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Loopholelou
Mission Specialist
Mission Specialist
  • 1,452 Views

Recommended Processor and video card for remote exams

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I see a lot of discussion about peripheral hardware compatibility, but I haven't seen any talk about processor / memory / chipset / video card. I can speak from experience that while my personal laptop (Dell Latitude E6530 i5, 16GB RAM) can run fedora no problem, it was extremely slow running the remote exam OS.  Is there any guidance on recommended HW specs?

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JS_Learning
Moderator
Moderator
  • 1,317 Views

Hi  @Loopholelou ,

We could make a dedicated thread and/or include some tips within the "Remote Exams compatible hardware" thread (as you said it's mostly about peripherals).

I am not sure that would add much value to talk specifically about "processor / memory / chipset / video card", from my experience with Hardware and Remote Exams.

At this point in time, I am still inclined to think that the best way for learners to validate their hardware is to test the Remote Exams live usb from their computer ( to see if they pass the compatibility checks),

First, from a recommendation point of view, it would be rather difficult and limited to produce a list, which would be non exhaustive by default. Especially with so many existing hardware, so many possible variations and configuration,

Second, I was able to attend a Remote Exam on a rather old Dell E6430 (which is like almost 10 years old at the time of writing...). Yet, I had some issues sometimes on a T480s, which is only 3-4 year olds at the time of writing. In fact the issue was not due to the laptop but the fact that I was connected to a docking, and somehow the latest ISO I had, seems to have detected/loaded a basic graphic display driver instead of the laptop's one. That's my theory, I do not have access to any logs to confirm that. When I use the same setup without docking, it worked very fine (I did 3 other exams attempts after that one). What I am trying to say is that it can work fine on old hardware and sometimes, not work fine on more modern hardware. In other words, the OS used in the remote exams is not having very specific/intensive hardware resources requirements, but some compatibilty issues can be there..

Unfortunately for us, the Remote Exam live USB is meant to be some sort of black box, where we do not have full control and some things are hidden on purpose (so that some candidates are not tampering, etc...). That means, as an user, we can currently only rely on the compatibility testing.

What could be done, as a workaround, would be to have an option in the compatibility mode to display which driver is in use for the graphic card, and also to ensure it is properly making use of that specific hardware. On that topic, I remind everyone that the official way to feedback, and reach the relevant teams is here: https://rhtapps.redhat.com/comments .

I doubt anyone from the various relevant teams would read regularly this forum, and/or be aware of our feedback.

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JS_Learning
Moderator
Moderator
  • 1,318 Views

Hi  @Loopholelou ,

We could make a dedicated thread and/or include some tips within the "Remote Exams compatible hardware" thread (as you said it's mostly about peripherals).

I am not sure that would add much value to talk specifically about "processor / memory / chipset / video card", from my experience with Hardware and Remote Exams.

At this point in time, I am still inclined to think that the best way for learners to validate their hardware is to test the Remote Exams live usb from their computer ( to see if they pass the compatibility checks),

First, from a recommendation point of view, it would be rather difficult and limited to produce a list, which would be non exhaustive by default. Especially with so many existing hardware, so many possible variations and configuration,

Second, I was able to attend a Remote Exam on a rather old Dell E6430 (which is like almost 10 years old at the time of writing...). Yet, I had some issues sometimes on a T480s, which is only 3-4 year olds at the time of writing. In fact the issue was not due to the laptop but the fact that I was connected to a docking, and somehow the latest ISO I had, seems to have detected/loaded a basic graphic display driver instead of the laptop's one. That's my theory, I do not have access to any logs to confirm that. When I use the same setup without docking, it worked very fine (I did 3 other exams attempts after that one). What I am trying to say is that it can work fine on old hardware and sometimes, not work fine on more modern hardware. In other words, the OS used in the remote exams is not having very specific/intensive hardware resources requirements, but some compatibilty issues can be there..

Unfortunately for us, the Remote Exam live USB is meant to be some sort of black box, where we do not have full control and some things are hidden on purpose (so that some candidates are not tampering, etc...). That means, as an user, we can currently only rely on the compatibility testing.

What could be done, as a workaround, would be to have an option in the compatibility mode to display which driver is in use for the graphic card, and also to ensure it is properly making use of that specific hardware. On that topic, I remind everyone that the official way to feedback, and reach the relevant teams is here: https://rhtapps.redhat.com/comments .

I doubt anyone from the various relevant teams would read regularly this forum, and/or be aware of our feedback.

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