SuSE 10.1 on Precision 690 & 490

[John_Hull at Dell.com]

The original release of openSUSE 10.1 had a bug in the driver for the SAS 5iR that wouldn't let the kernel see the disks. However, this was fixed in the remastered 10.1 ISO's on opensuse.org. 

The Precision 490 and 690 are almost identical functionally, except that the 490 does not have an integrated SAS controller. It only has the Intel SATA controller. SAS is provided via an add-in SAS 5iR controller (for an extra fee)


-----Original Message-----
From: linux-precision-bounces at dell.com on behalf of Brian K. Whatcott
Sent: Thu 1/4/2007 10:11 PM
To: linux-precision-Lists
Subject: SuSE 10.1 on Precision 690 & 490
 
Recently a customer purchased 2 Dell Precision 690s for us to install our
software on.  Up to that point we had been using Precision 470s with SuSE
9.3 (and our custom application).  The desire was to have a dual boot system
(WinXP/64 and SuSE/Linux, each with a 160 GB SATA drive).

The install did not go well.  SuSE 9.3 did not recognize the disk drives in
the P690s.  The install DVD would start normally, but would not find the
disks.  We tried upgrading to SuSE 10.1 and the install still did not
recognize the drives.  

I then noticed that the P690s had two sets of SATA connectors: one set was
at the top-center of the MB and the connectors were labeled HDD_0 thru
HDD_3; the other set were located at the top-left of the MB and were labeled
SATA_0 thru SATA_2.  Both my hard drives were connected to the HHD
connectors.  At this point I tried moving the drives to the SATA connectors.
I had to go into the BIOS setup and enable the drives.  After doing that, I
verified that the WinXP/64 still booted, and then tried to install SuSE 10.1
again.  The install worked without any problems, and the dual boot works.

Since then I have done some more research.  The HHD connectors on the P690
use the Intel SAS 5/iR controller that works with either SAS (Serial
Attached SCSI) or SATA drives.  The SATA connectors use a SATA AHCI
controller.  Apparently, the SuSE 10.1 install disk doesn't have drivers for
the SAS controller, but does for the AHCI controller.

We are about to purchase 2 new workstations, for our lab, but we have less
space than the customer that bought the P690s, so we want to buy Precision
490s.  Does anyone know if the P490 has the same controllers (SAS and AHCI)
as the P690?  Or, has anyone had success in installing SuSE 10.1 on a P490?
Any help appreciated.

Request for Dell:  Please consider selling Precision workstations with SuSE
loaded.  I am sure that RH/Fedora is an equally good distro as SuSE, but we
started with SuSE, and don't want to change.  We are a small shop and don't
have a full time sysadmin.  I have to keep my sysadmin duties as simple as
possible, so using two distros (or even learning a new distro) isn't
practical.  I would consider switching from the SuSE retail distro (10.1) to
SLES since the admin differences would be minimum (and I know Dell and SuSE
would rather sell the more expensive enterprise version).

2nd Request for Dell:  Please consider selling Precision workstations with
dual boot (Win and Linux) installed.  I am as much a Unix/Linux snob as
anyone, but occasionally we just have to go to Windows.  Most MS-Office
files can be edited by OO, but not all, and then there are applications that
just aren't on Linux (or only in lesser versions--STK for example).  I have
been purchasing Precision workstations with WinXP loaded and adding the
Linux myself, because ordering a Linux Precision and adding WinXP would not
be practical (to my knowledge WinXP does not make dual booting with Linux an
option during install).  Perhaps virtualization is a better answer (VmWare
or Xen), but again with my limited sysadmin resources, I have chosen the
better understood (by me) dual boot approach.


Brian K. Whatcott
Senior Software and Systems Engineer
Millennium Engineering Integration
(719) 264-4310, FAX (719) 264-4318
(719) 331-5100 (Cell)
bwhatcott at meicompany.com 

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