Like a BAD Penny... I'mmm Baaack Looking for some Polish

Rocky Linux Help & Support
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I’ve been chasing health issues, research, having FUN (!), and solving problems in openSUSE 15.6. My problem with Rocky 9.6 was getting Nvidia to run, and other small issues. SKYPE has gone away, so we have been experimenting with ZOOM! I also decided to install Rocky Linux 9.6 as a VIRTUAL machine on my openSUSE 15.6 machine. This allowed me to keep
tabs on updates and other things in Rocky Linux 9.6 as well as all Kernel Updates.

My buddy and I decided to standardize on openSUSE 15.6 and use Rocky Linux 9.6 as our secondary system. This way I am running BOTH openSUSE 15.6 AND Rocky Linux 9.6 at the same time. In short I am still the TEST guinea pig. Then 1.5 weeks ago things went CRAZY!! I had just gotten NVIDIA INSTALLED on Rocky Linux 9.6, then my buddy’s openSUSE 15.6 crashed and he had zero zilch; then I decided to BACKUP both my Rocky Linux 9.6 NVMe drive and my openSUSE 15.6 NVMe drives to make sure I did not run into the problem my buddy was having. My Rocky Linux 9.6 minus Nvidia went smooth as silk, but my backup of the openSUSE hit a snag, decided to cool things for a while, but when I went to log back in to openSUSE now I ONLY had 640 x 480. So I PUNTED back to Rocky Linux. My buddy solved his problem, and we went back to looking at /var/log files to see if my problems could be related (at least I had graphics running he did not even have that) and in are exploration I was missing the same file he had missing. An hour latter we had ocelot back up and running in 1920 x 1080. I then updated Rocky Linux to running VMware 17.6.3 First time I have run across something called .bundle.net, so after knocking my head against a wall I called my buddy for help. EASY PEASY … once you know how to do it. I was – almost – GOLDEN!!! Still have to figure out how to BACKUP the openSUSE 15.6 NVMe but all is well. Checking to make sure EVERYTHING is working I then discovered that there is now something called ROCKY LINUX 10.0.

Sharing my GOOD NEWS / BAD NEWS with my buddy, we talked about installing Rocky Linux 10.0, and we both HATE XYZ.0 releases of anything. Rocky Linux XX.0 is a No Go as it is still a .0 release, but then he suggested that I kick the tires and create a Rocky Linux 10.0 VIRTUAL MACHINE and run in place of my Rocky Linux 9.6 Virtual Machine. A BRILLIANT IDEA!! Still run openSUSE 15.6, but start experimenting with Rocky Linux 10.0.

I suspect like ALL .0 releases it will be BUG FILLED …at least until 10.2 to 10.3 comes out. REQUEST: What NASTY surprises will be waiting for me once I have created the RL 10.0 VM? Any help you guys could provide would be greatly appreciated. Nothing like a FAMILY REUNION !!

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I’ve never had any problems using a .0 release. I have 10.0 installed now in fact and I use it in production already as one of my web servers.

If you rely on packages from EPEL and things like that, then yes you will find that packages don’t exist yet, that exist in EPEL8 or EPEL9 for example. Therefore, desktop wise only Gnome or KDE is possible right now. If you want Mate or XFCE or Cinnamon, then that isn’t available yet.

If 10.0, or even 9.0 or 8.0 were bug-filled when they were released, that would be pretty poor since if it’s released, it’s released for production use. If it really was bug-filled, it was be alpha or beta release. I don’t consider it bugs, if certain packages don’t exist. It’s just a case of waiting until they are released. EPEL 10.1 should have more packages than current EPEL10 release.

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The first place to look for hints about that would be the Red Hat Release Notes for RHEL 10 and particularly the Considerations in adopting RHEL 10 | Red Hat Enterprise Linux | 10 | Red Hat Documentation

One rather obvious detail is that el10 has only Wayland; no Xorg. X11 clients probably should run with the X11 support that Wayland has. Obviously something more complex, like desktop environment, probably should be a native Wayland to be nice. Therefore, the wait may not be a simple “When does EPEL maintainer rebuild my favourite toy for el10?”, but a “_When do the upstream devs of the toy port it to Wayland?” that is required before build for el10 is possible at all.

Exactly. Third-party is always third-party, and EPEL is a third-party for RHEL and Rocky, albeit a good quality one.

A change in EPEL is that they do build (i.e. keep) for each point update. That should decrease the issues that have occurred during point updates as RHEL, Rocky, and EPEL almost never release content for the new point update on the same moment. With EPEL 10 the Rocky 10 users can conveniently stay in their point update (versions of EPEL) content when RHEL 10 users have already jumped to the next point update. In the long run the separate 10.x EPEL repos will benefit the RHEL users, who for some reason have to pin their distro to a minor version rather than dnf up.

A peculiarity is that most EPEL 10 content is now for 10.1 (as CentOS Stream 10 can use that), and for some packages a request to EPEL to build also for 10.0 has been necessary.

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EL 10 does support Xwayland. X apps do work and last I checked xterm was still in the official repositories.

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WELL… THE GRAY SCREEN OF DEATH!! I have made an effort to discover all the things about Rocky 10.0:

I downloaded the Rocky-10.0-x86_64-dvd.iso and the Rocky-10.0-x86_64-dvd1.iso, and just for FUN I downloaded Rocky-10-KDE-x86_64-latest.iso Ran sha-256-sum CHECKSUMs on all three files. ALL WAS WELL! Copied the dvd and dvd1 files to a thumb drive and tried to boot the drive, but to no avail. Then my buddy suggested that I did NOT NEED a thumb drive but rather I could directly create a Virtual Rocky 10.0 machine without having to mess with the thumb (I am running VMware Player 17.6.3) So I built a Virtual Rocky 10.0. machine, and started it… And got THE GRAY SCREEN OF DEATH!! Never to get to the partitioning phase software install, etc., etc., etc. ie the “Install phase”.

I checked, doubled checked and triple checked all my work, and there is nowhere I made a mistake: I Downloaded multiple copies of Rocky 10-0 DVD.iso , each taking 4-6 hours to download, checked the CHECKSUM for each of copies, copied it to a thumbdrive, and then tried to boot from the thumbdrive. It made me think that the thumdrive might not be formated, then my buddy said I could short circuit the process by building the Virtual Machine directly from the FRESHLY DOWNLOADED .iso I got a lot of OK,OK,OK,OKs and just when I thought I get an INSTALL SCREEN, I’d get a GRAY SCREEN OF DEATH, where it would HANG.

Just for FUN I decided to see if I could build a KDE LIVE Virtual Machine – also just because I’m BOLD (and OLD) and Tired as well – I just wanted to see what, if anything, the KDE LIVE version would do: Again I started and created a VIRTUAL KDE LIVE machine. Very, VERY much to my surprise I got a WORKING VIRTUAL KDE 10.0 LIVE Machine!! Now put that in your hat and SMOKE IT!!

Ah the FUN is just beginning. My KDE 10.0 LIVE Virtual Machine is going to have to do..at least until I find a way around the GRAY SCREEN OF DEATH!! Maybe by version 10.1?!?

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jlehtone: Good to see you are still here as well!!! HUMMMMM

I WONDER… I am currently running an NVIDIA driver, and have no idea if my GRAY SCREEN OF DEATH may be due to some obscure fact that I may be running Xorg and in fact may be a “closet X11” type of guy, not a Wayland Willey and the Boys person. I am also a BIG KDE person, and I am not sure what KDE is based on. Maybe Xorg, X11?

That might explain WHY I get a GRAY SCREEN OF DEATH with a fresh CLEAN download of Rocky 10.0; while the Virtual Rocky 10 KDE Live download builds with ZERO problems. I’ve marked your post for future reference. I’m still casting about for a REASON for the GRAY SCREEN OF DEATH.

Any rate GOOD to SEE you once again. I’m sure that I’m likely to see other people I’ve known from the PAST as I struggle with RL 10.x. Right NOW my alternative to openSUSE 15.6(+) is going to be RL 9.6(x) … but GEE Rocky 10.x is FUN!!!… well SORT OF at least!

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Yes, it’s good to see you back and I hope that your health issues are doing better. I’ve also found a few X11 apps, like xbiff, a little mail notifier work, but one can’t get an Xorg desktop environment or window manager like openbox. To spam my own page, I have a page on getting labwc and dwl (smaller window environments, based on openbox and dwm) working in RHEL10.

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The “gray screen” of GDM/Gnome/whatever. Boot to multi-user.target. Check that the NVidia’s modules do load correctly. State of Secure Boot?

The el10 does have Nouveau. Does default install of GDM and Gnome with Nouveau fail?

If you do install NVidia’s driver, then how do you do it? From NVidia’s repo, from ELRepo (el10 still in their ‘testing’ repo), from RPM Fusion, from negativo17’s repo, or with that ghastly .run from NVidia?

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Good Evening. Well a lot to report: Lets deal with Nvidia first: Remember I am running openSUSE 15.6 and Rocky Linux 9.6. I’m simply “dabbling” with Rocky Linux 10.0. Where I “dabble” is in a VMware 17.6.3.

OK HOW did I install the Nvidia drivers in Rocky Linux 9.6? ANSWER: VERY CAREFULLY! I found (fell over) the following:

The FIRST thing I did before I did ANYTHING was to BACKUP my Rocky Linux 9.6 NVMe DRIVE. PERIOD!! The last thing I needed to do was nuke my RL 9.6 install…. with no way to get it back to it with all my customizations.

The second thing I did since I had a RL 9.6 VM already installed configured was to try and install it on my RL 9.6 VM . Much to my surprise this got an NVIDIA driver on my VMware on my RL 9.6 install. I heaved a very loud sigh of relief that it would install on RL 9.6 NVMe drive.

After my BACKUP of my RL 9.6 NVMe drive, had finished, I did the install, followed the step-by-step instructions, and after I re-booted the Nvidia Driver came right up. It was about this time I ran across the RL 10.0 article. Will this procedure work with RL 10.0?? No idea.

As you have gathered I am NOT a big fan of ANY XYZ.0 releases, :grimacing: but my buddy had the brilliant idea of running RL 10.0 as a VM!! which is where I am!! Do I know what I am doing ?? Hell NO!! After TRYING to install 10.0 I would get as far as the Gray Screen of DEATH where it would perpetually HANg. ie I NEVER made far as the Anaconda Installer. Secure Boot?? I don’t run Windows, so Secure Boot is NOT Turned on by default. Your idea about turning OFF NVIDIA and Turning back ON Nouveau, is going to lead to a whole host of EXPERIMENTS.

Some EXCITING News I DID get the Rocky Linux 10.0 KDE Live installed. I MAY have found a partial answer about the GRAY SCREEN of DEATH: At the very top of the Drive/File before it gives you KDE GUI the are two WARNING lines the say something about ERROR in the MICROCODE, right after that there is a GREY SCREEN with 3 . . . which slowly go away and you end up in a GUI background page from there you can load a konsole, where you type su, and install mc (Midnight Commander), and YES even install a new Kernel!! . I also installed 6 Virtual Desktops, and in one I put The info Center so I will know what exactly is running: It is Running KDE Plasma 6.3.4. The Graphics Platform, I was surprised to se is in fact WAYLAND!!! NOT X11.

OK A few QUESTIONS BEFORE I get further down the Rabbit Hole.

  1. The first thing you see in the Upper Left Hand Corner is an Icon that says. “INSTALL TO HARD DRIVE: Is this a VIRTUAL HARD DRIVE composed of MEMORY RAM/ or will it be installed on my PHYSICAL NVMe hard drive? If it is MEMORY I’ve got 128 GiB so I can have a nice size Virtual Hard drive.

  2. I can not creating USERS, SET TIME, SET DATES, etc. it is ALL UT.

  3. My buddy suggested that I ask if there is an already built VM of Rocky Linux 10.0 (NOT Rocky Linux 10.0 KDE LIVE).

So that is it for this night’s “hunting” I suspect that Gray Screen of DEATH has something to do with the WARNING: Error with Microcode” .

If worse comes to worse I play around the the RL 10.0 KDE LIVE version just to get the feel of it.

Desert Cat

P.S. Thanks for your help.

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First remember that OpenSUSE is the community based version, similar to what Fedora or CentOS is in the RedHat world, while RockyLinux uses RedHat Enterprise Linux as base (similar to what SUSE Linux Enterprise is). So you can’t really compare the 2 distros…

Another thing I want to mention is that I have not used nVidia’s Proprietary drivers for years, as the OpenSource nouveau drivers work very well, at least if you add the mesa packages. That way it is less likely that upgrades will cause damage.

Another thing, why on earth are you using VMware as HyperViser, it is only a type 2 HyperViser & won’t perform as well as type 1 HyperVisers (like ESXi, Hyper-V, KVM).

KVM is directly supported by current Linux Distro’s, & for me it would make much more sense to use that, as it is native to Linux.

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Rindi,

You’re right… and wrong. We use a two distro system, one primary, one as a backup. We are comfortable using either. We were comfortable with CentOS and used it for many years, and the reason we don’t use SLED is the same reason we don’t use RHEL: $$$$. We were happy using CentOS before Red Hat killed it off, then we went in search of a replacement for CentOS and we kicked the tires of Rocky Linux, and we like it enough to maybe come back to it when openSUSE goes away after 15.6. We are KDE users, not GNOME users, and we more or less parted ways with Red Hat when the stopped offering a KDE version of their OS; openSUSE you can still use either KDE or GNOME, therefore openSUSE was simply a better fit because at the time, there was Red Hat saying they would no longer support KDE. In the EARLY days (and to this day) there was discussion of if Rocky was going to follow the path CentOS, or if it would be “Bug for bug copy of RHEL” with both the its GOOD and BAD points. That you could – not sure if you will still be able to in Rocky 10.x – still install KDE on Rocky I’m glad is not as scary as it once was, but that Rocky is still a “Bug for bug” copy of RHEL could – not IS – a major problem. It is very attractive that Rocky 10.0 released a Rocky 10 KDE LIVE version, so I’m currently “kicking tires” once again.

There are some GOOD as well as BAD things about using nVidia drivers – we both have nVidia Graphics cards therefore it makes sense to use nVidia drivers, and YES nouveau drivers are more than good enough, but not as good nVidia drivers. Just our take on it.

The reason we are using VMware Player goes back a long way and time when we needed to use something that was compatible with the University’s system regardless of the OS, and the University had standardized on VMware.

Much has changed over the past 25 years, and you simply get comfortable knowing how to do things, the ins and outs of something, and not needing to re-learn things you already know how do do. It is as simple as that.

Like I said, I am the TEST GUINEA PIG for out 2 person LUG :laughing: :laughing:

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There is openSUSE 16 planned for Autumn 2025.

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Wow, that is an exceptionally long paragraph, and I’m not sure what exactly your concern is.

As with Ivory Soap, 99.44% of my use of Rocky is for Servers without a graphical interface, but when I use Rocky 10 to setup a “GUI Workstation”, or “Server with GUI”, I simply copy-and-paste these seven commands to switch my GUI installs from Gnome to KDE:

sudo dnf update -y

sudo dnf install epel-release -y
sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled crb
sudo dnf groupinstall -y “KDE Plasma Workspaces”
sudo systemctl disable gdm # Disable GNOME’s display manager
sudo systemctl enable sddm # Enable KDE’s display manager

sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target