Re: Suggestions for Debian Harware Vendors
Mark Lijftogt wrote:
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 11:12:30AM -0500, Jason Martens wrote:
Hey all,
We are currently a Dell shop, but are getting frustrated with the
lack of debian support available for our Dell servers. Specifically,
see these [1] [2] threads on the linux-poweredge list if you are interested.
1. http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2005-March/019671.html
2. http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2004-May/014689.html
I'm realy sorry. But the threads you included here don't state anything
impossible with either Debian or Dell including the OMSA compile issues
you stated as something that can't be resolved without any real hassle.
It is true that they can be resolved, but there is some "hassle"
involved. I am looking for a hardware vendor that doesn't force me to
go through a hassle to get hardware monitoring working on their system.
And, now I'm not aware of this problem.. but, if you look at the first
thread you pointed out as a reason to start looking for something els
because only RH is first class in this buissness.. it looks like, and no
offence.. you read the first 2 sentences, and skipped the third.
And I quote: "Neither Dell or Red Hat have taken up the torch to fix
this problem."
This is part of why I want to switch from Dell.
No offence, but this is a chase going nowhere. It just feels like you
want a piece of hardware build for a distrubution.. and change the current
way of "life". Now, I recall that there were companies that tried to do
that.. but never managed to compete with Dell, IBM, HP and so forth.
What companies are these?
What I miss in this e-mail is a well explained an documented reason for
this change and public chase. What are you issues, can these be resolved
with a mass install solution (FAI).. but most of all: are the problem
realy hardware related.
Ok, here is my reason for wanting to switch.
1. The hardware problems cited above with the Perc3/DI seem to prove
that Dell is not interested in taking responsibility for their hardware,
even when significant breakage has occurred. Yes, they did give
suggestions, and patched the firmware, but as far as I can tell the
issue was never really fixed.
2. I don't think I should have to apply work-arounds or go through a
hassle to get basic raid and hardware monitoring working on my system.
We are a pretty small shop, and something like FAI is overkill for us.
The reason I switched to Debian is because of the ease of management
that it provides. If this ease of management is canceled out by
painful binary hardware monitoring tools, then some of the appeal of
running Debian is lost. While I will probably use Debian anyway, I am
looking for the "least-painful" hardware platform as far as that kind of
thing is concerned. I don't care if they officially support it or not.
I just need hardware support from my hardware vendor, not operating
system support.
While much of the time, Dell hardware can be made to work on Debian, I
don't enjoy being a second class citizen to the RedHat, SuSE and Windows
users.
I don't agree with this line of thought.. but that's just me. It's
Debian that I run on an piece of hardware, and not the otherway around.
It's the support for Debian that can be up for discussion, but that's
beyond your line of attack according to your presentation of the facts.
Well, yes, but there is only so much that Debian can support in hardware
when certain parts are binary and proprietary. So, in some sense at
least, hardware platforms can support Debian by providing a mechanism to
get system information without resorting to painful binary monitoring
tool installations.
My question to the debian-user list is this: Is there another
vendor out there that supports their servers with debian as a tier-one
platform? I am looking for anything that can shed light on the
situation like mailing lists for other companies similar to the
linux-poweredge list, personal experience, comparisons involving debian,
etc.
Well.. why don't you start?
Explain to us what goes wrong on what level, and what you think you need
to do to get it all working, and we just might even give you a helping
hand on getting your problems out of your "system" (if you will).
Explained above.
I have some freedom to choose here, and I want to reward the vendor that
is the most open and supportive of debian. Finding that vendor is the
problem right now.
Reward Debian for creating an OS that you love to work with, not only
your vendor that compliments your procedings as a commercial or
non-profit organisation.
I will certainly reward Debian in the ways that I am able. I think the
attitude of "just make it work" is good, but it also hurts Debian
because vendors don't hear from us what we WANT in a system. They don't
hear that their customers are already running debian on their systems.
Telling hardware vendors that we want open, non-binary hardware
monitoring, then rewarding the vendor that provides it I think is a good
thing.
Jason Martens
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