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I downloaded both latest Centos and Fedora ISO and burned onto CD using Imgburn. I then first booted up with Centos CD on my old HP DC5000 computer. It appears to boot to the CD just fine and gives me options:

  1. Install Centos
  2. Verify files and install Centos

etc...

I select Install Centos, it then goes to a blank screen. I waited over an hour and still just a blank screen.

I tried the same with the Fedora CD and the same exact issue happened, it booted off the CD, asked which option, even when I select the second option, same thing happens, goes to a blank screen and stays there.

Any ideas/suggestions?

Thanks

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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This happens often on computers with old graphics hardware. By default the system tries to use a 1024x768 framebuffer mode to start the system with, but this doesn't work with some old PCs.

In this case, you can select Troubleshooting from the menu, and then select Install <distro> in basic graphics mode.

Select Troubleshooting

Select Install in basic graphics mode

On some really ancient computers, even this won't work. In that case you'll need to do a text mode installation. Do this by selecting Install <distro> but instead of pressing Enter, press Tab and add nomodeset text to the end of the boot command line.

Add nomodeset texct to the end of the boot command line

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  • Thank you, that last one really helped. It allowed me to see the error message that the ISO I'd downloaded doesn't support my AMD chipset. It's anybody's guess why they couldn't tell me that on the default screen
    – UncaAlby
    Apr 27, 2018 at 2:33
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The problem could be that you are trying to install the "official" CentOS 7 distro on a 32 bit machine. In this case, you will get the "Install CentOS" screen, and after you hit "install" it will turn blank. This is because the official CentOS 7 is 64 bit.

To install CentOS 7 on an older 32 bit computer, you need to visit the CentOS Special Interest Group and download the 32bit version from there: http://mirror.centos.org/altarch/7/isos/i386/

The alternative is to install CentOS 6.8 32bit...

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  • I did download the 32bit version. I was able to figure out the text thing, but now before it starts the install it appears it stops with a kernel panic. So I downloaded version 6.8, it went further and right when it went to the screen to start the install, I get a message stating I dont have enough memory. 256MB is what I have, this is so frustrating when it used to be so easy in the old days.
    – John
    Mar 30, 2017 at 0:41
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    For anyone that stumbles across this: The RHEL 7 / CentOS 7 installer requires at least 1GB of memory to successfully perform an install, despite a minimal install needing less than 1/10th the amount of memory to run after being installed.
    – Gene
    May 2, 2018 at 16:30

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