Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Installation

Lenovo ThinkStation P620

Contents
SECTION 1 – BIOS SETUP & PREINSTALLATION STEPS
SECTION 2 – INSTALLING RED HAT ENTERPRISE LINUX 8
SECTION 3 – RAID ARRAY INSTALLATION
SECTION 4 – RAIDXPERT2 MANAGEMENT APPLICATION
SECTION 5 – SETTING UP THE YUM REPOSITORY
SECTION 6 – INSTALLING THE AQUANTIA LAN DRIVER
SECTION 7 – INSTALLING THE NVIDIA GRAPHICS DRIVER
SECTION 8 – REVISION HISTORY

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Section 1 - BIOS Setup & Preinstallation Steps
The first step before installing Linux is to make sure the system BIOS is setup
correctly. Follow the steps below to ensure a few BIOS settings are set
appropriately.

• Boot into BIOS setup by pressing the function F1 key at the “Lenovo”
splash screen.

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• On the main start menu within BIOS setup, select the “Security” option.

• On the “Security” menu tab, scroll down and select the “Secure Boot”
option.

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• Set the “Secure Boot” drop-down option to “Disabled”.

• Press the function F10 key to “Save & Exit” the BIOS setup menu and
select “Yes” on the pop-up window that’ll appear.

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Section 2 – Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
Please refer to the following instructions and screenshots on how to install
RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 on the Lenovo ThinkStation P620.

• Insert the RHEL 8 installation media either through USB or CD/DVD.

• Power on the system and press the function F12 key when the Lenovo
splash screen appears.

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• Select the Linux bootable installation media from the Startup Device Menu.

• Select the “Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2” option from the GRUB
boot menu and press enter.

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• The Red Hat Enterprise Linux Welcome Screen should appear. Select the
appropriate language and “Continue”.

• Adjust the “Keyboard”, “Language Support”, and “Time & Date” accordingly
by selecting each one. Or, leave the default settings.

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• Select the “Software Selection” and choose the type of software to install.

• Select the type of “Base Environment” as well as each “Add-Ons” to install.

In this example, “Workstation” was selected for the “Base Environment”
and all “Add-Ons” were selected.

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• Select “Installation Destination”.

• Select the device on where to install the operating system. In this example,
the first NVMe drive was selected.
For AMD RAID arrays, see Section 3 below.

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• For storage devices with previous partitions created, select “Reclaim
space”.

• Select “Delete all” to delete all the previously created partitions or select
each partition to delete and select the “Delete” option. When done, select
“Reclaim space” button at the bottom.

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• Select “Begin Installation” at the bottom right.

• Select “Root Password”.

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• Enter a root password in both of the boxes below and select “Done” in the
upper left.

• Select “User Creation”.

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• Fill in the appropriate boxes below and select “Done” in the upper left.

• Once the installation completes, select “Reboot” at the bottom right.

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• Select the “License Information” box.

• Select the box at the bottom left of the “License Agreement” page and
“Done” in the upper left.

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• Select “FINISH CONFIGURATION”.

• Log in to the Linux Desktop using the login credentials created above.

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• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.x Desktop screen.

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Section 3 – RAID Array Installation
Please refer to the following instructions and screenshots on how to install
RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 utilizing RAID arrays on the Lenovo
ThinkStation P620.
Note: This is assuming storage RAID is already set up and configured in BIOS.

• Download the Linux AMD storage RAID driver from the Lenovo support site
and put the direct *.iso file onto the root of a USB flash drive.

• Insert the RHEL 8 installation media either through USB or CD/DVD.

• Power on the system and press the function F12 key when the Lenovo
splash screen appears.

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• Select the Linux bootable installation media from the Startup Device Menu.

• Select the “Install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2” option from the GRUB
boot menu, and press ‘e’.

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• Add the following lines to the end of the Linux kernel command parameter
and press CTRL-X.
“inst.dd modprobe.blacklist=ahci modprobe.blacklist=nvme nomodeset”

• At the “Driver Disk Device Selection” menu, insert the USB flash drive with
the Linux AMD RAID driver iso file into a USB port of the system. Press “r”
to refresh the menu options.

• Enter the number for the USB flash drive containing the Linux AMD RAID
driver.
In this example, number two was the option for the USB device with the
driver. Therefore, the user would input “2” followed by ‘Enter’.

• Press “1” for the number next to the correct iso file.

• Press “1” again to toggle the section for the *.rpm file.

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• Press “C” to continue loading the driver.

• Press “C” again to continue with the installation.

• The Red Hat Enterprise Linux Welcome Screen should appear. Select the
appropriate language and “Continue”.

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• Adjust the “Keyboard”, “Language Support”, and “Time & Date” accordingly
by selecting each one. Or, leave the default settings.

• Select the “Software Selection” and choose the type of software to install.

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• Select the type of “Base Environment” as well as each “Add-Ons” to install.
In this example, “Workstation” was selected for the “Base Environment”
and all “Add-Ons” were selected.

• Select “Installation Destination”.

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• Select the “AMD-RAID Array 01” under “Local Standard Disks”, “Custom”
under the “Storage Configuration”, and “Done” in the upper left corner.

• Select the link “Click here to create them automatically”.

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• Select each of the following partitions and change the file system type from
“xfs” to “ext4”.

- DATA -> /home

- SYSTEM -> /boot
- SYSTEM -> /rhel-root

Note: When you change the File System for each partition, you must select
the “Update Settings” option for each one.
When finished, select the “Done” option in the upper left corner.

• Select “Accept Changes”.

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• Select “Begin Installation”.

• Select “Root Password”.

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• Enter a root password in both boxes below and select “Done” in the upper
left.

• Select “User Creation”.

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• Fill in the appropriate boxes below and select “Done” in the upper left.

• Once the installation completes, select the “Reboot” option.

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• Select the “License Information” box.

• Select the box at the bottom left of the “License Agreement” page and
“Done” in the upper left.

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• Select “FINISH CONFIGURATION”.

• Log in to the Linux Desktop using the login credentials created above.

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• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Desktop screen.

• Disk Configuration Utility.

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Section 4 – RAIDXpert2 Management Application
Optional: AMD has a RAIDXpert2 Management Application for AMD RAID arrays.
Please refer to the following instructions and screenshots on how to install this
AMD management utility on the Lenovo ThinkStation P620.

• Download the Linux AMD RAIDXpert2 Management Application from the

Lenovo support site directly onto the Linux desktop.

• Open a terminal window from within the Linux desktop and browse to the
correct location path for the driver package.

• Extract the contents of the *.tgz file using the following command:

“tar xzvf 9.3.0-00180_linux_raidxpert2.tgz -C /opt”

• Change directory path to where the package was extracted to from above:

“cd /opt/raidxpert2/bin”

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• To launch the AMD RAIDXpert2 Management Application, run the following
command:

“./RAIDXpert2 &”

• RAIDXpert2 Management Application

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Section 5 – Setting up the YUM Repository
In order to download and install packages and other system dependencies, it’s a
good idea to setup the yum repository. Follow the instructions below to do so.

➔ Users with a valid Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription:

From within the Linux desktop, open a terminal window and run the
following Linux commands:
# subscription-manager register
o This will require a valid Red Hat username and password.
# subscription-manager subscribe
# subscription-manager auto-attach

➔ Users without a valid Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription:

o Open a terminal window from within the Linux desktop, login as root,
and mount the Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation media within the
Linux desktop.

o Copy “media.repo” from the installation source to ‘/etc/yum.repos.d/

directory.

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o Using a text editor, edit the rhel.repo file copied over from the
installation media from the previous step.

o Add the following text into the rhel.repo file.

Note: The “baseurl” lines below may be different depending on the

mount location to the installation media.

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o Update the repository source list by executing “yum update”.

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Section 6 – Installing the Aquantia LAN Driver
The onboard Aquantia LAN driver is not native to RHEL 8 on Lenovo P620 system.
In order to make your LAN working, follow the steps below.

• Navigate to the directory where the Aquantia LAN driver is stored and unzip
it.

• Untar the “atlantic.tar.gz” file by using the following command.

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• Install all prerequisites using the following commands-
o dnf groupinstall “Development Tools”

o dnf install elfutils-libelf-devel

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*Note: If you don’t have a valid RHEL subscription, install the packages above
from the installation media. This will require manual intervention steps to
modify the yum repository. See Section 4 above. Once done modifying the
yum repository, install “Development Tools” and “elfutils-libelf-devel” as
mentioned in the beginning of this step.

• Update the package list with the “yum update” command.

• Navigate to the Aquantia LAN driver directory and compile the modules
inside the “Linux” folder using “make”.

• Load the dependencies and the module using the following list of
commands-
modprobe ptp
modprobe crc_itu_t
insmod atlantic.ko

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• Unload and install the driver in the system using “rmmod atlantic” and
“make && make install” commands. Type “y” for yes for attempting
initramfs update.

• Reboot the system or run the command “modprobe atlantic” and verify if
the LAN is working.

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• To check your IP from the terminal window, run the command “ip addr” or
“ifconfig -a”.

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Section 7 – Installing the Nvidia Graphics Driver
In order to get optimal performance out of the Nvidia GPU, it is a good idea to
install the proprietary Nvidia graphics driver. Follow the instructions below to do
so.

• Download the latest Nvidia graphics driver for the appropriate Nvidia GPU
from here.

• Install all prerequisites using the following commands:

# dnf groupinstall “Development Tools”

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# dnf install elfutils-libelf-devel

Note: If you do not have a valid RHEL subscription, then install the
packages above from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation media. This
will likely require manual intervention steps to modify the yum repository.
See Section 4 above.

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• Blacklist the Linux Nouveau driver by following the steps below:

o From within Linux, open a terminal window and log in as root.

# su -

o Using a text editor, create and modify the following file

/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

# vi /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

o Add the following line, “blacklist nouveau” and save and exit the file.

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 o Run the following command to update the initramfs file.

# dracut –force

o Reboot the system.

• Open a terminal window from within the Linux desktop, log in as root, and
execute the command “init 3”.

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• Log in as root, change directory path to the download directory to where
the Nvidia driver was downloaded.

• Make the Nvidia driver executable.

# chmod +x Nvidia-*

• Run the driver executable.

# ./Nvidia*

• The driver installation should start.

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• Select “Yes” to install Nvidia’s 32-bit compatible libraries.

• Select “Install and overwrite existing files”.

• Driver installation continues.

• Select “Yes” update the X configuration file.

• Select “OK” to acknowledge driver installation is complete.

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• Execute the following command to verify the Nvidia driver is installed and
loaded.
# nvidia-smi

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Section 8 – Revision History
Version Date Author Changes/Updates
1.0 7/15/2020 Jason Moebs Initial launch release

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