[school-discuss] Dell Servers & Adaptec Raid

[Les Richardson <les@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[Forwarded by Doug; posted from an unsubscribed address]

Hi Cameron,

> We use Dell desktops and servers.  Optiplex series desktops have not been a 
> problem.  Poweredge servers have worked well until recently. Current 
> Poweredge 2650's use an adaptec RAID card for which the Linux 2.6 drivers are 
> unstable and slow.

Did you use a driver from the Adaptec site for this card?  (I built a 2.4 
kernel for a PowerEdge with this adaptec 'raid' card, but it hasn't seen a 
lot of load yet. It's going to be running a school division's Open Admin 
deployment... so you're making me nervous! (grin))

Les Richardson
Open Admin for Schools

> Dell servers using Megaraid cards work fine.
>
> On the server side the Dell chipset is screwy, they encapsulate the Intel 
> sensor chips so the standard sensors software doesn't work.  The only caveat 
> on the Optiplex clients appears to be with ATI GX300 graphics cards in some 
> newer stations, tweaking the Xorg config file was needed to make dual head 
> work properly.
>
> I haven't tried Linux on any recent Dell laptops.
>
> We have standardized on Mandrake 10.1, download release.  We do have a Fedora 
> install running on a Compaq ML5300, and I have also used Debian on some of 
> the Optiplex stations without problems.
>
> - cameron