Which distributions, kernels actually are stable with 9 generation servers?

[Mauri Sahlberg]

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Hi,

I have just wasted ten hours with 1950. I tried to install Dapper Drake
to 1950 and after some Googling managed to get it boot after install.
Then I proceeded to install Xen to it and it led into trouble. First the
grub menu.lst file kept coming back as an old revision without any
changes. Booting to system showed the modifications but the boot kept
using the unmodified file. And I know for a fact that there was no other
copy of the file available anywhere in the system with or without
modifications. If I did "find /boot/grub/menu.lst" from grub I got
(hd0,1)
and if I did "cat /boot/grub/menu.lst" I got the unmodified version.
After root (hd0,1) the modified version magically appeared. After using
this to boot the whole root-file system got corrupted and the fix messed
/etc/group with /etc/shadow which makes the whole system untrustworthy
and sends me back to the start. I am suspecting the RAID controller and
it's poor compatibility with newer than 2.6.15-23 linux kernels.

My question is: Has anybody managed to get a stable install with LVM,
XEN 3.0.2 on 1950 or actually on any Dell hardware having
PERC-controller  with Perc 4/IM MPT Fusion bios 5.08.07.07 (1855 blades)
or with C3, MSSR1, INTEGRATED PERC 5/I, MIN2/MAX2 5.0.1 (1950) and newer
kernel than 2.6.15-23?

We have just asked quote for several  new servers and were going to ask
quote for more. Unfortunately some of those servers are expected to run
XEN 3.0.2 and some Linux distribution for next three years. But I will
not dare to accept any quotes unless I can be sure that there is
combination that actually will work and that combination can be safely
updated including kernel. Unless I can be sure, I will be very tempted
to ask for a quote from HP, Fujitsu-Siemens and IBM.

Regards,
- --
Mauri Sahlberg	    Production Manager B.SC Phone: +358 207 44 2228
Pretax Systems Oy   Technology Evangelist   Fax:   +358 207 44 2201		
Pääskylänrinne 8    http://www.pretax.net/
FIN-00500 Helsinki  Mauri.Sahlberg at pretax.net
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