On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 08:42 +1100, Glenn Corbett wrote: > All, > > I've got a Compaq Proliant DL590/64 Itanium (1) server, and was wondering if > anyone had managed to get this piece of kit running with Debian ? > I've googled fairly heavily around getting Debian running on this machine, > and there seems to be a couple of major roadblocks (and very other little > information). Seems like its either really easy, or no-one is trying to do > this. > > The HP Enablement Kit for Linux (which is mentioned on the debian ia64 port > WebPages) doesn't appear to work for the Itanium 1 DL590/64. I get partway > through the load process, and the system Kernel Panics and halts. I haven't > been able to dump out the exact point at which it crashes, it scrolls by way > too quickly. I can understand this one, as the CD only really mentions > Itanium 2, so I'm presuming the kernel on the CD is specifcally compiled for > the I2. > > I've downloaded the Sarge ISO's (debian-30r3-ia64-binary-1.iso), but seem to > be having a number of issues, namely no support for the Compaq Smart Array > controller. If I boot from the sarge CD's, the init process starts up ok, > however I get a number of "hda/b/c: lost interrupt" messages. It does appear > to work its way through them, however then doesn't appear to have support > included for the cpqarray (installer says it cant find a hard disk, > therefore I must be installing a diskless workstation). One of the suggested > fixes for this was to update the firmware, which I have done, but it doesn't > appear to have fixed the problem. > > I've also downloaded the latest weekly build from 3-Jan-05 of the IA64 > install. This install behaves quite differently. The system boots, it gets > to the page asking for the installation language and the system freezes. > > Another of the suggestions posted is to recompile the kernel with the > cpqarray support included and to use the correct "switches" for the Itanium > to resolve the "lost interrupt" messages. Being a bit of a linux n00b, I'm > not really sure how I do that without having the system up and running in > the first place. > > So, I guess my questions therefore are; a) have I really made a major > mistake from the outset ? b) do I infact need a recompiled kernel to fix > these issues, and c) if so, can I download it from somewhere, or does anyone > have instructions on how to do this without access to a running Itanium > system ? > > Slightly frustrating having a 30k dollar server that is doing a fantastic > impression of a paperweight. > > Cheers. > > Glenn I paid $400 for mine on eBay. :-) I did get one of the Debian Installers to work, sort of. I think it was netinst-rc2. The problem that I had with it was that when it finished, it did not have the right root device in it's initrd. I poked at it but couldn't figure it out. I reported it to Debian's bugs but I must have done it wrong, or they just ignored me. Oh well. The problem with the system freezing: It isn't really freezing. What's going on is that the keyboard drivers aren't loaded. I got around that by doing a serial port installation. -- Zan Lynx <zlynx@acm.org>
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