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Keywords: ProxMox 9, HP DL380 Gen7, installer solved
How to create a small Data Center, Article 2.
How to install ProxMox 9.1 (and likely a few other recent but older versions) onto older rack-mount servers
It took me quite a while, over a year I think, to get to this answer. Not because I spent all that time looking for the answer, but because I didn't really ever find a good enough, or complete, answer.
So here's the problem: ProxMox 9 (8 as well, and apparently some late versions of 7) are different in ways not introduced by the creators (www.proxmox.com), and not detected by the creators, because they aren't test installing on older hardware (specifically HP DL 360/380 Gen 6/7).
What if you need to install on older hardware, for whatever reason? You seem to be SOL. This problem happens on HP DL360 Gen 6 and 7. The problem doesn't happen on Gen 8/9/10/11, because that's newer hardware, newer video hardware specifically, that does in fact include this video mode properly.
But you aren't SOL, although finding out how to get around the problem is non-trivial.
The problem is that while you can get to the initial splash screen and menu, you can't proceed beyond that, because the screen goes black and never recovers.
Why? The newer/est versions of linux installer attempt to set a video mode on the MOBO video electronics that does not exist, the screen goes black and stays that way. The installer doesn't detect a video mode failure, but it can't continue. This problem has nothing to do with a video driver, it is a failure in the hardware, there isn't a solution like "well just update your drivers" like you always have with Windows.
If you read widely enough online, you find a lot of comments to questions where people ask "why is this happening?" but not really much good in the way of answers.
So here's the solution (I did this successfully on five Gen 7 machines, and will be testing on Gen 6 shortly):
Before you even get to the install, make sure your RAID config is what you want.
Then, when you get that initial splash screen with the four-item list of install options, the first one is "graphical", and on Gen 8/9/10 this works fine, the second one is "Terminal UI" and this is the one you want to use.
The first menu option, "Graphical", is highlighted, so press down arrow to move the highlight to the second choice, "Terminal UI". Now press "e" (which in this case is short for "edit"). This is a hidden option built into GRUB. Deep in the background there is a file on your installer USB stick that holds a little "grub script" that is being executed to do this install. You can edit this script on-the-fly at this point and add a special codeword in the right place to cause the installed to not set this illegal video mode.
When. you press "e" you get an opportunity to edit the script, the line you want to edit is the one that starts "linuxvm". You want to move the insert cursor to the end of that line, hit space, then enter "nomodeset" which is the magic word that tells linuxvm to NOT set a video mode, but to just use the text interface.
Next press control-x to terminate the editing, that little script will get executed, "nomodeset" will get used, and you will get the "terminal UI" version of all the otherwise graphical (i.e., needs a mouse) entry screens, wanting the same info, and of you go, give the same answers, let it run. It will auto-restart, and if you aren't paying attention to that, you may end up back at the ProxMox installer screen. If that happens, it means you didn't remove the USB stick, so do that and reboot the machine. Now you're good.
You can now integrate this new machine, PM install into you cluster.
Alternate aspects: rather than have to do the "edit" to add "nomodeset" every time, you can modify the original script on your USB stick. This file is "grub.cfg" and you enter nomodeset the same place. This is on line 69 in /boot/grub/grub.cfg
I find this explanation on a Dell website, with no pictures, but apparently their machines have the exact same problem with some older models. I am not a Dell user, so I can't attest to the success of this, but it sounds right. I've lost that URL, sorry.
You can find plenty of discussion that is just "me too" noise, or partial suggestions that aren't helpful, or non-answers like "have you tried this?", and really no answers anywhere, except for some really peculiar magic keystrokes that sound like unique-to-someone accidents. My solution above will work for all.
So far I have used this on 5 DL380 Gen 7 and 1 DL360 Gen 6; my other Gen 6 seems to have some other hardware problem that is preventing me even booting the USB Stick; might be that this server is finally dead.
Here's the Dell link where I found the right words:
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