Most of my machines are used machines, and when I build a new machine, I usually install Windows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or another way of saying that is if I need a Windows machine, I need new hardware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Usually my Linux boxes are VMs, retired Windows machines, a used machine that I purchased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rarely a new machine (once again to be fair even most of my Windows machine are used)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So this is unusual, I got a new laptop from work, a Dell Latitude 5300 with 32GB of RAM, an NVME hard drive (256 GB) and an Intel Core i7-8665U. This puppy flies (for 2020 standards future readers dont laugh too hard).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Loaded CentOS 7 on it and it just screams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the install wasn’t as straightforward as my other builds. Couple things I had to get around, first off the BIOS was locked (this is a company equipment). Luckily, I am in IT was able to get the password.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I needed to unlock it because it came to me with the storage as Intel RAID, I needed to change it ti AHCI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another thing is that was really a UEFI box with secure boot enabled. No problem because CentOS 7 is properly signed and will work with secure boot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then there was no optical media, no problem because there are USB ports. Unfortunately there were no USB 2ports only USB 3, and for some reason CentOS 7 does not install on USB 3, once installed, it will use USB 3, but the installer is not compatible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No problem, just PXE boot, unfortunately my home network is not set up to PXE boot UEFI machines. I will in the future, but in the short term I wanted an OS on here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fix was extremely simple, get a USB flash drive (it can be USB2) formatted in FAT or FAT32 and copy the EFI and images directory from the CD on it, also for yucks I copied a kickstart folder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the EFI BOOT folder there is a grub.cfg file, I had a variation of this entry<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because the installer source could not be on a USB3 device. Maybe I am wrong but this did work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also had a bonus of being able to quickly rebuild my box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Weight: 305.0<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most of my machines are used machines, and when I build a new machine, I usually install Windows. Or another way of saying that is if I need a Windows machine, I need new hardware. Usually my Linux boxes are … Continue reading menuentry 'Install CentOS 7 MYLAPTOP' --class fedora --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os { linuxefi \/images\/pxeboot\/vmlinuz ip=dhcp net.ifnames=0 biosdevname=0 inst.repo=http:\/\/192.168.1.10\/linux\/7-1908\/ inst.ks=http:\/\/192.168.1.10\/linux\/ks\/mylaptop.cfg initrdefi \/images\/pxeboot\/initrd.img }<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n