[clue-tech] Linux on a Dell PowerEdge 2300?

[Nate Duehr]

(Hmmm a song comes to mind... "The hardware in the Dell... the hardware 
in the Dell... Hi-Ho the RAID I/O, the hardware in the Dell"... okay 
with that off my mind... onward!)

Jumping in here with a comment... maybe helpful, maybe not.

I think I'd "do this the hard way" and get the box running on Debian or 
Gentoo or something else for a non-commercial environment.

Why? 

Once you figure out how to talk to your RAID hardware and what add-on 
kernel module you need, everything else is still "just Linux".  No drama 
about whether or not some odd-ball free version of RHEL goes away, no 
worries about timely security updates, etc etc etc...

Now I definitely would root for using something like WBEL or CentOS to 
cheat a bit and figure out what RHEL is using for talking to that 
proprietary RAID hardware in the Dell.  If that module is available from 
Dell to compile for other Linux distros, there's a good chance it's 
already out there on someone's custom installation media for just about 
anything you can think of.

(Hmm... "root for"... hahah... never caught that double entendre before 
when talking about distros... funny!)

You just need to figure this out once -- if the kernel modules RHEL is 
using are available under some more "Free" Linux but just not compiled 
-- and spend a small amount of time figuring out how to install using 
them and you're home free.

Once you do that, you're completely disconnected from the controversy 
and difficulties (whether perceived or real) of having to make all these 
weird decisions about these semi-commercial product spin-offs from 
RedHat.  Diddling with RHEL and derivatives could eat more time than 
simply figuring out how to talk to the hardware under another distro.

But I understand... either way is FUN to some extent, and plowing 
through all the options sometimes isn't very efficient.

Of course, if you have no experience with a non-RH-derived distro, this 
might seem a little scarier than my "just do it" attitude conveys!   You 
might be broadening your horizons more than I expected and on a bigger 
learning curve if you do switch distros.

Oh well, just thoughts.

An example: Last year everyone here was playing with Gentoo and I was a 
dyed-in-the-wool Debian fan from long ago... but eventually I gave 
Gentoo a try, and now I really like it on my laptop -- I still wouldn't 
use it for a production server, but it's nice to have all the newest 
toys and eye-candy on the laptop, and my fears about stability were 
pretty-much unfounded.  I eventually had to just bite-the-bullet and try 
it out.  Have done RH "and friends", SuSE, Mandrake, Debian, Gentoo... 
they all have interesting strengths and weaknesses.

Nate