On Thu, Mar 16, 2006 at 01:44:25PM +0100, Jaymix Mr wrote: > Those issues have since been resolved, and qla23xx is again included in the > > Debian kernels; it should be possible to install etch on such a system. > > However, it's probably worth noting that the stock kernel driver doesn't > > support failover unless you use dm-multipath or md/multipath, neither of > > which are supported by IBM AIUI. > Well, I will simply say that Debian is not supported by IBM AIUI ! Well, that depends. I'm told they won't provide any support for getting Debian running on a bladecenter, but if you're using their sanctioned drivers they will negotiate support contracts for the installed systems. > In fact all I need is the stable branch of the Debian repository. Here, I > only see three choices : > - Install Ubuntu and fall back to Debian (by removing the GUI and all > uneeded packages, then changing the source-list to sarge/stable) Since this means keeping the Ubuntu kernel installed, I don't see the advantage of this over using a sarge install image with a backported kernel. > - Install Debian etch/sid which should support qla23xx since Ubuntu does It supports qla23xx because the qla23xx driver is re-enabled -- it really has nothing to do with Ubuntu. > - Install Sarge and try to compile the modules from etch/sid and load them > from a floppy during Sarge d-i Doesn't work so well, because there's nothing in the installer to let you inject extra kernel modules into the installed system before the kernel package is installed. :) > What do you advice ? Again, I'd try Kenshi's kernel backport first. > Kenshi Muto's image doesn't seem to be based on Sarge It's supposed to be. Why do you say that it isn't? > The thing is I need the Sarge because I need its repository (more > particularly PHP4.4, Apache1.3, ldap3 and some other packages). Hmm, some of those version numbers are a bit off... Sarge has PHP 4.3 and OpenLDAP 2.2 (which supports LDAPv3, but so do all later versions as well). I would imagine support is a consideration for you as much as anything else, which is why I was suggesting sarge + kernel backport as a first choice instead of etch. > > FWIW, I'm also doing some work on a sarge-based BladeCenter install image > > for a client that include packages for the RDAC kernel driver, as well as > > the IBM-approved OEM version of the QLogic driver; it's possible that I > > may > > be able to make these publically available at some point, if there's > > interest. > Actually there is ! I need to be pulling out some sort of install that must > be working as well as Suze before the end of today ! Could you please give > me some more information about this release since I think it can be rather > interesting for quite a lot of people and compagnies I know. Please see http://people.debian.org/~vorlon/IBMBladeCenter/ for initial packages (source & binary) of the Linux RDAC driver. Note that in my experience, the RDAC driver doesn't work if you're using the stock kernel qla driver; you have to use the IBM OEM driver from qlogic.com as well. This makes it tricky to build installer images which support the RDAC driver, because of the mentioned problem with inserting extra kernel modules into the install process -- if anything, it's even harder when there's already a version of the driver in the official kernel package. My current approach is to build custom kernel packages which include the IBM qlogic driver as a patch; it would take me a while to gather all the pieces back up appropriately for distribution under the GPL. Cheers, -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. vorlon@debian.org http://www.debian.org/
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