Re: HP and Debian "support" (was: Blade server recommendations?)
Hello Everybody,
I am interested in Debian support by HP too (if HP is Debian-friendly,
an easy install with all features on Debian should be a minimum).
I was introduced on December 2004 to Jean-Marie Verdun who is the leader
of the "HP Open Source Centre" project in France. Some output of this
interview below.
Ward Vandewege a écrit :
Well - HP certainly does NOT support Debian officially on their (blade)
servers.
JMV told me that HP put one or two years ago (I can't remember) some
drivers for Debian to download, but with no official support. Then the
hotline was flooded by people with various skills and various questions
on Debian. After some weeks, the .deb were removed (I hope I understand
well what JMV told me). There are no longer plans to support Debian.
In my experience, most of the hardware is supported no problem (if you build
a custom kernel).
Note : My experience is on ML350 G3 only (with SmartArray 641)
For woody, you can use Matt Taggart's (Debian developper, HP employee)
boot CD : http://people.debian.org/~taggart/boot-floppies/
For sarge, installing was straightforward with debian-installer RC2
My issue with HP is their tendency for binary RPM-only
software for monitoring the hardware.
I second this.
It's kind of important to see which drives are going to die in your raid array,
Sure.
and HP is not exactly forthcoming
with the necessary software that also runs on Debian.
I've heard but not tested that cpqarrayd is able to work with
the SmartArray 6 series. This software (packaged by Matt Taggart) is
available in sarge : http://packages.debian.org/testing/admin/cpqarrayd
Some of their RPMs can be converted with alien and then actually work; others
do not (like the ones that build and install a kernel module for reading out
the values from the hardware, sigh).
Actually, Kianusch Sayah Karadji has developped a shell script that does
the "alien + some tweaking" job. With this, you are able to use an old
RPM for Red Hat EL 2.1 to have the health management (hpasm, cmastor).
This is what I currently use. I tried to summarise this in a previous
thread :
http://lists.debian.org/debian-isp/2005/02/msg00022.html
As the French HP Open Source Centre is only 20' by car from my work,
JMV proposed me to come and spend some time with some engineers to :
- show them how to install Debian (woody, sarge), as they do not
know yet this OS
- as they have the source for all those drivers, work with them
to manage to compile them on Debian an test
- to put the results (source code, mini how-to) on the French HP Open
Source Centre website, and not on the officiel HP website
That sounded good to me as it was the beginning of some openeness
from HP. Since, I sent 4 mails and did one phone call. No answer
yet... I will try the phone one more time right now ;-) .
> I've suggested that if HP wanted more non-red hat only customers,
> they'd best get all that extra kernel code for monitoring into the
> official Linux kernel - like they do with the actual drivers for their
> raid cards etc. But that was where my conversation with Andy at HP
> stopped, I haven't heard from him again.
Very good idea, if someone can convince HP to do this.
Perhaps if each one on this list who uses HP hardware (ProLiant, etc.)
send a mail to a "key" person at HP.
What kind of "lobbying" do you think is the best ?
Do you know some "key" person address to knock on ?
Cheers,
--
Emmanuel Halbwachs Labo. de Photonique et Nanostructures
tel : (+33)1 69 63 61 34 CNRS UPR 20
fax : (+33)1 69 63 60 06 Route de Nozay F 91460 Marcoussis
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