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skalet@linux.se
*nix forums beginner
Joined: 04 Feb 2005
Posts: 1
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 Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2005 1:00 am Post subject:
Debian (sarge) on HP Proliant (DL320/DL360)
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Hi,
I'm planning an installation of Debian (sarge) on a HP Proliant DL320 [1]
(with ATA RAID and 2 BroadCom Gbit NICs) as soon as sarge is officially
released (because I guess it is wise to wait?), but i am hesitating because
I've read previous threads in different mailing lists archives that mention
some problems when it comes to installing Debian (woody and sarge) on HP
Proliant servers.
* Need proprietary binary driver from Broadcom to get the NICs to work.
* Similar problems with the IDE-controller ([2]) as with the NICs (?).
* No support/warranty from HP (?), because Debian isn't a supported OS
according to the specifications for Proliant. Also Debian with HP
Extensions isn't available for Proliant (I'll guess it would be good if HP
Extensions was available?).
My main question is if the installation problems have been solved in sarge
since last time it was discussed (about a year ago [3])? Are there less
problems with i.e. DL360 [4] with SCSI RAID instead of IDE RAID (it didn't
seem so a couple of months back according to [5]? Or have some hardware
components/chipsets in newer versions of the Proliant servers been changed
so that there are open source drivers available?
Or should I completly avoid HP Proliant servers if I want an almost
painless installation of Debian (though my options to choose other hardware
than HP Proliant is unfortunately in this case limited)? The last question
because the server will be located at a different location where I am not
able to go and therefore I am paying the datacenter's employees per hour to
do the installation for me. I don't want to be ruined to get Debian (sarge)
to work, but at the same time I don't want to be forced to run i.e. RedHat
or Fedora because I am very happy with being a Debian user.
I haven't found any threads about problems after installation, so I'll
guess it's stable once it is installed? Except for possible future problems
with upgrading kernel (i.e. work with manual tweaking/installation of new
binary drivers, if there will not be any alternate free ones included with
sarge).
Btw, anyone here who have recently installed sarge on a HP Proliant
DL320/DL360?
Links to specifications and some previous talks:
[1] = http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantdl320
[2] = http://lists.debian.org/debian-isp/2004/01/msg00125.html
[3] = http://lists.debian.org/debian-isp/2004/01/msg00103.html
[4] = http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantdl360
[5] = http://lists.debian.org/debian-isp/2004/04/msg00158.html
Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Henrik
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botio
*nix forums beginner
Joined: 04 Feb 2005
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2005 1:50 pm Post subject:
Re: Debian (sarge) on HP Proliant (DL320/DL360)
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skalet@linux.se wrote:
| Quote: | I'm planning an installation of Debian (sarge) on a HP Proliant DL320 [1]
(with ATA RAID and 2 BroadCom Gbit NICs) as soon as sarge is officially
released (because I guess it is wise to wait?), but i am hesitating
because I've read previous threads in different mailing lists archives
that mention some problems when it comes to installing Debian (woody and
sarge) on HP Proliant servers.
|
Hi,
I've just installed sarge on a DL320 last week.
| Quote: | * Need proprietary binary driver from Broadcom to get the NICs to work.
|
no, the tg3 driver is used automatically from the start and works, but for
better performance you can use the bcm5700-source package to compile a
module package for your kernel.
| Quote: | * Similar problems with the IDE-controller ([2]) as with the NICs (?).
|
the "ATA RAID" IDE controller was not so easy as the NICS.
actually this controller is very poor quality, it doesn't do hardware RAID,
this feature is provided by the windows-only driver.
also you cannot disable the "RAID" BIOS, it's more anoying than useful.
but it kind of works with CMD649 driver, setting up 1 array for each whole
disk.
I've setup a software mirror (RAID-1) between the 2 disks with raidtoos2, it
works very well.
I had also some weird problems:
- sometimes I had freezes when booted the kernel with nosmp option, when
displaying hda geometry.
- i had to pass noapic option to the kernel to get rid of bad kernel
messages about interrupts, related to the IDE controler.
I don't trust this controller at all.
| Quote: | * No support/warranty from HP (?), because Debian isn't a supported OS
according to the specifications for Proliant. Also Debian with HP
Extensions isn't available for Proliant (I'll guess it would be good if HP
Extensions was available?).
|
you still have a hardware warranty.
btw, what kind of extra support from HP do you have when you choose redhat
or suse, apart from not be able to use another kernel than the exact one
given by RH or Suse?
I had some trouble to get HP agents to run on sarge, I finally only kept
hpasmd to slow down fans and get CPU temp.
HP sould really try to make this package less distro/revision dependant.
| Quote: | My main question is if the installation problems have been solved in sarge
since last time it was discussed (about a year ago [3])? Are there less
problems with i.e. DL360 [4] with SCSI RAID instead of IDE RAID (it didn't
seem so a couple of months back according to [5]? Or have some hardware
components/chipsets in newer versions of the Proliant servers been changed
so that there are open source drivers available?
|
in my opinion the DL360 is much better than the DL320, it has much better
components, scsi, drives hot swap etc.
drivers for Compaq/HP scsi RAID controllers are included in the kernel and
very stable.
I've installed debian without problems on various proliants and the DL320 is
the first one I find so much crappy.
| Quote: | Or should I completly avoid HP Proliant servers if I want an almost
painless installation of Debian (though my options to choose other
hardware than HP Proliant is unfortunately in this case limited)? The last
question because the server will be located at a different location where
I am not able to go and therefore I am paying the datacenter's employees
per hour to do the installation for me. I don't want to be ruined to get
Debian (sarge) to work, but at the same time I don't want to be forced to
run i.e. RedHat or Fedora because I am very happy with being a Debian
user.
|
you should take this decision after giving debian a try, it works well on
these machines.
regards,
botio
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botio
*nix forums beginner
Joined: 04 Feb 2005
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2005 3:30 pm Post subject:
Re: Debian (sarge) on HP Proliant (DL320/DL360)
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botio wrote:
| Quote: | * Need proprietary binary driver from Broadcom to get the NICs to work.
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I 've forgot to say that this driver _is_ free (GPL), it hasn't been
accepted mainstream because of the coding style.
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Henrik L
*nix forums beginner
Joined: 05 Feb 2005
Posts: 5
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| Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2005 12:00 am Post subject:
Re: Debian (sarge) on HP Proliant (DL320/DL360)
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Hi again,
On 15:26 2005-02-04 +0100 botio wrote:
| Quote: | no, the tg3 driver is used automatically from the start and works, but for
better performance you can use the bcm5700-source package to compile a
module package for your kernel.
|
According to [1] the tg3 driver stopped working in april last year because it
contained some code that it shouldn't contain and therefore it was removed
from (or the code in question was removed which made the driver not working
correctly in) kernel 2.4.26 and 2.6.5 (the ones shipped with testing at that
time).
The tg3 driver that is included in newer Debian kernels is in other words
back in function?
[1] = http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2004/04/msg11540.html
| Quote: | you still have a hardware warranty.
btw, what kind of extra support from HP do you have when you choose redhat
or suse, apart from not be able to use another kernel than the exact one
given by RH or Suse?
|
For a moment I thought, because Debian isn't a supported OS on Proliant
servers,
that HP would cancel the hardware warranty if something went wrong, i.e. after
use of some driver (that comes with Debian but isn't approved by HP and is not
included with RedHat or Suse) that in some magical way fried a vital
component.
| Quote: | in my opinion the DL360 is much better than the DL320, it has much better
components, scsi, drives hot swap etc.
drivers for Compaq/HP scsi RAID controllers are included in the kernel and
very stable.
I've installed debian without problems on various proliants and the DL320 is
the first one I find so much crappy.
|
Thank you for sharing your experience. I think I will avoid DL320 and use a
DL360
with SCSI RAID instead to be able to install and use Debian on a HP Proliant
without (too much of a) headache.
In another forum I've been in touch with another person that uses Debian on
DL360
(but he hadn't tested the DL320) and he too says DL360 works fine, but that
there
could be some minor problems during install (I'm waiting for a
clarification from
him). According to him there are less problems during install if I choose
kernel
2.4.x.
You write that you've installed Debian on various Proliants, does that also
include
DL140 (with no RAID at all)? Is it as much crappy as the DL320?
Regards,
Henrik
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botio
*nix forums beginner
Joined: 04 Feb 2005
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2005 2:00 pm Post subject:
Re: Debian (sarge) on HP Proliant (DL320/DL360)
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| Quote: | According to [1] the tg3 driver stopped working in april last year because
it contained some code that it shouldn't contain and therefore it was
removed from (or the code in question was removed which made the driver
not working correctly in) kernel 2.4.26 and 2.6.5 (the ones shipped with
testing at that time).
The tg3 driver that is included in newer Debian kernels is in other words
back in function?
[1] = http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2004/04/msg11540.html
|
hi
only the binary firmware part of the driver has been removed, but it works
without it, at least on DL320 NICs.
there may be a performance loss, things like HW error control may be
disabled.
| Quote: |
You write that you've installed Debian on various Proliants, does that
also include
DL140 (with no RAID at all)? Is it as much crappy as the DL320?
|
i don't know DL140, I've setup some ML350, ML370, DL360(G1) machines 2~3
years ago (first with potato then woody), those have always been robust
servers with very low maintenance needs.
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