Red Hat Exam Environment Not Booting

[1_awsd_2]

Hi,

I tried to boot the Red Hat Remote Exam ISO, to run the compatibility test, but when it gets to the part where it shows the Red Hat logo, the system says that it is at 100% and after like 5 second it displays the following error: "error: ../../grub-core/lib/relocator.c:1439:out of memory." and after a few seconds the screen goes blank and then displays a Kernel panic message: "VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)".

The steps I took to boot the exam environment:

1) wrote the ISO to the USB device on Windows 10 with the Fedora Media Writer

2) tried to boot the exam environment, but it failed

3) re-wrote the USB device on the Windows 10 environment, because I thought something might have happened during the first write

4) tried to boot again, the boot process fails again with the same error

5) re-wrote the USB device, now on a Linux environment, with the "dd" utility

6) tried to boot again the exam environment, fails again, with the same message

The USB device that I`m using is a SanDisk 64GB device; the image, which I`m using, is the rhrexboot-2023-06.iso.

My machine is an older Lenovo Legion 7 gaming laptop with an Intel CPU, 16GB RAM.

In the email that I received from Red Hat it was stated that I need to have a minimum of 8GB RAM, my system has 16GB so I do not understand why does it say that it is out of memory.

Has anybody run into this problem? Does this ISO require more than 16GB RAM?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[PetrCihlar · Accepted solution]

I think the issue is your "gaming" laptop. It surely has a graphics card that needs drivers that are not usually present in the standard Fedora system. What you can do is perhaps disabling the discrete video card in BIOS and run on the CPU integrated video or else you have to use a different computer. Sometimes, booting in Legacy instead of UEFI mode and vice versa helps. 

[Baron]

Can you please elaborate on this "It surely has a graphics card that needs drivers that are not usually present in the standard Fedora system". I have seen Fedora installed and boot up perfectly well on Intel systems with NVIDIA GPUs.I understand that Fedora does not come with the proprietary Nvidia drivers installed but I have yet to see a Fedora installation failure that was a direct result of an NVIDIA GPU. While it would be understandable that advanced features of the card remain inaccessable due to the lack of drivers at installation time, but surely if the OS can be installed on these systems and made to work to a degree without an issue, so can the exam environment.

[itnet7]

If memory serves it does need 8 GB so you should be good there, Do you have secure boot enabled by chance? Besides that, the only other thing that comes to mind is to see if there is possibly a more up to date BIOS available for your device. Here's to hoping you solve the problem soon!

v/r Chris

[Baron]

I think in terms of actual hardware requirements you should be fine. I gave the exam last week and it took a bit of doing that should never been the case.

The FAQs state that the remote examinations are delivered in a live environment running on candidates' own X86_64, Fedora-compatible, and cloud-based systems.

I had to create the live USB multiple times using two different versions of the exam environment ISO, and try it on two different Intel laptops, only to be told that I would either need to borrow another computer without a GPU (or the capability of turning off said GPU from the BIOS) due to compatibility issues with NVIDIA dGPUs, or travel to an examination center.

Fortunately, for me I was able to use my desktop with an AMD CPU and a NVIDIA GPU. How it seemed to work perfectly fine with my desktop when it didn't with my laptop, I simply have no idea.

If you can do the same, it just might work for you. I would also recommend trying another version of the exam environment. I beleve there are two floating around, one I recall was in a post in this community and the other one was through the getting ready for the exam document. If that fails, borrowing another laptop(though atleast on my end it is hard to find a laptop without a GPU these days) or going to the test center might be your only options. Depending on where you are located it can feel like being caught between a rock and a hard place. 

I hope that it works out for you.

[PetrCihlar]

Hi Baron
your core idea is good. You assume all graphic cards are backwards compatible, so some standard video modes are always working and can be used, but not extra features. It was so in the past. However, I have seen many times it is not always truth. First, we cannot say NVIDIA in general. There are many families, model, types. The video card industry is rapidly evolving and changing, driven by gaming business. Just look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units
Today, the video cards are computers of its own, not only responsible for resolution, but also for communication with monitor and acceleration. It happens you boot your RE USB stick and you cannot change the resolution or the resolution the video card generates is not supported by the monitor, because they cannot comunicate properly and you get black screen. There may be a difference if you connect the monitor to VGA, HDMI, DVI or DP port. Also, even a single app like Firefox requires accelerated video. It all brings the compatibility between the OS and the video card to higher importance level. Fedora 37 was released in 2022 and it would take some time to make the drivers it includes. So my estimate is it does not support devices from 2021 at least and newer. I just wanted to say it is not so easy to make a conclusion what should and should not work. Hence the importance to test the computer setup several days before the exam at least and make sure it all works. And if not, good opportunity to pull out an old dusted laptop and use it for the exam. It may work just fine. 

[Baron]

I appreciate your response. I realize that my perspective may have led to some generalizations, but I don’t believe my assumptions are too far off the mark. If they are I am happy to engage in a converation as it is an oppurtunity to grow and learn from.

It’s agree that there have been significant advancements in card architecture over recent generations. We have seen a change in everything from raw computation power to a shift in the dominant interface types for these cards. However, the issue we’re discussing transcends these generational changes. Please understand that my intention is not to start a dispute or assign blame. Rather, I’m simply trying to spark a conversation that could potentially improve the user experience. This could be as straightforward as making users aware of potential issues before they make a purchase, especially when a no-refund policy is in effect.

Regarding your points, I do understand them. This is quite possibly a very simialr generalization on my part  but most cards these days support a standard 1080p resolution, irrespective of the monitor’s native aspect ratio or the card’s interface. If the problems were confined to cards with VGA or DVI interfaces or just to the newer GPUs, I would understand that. I confess that I also neglected the requirement for hardware-based graphics acceleration, but I’m assuming that the exam environment can be adjusted to circumvent this.

My personal experience highlights the complexity and frustration this issue brings to the table for the candidates. I tested three systems:

1. Dell Inspiron 7610 with an i7-11800H, 16 GB DDR4, RTX3060
2. Sager NP9150 with an i7-3630QM, 16GB DDR4, GTX 670MX
3. Custom Desktop with a Ryzen 5 5600X, 32GB DDR4, RTX3080

Among these three systems, the second one should have been the safest choice. However, it didn’t work for me. Both the first and second systems showed the test successfully loading into memory but didn’t progress beyond that point.

The third system was incompatible at both the CPU and GPU levels, yet it was the only one on which I gave my test on. I verified my UEFI settings and found that my GPU was still set as the primary video interface.

My single point of frustration stems from the what ifs for candidates like me, regardless of how small that pool might be compared to the ones that have no issues. I am not pointing fingers but to a person on the recieving end suggestions such as dusting out an older laptop or borrowing an older one are slighly frustrating to hear as - 

1. As my case as clearly demonstrated, having an older laptop doesn't really guarantee that you will be able to run the test.
2. Neither is everyone in a position where it feasable to purchase an older one(read: layoffs and the cost of this test).
3. Even the idea of borrowing another one can be tricky(most of the people that I know have laptop where these issues are likely to crop up again due to them having a dedicated GPU).

If I am mistaken and at the time of purchase there is a clear mention about the possible issues and an option to run the compatibility test prior to the purchase of the exam, that is on me. I recognize my oversight. However, if not, then it needs to be noted that design principles primarily should cater to the majority but the the outliers should be kept in mind while creating safeguards. It could be a simple solution of allowing for a refund in those cases.

[1_awsd_2]

Hello everyone,

Yes, my laptop has a dedicated Nvidia GPU, but unfortunately I can not disable it from the BIOS.

In these past days I read some other posts/threads on this forum and those who had a gaming laptop/PC had similar problems: ISO not booting up, freezing mid-boot, black screen...etc.; I also tried to download an older version of the ISO, as was susggested in those posts, but the link is not accessible anymore.

So in the end I dug up an older HP notebook, which does not have a dedicated GPU, and the ISO booted up just fine; I could perform the compatibility check and everything is working; most probably the problem is caused by the GPU as by the other members on this forum.

Also reading those threads it caught my eye, that somebody from RHEL mentioned that they can not test these ISO-s on every system, which is logical; but if they are open to it I think the community can help with the testing, I mean we all have different machines/setups, we can do a few test with those ISO-s, at least I`m open to it...just an idea.

Anyway, thank you for all the input and help.

[Baron]

I am glad that worked out for. I agree with the idea of RH leveraging the communitt for a better candidate experience but there might be conflicts with data collection and privacy regulations that might be enough of a reason to not. I will leave that discussion to people who are more knowledgable on the topic than I am. 

[MalborBoss]

Same issue here. Reason for me was incompatible GPU (RTX 4090) in my gaming PC, as well as PCIe sound card. I started plugging out PCIe for exams, and as of GPU using iGPU and no problems since that. Unfortunately because of that I'm limited to 60 Hz on my monitor but yeah.