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Deanna
Community Manager
Community Manager
  • 322K Views

Questions about getting ready for your Red Hat remote exam?

This thread is dedicated to connect you with Red Hat subject matter experts who can help answer your questions regarding Red Hat remote exams. Please see the following resources for Red Hat Remote Exams below:

For questions on scheduling or redeeming your exams,  please use the Red Hat Certification team comment form here. 

**Our subject matters experts in the Red Hat Learning Community will not be assisting with tasks related to scheduling exams. 

Deanna L
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Deanna
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1,377 Replies
Gineesh
Flight Engineer
Flight Engineer
  • 2,567 Views

@mbessa, I am not sure this is an issue with Exam Fedora OS.
Have you ever tried the vanilla Fedora OS (LIVE boot) on the macOS ?


*Gineesh*
linkedin.com/in/gineesh
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mbessa
Mission Specialist
Mission Specialist
  • 2,594 Views

Yes, tried Fedora 34 boot image but it was even worst, didn't boot at all.

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Gineesh
Flight Engineer
Flight Engineer
  • 2,647 Views

@mbessa, yeah so it's a MacBook issue rather than Fedora or Exam Fedora.
So, we still need to wait for Red Hat to come up with a solution :)


*Gineesh*
linkedin.com/in/gineesh
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Fran_Garcia
Starfighter Starfighter
Starfighter
  • 2,687 Views

Generally speaking, support for Linux  (not just Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Fedora, it's all distributions) has been poor because Apple is not releasing documentation or specifications of their hardware, so drivers cannot be built or tested openly by the community.

Without direct involvement from Apple it will be very difficult to have full support of such models. The recommendation is stands, if possible use some laptop vendor whose hardware is certified or at least known to work.

Gineesh
Flight Engineer
Flight Engineer
  • 2,677 Views

@Fran_Garcia, yeah agree on that point.

But it became like the student needed to buy an external camera (wired +
mouse + keyboard etc) and a laptop to attend the exam :)

I am just kidding. But I heard this concern from many other friends in the
community.
We will see how; hopefully exam centers will be able to open soon with
strict measures and whoever cannot arrange remote exams, can still use the
centers :)


*Gineesh*
linkedin.com/in/gineesh
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JS_Learning
Moderator
Moderator
  • 2,849 Views

Hi @mbessa and @garylinker ,

Unfortunately the problem is not with Red Hat!

 

See the official getting ready guide, from page 18:

https://www.redhat.com/rhdc/managed-files/tr-remote-exams-preparation-ebook-f27382-202103-en_1.pdf 

 

Extract:

Important: 2018 and later series of Mac systems have been found to have compatibility
issues with several Linux® distributions. These issues impact the remote exam image as well.


The issues include, but are not limited to:


Î T2 security system prevents booting from an external device by default.


Î 2019 Macbook Pro keyboard and touchpad doesn’t work when booted from an external media.


Î Other internal components such as webcam, mic, and wifi adapters are not detected by many Linux distributions.
If your system encounters such issues, please use another laptop that meets the system requirements and passes the compatibility test

 

I made my own research on the internet out of curiosity, and unfortunately it's more on the side of Apple's not sharing the source code of their new hardware (that T2 chip thing): as a result many developers can not make some features work.

Unfortunately the T2 chip, is a secure thing, so it's very unlikely that Apple would release any source code.

In fact I even read there are some flaw with that chip:

https://www.wired.com/story/apple-t2-chip-unfixable-flaw-jailbreak-mac/ 

 

There's also some opensource project, where some individual contributors are trying to make that T2 work with Linux:

https://wiki.t2linux.org/state/ 

 

Bottom Line:

Apple released recent macbook models with some new hardware component providing among other things, security features. The source code is not made available, which impacts the entire opensource community and in particular makes things hard to have Linux Support.

I do not work with the team doing the Remote Exam environment. That team within Red Hat is very secure, and we can understand that they act as a blackbox not to reveal any secret to ensure the exam integrity (like encryption, anti cheats...anything that would/could give unfair advantage to any candidate).

Saying that, I highly doubt that any recent macbook will be supported anytime soon by the Remote Exam environment. Based on my interpretation of the Linux for T2 state page shared earlier, I even doubt anything would be completed before many months/year(s).

I would suggest what was in the preparation guide, try to use another laptop. Even borrow some to a friend of you can, booting from the live USB exam does not interfere with the installed OS!

Feel free also to bring that with Apple, maybe they will listen to your feedback? After all, you purchased a specific hardware, I would be interested to see Apple's official answer on them preventing you to use that hardware as you want...

Hope that clarifies the situation!

 

 

 

 

mbessa
Mission Specialist
Mission Specialist
  • 2,854 Views

Hey @JS_Learning,

Thank you a lot for the thourought explaination!!! 

In the meantime I've researched a little more and even tried other distros but without success. Looks like redhat or linux in modern Apple hardware will be a mirage in the near future. :(

Anyway, Thank you again! 

Best Regards!

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Vishal_S
Cadet
Cadet
  • 2,918 Views

Hi,

As per the techincal document I've to boot my laptop using rhrexboot.iso but its not working for me. however rhrexboot-2020-08.iso works well. So can I take remote exam on 2020-08.iso or I have to use only latest iso ?

 

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Gineesh
Flight Engineer
Flight Engineer
  • 2,915 Views

Hi @Vishal_S,
It should work as per my experience (tried this 2 months ago and was good)
but better wait for the Red Hat moderator to confirm.


*Gineesh*
linkedin.com/in/gineesh
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_Komal_
Mission Specialist
Mission Specialist
  • 2,899 Views

Hey all, I have some questions.

1) I have scheduled my exam and on that probably it might be bad weather so till what time I can reschedule the exam.

2) Is the connection of cable important, as I am having a very good wireless connection and also I'm giving this exam from RedHat ThinkPad so there is no slot for that cable.

3) How to copy-paste in remote exams. Any solution.

Thanks

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