Dell2950 & new hardware policy

[Calvin Browne]

Hi All

Just got delivery of two shiny Dell 2950's with 'PERC 5I INTG SAS RAID
CARD' and Broadcom NIC's. Naturally, I want to install Dapper (who
wouldn't).

Unfortunately - it seems you guys have problems supporting hardware that
is not yet shipping at release time ;-)

Anyways, here's what has happened so far:

tried the amd64 server image - hangs at reboot, NIC's not recognised
(apparently need bnx2 drivers/modules).
ditto for the i386 server image image.
desktop install works and reboots but then grub doesn't boot - seems the
megaraid_sas driver needs to be included (see
http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2006-August/026792.html)
hints on how to do that would be appreciated.

I'm busy downloading the latest firmware iso images from dell support,
along with alternate-amd64 iso image to give that a bash and see how it
goes.

Now my actual questions:
How could I include the bnx2 drivers?
How would one go about creating an image for Dapper that would work on
the 2950, and even get it contributed back to Dapper in some kind of
(semi-)official way?
Does the server project have a policy/mechanism for adding support for
new hardware, particularly in the light of the LTS commitment?
Would it help paying Canonical for any of the above?

TIA

regards

--Calvin