Enquiry about Debian on newer machines

[Noah Dain]

On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 6:37 AM, Brian O'Mahony
<brian.omahony at curamsoftware.com> wrote:
> Has anyone got 3.0 "woody" to run on the newer machines?
>
> I know its old, but we have some critical stuff on a server that is now coming out of warranty. The idiots in the PD department are assuming that it will work on the newer hardware, and had *almost* purchased a new server, before I dutifully informed them that it was in fact a bad idea.
>
> So now they are getting on my case, trying to get me to figure out if it will work or not, and I have told them that I can't without trying.
>
> So has anyone done this? I really want them to rewrite their software, and stop using debian to be honest, but if it works, it works...
>
> B

I have not tried to install woody on new hardware, but I would
whole-heartedly recommend virtualizing the system instead.

The main issue with a woody install on new hardware will be driver
support.  The scsi/raid and nic drivers certainly won't work. I don't
think sarge (3.1) even supports a lot of the latest hardware.

If I had to give it a shot, I'd try transplanting the os onto new
hardware (via a live cd -  knoppix should work), chroot into the woody
install and try to install/build a more recent kernel from within the
chroot.  Even then, you'd probably have to stick with a 2.4 series
kernel, as I don't think woody can handle 2.6, and that's even
assuming you could find a 2.4 kernel with backported drivers ( good
luck with than endevor ).

I'm sure it could be done, the only real question is how much grief is it worth?

-- 
Noah Dain
"The beatings will continue, until morale improves" - the Management