Auto detection

[Brian Fahrlander]

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dwnorman at rightturn-inc.com wrote:
> Let me try again; I believe that this will be plain text.
> 
> <P>I am looking for a distro that will install on my server, Dell
> poweredge 2400 with dual PIII CPU's, and auto detect SCSI controllers and
> RAID controllers.  Will Ubuntu (or any distro) do this?  I have
> used Linux quite a bit on the desktop and setup several "servers" on
> desktop quality machines, but i am in the dark with SCSI and RAID.</P>

    Pretty much, yeah (you must come from an SCO environment: 18 years
and it still requires special hardware.)  :)

    The way you'd go about this, is to look up the model number of the
SCSI host adapter and/or RAID hardware in Google, associated with, say,
"Dapper" or "Ubuntu".  This will tell you if there are a lot of people
using it with troubles, or if it's trouble-free, etc. Chances are, it
will.  Especially with the biggies like Adaptech, and a mess of others,
but it's always good to make sure.

    But keep in mind that, on the small end, software raid has a "sweet
spot", where it's economical, fast, and after a crash- less hassle;
maybe you don't really need it. Now if you're setting up a terabyte raid
for use with a nationwide bank to clear credit cards, skip it.  But for
most non-commercial use, software raid is sufficient.

    I like the arrangement with a single root disk (until Ubuntu gets
all this worked out, during install) and then /home and /shares (shared
media, etc) on raid1 or mirrored drives. It means that, should you want
to reload the OS, or change distros, the user data and music/whatever is
safe, and things are very convenient.

    Should a drive fail, putting a new one in there takes little time,
and all the while it's still working. Just plan the swap-out to later in
the day, and it'll require just a single reboot.

    Don't be afraid of *this* software raid; it's not stacker.  :)  I've
been running it for...5 years? A long time, now. It's very well
documented and behaved.


- --
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 Brian Fahrländer                 Christian, Conservative, and Technomad
 Evansville, IN                              http://Fahrlander.net/brian
 ICQ: 5119262                         AOL/Yahoo/GoogleTalk: WheelDweller
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