[ILUG] Dell Poweredge 2550

[Colm Buckley]

On Thursday 02 May 2002 15:52, Rick Moen wrote:

> This would have installed directly:
>
> Debian woody/3.0 unofficial mini-CD (180MB) i386 images with 2.4.17
> kernel, ReiserFS, ext3fs, and about 280 packages (Ho-seok Lee):
> http://www.debian.or.kr/~alee/cdimages/
>
> At the first screen, hit F3 to see (Joliet-extensions) boot flavours,
> and select "bf24" (boot flavour for 2.4 kernel).

Aha, dead handy.  Thanks for that.

> The PowerEdge 2550 is a pretty nice little machine.

Agreed.  The Broadcom 100/1000 Ethernet is a bit nasty, and the SCSI
cable layout inside could be slightly better (the cables tend to drape
over the CPU fans in a nasty fashion), but I think it's among the best
midrange server boxes.  They look nice in a rack, too.

> If memory serves, the PERC3 is a relabelled Adaptec AIC-7xxx
> integrated into the motherboard (AIC-7899?).  In any event, pretty
> much any modern distribution should install onto it without
> difficulty.

Not quite.  There's an onboard non-RAID SCSI which is an AIC-7XXX all
right, however the PERC3/Di is "enabled" using a key chip and some
RAM; this basically switches off the AIC and turns on an OEM Adaptec
RAID - AAC964, I think.  CONFIG_SCSI_AACRAID in newish 2.4 kernels,
anyway.

               Colm

-- 
Colm Buckley : Systems Architect at NewWorldiQ
Personal : colm at tuatha.org | +353 87 2469146 | www.colm.buckley.name
Business : colm at newworldiq.com | +353 1 4334334 | www.newworldiq.com
German Army Motto: "Third Time Lucky".