rhel 7 fresh install, some issues and concerning solutions
Hi everybody,
I am writing this post to share my feedback and some useful tricks to overcome some drawbacks I dealt with in rhel7 after a fresh install.
Before I go any further, I want to specify that what I'm writing reflects just my personal point of view. In addition, over the years, I have just quickly tested this OS (or Distro, as you wish), and this is motivated by the fact that I have always encountered a variety of drawbacks from time to time, discouraging me.
However, that is not meant to be a criticism to this work.
Currently, during the installation process my personal feedback has been pretty good, the whole process is clean and neat, Anaconda is simple, clear and well optimized.
After the first boot, the first best impression has clashed with the tough truth, and some not expected drawbacks came in:
-LAN didn't work.
-WiFi board wasn't recognized.
-Crazy flickering display...still present after years.
-Fan always on even in Idle.
A machine without network is almost useless, because of this, the LAN issue has been the first i had to puzzle out, and luckily it wasn't a big deal. In fact the default selected interface wasn't the right one. Well I don't know from where it came from, because I have just one Gb Ethernet on this machine, and this fact it has not been clarified. If someone has encountered the same problem, it would be a good starting point to check if the configured interface match the real one.
The bundled Kernel under the hood is the 3.10, and I hoped to fix at least one of my issues, making a fully system update.
After registering the OS, and updating every package, Kernel included (3.10 branch even this time), the issues were still there.
In addition, I also had another one, about the selinux policy.
To boot the system I appended the value selinux=0 to the kernel boot options (from grub, key e). Then I have had to reinstall selinux-policy-targeted:
[gabriele@localhost ~]$ sudo su
[root@localhost gabriele]# setenforce 0
[root@localhost gabriele]# yum erase selinux*
Removed:
selinux-policy.noarch 0:3.13.1-102.el7_3.16
selinux-policy-targeted.noarch 0:3.13.1-102.el7_3.16
Dependency Removed:
ipa-client.x86_64 0:4.4.0-14.el7_3.7
ipa-server.x86_64 0:4.4.0-14.el7_3.7
pki-ca.noarch 0:10.3.3-19.el7_3
pki-kra.noarch 0:10.3.3-19.el7_3
pki-server.noarch 0:10.3.3-19.el7_3
sssd.x86_64 0:1.14.0-43.el7_3.18
sssd-ad.x86_64 0:1.14.0-43.el7_3.18
sssd-common.x86_64 0:1.14.0-43.el7_3.18
sssd-common-pac.x86_64 0:1.14.0-43.el7_3.18
sssd-ipa.x86_64 0:1.14.0-43.el7_3.18
sssd-krb5.x86_64 0:1.14.0-43.el7_3.18
sssd-krb5-common.x86_64 0:1.14.0-43.el7_3.18
sssd-ldap.x86_64 0:1.14.0-43.el7_3.18
sssd-proxy.x86_64 0:1.14.0-43.el7_3.18
[root@localhost gabriele]# rm -rf /etc/selinux
[root@localhost gabriele]# yum install selinux-policy-targeted
Installed:
selinux-policy-targeted.noarch 0:3.13.1-102.el7_3.16
Dependency Installed:
selinux-policy.noarch 0:3.13.1-102.el7_3.16
[root@localhost gabriele]# touch /.autorelabel
[root@localhost gabriele]# reboot
Strange drawback for a fresh and just updated installation, never happened before sincerely. Anyway, I have also updated the Kernel to the version 4.12, available through the elrepo repository:
[root@localhost gabriele]# rpm --import https://www.elrepo.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-elrepo.org
[root@localhost gabriele]# rpm -Uvh http://www.elrepo.org/elrepo-release-7.0-2.el7.elrepo.noarch.rpm
[root@localhost gabriele]# yum --enablerepo=elrepo-kernel install kernel-ml
Installed:
kernel-ml.x86_64 0:4.12.0-1.el7.elrepo
After a full reboot, I have had a nice news, my WiFi board was recognized, and even connected to my Router, but without a real connectivity. No packets sent, no packets received, and the default gateway was unreachable.
However from that point, the OS seemed to me more reactive than before and even less greedy about power consumption. The Fan was much quieter than before, and these features are precious in my opinion, I notice them, and I appreciate them very much.
Coming back to my Wifi problem, I had to manually set my Default Gateway and DNS:
(in my case, the interface is called wlp2s0)
[root@localhost gabriele]# route add default gw 192.168.0.1 wlp2s0
[root@localhost gabriele]# vim /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlp2s0
DEVICE="wlp2s0"
BOOTPROTO="none"
IPADDR:="192.168.0.111"
NETMASK:="255.255.255.0"
GATEWAY:="192.168.0.1"
ONBOOT="yes"
DEFROUTE="yes"
[root@localhost gabriele]# ifconfig wlp2s0 down
[root@localhost gabriele]# ifconfig wlp2s0 up
[root@localhost gabriele]# ping 192.168.0.1
PING 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=20.8 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=147 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=1.06 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=24.4 ms
^C
[root@localhost gabriele]# vim /etc/resolve.conf
nameserver 8.8.8.8
nameserver 8.8.4.4
[root@localhost gabriele]# vim /etc/sysconfig/network
NETWORKING=yes
GATEWAY=192.168.0.1
[root@localhost gabriele]# route add -net 0.0.0.0 gw 192.168.0.1 wlp2s0
[root@localhost gabriele]# traceroute google.com
traceroute to google.com (216.58.205.206), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 localhost.localdomain (192.168.0.100) 3088.380 ms !H 3088.289 ms !H 3088.242 ms !H
Finally, before struggling on how to overcome the Display flickering issue, I did a quite in-depth research on Web, noticing that after years, this problem persists to more than just few users, and actually it isn't totally resolved yet. About it, nowadays there are just some tricks suggested to overcome it, but those procedures have a sense just for some chipsets, especially Intel.
Currently, I have an Amd chipset under the hood, a Radeon xpress 1100 specifically, and no tricks seems to be available for this chipset at this time.
I have to specify that my current configuration is composed by two displays, where just the second is affected by the mentioned issue.
It is how i overcame it:
[gabriele@localhost ~]$ sudo su
[root@localhost gabriele]# xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1366 x 768, maximum 4096 x 4096
VGA-0 connected primary 1366x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 410mm x 230mm
1366x768 59.79*+
1280x1024 75.02 60.02
1280x720 60.00
1024x768 75.03 60.00
LVDS connected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
1280x800 60.00 +
1280x720 59.97
1152x768 59.95
1024x768 60.04 60.00 59.95
[root@localhost gabriele]# cd /etc/xdg/autostart
[root@localhost gabriele]# touch zzlvdsfix.desktop
[root@localhost gabriele]# vim zzlvdsfix.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=LVDSFIX
Comment=Fixing Display flickering with it
Exec=bash -c 'xrandr --output LVDS --auto'
Icon=utilities-terminal
Terminal=true
Type=Application
Categories=Application;
[root@localhost gabriele]# xrandr --output LVDS --crtc
That's all so far. I tried to write these lines as simple as possible, trying to help everyone has encountered those problems.
From this time, the system seems to work smoothly, but I still have to install Software and Devices by the way.
I believe, Computers should be made to be useful to everybody, and this means that they shouldn't be so tricky. At the same time, I keep in mind that Red Hat is made focused on enterprise needs, and because of this, I think it shouldn't be reasonable in 2017 having those problems on a simple fresh install. It is clear, as I stated before, it is just my personal point of view.
Nowadays Red Hat is a nice toy, but just for nerds and experienced professionals.
The Open Source has the chance to make the difference in our life, and it counts such steady, passionate, and valuable persons. Our work is a worthy work, but too many efforts are wasted in my opinion, and this point could make the real difference in what we do.
G
