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martin.gautier@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > > I've been asked to install Debian v3.0r2 on a client's server. It has the > following spec: > > Dual 1700MHz AMD Athlon > 1Gb RAM > Adaptec 3210c SCSI Raid (with 3 x 18Gb Maxtors) > High Point 404 IDE Raid (with 4 x 120Gb Maxtors) I've always taken the view that installing an OS on random hardware is always a bad place to start, how did it end up with this server? > Debian can't see either Raid Controllers. A quick google tells me that > debian doesn't support them directly although some people seem to have > been able to roll their own support. > > Does this sound right? Yes, it looks like both cards have vendor supplied drivers. > No mention of support can be found on Suse, Debian & Mandriva sites. I'm > off to check with Redhat now... > > Any ideas? Worth looking to see if Redhat, or other distro has the relevant drivers supported. The Highpoint one definitely was proprietary, so won't be in core Debian products unless it has been made free. Depends what you are trying to achieve with the box, I'd be tempted to replace the IDE RAID controller with a cheap one supported by one of the supported RAID cards, or just use software RAID instead. Because it looks like the card is only worth about 50 quid, and it'll probably cost that to put the effort in to make it work, and the core open source drivers like Megaraid will give you better reliability (the secret with free software is to use its strengths, such as using hardware with open source drivers maintained by the kernel experts). Indeed unless the card has a lot of memory there is a lot to be said for using software RAID, indeed unless it has more memory than the disk caches, you may be able to outperform it with software RAID and a UPS. Similar with the SCSI, you presumably have a SCSI controller in the box, for 56GB of space is it worth struggling, or would it make more sense to just slap them in as software RAID. If you do decide to live with the highpoint you can probably install the OS to the SCSI disks as software RAID (triple mirrored root disk maybe?), and get a working system to try integrating the Highpoint kernel module. But without a supported driver, you may find that you can't apply later kernel upgrades and security fixes from Debian because they break the proprietary RAID driver, or worse make it unstable. Don't start from here ;) -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe. FAQ: www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html