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On 03/09/2021 17:32, comrade meowski wrote: > On 03/09/2021 12:44, fraser kendall wrote: >> Dell T7810 > > Nice: Dell Precision T-series are 'proper' workstations and they're > built and run like tanks. Very much my cup of tea, nice acquisition. > > I'll try and answer more generally with how I'd handle one of those > rolling up on my doorstep and please ask again about anything specific I > miss. > > https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-uk/product-support/product/precision-t7810-workstation/drivers > > > That's an older - but still supported - system so if you order that by > date release you'll see that Dell have pretty much stopped releasing > upgrades for it by now. Just a single release this year and only a > single BIOS upgrade in 2020 so it's in full maintenance mode with Dell > only releasing presumably security critical patches every now and then. > > This is good news from your perspective as unlike a brand new Dell > you'll have virtually no new firmware or BIOS upgrades to worry about - > I'd simply use the existing Windows 10 system that comes with it to > install Dell Support Assist and do a single pass to flash it to current > once and then bookmark the above link to the Dell page. That's you > basically done for firmware updating for the lifetime of the machine. > > With that out of the way, google how to extract the license key of your > Win10 install with a powershell one-liner, write it down and then blow > windows away forever on the bare metal... unless you specifically want > or need a bare metal windows installation. In which case nuke the > existing one for obvious reasons, grab a clean ISO from Microsoft and > reinstall to a separate SSD or NVME drive reusing your valid Pro key. > Don't arse about with partitioning single drives, it's a workstation and > drives are cheap: each OS gets it own drive. > > That being said I categorically would run that box on linux: it's super > well supported, has tons of power and you're already thinking of using > Qemu/KVM for VMs anyway. Just go that route if you need Windows. > > Make sure the system is setup correctly in it's BIOS. Enable all the > latest UEFI + secureboot options. Dell Pro systems have *very* > comprehensive UEFI/BIOS setups with every option you can imagine > available so spend a while combing through it to familiarise yourself > with it fully. It's easy to miss things defaulting to weird values like > memory timings. Workstation firmware defaults are usually setup to quite > conservative values and can often tolerate a fair bit of tweaking. > > Finally if you got one with a HBA then watch out for it - it might have > a Dell PERC or a LSI unit and not all HBAs are created equal. Generally > speaking unless you got one that can be easily reflashed to IT mode > you'll be better off ignoring it and using the normal SATA backplanes to > attach your disks. > > Anyway have fun, that's a cool machine! You might want to replace the > fans with some more modern quiet ones as well especially if they've > never been replaced and are getting old. Workstations can be noisy... > > Cheers > I run a Dell Laptop Latitude E6530 series with dual booting. Reason: I use MS Windows 10 (was originally a Windows 7 machine second hand many years ago) for teaching purposes nowadays. Originally used to operate with my then employers who were solidly a MS Windows shop with about 5000 odd desktops; with many then pirated copies (in sub-suppliers) and legal copies in use in our own P R China factories. Odd note: The Russian factories and sub-suppliers always ran legal software. Linux dual boot has always been on an external USB hard drive, with GRUB2 on that disc. So when USB hard drive disconnected it is a pure MS Windows machine. (Easy on updates). The openSUSE Leap 15.3 distro on one external hard drive is my main machine. A similar older Dell set up is my spare. I have used this way of dual booting for many years (say late 1990s) PS I *only* talked / exchanged files to 'odd' PR China folk from a Live Knoppix used with my Dell E6530 or its predecessors. Russia, Iraq , Iran not a problem. I have found this way of dual booting to be useful and successful. Demo units. Some older machines still active for my u3a class are: one on pure Debian, one machine dual booting for demo purposes Windows 10 & Ubuntu on internal drive, one machine on openSUSE only. Dell Latitude dual booting via external USB drive works well. -- regards Eion MacDonald -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG https://mailman.dcglug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq