wireless didn't work but it seems more
> like a glue issue and not necessarily a driver. Otherwise, suspend and
> everything else worked near as I can tell which is actually pretty
> impressive for a brand new machine.
> 
> So, I am doing other things while this new E7470 ages like a fine
> wine. Or maybe I'll loose patience and just install Fedora and try a
> "vanilla" kernel package. Then maybe after a year or two CentOS 8 or
> whatever will run on it and then I can just run steady for 4+ years
> without getting pummeled by stupid updates and feature creep that you
> get with Fedora and Ubuntu or whatever the latest hot distro is.
> 
> The E7470 is obviously a laptop of choice for business people. And
> that is the type of machine developers use. So chances of good
> compatibility are very high. You just have to give it time.
> 
> I was watching Daredevil season 1 and they use Latitudes that look
> exactly like mine. And that was probably filmed in 2014. So the form
> factor at least has been around for a while which is good.
> Unfortunately I can't say the same thing about the show.

We have a newer installer that has a newer kernel than the base CentOS-7
ISOs here, if anyone is having hardware detection / boot issues with the
standerd ISOs:

http://buildlogs.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/

The *-99.iso are the ones with the newer installers .. so these are the
latest right now:

http://buildlogs.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1609-99.iso

http://buildlogs.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7-x86_64-Minimal-1609-99.iso

Thanks,
Johnny Hughes




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