Decribes install of CentOS 7 on the following machine:

Computer model: Dell inspiron 531
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual core
Graphics card: GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 (a2)

1. Create bootable USB
2. Backup your data
3. Install CentOS 7
4. Post install tweeks
5. Copy data from your backup
6. Install packages

1. Create boot USB

Since my old machine (identical specs) was running Fedora 20 I added the following package to Fedora: "Live USB creator"

Downloded the following file from the CentOS site: Centos-7-x86_64-LiveGNOME.iso

It was simply a case of running Live USB creator to burn the iso to the USB (Don't forget the USB is reformatted in the process and all other data lost)

So now I have a bootable USB with centOS 7 !

2. Backup your data:

If you are like me you have decided to upgrade and are planning on doing so with a clean install - this will wipe out all of your existing data., so backing up your data is important.

Two things you will need, if you do not already have them - I'm assuming we are all creating backups as a matter of course!

• External USB hard drive
• grsync

grsync:

Use grsync to write your entire home directory to your hard drive

home/"username"

This will include all of the hidden files that your apps are writing data to.

You've got to love the way Linux cleanly separates the data from the operating system!

3. Install CentOS 7

One last time - You're sure you have a complete backup of ALL your data!

Computer model: Dell inspiron 531
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual core
Graphics card: GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 (a2)

4. Post install tweeks

Since no network cards were detected by CentOS 7 the following rpm was downloaded to a USB stick: kmod-forcedeth-0.64-2.el7.elrepo.x86_64.rpm. this file was copied to the Downloads folder.

[root@computername~]# cd /home/<name>/Downloads
[root@computername~]# rpm -Uvh kmod-forcedeth-0.64-2.el7.elrepo.x86_64.rpm
[root@computername~]# reboot

Now we have internet and can continue:

[root@computername~]# rpm --import https://www.elrepo.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-elrepo.org
[root@computername~]# rpm -Uvh http://www.elrepo.org/elrepo-release-7.0-2.el7.elrepo.noarch.rpm
[root@computername~]# yum install gcc kernel-devel
[root@computername~]# yum update
[root@computername~]# reboot

The remaining problem was screen resolution (not correct) see "problem areas" below...

5. Copy data from your backup

From your external hard drive,  copy your data back over to the computer.

6. Install packages:

Many packages were not available from the CentOS 7 repository.

After doing many Google searches the nux repo has added many packages. In order to avoid conflicts the yum-priorities was also installed and the nux repo was set to priority=2

[root@computername~]# rpm -Uvh nux-dextop-release-0-5.el7.nux.noarch.rpm
[root@computername~]# yum install yum-priorites
[root@computername~]# cd /etc/yum.repos.d
[root@computername~]# vi nux-dextop.repo (add priority=2 line)

You can set priorities for some or all repositories. To add a priority to a repository, edit its respective file in the /etc/yum.repos.d/* directory, adding a line like: priority = N where N is a number between 1 and 99

The following packages were installed:

Thunderbird (copy .thunderbird) disable calendar
Grsync; redo source and destination
Homebank (copy data file)
Gourmet (copy .gourmet)
Bluefish
Filezilla (copy .filezilla)
Gimp

Shalbum (copy .shalbum containing shalbum.conf to /home/<name>)

Download the tar file shalbum-1.19.tar.gz from the internet and extract to /home/<name>/Pictures/shalbum

https://sourceforge.net/projects/shalbum/

[root@computername~]# make install Makefile

Printing:

Everything just worked when the printer was plugged in!

Problem areas:

Screen resolution NOT working correctly. This was a problem with not having the nvidia drivers installed (you should check the correct driver for your nvidia graphics card). After this I still had a problem with X Windows and therfore installed "lightdm". I also wanted the Cinnamon desktop instead of Gnome - see below for steps:

[root@computername~]# yum install kmod-nvidia-304xx.x86_64 nvidia-x11-drv-304xx.x86_64
[root@computername~]# yum groupremove "X Window System" (you might not need this)
[root@computername~]# yum groupinstall "X Window System"
[root@computername~]# x -configure
[root@computername~]# yum remove gnome-desktop3
[root@computername~]# yum install cinnamon
[root@computername~]# yum install lightdm
[root@computername~]# reboot

Screen resolution was corrected and everything worked as planned

Network:

Install The following packages:

[root@computername~]# yum install samba-client

This allows me to connect to the old machine running Fedora20 which is a samba server