Which distributions, kernels actually are stable with 9 generationservers?

Tue Aug 8 09:31:50 CDT 2006

I've run SLES 9 and 10 with Xen (sorry can't remember which versions) with 1950 and 2950's without any problems. 

-----Original Message-----
From: linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com [mailto:linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com] On Behalf Of Mauri Sahlberg
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2006 2:57 AM
To: linux-poweredge-Lists
Cc: Hannele Merilehto; Mikko Heinämäki; Lakomaa, Outi
Subject: Which distributions, kernels actually are stable with 9 generationservers?

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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/
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