Howdy..I have installed CentOS on an external usb pen drive and it boots and runs beautifully on my old HP Desktop.

However, when I try to run it on my Thinkpad T430, it boots up, but freezes after logging in, displays nothing, and I can do nothing after that. Happens every time. If I go back to my HP, it once again runs beautifully.

Anybody know what is going on? The Thinkpad has an nvidia graphics card (if that helps), and the thinkpad used to run Redhat v6.x with no problems.

??

Bruce

Howdy!
Welcome to LQ.

Not sure exactly where you are getting stuck. One may be able to use secondary terminals to see if the system is actually running and that only the gui is failing.

Might be able to boot to single user mode and see if that will run or boot to shell.

Can we assume that these are both similar in terms of cpu types.

In the past, both my HP and my ThinkPad had no trouble running Redhat V6.5 so I don't think it's a cpu issue. When I try running CentOS on the same two machines..well..as I posted, it runs fine on the HP but freezes the ThinkPad as soon as I enter my user ID and password.

I also tried RedHat 7.1 on the same two machines and the exact same thing happens: Runs fine on the HP but freezes the ThinkPad as soon as I log in.

Aer you using the LIVE image ?

or did you INSTALL CentOS to a usb thumb drive ATTACHED to the desktop

if so then the hardware on a different device ( REALLY different hardware ) on a thinkpad
might NOT use the same Nvidia or ATI driver
nor the same CPU and ram settings


if you need to move it from one device ( desktop) to a very different device ( thinkpad)

use a LIVE image


Also keep in mind
RHEL7 is NOT EVEN CLOSE to RHEL6

7 is very different
manly "systemD"

Hey John..Hey Jefro..Thanks for your thoughts on this matter.

I did not use the live image. I just used a standard install ISO file that I burned to a DVD and then booted and installed on the USB pen drive. But here is the new development:

Redhat V7.1 (which I tried after trying CentOS) now, mysteriously WORKS on my ThinkPad at home!!
I don't really know why. The only thing that is different is the external monitor I am using at home is different than what I was using at work. Also I am running wirelessly at home (where previously I was running on ethernet). None of this should really matter I don't think.. but go figure.

At any rate, for whatever reason, it now appears to work on the ThinkPad so I "think" I am good (if slightly befuddled by not knowing why)

Thanks for all the help in any event!

Sincerely...Bruce Korn

The other day I posted a topic saying that after installing CentOS (and then Redhat 7.1) on a usb pen drive, the OS would work on my HP desktop but not on my ThinkPad. On the ThinkPad, the OS would freeze after logging in. It worked ONCE but then started not working again.

So I searched for some answers, and one person said he cured a similar problem by updating his nvida drivers from RPMFusion (but damn if I know how to do that..I really am a linux novice..)

Another person said he got around the problem by starting the OS in text mode, logging in from text mode, and then issuing the startx command. THAT approach seems to have worked for me, so I just wanted to share what I did to get this to work.

While on my HP, I issued the following command from the CLI:

systemctl set-default multi-user.target

This made it so that every time I boot from the pen drive, I automatically go into text mode.

Then after booting and going into text mode, I log in from there, and then issue: startx

Voila! I get the gui back and I am IN and working. And no freezes so far.

As work arounds go, it's not too bad!



At any rate, I just wanted to share this information with the group.

Bruce

Thanks for sharing it always helps-

Those Lenovo's may only allow for certain OS's to be loaded. Check out all the BIOS settings.

Not true. Unless you are using EFI STUB (rare) booting, Lenovo firmware can only tell what bootloader was invoked, not what operating system the bootloader loaded.

In some cases I've found that most distribution's install just fine but the newer hardware isn't yet supported in the kernel.
Thus getting wifi working can be a real task sometimes.

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/...e/ch02s02.html

Some thinkpads have SB in the BIOS. Is yours set to on or off?