[CentOS] Failed to get to installer for CentOS 7 VM under CentOS 6...

[Paul Heinlein]

On Thu, 27 Sep 2018, Robert Heller wrote:

> I just tried a CentOS 7 install to a laptop over PXE and it failed in just the
> same way as for the VM.
>
> So, is it not possible to install CentOS 7 via PXE?  Or is there something
> missing?  I just copied the images under os/x86_64/images/ to the tftpd
> directory (/var/lib/tftpboot/) and included in
> /var/lib/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default this section:
>
> label centos75-64
> 	MENU LABEL CentOS 7.5 x86_64
> 	kernel centos75x86_64vmlinuz
> 	append initrd=centos75x86_64initrd.img
>
>
> Do I need anything more?
>
> Things seem to die/fail at some point after initializing the graphics frame
> buffer.  Is there a way to do a non-graphical install?  I have a keyboard and
> really know how to use it and don't need some silly ("friendly"?) GUI to
> install Linux (I don't need hand-holding).

Yes, you can ask for a text installer by including "inst.text" (no 
quotes) on the APPEND line of pxe configuration file.

That said, the text installer in EL7 is considerably less functional 
than the graphical installer.

My suggestion, fwiw, is to write up a kickstart file and use that 
instead; it's easiest if you have a local web server that handles 
unauthenticated plain-text http. Your entry would would like this:

label centos75-64
   MENU LABEL CentOS 7.5 x86_64
   kernel centos75x86_64vmlinuz
   append initrd=centos75x86_64initrd.img inst.ks=http://192.168.110.144/ks/el7.ks inst.text

But you can try a the text installer and see where that gets you...

-- 
Paul Heinlein
heinlein at madboa.com
45°38' N, 122°6' W