Intel Skylake Server

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Hello,

I have a pre-production Intel Skylake server using dual 8176 processors (28 core @2.1Ghz)

I have loaded from the DVD distribution CentOS 7.3 and RHEL 7.4 with no problems.

When I try and load CentOS 6.9 the boot process hangs just as the Anaconda graphics is started for CentOS configuration.

If I use a secondary graphics card then the process completes with no problems and CentOS boots from the system disk error free.

The server uses AST2500 graphics as standard. This seems to be the problem.

What I need is an iso file that I can load during the initial boot process.

I have tried various grub options and they don’t work.

The reason that I am trying CentOS 6.9 is that many people have applications which will only run on CentOS 6.*.

Regards, Mark Woolfson MW Consultancy Ltd Leeds LS18 4LY
United Kingdom Tel: +44 113 259 1204
Mob: +44 786 065 2778

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3 thoughts on - Intel Skylake Server

  • CentOS 6.9 kernel does not have support for Skylake processors, I believe that there is an alternate arch SIG that “may” be able to compile 6.9 with a newer kernel or you may have to compile something using the kernel that is available from ELRepo.

    Or use another graphic card that is compatible with the kernel that comes with CentOS 6.9.

  • CentOS 6.9 has support for the Haswell processor which is a subset of the Skylake.

    All Skylake server ancillary components work perfectly with CentOS 6.9.

    The AST2500 used with the Skylake is very good and will process UHD. However this is not backwards compatible with legacy variants.

    To make it work an ancillary graphics card is required which is less than
    $100. This will not break the bank.

    Regards, Mark Woolfson MW Consultancy Ltd Leeds LS18 4LY
    United Kingdom Tel: +44 113 259 1204
    Mob: +44 786 065 2778
    —–Original Message—

  • Note that there can be issues. My desktop is:

    Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1225 v5 @ 3.30GHz

    …and it wasn’t until 7.4 that it’d run without crashing when using anything attached to xHCI.

    For a server, USB probably isn’t an issue, but this seemed worth noting.