[K12OSN] *EARLY* Alpha of K12LTSP 3.2

[Les Mikesell]

On Sat, 2004-08-28 at 12:14, David Trask wrote:

> Now to the discussion.  Weird hardware is weird hardware...sometimes it
> works and other times it won't.  Weird hardware is not a good choice for a
> high need, high availability server environment...always go with tried and
> true stuff. 

It's not that simple. I've been buying hardware with Linux
pre-installed for years, starting back in the days when
the odds were against you installing on something untested.
I have boxes from VAResearch who changed their name to
VALinux later, then went out of the hardware business, and
from Penguincomputing that each came with a fairly current
RH preinstalled.  I generally blew away their version and
reloaded from scratch but I knew that there wouldn't be a
problem with Linux drivers to match the hardware.  Now
fast-forward a few years when it's time to update the old
and moldy OS.  Ironically, the VA boxes, probably used
as a testbed for Linux in the 2.2 kernel days, will not
install anything later than RH 7.3 except FC2, and there
you need to use the boot command 'linux acpi=force' to
make it work with that particular Intel motherboard.  The
older P3 Penguin boxes used the SuperMicro 370DLR board which
runs everything except FC2 which crashes in the installer.
The newer xeon based Penguin boxes come with RH9 preinstalled
but need a custom patch to the adaptec driver to handle the
latest controller so you can't re-install a stock RH9, but FC1
or FC2 work fine.

This is just the way hi-tech works, nothing Linux specific
here.  Keeping windows boxes boxes up to date is as bad
or worse, you just have a better chance of finding that
someone else has found a solution to a problem because of
the sheer numbers involved.  As an example, we've tried
to install windows on the Penguin xeon boxes and not even
XP includes the necessary adaptec driver.  Working around
this is especially painful because the 1U boxes don't
include a floppy and the Windows installer is too dumb
to load drivers from anywhere else.

---
  Les Mikesell
   les at futuresource.com