Topic: support for SATA drives

[kkauka]

dell sc420 server has  sata disk drives,
and  Broadcom nic,  neither detected.
thanks.
SME is  a  great  server.

[hkgonra]

That would be awesome to have support for the Dell servers. The 420sc can be had new for under $300.

[raem]

sme 6.5RC1 has some support for SATA & appears to be quite stable even though it is still at Release Candidate stage.
sme 7 (alpha 5 under development) does support SATA.

[wyron]

sme 7 (alpha 5 under development) does support SATA.

I can confirm.
I installed SME 7a4 saturday on two SATA-drives (software Raid1) with no problem at all.
MoBo: Asus P4P800-MX with SATA in enhanced mode (in Bios).
6.5rc1 installs too, but only with MoBo SATA in compatible mode (slow write-acces to disk (in comparison)).
---
Regards
Wyron

[hkgonra]

sme 7 (alpha 5 under development) does support SATA.

I can confirm.
I installed SME 7a4 saturday on two SATA-drives (software Raid1) with no problem at all.
MoBo: Asus P4P800-MX with SATA in enhanced mode (in Bios).
6.5rc1 installs too, but only with MoBo SATA in compatible mode (slow write-acces to disk (in comparison)).
---
Regards
Wyron

How stable has 7 been for you ?

[wyron]

Like a rock !
. . . But I haven't played around with it much these two days.
I'm planning to run an upgrade to 7a5 tomorrow, so I won't play around tonight either.

[jfarschman]

Hi,

  This is a really intresting thread for me because I purchased a DELL sc420 a couple of weeks ago.  It's a great box, inexpensive and opens like a clam shell.

  ??? - What path do be bet on ??? I guess what I'm asking is this... "Is the community moving (definitively) toward SME 7 or will it make a sharp right/left and leave any such installs unsupported?

  I want a upgrade path and would be interested on your impressions.  If SME 7 is the correct version than I'd like to load it up and get it working.

  Thanks.

[hkgonra]

Hi,

  This is a really intresting thread for me because I purchased a DELL sc420 a couple of weeks ago.  It's a great box, inexpensive and opens like a clam shell.

  ??? - What path do be bet on ??? I guess what I'm asking is this... "Is the community moving (definitively) toward SME 7 or will it make a sharp right/left and leave any such installs unsupported?

  I want a upgrade path and would be interested on your impressions.  If SME 7 is the correct version than I'd like to load it up and get it working.

  Thanks.

I just bought two 1420sc's.  
I plan to have at least one of them running SME server.

[sahosting]

Hi,

might be a dumb question but where can I download the SME 7alpha ISO?  I don't see it available for download.

curtis =)

[wyron]

Hi, where can I download the SME 7alpha ISO?  I don't see it available for download.
curtis =)

Perhaps the path is not the most obvious. But here it is: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/e-smith/devel/isos/

[chriskearns]

Some months ago I had purchased an SC420 for a customer, and had the problem with the SATA drives not recognised.

I got some help from cc_skavenger, who suggested to use SME 7. At the time, I tried SME 7 alpha 3, but when I added more SME packages I had major problems. So, I went back to SME 6.0.1, and added the redhat 2.4.20-37.9 kernel. I compiled in the 2.4.21 SATA patch , and also brought the bluetooth capability up to the latest 2.4.21 level. I also added in the tg3 modules for the ethernet card.

I replaced the kernel of a standard 6.01 SME install CD with the new SATA kernel, using part of the SME alpha 3 boot files (cdrom.img) to get an initial CD install working.

I had trouble with the installation on a pure SATA machine (the SC420), I could not get the machine to reboot correctly after the install (mkinitrd problem). I got it installed eventually on the SATA only machine with dual disks, by using the raid "failed disk" capability as follows:
1. Load SME SATA, dual raid disks. System will recognise disks, install all software, but will not reboot. Don't worry.
2. From the BIOS, disable SATA 1.
3. Load SME alpha 3, dual raid install on SAME, single disk, and make sure mkinitrd is run for SATA kernel. This puts the correct mkinitrd on the /boot directory.
4. From the BIOS, enable SATA 1. Reboot, and system will come up with RAID capability.
Raid will automatically re-build array with SATA capability using "recovered" disk.

Everything runs fine, after the initial install. I have 2 "undefined symbols" in one of the SATA unused modules, and of course a clean install would be nice.

If you anyone is interested, I can make the src.rpm and i686.rpms available (I was only interested in Dell SC400), but I have only 128K upload bandwidth. Any suggestions where I can put them?

Chris K

[jfarschman]

Chris,

  I don't have a good place to post things, but I'm very interested in your work and in getting th SC420 wor work properly.  Perhaps you could email me.  jay@hitechsavvy.com

[raem]

chriskearns

> If you anyone is interested, I can make the
> src.rpm and i686.rpms available (I was only
> interested in Dell SC400), but I have only 128K
> upload bandwidth. Any suggestions where I can put them?

Email staff@contribs.org and request a folder be created for you. Then you can upload them to http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/...yourname using ftp.

[dw9]

If anything else fails I can host some files

Just let me know dump@<remove>laytehpipe.com

[chriskearns]

I have received an account "ckearns" on contribs.org, and I have put the i686 rpms there, along with the src rpm. Not sure exactly where the ckearns directory appears.

I think the problem with the SATA drives not being recognised after the initial reboot is to do with mkinitrd.
I have compiled a replacement mkinitrd and put it also in the directory above. I will test this next week when I get another Dell SC420 with SATA drives.