[CentOS] Best Board Your Ever Ran CentOS On?

[Peter Serwe]

Jim Perrin wrote:
> On 1/16/07, Karl R. Balsmeier <karl at klxsystems.net> wrote:
>> Whats' the best motherboard you ever ran CentOS on?
>
>
> Depends on purpose.
> Desktop/Workstation: Iwill dp533 board has been very good to me. It's
> an older board, but it's been rock solid, and very well supported.
>
> Server: IBM x365's (and in the near future the ibm hs21's) are pretty
> much all I use at work anymore. With only a few minor gripes the
> serveraid cards are quite good, and with the exception of ibm's
> website sucking for locating the occasional driver disk, their server
> hardware hasn't let me down yet no matter what kind of load I throw at
> the system.
>
>
I have a bunch of IBM HS20 blades in two bladecenters, and for the most 
part,
they are very decent commodity (sort of) machines. 

Pros:

14 of them in 6U space.  Dual processor (Intel), hardware raid-1 that 
pretty
much just works, all the time.  Basic RH9-friendly (soon to be upgraded to
CentOS) /proc information about all kinds of groovy things.  Management
console *rocks* for remote diagnostics, bios upgrades, remote full lock 
reboots,
and a host of other things.  Initial buy-in is highish, but a full 
bladecenter is
pretty reasonable per-machine.  Seem to run 2.4.x (old RH9 stuff) decently,
I imagine they'll run CentOS fairly well, too.  Shared CD-ROM drive for
media insertion, that can be switched remotely or by hand.  Really clever
power redundancy options (see below, too).

Cons:

Machines use tiny little lam-o 2.5" laptop drives.  Big ass PDU that doesn't
really have a place to go other than the floor.  Huge loud fans to keep that
chassis cool.  Celeron processors.  Strange '2.5G RAM configuration'.
Non-individual Gb ethernet connection (*choke*).  Ridiculous Gb switching
module that you can install into the bladecenter.  Pseudo-clever power 
redundancy
options!  Why would I want options for power redundancy, for redundancy, 
all
I want is if one dies, the other one has the capacity to run the whole 
thing!
So-so tech support for 'enterprise class' hardware.

I also have loads of Dell boxes - a few racks worth. 

Pros: 

I like the newer PERC 5/i 1U boxes with a pair of 500GB
SATA drives mirrored and 4GB of RAM.  I like being able to
boot an OMSA/Knoppix CD off a random machine.  I like Dell
tech support for silver on server hardware.   I like Dell's pretty
serious support of Linux on PowerEdge hardware.  I like the
fact that you can talk to people who don't tell you to reformat
your computer when you're having hardware issues.  I like
the big chunky 8-drive backplane on the 5U 2900.  I like serial
console redirection from the BIOS.  I like the extra 'management'
ethernet port on the back.  I like a pair of dual core Xeon's that
appear to be 8 processors in 'top'.  I like the completeness of the
rackmount hardware, and the general sturdiness and build quality
of the 2900/1950 boxes.  I even like the el-cheapo 860's.
They have people on staff who have helped develop Linux.

CentOS 4.4 runs like a *champ* on the new stuff, we'll find out
in the next couple of months about all the older stuff.

Cons:

Expensive.  Way too expensive for what you get.  Support contracts
for 7x24 hardware replacement are ludicrously high for high-end hardware
that really shouldn't break in 8-10 years, much less 5 or 3.  I think they
should just warranty that stuff, and maintain spares locally enough to
get it fast, and not charge a fortune for it like it's a 'Best Buy' 
replacement
warranty on a new dvd player.  (39.99 on a $45 item).  Sales is a PITA
to deal with.  Takes forever and 3 conference calls to get everything
finalized, and then when you want a really simple change to the quote,
the prices are all over the map, like every go is a new round of 'Let's 
Make A Deal'.
Lifecycle on Dell Hardware can be measured in milliseconds.  They drop a 
line
of server hardware like Paris Hilton changes tapes in a video camera.

BROADCOM Gb NIC's!

No dual powersupply options randomly on rackmount server hardware. 
Not even something little and cheesy with two plugs (anymore).

Older PERC RAID controller support under modern Linux distributions
is a nightmare involving trying to graft a floppy drive into an old ass 
machine
that never had one, or the one it had died, but uses a proprietary 
interface.

/RANT

:)

Peter

-- 
Peter Serwe <peter at infostreet dot com>

http://www.infostreet.com

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