Re: Tyan Europe
On Mon, May 29, 2006 at 11:40:35AM +0200, Francesco Pietra wrote:
> Hi Karl:
> Read below the reply of today by Tyan-Europe to my further request of bios
> software (mail, to be seen below, to Tyan Europe, Matthias, and the debian 64
> list):
>
> REPLAY BY TYAN 29 May:
>
> >Hello Francesco,
>
> >We do not support Debian OS on any of our boards. If you are having
> >problems, you will need to test this again with a supported OS, which you
> >can find in the manual.
They probably don't know Debian. Or they only tested their boards with
certain distributions and consider any other distribution as
unsupported. That's pretty standard procedure, vendors are scared by
the plethora of Linux distributions.
Just mention "Red Hat" or "SuSE" instead, or if you want to see what
they support, only mention "Linux". If they do support Linux, they will
probably mention a version number, from which you will be able to
figure out what distribution they support (and which will also tell you
that it can be made to work with Debian).
> >---- Original Message -----
> >From: "Francesco Pietra" <frapietra@alice.it>
> >To: "Mattias Wadenstein" <maswan@acc.umu.se>
> >Cc: "Karl Schmidt" <karl@xtronics.com>; <debian-amd64@lists.debian.org>;
> ><support@tyan.de>
> >Sent: Monday, May 29, 2006 7:17 AM
> >Subject: Re: Tyan Europe
>
> The replay by Tyan (it is clear now that they do not answer linuxists outside
> Germany except when forced as here by becoming aware of a public request) to
> be in line with your experience in USA, although it seems that users in
> Germany are treated differently from those in US or Italy. German linuxists
> get even linux-specific software from Tyan Europe. It is also in line with
> youd addendum that your question was not strictly linked to linux. My initial
> request was not either: I asked about their raid1.
>
> Any comment from my side? I am lucky that accidentally Tyan KWE 2895 works on
> amd64 debian testing, performing raid1 with debian tools (thanks to the list
> for suggesting this route). I extrapolate that Tyan native raid1 does not
> work (otherwise while not telling me how to use it? it had nothing to do with
> linux).
It's not native hardware RAID, it's just a BIOS fakeraid. Don't expect
a first line help desk representative to know or even understand the
differences between a real hardware raid and a BIOS fakeraid.
See http://linux-ata.org/faq-sata-raid.html (nvraid isn't mentioned
there yet, but given that it is supported by dmraid it has to be a BIOS
fakeraid).
> Finally, If I had been aware of that poor situation by Tyan, I would
> have chosen another mainboard. I am not desperate anyway because should
> problems arise with the Tyan mainboard, I can afford throwing it to refuse
> and fit my opterons, memories and hds into another mainboard that does not
> disregard linux. Lesson: be careful when you order a mainbord, or use a
> superior OS for what linux can not afford (incidentally, who is the owner of
> Tyan? Do you know about links?). Don't be surprised that Tyan Europe does not
> request certification that it will not be used with linux: money open doors.
In my experience Tyan is one of the better mainboard suppliers,
especially for multiple CPU boards. The problems you've seen with their
help desk don't surprise me at all, it's exactly what I expect from a
first line help desk representative. The trick is to get through the
first line and get to the second line help.
Erik
--
+-- Erik Mouw -- www.harddisk-recovery.com -- +31 70 370 12 90 --
| Lab address: Delftechpark 26, 2628 XH, Delft, The Netherlands
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