[CentOS] upgrading 7.5 ==> 7.6

[Fred Smith]

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!

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) -----------------------------