<strong opinion=ON> It still isn't AMD, so it still ain't x86-64. Intel calls it IA-64 aka EM64T for a reason, it's not the full x86-64 ISA. So as far as I'm concerned, you're really no better off on a server whether you run i386 or x86-64 on EM64T -- especially for anything I/O intensive. </strong opinion>

I thought IA64 was Itanium only?

On 12/4/05, Craig White craigwhite@azapple.com wrote:

On Sun, 2005-12-04 at 15:47 -0500, Matt Morgan wrote:

...

I'm a fairly experienced RH and Fedora user and admin looking to try CentOS for the first time. I have lots of experience with Dell servers and I'd like to stick with them.

Although I'm sure it's not always strictly enforced, Dell claims that it won't provide warranty hardware support on servers installed with an un-Dell-supported OS (basically, anything other Windows, RH, and Suse). Are other CentOS admins successful in getting Dell to support their hardware? How does it work--do you just tell them it's RH?

Also, any recommendations for which Dell PERC or Dell SATA RAID adapters can I expect to work nicely with CentOS?

If, on the other hand, Dell gives you trouble for CentOS installs, and you have recommendations for other server vendors, let me know. In particular, one that can provide on-site warranty support in Toronto, Canada, would be great. I'm only interested in i386 architecture, by the way.

---

Dell is going to warranty the hardware - it doesn't have anything to do with which OS you are using. You can't expect them to support an OS that they don't support but I would bet that if the software issue is something that wouldn't change from RHEL/CentOS - they wouldn't miss a beat.

For the record, that is the opposite of what they told me. They only support the hardware when you're using a supported OS. Of course, you wouldn't have to tell them that you're using CentOS. So I was wondering if people had gotten away with that pretty regularly.

On Sun, 2005-12-04 at 17:27 -0700, Craig White wrote:

as far as they are concerned, I am running RHEL - no difference.

Unless you need to ship it back. ;->

as far as warranty, they have to warranty what they sell.

Now that gets interesting. Read your sales contract very well. They can force you to go to the hardware manufacturer if you are not under the terms of it.

as far as support, they won't offer OS support on OS's that they don't support.

They can also make things difficult for you. I'd rather reward a vendor that offers support for what I run, no games, no dancing around.

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On Sun, Dec 04, 2005 at 07:38:55PM -0500, Bryan J. Smith wrote:

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as far as warranty, they have to warranty what they sell.

Now that gets interesting. Read your sales contract very well. They can force you to go to the hardware manufacturer if you are not under the terms of it.

That depends, of course, on the "laws of the land".

Here in Brazil, if I buy something from Dell, they are responsible for it. They can't send me to talk to the manufacturer. Even if the problem is due to something the manufacturer did wrong, Dell would still be considered (by the law) the one that has to deal with it, since it is them who sold me the box.

...

as far as support, they won't offer OS support on OS's that they don't support.

They can also make things difficult for you. I'd rather reward a vendor that offers support for what I run, no games, no dancing around.

Well, they can always do that, of course. And that can be a serious problem. I mentioned the law on the previous paragraph. The same law states they have 90 days to fix it. And ick, having a server down for 90 days is not fun.

[]s

- -- Rodrigo Barbosa rodrigob@suespammers.org "Quid quid Latine dictum sit, altum viditur" "Be excellent to each other ..." - Bill & Ted (Wyld Stallyns)

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On Sun, Dec 04, 2005 at 07:10:55PM -0500, Matt Morgan wrote:

On 12/4/05, Craig White craigwhite@azapple.com wrote:

...

On Sun, 2005-12-04 at 15:47 -0500, Matt Morgan wrote:

...

Although I'm sure it's not always strictly enforced, Dell claims that it won't provide warranty hardware support on servers installed with an un-Dell-supported OS (basically, anything other Windows, RH, and Suse). Are other CentOS admins successful in getting Dell to support their hardware? How does it work--do you just tell them it's RH?

---

Dell is going to warranty the hardware - it doesn't have anything to do with which OS you are using. You can't expect them to support an OS that they don't support but I would bet that if the software issue is something that wouldn't change from RHEL/CentOS - they wouldn't miss a beat.

For the record, that is the opposite of what they told me. They only support the hardware when you're using a supported OS. Of course, you wouldn't have to tell them that you're using CentOS. So I was wondering if people had gotten away with that pretty regularly.

I never had to call Dell for support on hardware running CentOS (yet), but they never gave me any trouble with servers running Conectiva Linux (in the past).

There is a big difference between "I need a driver for my netcard" kind of support, and "My HD just burst into flames" kind.

[]s

- -- Rodrigo Barbosa rodrigob@suespammers.org "Quid quid Latine dictum sit, altum viditur" "Be excellent to each other ..." - Bill & Ted (Wyld Stallyns)

On 12/4/05, Bryan J. Smith thebs413@earthlink.net wrote:

On Sun, 2005-12-04 at 15:47 -0500, Matt Morgan wrote:

...

Also, any recommendations for which Dell PERC or Dell SATA RAID adapters can I expect to work nicely with CentOS?

If RHEL supports them, CentOS will support them.

...

If, on the other hand, Dell gives you trouble for CentOS installs, and you have recommendations for other server vendors, let me know. In particular, one that can provide on-site warranty support in Toronto, Canada, would be great.

Most Tier-1 OEMs don't want to support anything but a combined hardware/software solution.

Right, that is what they told me.

With that said, many Tier-2 and whitebox OEMs cater to multiple OSes. Several system integrators lurk on the Red Hat AMD64 list: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/amd64-list

I also mentioned decade-old ASL recently as shipping CentOS as an additional option to Fedora Core and RHEL: http://www.aslab.com

...

I'm only interested in i386 architecture, by the way.

Since Dell doesn't ship AMD on its servers, it makes little difference.

Although I wouldn't put more than 1-2GiB RAM in the servers. If you need more than 2GiB, I'd be looking towards AMD.

Thanks to everyone for the responses. When I said i386, I misused it--what I really meant to say was "PC-Style", as in, not Sparc or MIPS or whatever. AMD64 would be fine too, although in this case I don't really need the power.

I'll look into ASL. They may not sell exactly what I'm looking for in this case (a low-end, tower form factor server) but they look pretty cool in general.

Thanks, Matt

On 12/4/05, Joe Landman landman@scalableinformatics.com wrote:

Matt Morgan wrote:

...

I'm a fairly experienced RH and Fedora user and admin looking to try CentOS for the first time. I have lots of experience with Dell servers and I'd like to stick with them.

Ok, though there are some other OEM and tier-* folks who might be able to get you good hardware.

...

Although I'm sure it's not always strictly enforced, Dell claims that it won't provide warranty hardware support on servers installed with an un-Dell-supported OS (basically, anything other Windows, RH, and Suse).

Yup. Thats the way they play.

We have to be able to support anything our customers run on, so we have quite a few OSes going. We run our main servers on Centos, and our test/development stuff has a rather interesting multiboot environment.

...

Are other CentOS admins successful in getting Dell to support their hardware? How does it work--do you just tell them it's RH?

You might not like this, but you start looking outside Dell for hardware or hardware support.

...

Also, any recommendations for which Dell PERC or Dell SATA RAID adapters can I expect to work nicely with CentOS?

Well, I can tell you which SATA RAID works well in our experience under Centos, and what is a big stinking pile of bits. Our list isn't comprehensive (rather short). Whether or not Dell supports either of them is another story.

If you want to stick with Dell, you effectively negate any choices you may have for doing things in a non-Dell way. This is the case with most of the large vendors. That means, Dell approved stuff throughout the system. HP used to do this with their laptops. As soon as you plugged in a non-HP PCMCIA card, you could kiss support goodbye.

This has more to do with how Dell and others want to drive the cost of support (comes right off their bottom line) down by minimizing variables, as compared to what actually will or will not work, and working to support their customers doing things outside the "norm" or in this case, outside the Dell way. Not that there is anything wrong with Dell, just that they have to make choices about which business they are in and how they are going to go to market with support.

If you don't like their choices, you can complain to them, or vote with your wallet. If you stick with them, and you want support, you need to follow their rules.

...

If, on the other hand, Dell gives you trouble for CentOS installs, and you have recommendations for other server vendors, let me know. In particular, one that can provide on-site warranty support in Toronto, Canada, would be great. I'm only interested in i386 architecture, by the way.

If you include AMD64/x86_64 in that group, have a good look at the Sun machines (v20z, x4100, x2100). Their support is pretty good. We use their gear for some of the clusters we build for customers who need high levels of hardware support, or short downtimes in the event of a failure.

Thanks. I hear what you're saying about playing inside the vendor's rules. I just know that sometimes, you talk to sales people and they say "no," while the tech support people say "yes." And sometimes it's only because the sales people are kind of clueless and not actually giving you the right answer.

Those Suns are a little high-end price wise for this job, and it's a location without a rack so I, sadly, need a tower-shaped server (which Sun doesn't seem to sell). ASL looked interesting; can I ask for additional recommendations for "OEM and tier-* folks" selling hardware they'll support when I put CentOS on it? Again, this is for a Toronto location so someone who'll provide on-site support in Toronto would be a huge plus.

Thanks again, Matt