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AlmaLinux 10 initial look

0. Introduction

Some notes about an initial look at AlmaLinux 10. Downloaded live images from the links in How to download and write images

For testing copied the images to a MicroSD card. E.g.:

$ sha256sum -c CHECKSUM\(1\)
AlmaLinux-10.0-x86_64_v2-Live-GNOME.iso: OK
$ sudo dd if=~/Downloads/AlmaLinux-10.0-x86_64-Live-GNOME.iso of=/dev/sdd status=progress
1670324736 bytes (1.7 GB, 1.6 GiB) copied, 308 s, 5.4 MB/s 
3270040+0 records in
3270040+0 records out
1674260480 bytes (1.7 GB, 1.6 GiB) copied, 327.043 s, 5.1 MB/s
$ sudo cmp -n `stat -c '%s' ~/Downloads/AlmaLinux-10.0-x86_64-Live-GNOME.iso` ~/Downloads/AlmaLinux-10.0-x86_64-Live-GNOME.iso /dev/sdd 
<<no output>>

1. AlmaLinux-10.0-x86_64-Live-GNOME.iso

1.1. HP Z4 G4

This PC has a Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-2123.

Kernel is 6.12.0-55.9.1.el10_0.x86_64

Mellanox adapters:

$ lspci -nn | grep Mellanox
21:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Mellanox Technologies MT27710 Family [ConnectX-4 Lx] [15b3:1015]
21:00.1 Ethernet controller [0200]: Mellanox Technologies MT27710 Family [ConnectX-4 Lx] [15b3:1015]
2d:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Mellanox Technologies MT27500 Family [ConnectX-3] [15b3:1003]

Which are detected as RDMA devices:

$ ibv_devinfo
hca_id:	mlx4_0
	transport:			InfiniBand (0)
	fw_ver:				2.35.5100
	node_guid:			f452:1403:0079:dfe0
	sys_image_guid:			f452:1403:0079:dfe3
	vendor_id:			0x02c9
	vendor_part_id:			4099
	hw_ver:				0x1
	board_id:			MT_1090120019
	phys_port_cnt:			2
		port:	1
			state:			PORT_DOWN (1)
			max_mtu:		4096 (5)
			active_mtu:		4096 (5)
			sm_lid:			0
			port_lid:		0
			port_lmc:		0x00
			link_layer:		InfiniBand

		port:	2
			state:			PORT_ACTIVE (4)
			max_mtu:		4096 (5)
			active_mtu:		1024 (3)
			sm_lid:			0
			port_lid:		0
			port_lmc:		0x00
			link_layer:		Ethernet

hca_id:	mlx5_0
	transport:			InfiniBand (0)
	fw_ver:				14.32.1010
	node_guid:			9803:9b03:0077:e152
	sys_image_guid:			9803:9b03:0077:e152
	vendor_id:			0x02c9
	vendor_part_id:			4117
	hw_ver:				0x0
	board_id:			MT_2420110004
	phys_port_cnt:			1
		port:	1
			state:			PORT_ACTIVE (4)
			max_mtu:		4096 (5)
			active_mtu:		1024 (3)
			sm_lid:			0
			port_lid:		0
			port_lmc:		0x00
			link_layer:		Ethernet

hca_id:	mlx5_1
	transport:			InfiniBand (0)
	fw_ver:				14.32.1010
	node_guid:			9803:9b03:0077:e153
	sys_image_guid:			9803:9b03:0077:e152
	vendor_id:			0x02c9
	vendor_part_id:			4117
	hw_ver:				0x0
	board_id:			MT_2420110004
	phys_port_cnt:			1
		port:	1
			state:			PORT_ACTIVE (4)
			max_mtu:		4096 (5)
			active_mtu:		1024 (3)
			sm_lid:			0
			port_lid:		0
			port_lmc:		0x00
			link_layer:		Ethernet

The ConnectX-3 is reported as unmaintained hardware:

$ sudo dmesg|grep maintain
[   14.220208] Warning: Unmaintained driver is detected: cnic
[   14.224685] Warning: Unmaintained driver is detected: bnx2i
[   14.985328] Warning: Unmaintained Hardware is detected: mlx4_core:1003:15B3 @ 0000:2d:00.0
[  122.764966] Warning: Unmaintained driver is detected: ip_set

1.2. HP Z6 G4

This PC has dual Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6148 CPUs.

Mellanox adapter:

$ lspci -nn | grep Mellanox
2d:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Mellanox Technologies MT27700 Family [ConnectX-4] [15b3:1013]

Also has on-board X722 adapters.

Detected RDMA devices:

$ ibv_devinfo 
hca_id:	mlx5_0
	transport:			InfiniBand (0)
	fw_ver:				12.28.2006
	node_guid:			9803:9b03:006a:7ea1
	sys_image_guid:			9803:9b03:006a:7ea1
	vendor_id:			0x02c9
	vendor_part_id:			4115
	hw_ver:				0x0
	board_id:			MT_2180110032
	phys_port_cnt:			1
		port:	1
			state:			PORT_ACTIVE (4)
			max_mtu:		4096 (5)
			active_mtu:		1024 (3)
			sm_lid:			0
			port_lid:		0
			port_lmc:		0x00
			link_layer:		Ethernet

hca_id:	irdma0
	transport:			iWARP (1)
	fw_ver:				0.2
	node_guid:			cad9:d2ff:fe1f:5ff7
	sys_image_guid:			cad9:d2ff:fe1f:5ff7
	vendor_id:			0x8086
	vendor_part_id:			14290
	hw_ver:				0x9
	phys_port_cnt:			1
		port:	1
			state:			PORT_DOWN (1)
			max_mtu:		4096 (5)
			active_mtu:		1024 (3)
			sm_lid:			0
			port_lid:		1
			port_lmc:		0x00
			link_layer:		Ethernet

hca_id:	irdma1
	transport:			iWARP (1)
	fw_ver:				0.2
	node_guid:			cad9:d2ff:fe1f:5ff8
	sys_image_guid:			cad9:d2ff:fe1f:5ff8
	vendor_id:			0x8086
	vendor_part_id:			14290
	hw_ver:				0x9
	phys_port_cnt:			1
		port:	1
			state:			PORT_DOWN (1)
			max_mtu:		4096 (5)
			active_mtu:		1024 (3)
			sm_lid:			0
			port_lid:		1
			port_lmc:		0x00
			link_layer:		Ethernet

hca_id:	irdma2
	transport:			iWARP (1)
	fw_ver:				0.2
	node_guid:			cad9:d2ff:fe1f:5ff9
	sys_image_guid:			cad9:d2ff:fe1f:5ff9
	vendor_id:			0x8086
	vendor_part_id:			14289
	hw_ver:				0x9
	phys_port_cnt:			1
		port:	1
			state:			PORT_DOWN (1)
			max_mtu:		4096 (5)
			active_mtu:		1024 (3)
			sm_lid:			0
			port_lid:		1
			port_lmc:		0x00
			link_layer:		Ethernet

No unmaintained hardware is detected:

$ sudo dmesg|grep maintain
[   17.075220] Warning: Unmaintained driver is detected: cnic
[   17.080628] Warning: Unmaintained driver is detected: bnx2i
[  192.569897] Warning: Unmaintained driver is detected: ip_set

This is a x86-64-v4 CPU:

$ ~/Downloads/detect_cpu.sh
CPU supports x86-64-v2
CPU supports x86-64-v3
CPU supports x86-64-v4

1.3. HP Z640

This PC has dual Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 v3

Mellanox adapter:

$ lspci -nn | grep Mellanox
03:00.0 InfiniBand [0c06]: Mellanox Technologies MT25408A0-FCC-QI ConnectX, Dual Port 40Gb/s InfiniBand / 10GigE Adapter IC with PCIe 2.0 x8 5.0GT/s Interface [15b3:673c] (rev b0)

Detected RDMA devices:

$ ibv_devinfo
hca_id:	mlx4_0
	transport:			InfiniBand (0)
	fw_ver:				2.9.1000
	node_guid:			0002:c903:0050:4174
	sys_image_guid:			0002:c903:0050:4177
	vendor_id:			0x02c9
	vendor_part_id:			26428
	hw_ver:				0xB0
	board_id:			MT_0FC0110009
	phys_port_cnt:			2
		port:	1
			state:			PORT_DOWN (1)
			max_mtu:		4096 (5)
			active_mtu:		4096 (5)
			sm_lid:			0
			port_lid:		0
			port_lmc:		0x00
			link_layer:		InfiniBand

		port:	2
			state:			PORT_DOWN (1)
			max_mtu:		4096 (5)
			active_mtu:		4096 (5)
			sm_lid:			0
			port_lid:		0
			port_lmc:		0x00
			link_layer:		InfiniBand

The unmaintained hardware detected is the Connext-X2 and the LSI SAS2308 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2 raid card:

$ sudo dmesg|grep maintain
[    5.978224] Warning: Unmaintained driver is detected: cnic
[    5.983530] Warning: Unmaintained driver is detected: bnx2i
[    6.664765] Warning: Unmaintained Hardware is detected: mlx4_core:673C:15B3 @ 0000:03:00.0
[    6.665090] Warning: Unmaintained Hardware is detected: mpt3sas:0087:1000 @ 0000:01:00.0
[  117.110705] Warning: Unmaintained driver is detected: ip_set

The logical volumes on the raid card are detected (sdb and sdc):

$ lsblk 
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
loop0    7:0    0  1.4G  1 loop /run/rootfsbase
sda      8:0    1 58.3G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    1  1.6G  0 part /run/initramfs/live
├─sda2   8:2    1  8.3M  0 part 
└─sda3   8:3    1  300K  0 part 
sdb      8:16   0  2.7T  0 disk 
├─sdb1   8:17   0  512M  0 part 
└─sdb2   8:18   0  2.7T  0 part 
sdc      8:32   0  2.7T  0 disk 
├─sdc1   8:33   0   16M  0 part 
├─sdc2   8:34   0  2.7T  0 part 
├─sdc3   8:35   0  766M  0 part 
└─sdc4   8:36   0  505M  0 part 
sr0     11:0    1 1024M  0 rom  

Deviations from RHEL 10 says:

The following device drivers were modified to re-add PCI IDs for hardware that was previously disabled in RHEL:

  • mlx4_core - Mellanox Gen2, ConnectX-2, ConnectX-3 adapters
  • mpt3sas - LSI MPT Fusion SAS 3.0

For a complete list of hardware support for which was added in this release, see the Extended hardware support section.

Running the scripts found on How do I check if my CPU supports x86-64-v2?

this:

$ ~/Downloads/cpu_type 
CPU supports x86-64-v3

And this:

$ ~/Downloads/detect_cpu.sh 
CPU supports x86-64-v2
CPU supports x86-64-v3

Confirms the E5-2620 v3 Haswell is a x86-64-v3 CPU. Therefore, didn't need to use the x86_64_v2 ISO which as per the Deviations from RHEL 10 linked above is to provide support for older CPUs:

RHEL is increasing the architecture version baseline to v3 dropping support for numerous older CPUs (and some newer ones). In AlmaLinux OS 10, we will follow Red Hat’s decision to ship x86-64-v3 optimized binaries by default, but we will also provide additional x86-64-v2 architecture ONLY for older hardware.

1.4. HP Pavilion Desktop 590-p0xxx

This PC has AMD Ryzen 5 2400G with Radeon Vega Graphics.

Mellanox adapter:

$ lspci -nn | grep Mellanox
10:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Mellanox Technologies MT27520 Family [ConnectX-3 Pro] [15b3:1007]

Detected RDMA devices:

$ ibv_devinfo 
hca_id:	mlx4_0
	transport:			InfiniBand (0)
	fw_ver:				2.43.7028
	node_guid:			248a:0703:00c3:cb30
	sys_image_guid:			248a:0703:00c3:cb30
	vendor_id:			0x02c9
	vendor_part_id:			4103
	hw_ver:				0x0
	board_id:			MT_1090111023
	phys_port_cnt:			2
		port:	1
			state:			PORT_ACTIVE (4)
			max_mtu:		4096 (5)
			active_mtu:		1024 (3)
			sm_lid:			0
			port_lid:		0
			port_lmc:		0x00
			link_layer:		Ethernet

		port:	2
			state:			PORT_DOWN (1)
			max_mtu:		4096 (5)
			active_mtu:		1024 (3)
			sm_lid:			0
			port_lid:		0
			port_lmc:		0x00
			link_layer:		Ethernet

The unmaintained hardware detected is the Connect-X3 Pro:

$ sudo dmesg|grep maintain
[    5.403934] Warning: Unmaintained driver is detected: cnic
[    5.408730] Warning: Unmaintained driver is detected: bnx2i
[    6.039228] Warning: Unmaintained Hardware is detected: mlx4_core:1007:15B3 @ 0000:10:00.0
[   79.690407] Warning: Unmaintained driver is detected: ip_set

This is a x86-64-v3 CPU:

$ ~/Downloads/detect_cpu.sh
CPU supports x86-64-v2
CPU supports x86-64-v3

1.5. Intel DH67BL motherboard

This has a Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2310 CPU

Using the BIOS boot menu:

  1. Attempt to boot UEFI: Mass Storage Device 1.00. This just results in Failed to open \EFI\BOOT - Not Found being left on display. The keyboard isn't responsive. A short press of the power button turns off the PC.
  2. Attempt to boot Mass Storage Device 1.00. Then get the GRUB menu. Using edit to view the command line shows CDLABEL=AlmaLinux-10_0-x86_64-GNOME. Attempting to boot results in the PC rebooting after a few seconds. Just prior to the reboot it appears a message appears, but not long enough to read it.

The CPU is a x86-64-v2 (as determined when booted AlmaLinux 8):

$ ~/Downloads/detect_cpu.sh 
CPU supports x86-64-v2

A simple text search for the string Not Found:

Therefore, the Failed to open \EFI\BOOT - Not Found message appears to be reported by the BIOS. This message was also briefly displayed when AlmaLinux-10.0-x86_64_v2-Live-GNOME.iso was successfully booted. I.e. the message doesn't seem explain a failure to boot.

Comparing the contents of AlmaLinux-10.0-x86_64-Live-GNOME.iso and AlmaLinux-10.0-x86_64_v2-Live-GNOME.iso:

  1. The EFI/BOOT/BOOTX86.efi is the same in both. According to UEFI booting the is the standardised file path to allow booting by USB flash drives.
  2. The EFI/BOOT/grubx64.efi differs. Using objdump to dissassemble shows some differences. E.g.:
    • The AlmaLinux-10.0-x86_64_v2-Live-GNOME.iso uses the pair of instructions:
      bsr    %rax,%rax
      xor    $0x3f,%rax
      
    • Whereas AlmaLinux-10.0-x86_64-Live-GNOME.iso uses a single instruction:
      lzcnt  %rax,%rax
      
    __lzcnt16, __lzcnt, __lzcnt64 says the lzcnt instruction requires a Haswell CPU. I.e. is a x86-64-v3 instruction.

Therefore, the AlmaLinux-10.0-x86_64-Live-GNOME.iso might just crash if run on a CPU older than x86-64-v3, rather than reporting an error about an unsupported CPU.

2. AlmaLinux-10.0-x86_64_v2-Live-GNOME.iso

1.1. HP Z4 G4

This PC has a Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-2123, which is a x86-64-v4 CPU:

$ ~/Downloads/detect_cpu.sh 
CPU supports x86-64-v2
CPU supports x86-64-v3
CPU supports x86-64-v4

Booted the AlmaLinux-10.0-x86_64_v2-Live-GNOME.iso live image on a PC which did work with the AlmaLinux-10.0-x86_64-Live-GNOME.iso to check the identification of the Kernel with the live image compiled to support the older x86-64-v2 CPUs.

The Kernel is 6.12.0-55.9.1.el10_0.x86_64_v2. I.e. contains a _v2 suffix.

1.2. Intel DH67BL motherboard

Got Failed to open \EFI\BOOT - Not Found displayed briefly, before the AlmaLinux 10 live image booted.

As expected, Kernel reported as 6.12.0-55.9.1.el10_0.x86_64_v2

Mellanox adapter present:

$ lspci -nn | grep Mellanox
01:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Mellanox Technologies MT27710 Family [ConnectX-4 Lx] [15b3:1015]

Detected RDMA devices:

$ ibv_devinfo
hca_id:	mlx5_0
	transport:			InfiniBand (0)
	fw_ver:				14.22.1002
	node_guid:			248a:0703:00b2:755e
	sys_image_guid:			248a:0703:00b2:755e
	vendor_id:			0x02c9
	vendor_part_id:			4117
	hw_ver:				0x0
	board_id:			MT_3040111017
	phys_port_cnt:			1
		port:	1
			state:			PORT_DOWN (1)
			max_mtu:		4096 (5)
			active_mtu:		1024 (3)
			sm_lid:			0
			port_lid:		0
			port_lmc:		0x00
			link_layer:		Ethernet

The unmaintained hardware detected is the CPU:

$ sudo dmesg|grep maintain
[    0.020210] Warning: Deprecated Hardware is detected: x86_64-v2:GenuineIntel:Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2310 CPU @ 2.90GHz will not be maintained in a future major release and may be disabled
[    5.306223] Warning: Unmaintained driver is detected: cnic
[    5.312237] Warning: Unmaintained driver is detected: bnx2i
[  109.034549] Warning: Unmaintained driver is detected: ip_set
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