Re: [CentOS] PHP package versions

[Andrew Holway]

>
> http://php.net/eol.php says that PHP 5.5 and 5.4 are EOL, but a freshly
> installed Centos 7 box, then fully upgraded, gives me PHP 5.4.16-42.el7.
> What do people do about maintaining current versions of software on a
> variety of machines?


If you need more up to date versions of PHP then these can be installed
using the Redhat maintained Software Collections repository.

https://www.softwarecollections.org/en/

I've been using this system for up to date Python, PHP and Node versions
for a good while and have found it reliable.
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[Keith Keller]

On 2017-11-02, Valeri Galtsev  wrote:
>
> On Thu, November 2, 2017 4:43 pm, Keith Keller wrote:
>>
>> There are Nagios plugins that can check the status of LSI controllers,
>> arrays, and drives.  The plugin is nice even if you don't use Nagios;
>> it'd be pretty easy to write a short shell wrapper that sent email if
>> the plugin status wasn't OK.
>
> Thanks, Keith, you just solved one of my problems (and I do use nagios, so
> life is even better ;-)

Fabulous!  Glad I could help.  :)

I think the one I'm using is by Thomas Krenn:

https://github.com/thomas-krenn/check_lsi_raid

It's pretty thorough.  It's a little too sensitive sometimes; for
example, it will alert critical for a drive that's rebuilding (e.g. if
you replaced a failing drive recently).  But it covers everything I know
of, including physical devices, logical volumes, and BBUs.

--keith

-- 
kkel...@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us


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Re: [CentOS] PHP package versions

[Gregory Orange]

On 2/11/17 4:50 pm, Pete Biggs wrote:

Yes, those versions are EOL, but RedHat spends vast amounts of money
back porting security (and bug) fixes from later versions into the EOL
versions so that they remain a viable option for the life of that
particular version of the distro - that's what the '-42' on the version
is all about.


This is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to hear. I'll take a closer look 
at this late next week and work out how to communicate it to the relevant 
people here. Thank you for the prompt, helpful response.

Greg.
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Re: [CentOS] modestly priced laptop for C7

[Fred Smith]

On Thu, Nov 02, 2017 at 06:34:06PM -0700, Alice Wonder wrote:
> On 11/02/2017 10:41 AM, Fred Smith wrote:
> >I'm looking to replace my (old, creaky) netbook (Acer Aspire One D255e,
> >a screaming dual core 1.6 GHz Atom, and a whole 2 gigs of RAM) with
> >something faster but not too large. Sometimes (usually) the netbook is
> >painfully slow.
> >
> >Something like a  hi-res 14 (or 15) inch screen (full HD), minimum of 4 gigs
> >RAM, HD of a half terabyte or bigger.
> >
> >I'd like to not have to go over 600-700 dollars, so I know my choices
> >are somewhat limited if I want to avoid the 400-500 dollar windows 10
> >junk^H^H^H^Hsystems from BJs, etc.
> >
> >Something with a quad-core processor, and all hardware works with C7.
> >
> >I've glanced at Lenovo Thinkpads on amazon where there are several
> >"factory refurbished" ones with similar specs to what I mention above
> >in the $500-700 range, but I don't know if they're any good or not
> >
> >I'm open to suggestions from any/all of you!
> >
> >thanks in advance!
> >
> >Fred
> >
> 
> CentOS works well on T-Series thinkpads but be careful of the video,
> some use an nvidia card which at least historically had issues in
> Linux that caused the battery to run down faster and caused the
> laptop to run hot.
> 
> T series thinkpads use Intel wifi that "just works" with CentOS - at
> least in my limited experience. Many laptops require 3rd party
> drivers with proprietary firmware to get the wifi working, which can
> be a pain in the neck when point release update happens (e.g. 7.3 to
> 7.4) because you then have to rebuild the RPM in the new point
> release or the driver won't work, and often that means downloading a
> new nosrc.rpm - which may not immediately be available.
> 
> Somewhere there's a list of wifi hardware that works out of the box
> with the Linux kernel, whatever brand you buy I would recommend the
> wifi device is on that list.

thanks, Alice, I'll keep your advice in mind.

Fred

-- 
 Fred Smith -- fre...@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us -
  The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, 
keeping watch on the wicked and the good.
- Proverbs 15:3 (niv) -
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Re: [CentOS] modestly priced laptop for C7

[Alice Wonder]

On 11/02/2017 10:41 AM, Fred Smith wrote:

I'm looking to replace my (old, creaky) netbook (Acer Aspire One D255e,
a screaming dual core 1.6 GHz Atom, and a whole 2 gigs of RAM) with
something faster but not too large. Sometimes (usually) the netbook is
painfully slow.

Something like a  hi-res 14 (or 15) inch screen (full HD), minimum of 4 gigs
RAM, HD of a half terabyte or bigger.

I'd like to not have to go over 600-700 dollars, so I know my choices
are somewhat limited if I want to avoid the 400-500 dollar windows 10
junk^H^H^H^Hsystems from BJs, etc.

Something with a quad-core processor, and all hardware works with C7.

I've glanced at Lenovo Thinkpads on amazon where there are several
"factory refurbished" ones with similar specs to what I mention above
in the $500-700 range, but I don't know if they're any good or not

I'm open to suggestions from any/all of you!

thanks in advance!

Fred



CentOS works well on T-Series thinkpads but be careful of the video, 
some use an nvidia card which at least historically had issues in Linux 
that caused the battery to run down faster and caused the laptop to run hot.


T series thinkpads use Intel wifi that "just works" with CentOS - at 
least in my limited experience. Many laptops require 3rd party drivers 
with proprietary firmware to get the wifi working, which can be a pain 
in the neck when point release update happens (e.g. 7.3 to 7.4) because 
you then have to rebuild the RPM in the new point release or the driver 
won't work, and often that means downloading a new nosrc.rpm - which may 
not immediately be available.


Somewhere there's a list of wifi hardware that works out of the box with 
the Linux kernel, whatever brand you buy I would recommend the wifi 
device is on that list.

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Re: [CentOS] modestly priced laptop for C7

[Fred Smith]

On Thu, Nov 02, 2017 at 09:16:48PM -0400, Yves Bellefeuille wrote:
> On Thursday 02 November 2017, Fred Smith  
> wrote:
> 
> > mostly portable email and browsing.
> 
> For that, almost anything will do, of course.

only if it actually works for Linux/C7.

My netbook used to be good for that too, but it is now so slow
I can hardly stand it, so I'm looking for a step up.

-- 
 Fred Smith -- fre...@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us -
   I can do all things through Christ 
  who strengthens me.
-- Philippians 4:13 ---
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Re: [CentOS] modestly priced laptop for C7

[Yves Bellefeuille]

On Thursday 02 November 2017, Fred Smith  
wrote:

> mostly portable email and browsing.

For that, almost anything will do, of course.

-- 
Yves Bellefeuille 
GPG key 837A6134 at http://members.storm.ca/~yan/pgp.asc
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Re: [CentOS] modestly priced laptop for C7

[Fred Smith]

On Thu, Nov 02, 2017 at 02:09:04PM -0400, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
> Yves Bellefeuille wrote:
> > Valeri Galtsev  wrote:
> >
> >> Not intending to contradict (if that ends up as pain, it will be
> >> your pain anyway ;-) but I would go higher with specs if you intend
> >> to use Linux on it. Linux tends to grow its demands for resources
> >> pretty much exponentially (same as Windows does, only from lower
> >> starting point).
> >
> > On my Acer Aspire One 522 (two-core AMD C-50 1.0 GHz processor with 2
> > GB of RAM), CentOS 6 is noticeably smoother than Windows 7. Windows
> > uses the battery more efficiently, however.
> >
> The reql question is what the o/p wants the system *for*. As I mentioned,
> I have my '09 HP Netbook (1101?), and I just loaded CentOS 6 i386 on it,
> and it runs acceptably. Now, once I switch the WM from *bleah* Gnome to
> KDE, or maybe something lighter, I'll be fine... but I only use it while
> traveling, for mail and browsing.
> 
> What *are* you going to be doing with it?

mostly portable email and browsing. if it is good enough it'll probably
have dev tools on it too for the uncommon occasions when I need to
build something. If it is good enough I may find other thiings to do
with it, but I have a reasonably powerful desktop also running C7, so
many of those "other" things are taken care of there.

Fred

-- 
 Fred Smith -- fre...@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us -
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of
 heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."
-- Matthew 7:21 (niv) -
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[Valeri Galtsev]

On Thu, November 2, 2017 4:43 pm, Keith Keller wrote:
> On 2017-11-02, Valeri Galtsev  wrote:
>>
>> If you have not Dell server hardware my choice of [hardware] RAID cards
>> would be:
>>
>> Areca
>> LSI (or whoever owns that line these days - Intel was the last one, I
>> recollect)
>>
>> With LSI beware that they have really nasty command line client, and do
>> not have raid watch daemon with web interface like late 3ware had (alas,
>> 3ware after they were bought out several times by competitors were drawn
>> down out of existence).
>
> I believe Broadcom now owns LSI.  LSI killed the 3ware line soon after
> they bought it, so the MegaRAID line is it from them now.
>
> Seconded on the horrific LSI command line tools.  Actually they have two
> tools, MegaCli and storcli.  They're both horrible, storcli slightly
> less so.  OTOH once you get your arrays configured you can forget about
> storcli (at least until a drive fails).
>
> There are Nagios plugins that can check the status of LSI controllers,
> arrays, and drives.  The plugin is nice even if you don't use Nagios;
> it'd be pretty easy to write a short shell wrapper that sent email if
> the plugin status wasn't OK.

Thanks, Keith, you just solved one of my problems (and I do use nagios, so
life is even better ;-)

Valeri
>
> --keith
>
> --
> kkel...@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
>
>
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>



Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[John R Pierce]

On 11/2/2017 2:35 PM, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

John R Pierce wrote:

On 11/2/2017 2:18 PM,m.r...@5-cent.us  wrote:

We have a fair number of SAS 3.5" drives, and yes, 10k or 15k speeds.

those are internally 2.5" disks in a 3.5" frame.   you can't spin a 3.5"
disk much faster than 7200 rpm without it coming apart.


Sorry, that's incorrect. I have, sitting here in front of me, a
Dell-branded Seagate Cheetah, 600GB (it's a few years old) 15k 3.5" drive.



if you take one of those apart, you will find ~63mm (2.5") disk platters 
inside, and an identical mechanism to the 2.5" 600GB 15000 rpm drive of 
the same generation, just sitting in a larger frame.








--
john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[John R Pierce]

On 11/2/2017 7:20 AM, Gary Stainburn wrote:

it's just a pity they're not compatible with Linux so I can't monitor or
manage them while the servers are running. The only way I know I have
problems is by watching the LEDS


I have a couple python scripts I've used for monitoring LSI/Avago 
"Megaraid" controllers, these scripts run the 'megacli' command line 
tool and parse the incredibly verbose output to generate a concise 
summary, and another returns true/false to be used in an alert email 
script run from a crontab entry.   I lifted these scripts off the net, 
and modified them a bit.


sample output, followed by the source for the two scripts.


# lsi-raidinfo | lsi-checkraid
RAID ERROR

# lsi-raidinfo
-- Controllers --
-- ID | Model
c0 | LSI MegaRAID SAS 9261-8i

-- Volumes --
-- ID | Type | Size | Status | InProgress
volume c0u0 | RAID10 1x2 | 2727G | Degraded | None
volume c0u1 | RAID60 1x8 | 16370G | Optimal | None
volume c0u2 | RAID60 1x8 | 16370G | Optimal | None

-- Disks --
-- Encl:Slot | vol-span-unit | Model | Status
disk 8:1 | 0-0-1 | Z291VTRPST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:2 | 1-0-0 | Z291VTKWST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:3 | 1-0-1 | Z291VT9YST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:4 | 1-0-2 | Z291VTT6ST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:5 | 1-0-3 | Z291VT6CST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:6 | 1-0-4 | Z291VTLAST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:7 | 1-0-5 | Z291VTK1ST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:8 | 1-0-6 | Z291VTNGST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:9 | 1-0-7 | Z291VTRAST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:10 | 2-0-0 | Z291VV05ST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:11 | 2-0-1 | Z291VTW1ST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:12 | 2-0-2 | Z291VTRLST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:13 | 2-0-3 | Z291VTRXST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:14 | 2-0-4 | Z291VSZGST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:15 | 2-0-5 | Z291VSW1ST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:16 | 2-0-6 | Z291VTB5ST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:17 | 2-0-7 | Z291VSX8ST33000650NS 0003 | Online, Spun Up
disk 8:18 | x-x-x | Z291VTS7ST33000650NS 0003 | Unconfigured(bad)
disk 8:19 | 0-0-0 | Z291VT3HST33000650NS 0003 | Failed

There is at least one disk/array in a NOT OPTIMAL state.


# cat bin/lsi-checkraid
#!/usr/bin/python
# created by johnpus...@gmail.com  on 08/14/11
# rev 01
import os
import re
import sys
if len(sys.argv) > 1:
  print 'Usage: accepts stdin from lsi-raidinfo'
  sys.exit(1)
blnBadDisk = False
infile = sys.stdin
for line in infile:
#  print 'DEBUG!! checking line:'+str(line)
  if re.match(r'disk .*$',line.strip()):
    if re.match(r'^((?!Online, Spun Up|Online, Spun down|Hotspare, Spun 
Up|Hotspare, Spun down|Unconfigured\(good\), Spun Up).)*$',line.strip()):

      blnBadDisk = True
      badLine = line
#      print 'DEBUG!! bad disk found!'
  if re.match(r'volume ',line.strip()):
    if re.match(r'^((?!Optimal).)*$',line.strip()):
#      print 'DEBUG!! bad vol found!'
      blnBadDisk = True
      badLine = line
if blnBadDisk == True:
  print 'RAID ERROR'
#  print badLine
else:
  print 'RAID CLEAN'


# cat bin/lsi-raidinfo
#!/usr/bin/python
# megaclisas-status 0.6
# renamed lsi-raidinfo
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with Pulse 2; if not, write to the Free Software
# Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston,
# MA 02110-1301, USA.
#
# Copyright (C) 2007-2009 Adam Cecile (Le_Vert)
## modified by johnpus...@gmail.com  08/14/11
# fixed for LSI 9285-8e on Openfiler

## modified by pie...@hogranch.com  2012-01-05
# fixed for newer version of megacli output on RHEL6/CentOS6
# output format extended to show raid span-unit and rebuild % complete
import os
import re
import sys
if len(sys.argv) > 2:
    print 'Usage: lsi-raidinfo [-d]'
    sys.exit(1)
# if argument -d, only print disk info
printarray = True
printcontroller = True
if len(sys.argv) > 1:
    if sys.argv[1] == '-d':
        printarray = False
        printcontroller = False
    else:
        print 'Usage: lsi-raidinfo [-d]'
        sys.exit(1)
# Get command output
def getOutput(cmd):
    output = os.popen(cmd)
    lines = []
    for line in output:
        if not re.match(r'^$',line.strip()):
lines.append(line.strip())
    return lines
def returnControllerNumber(output):
    for line in output:
        if 

Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[Keith Keller]

On 2017-11-02, Valeri Galtsev  wrote:
>
> If you have not Dell server hardware my choice of [hardware] RAID cards
> would be:
>
> Areca
> LSI (or whoever owns that line these days - Intel was the last one, I
> recollect)
>
> With LSI beware that they have really nasty command line client, and do
> not have raid watch daemon with web interface like late 3ware had (alas,
> 3ware after they were bought out several times by competitors were drawn
> down out of existence).

I believe Broadcom now owns LSI.  LSI killed the 3ware line soon after
they bought it, so the MegaRAID line is it from them now.

Seconded on the horrific LSI command line tools.  Actually they have two
tools, MegaCli and storcli.  They're both horrible, storcli slightly
less so.  OTOH once you get your arrays configured you can forget about
storcli (at least until a drive fails).

There are Nagios plugins that can check the status of LSI controllers,
arrays, and drives.  The plugin is nice even if you don't use Nagios;
it'd be pretty easy to write a short shell wrapper that sent email if
the plugin status wasn't OK.

--keith

-- 
kkel...@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us


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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[m . roth]

John R Pierce wrote:
> On 11/2/2017 2:18 PM, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
>> We have a fair number of SAS 3.5" drives, and yes, 10k or 15k speeds.
>
> those are internally 2.5" disks in a 3.5" frame.   you can't spin a 3.5"
> disk much faster than 7200 rpm without it coming apart.
>
Sorry, that's incorrect. I have, sitting here in front of me, a
Dell-branded Seagate Cheetah, 600GB (it's a few years old) 15k 3.5" drive.

  mark

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[John R Pierce]

On 11/2/2017 2:18 PM, m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

We have a fair number of SAS 3.5" drives, and yes, 10k or 15k speeds.


those are internally 2.5" disks in a 3.5" frame.   you can't spin a 3.5" 
disk much faster than 7200 rpm without it coming apart.




--
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[m . roth]

John R Pierce wrote:
> On 11/2/2017 9:21 AM, hw wrote:
>> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>>> hw wrote:
 Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4
 or 8 3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're
 *much* more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space.
 For the price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.
>>>
>>> I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives
>>> have been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and
>>> 4tb drives, ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too.
>>> Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).
>>
>> Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
>> everyone is doing about storage.
>
>
> 2.5" SAS drives spinning at 10k and 15k RPM are the performance solution
> for online storage, like databases and so forth.   also make more sense
> for large arrays of SSDs, as they don't even come in 3.5".    With 2.5"
> you can pack more disks per U (24-25 2.5" per 2U face, vs 12 3.5" max
> per 2U)... more disks == more IOPS.
>
> 3.5" SATA drives spinning at 5400 and 7200 rpm are the choice for large
> capacity bulk 'nearline' storage which is typically sequentially written
> once
>
We have a fair number of SAS 3.5" drives, and yes, 10k or 15k speeds.

mark

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Re: [CentOS] modestly priced laptop for C7

[m . roth]

Valeri Galtsev wrote:
>
> On Thu, November 2, 2017 2:41 pm, Yves Bellefeuille wrote:
>> Valeri Galtsev  wrote:
>>
>>>  And you are talking about 8 years old system on what would be called
>>>  decent hardware about the same 8 years back, right?
>>
>> The hardware is 6 years old and, at the time, Tech Report called it
>> "the best netbook we've ever tested". So it was quite good (for a
>> netbook) at the time.
>>
>> Everything depends on the OP's intended use, of course. I just wanted
>> to disagree that you need better hardware for Linux than for Windows,
>> or at least for CentOS 6 than Windows 7.
>
> No I never intended to say you need better hardware for Linux than for
> Windows. It is opposite in my opinion, but both these systems pace at
> similar curve with their demands. To the contrary to Windows and Linux,
> FreeBSD has much slower increase in demands, namely, when Linux and
> Windows go up about hardware specs about exponentially, FreeBSD goes much
> closer to linear. And therefore, I would predict that the laptop with the
> specs of OP will nicely run FreeBSD in 7 years, whereas it will feel slow,
> obsolete etc in about 3 (maybe 4) years if one runs latest Linux or MS
> Windows on it then.
>
> I hope, this time I finally managed to make myself clear ;-)
>
> Valeri
> [The guy who runs hardware for 7-9 years, sometimes longer]

Wimp. We just surplssed, earlier this year, our old supercomputer, an SGI
Altrix 3000 circa 2003. (To be fair, it was only fired up a few
times a year, so that one software maintainer could build for
collaborators around the wolrd with old hardware.)

  mark

  mark

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[John R Pierce]

On 11/2/2017 9:21 AM, hw wrote:

Richard Zimmerman wrote:

hw wrote:
Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 
or 8 3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're 
*much* more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. 
For the price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.


I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives 
have been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 
4tb drives, ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too. 
Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).


Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
everyone is doing about storage. 



2.5" SAS drives spinning at 10k and 15k RPM are the performance solution 
for online storage, like databases and so forth.   also make more sense 
for large arrays of SSDs, as they don't even come in 3.5".    With 2.5" 
you can pack more disks per U (24-25 2.5" per 2U face, vs 12 3.5" max 
per 2U)... more disks == more IOPS.


3.5" SATA drives spinning at 5400 and 7200 rpm are the choice for large 
capacity bulk 'nearline' storage which is typically sequentially written 
once




--
john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz

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Re: [CentOS] HP laptops with CentOS 7?

[John R Pierce]

On 11/2/2017 8:35 AM, Ian Pilcher wrote:

I'm very happy with my Dell Precision 5520 "developer edition".  It
shipped with Ubuntu and runs Fedora pretty much flawlessly.  I haven't
tried CentOS, but Dell claims that RHEL support on their spec sheet, so
I would expect it to work well.

Dell also have the XPS 13 "developer edition" for those looking for a
smaller footprint. 



i forget the distro offhand, but someone has a latest-and-greatest 
kernel for CentOS 6 & 7 which greatly helps with modern hardware support.


--
john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz

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Re: [CentOS] modestly priced laptop for C7

[Valeri Galtsev]

On Thu, November 2, 2017 2:41 pm, Yves Bellefeuille wrote:
> Valeri Galtsev  wrote:
>
>>  And you are talking about 8 years old system on what would be called
>>  decent hardware about the same 8 years back, right?
>
> The hardware is 6 years old and, at the time, Tech Report called it
> "the best netbook we've ever tested". So it was quite good (for a
> netbook) at the time.
>
> Everything depends on the OP's intended use, of course. I just wanted
> to disagree that you need better hardware for Linux than for Windows,
> or at least for CentOS 6 than Windows 7.

No I never intended to say you need better hardware for Linux than for
Windows. It is opposite in my opinion, but both these systems pace at
similar curve with their demands. To the contrary to Windows and Linux,
FreeBSD has much slower increase in demands, namely, when Linux and
Windows go up about hardware specs about exponentially, FreeBSD goes much
closer to linear. And therefore, I would predict that the laptop with the
specs of OP will nicely run FreeBSD in 7 years, whereas it will feel slow,
obsolete etc in about 3 (maybe 4) years if one runs latest Linux or MS
Windows on it then.

I hope, this time I finally managed to make myself clear ;-)

Valeri
[The guy who runs hardware for 7-9 years, sometimes longer]

>
> --
> Yves Bellefeuille
> 
>
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Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247

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Re: [CentOS] modestly priced laptop for C7

[Leroy Tennison]

And I agree too, running Kubuntu 14.04 LTS on an HP Pavilion dv7 is acceptable, 
running Windows 7 was dog slow - hard drive crashed and we lost the Windoze 
license, sad story, all I could do was install Linux and go on instead of 
dual-booting when I needed Windoze - such a shame :-) :-) :-)

- Original Message -
From: "Yves Bellefeuille" 
To: "centos" 
Sent: Thursday, November 2, 2017 2:41:03 PM
Subject: Re: [CentOS] modestly priced laptop for C7

Valeri Galtsev  wrote:

>  And you are talking about 8 years old system on what would be called
>  decent hardware about the same 8 years back, right?

The hardware is 6 years old and, at the time, Tech Report called it
"the best netbook we've ever tested". So it was quite good (for a
netbook) at the time.

Everything depends on the OP's intended use, of course. I just wanted
to disagree that you need better hardware for Linux than for Windows,
or at least for CentOS 6 than Windows 7.

-- 
Yves Bellefeuille


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Re: [CentOS] modestly priced laptop for C7

[Yves Bellefeuille]

Valeri Galtsev  wrote:

>  And you are talking about 8 years old system on what would be called
>  decent hardware about the same 8 years back, right?

The hardware is 6 years old and, at the time, Tech Report called it
"the best netbook we've ever tested". So it was quite good (for a
netbook) at the time.

Everything depends on the OP's intended use, of course. I just wanted
to disagree that you need better hardware for Linux than for Windows,
or at least for CentOS 6 than Windows 7.

-- 
Yves Bellefeuille


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Re: [CentOS] modestly priced laptop for C7

[Valeri Galtsev]

On Thu, November 2, 2017 1:03 pm, Yves Bellefeuille wrote:
> Valeri Galtsev  wrote:
>
>> Not intending to contradict (if that ends up as pain, it will be
>> your pain anyway ;-) but I would go higher with specs if you intend
>> to use Linux on it. Linux tends to grow its demands for resources
>> pretty much exponentially (same as Windows does, only from lower
>> starting point).
>
> On my Acer Aspire One 522 (two-core AMD C-50 1.0 GHz processor with 2
> GB of RAM), CentOS 6 is noticeably smoother than Windows 7. Windows
> uses the battery more efficiently, however.

And you are talking about 8 years old system on what would be called
decent hardware about the same 8 years back, right?

Valeri

>
> --
> Yves Bellefeuille
> 
>
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Sr System Administrator
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Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247

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Re: [CentOS] modestly priced laptop for C7

[m . roth]

Yves Bellefeuille wrote:
> Valeri Galtsev  wrote:
>
>> Not intending to contradict (if that ends up as pain, it will be
>> your pain anyway ;-) but I would go higher with specs if you intend
>> to use Linux on it. Linux tends to grow its demands for resources
>> pretty much exponentially (same as Windows does, only from lower
>> starting point).
>
> On my Acer Aspire One 522 (two-core AMD C-50 1.0 GHz processor with 2
> GB of RAM), CentOS 6 is noticeably smoother than Windows 7. Windows
> uses the battery more efficiently, however.
>
The reql question is what the o/p wants the system *for*. As I mentioned,
I have my '09 HP Netbook (1101?), and I just loaded CentOS 6 i386 on it,
and it runs acceptably. Now, once I switch the WM from *bleah* Gnome to
KDE, or maybe something lighter, I'll be fine... but I only use it while
traveling, for mail and browsing.

What *are* you going to be doing with it?

   mark

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Re: [CentOS] Centos and xen network bridge issue

[Scott Gennari]

On 11/01/2017 03:06 PM, Gordon Messmer wrote:

On 11/01/2017 07:55 AM, Scott Gennari wrote:

/etc/xen/scripts/network-bridge-pcl

#/bin/sh

dir=$(dirname "$0")
"$dir/network-bridge" "$@" vifnum=1 netdev=eth2 bridge=xen-dmz2
"$dir/network-bridge" "$@" vifnum=3 netdev=eth0 bridge=xen-dmz1



Do you get any error output when you run:

/etc/xen/scripts/network-bridge vifnum=1 netdev=eth2 bridge=xen-dmz2

If not, try:

bash -x /etc/xen/scripts/network-bridge vifnum=1 netdev=eth2 
bridge=xen-dmz2


And if all else fails, set up a bridged interface by hand:

brctl addbr xen-dmz2
ip link set dev eth2 up
brctl addif xen-dmz2 eth2

--


Hi Gordon,

Thanks for this, I was able to get xen-dmz1 & 2 setup using the manual 
method you described and get the domain/guests back online.


Much appreciated,
Scott

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Re: [CentOS] modestly priced laptop for C7

[Yves Bellefeuille]

Valeri Galtsev  wrote:

> Not intending to contradict (if that ends up as pain, it will be
> your pain anyway ;-) but I would go higher with specs if you intend
> to use Linux on it. Linux tends to grow its demands for resources
> pretty much exponentially (same as Windows does, only from lower
> starting point).

On my Acer Aspire One 522 (two-core AMD C-50 1.0 GHz processor with 2
GB of RAM), CentOS 6 is noticeably smoother than Windows 7. Windows
uses the battery more efficiently, however.

-- 
Yves Bellefeuille


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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[m . roth]

Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>>Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
>> everyone is doing about storage.
>
> The DL20 gen9 I bought was setup LFF (3.5")
>
> The DL380 gen9 could be either SFF (2.5) or LFF. I had to buy SFF for our
> new server due I was told to spec / build it exact to vendor
> recommendation.
>
> To better? Answer this. Agreed, I'm not a fanboy of 2.5" stuff in
> enterprise equipment. To me a better but more costly answer would be setup
> a LFF SAN server and go from there.
>
> My employer is a SMB (60 people?) and our storage is exploding at times.
> SAN's can give more economical storage and flexibility. Especially since
> were considering fail-over scenarios for not only our Windows ERP software
> but our all Linux based :) file servers.
>
Storage Ok, I'll give a plug to one of our favorite vendors: AC,
who manufacture JetStor.They're RAID appliances, very nice internal
webserver to manages, and yes, it can send emails. The prices are *very*
reasonable, cheaper than Dell, or HP, or even NetApp. Lessee, we just
bought a couple, one for a new system, one for a backup thereof. Each of
them ran just over $12k, with 12 10TB SAS drives, and a DAS card. And they
are both reliable and *last*. We did just finally retire the one pair that
had a true SCSI connection

   mark

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Re: [CentOS] EXTERNAL: modestly priced laptop for C7

[Wells, Roger K.]

On 11/02/2017 01:42 PM, Fred Smith wrote:

I'm looking to replace my (old, creaky) netbook (Acer Aspire One D255e,
a screaming dual core 1.6 GHz Atom, and a whole 2 gigs of RAM) with
something faster but not too large. Sometimes (usually) the netbook is
painfully slow.

Something like a  hi-res 14 (or 15) inch screen (full HD), minimum of 4 gigs
RAM, HD of a half terabyte or bigger.

I'd like to not have to go over 600-700 dollars, so I know my choices
are somewhat limited if I want to avoid the 400-500 dollar windows 10
junk^H^H^H^Hsystems from BJs, etc.

Something with a quad-core processor, and all hardware works with C7.

I've glanced at Lenovo Thinkpads on amazon where there are several
"factory refurbished" ones with similar specs to what I mention above
in the $500-700 range, but I don't know if they're any good or not

I'm open to suggestions from any/all of you!

thanks in advance!

Fred

I have been running Linux, mostly Redhat flavors, for a long time mostly 
on Thinkpads but some other IBM/Lenovo laptops for a long time.
Never have had a problem.  Currently running Fedora 26 on a X260, two 
with Centos 7.4, X200 & X220, all used for software development.

HTH

--
Roger Wells, P.E.
leidos
221 Third St
Newport, RI 02840
401-847-4210 (voice)
401-849-1585 (fax)
roger.k.we...@leidos.com

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Re: [CentOS] modestly priced laptop for C7

[Valeri Galtsev]

On Thu, November 2, 2017 12:41 pm, Fred Smith wrote:
> I'm looking to replace my (old, creaky) netbook (Acer Aspire One D255e,
> a screaming dual core 1.6 GHz Atom, and a whole 2 gigs of RAM) with
> something faster but not too large. Sometimes (usually) the netbook is
> painfully slow.
>
> Something like a  hi-res 14 (or 15) inch screen (full HD), minimum of 4
> gigs
> RAM, HD of a half terabyte or bigger.

Not intending to contradict (if that ends up as pain, it will be your pain
anyway ;-) but I would go higher with specs if you intend to use Linux on
it. Linux tends to grow its demands for resources pretty much
exponentially (same as Windows does, only from lower starting point). It
is so during last decade and a half. Consistently. If you decide to run
FreeBSD on the laptop, then these specs will be OK (in my estimate) for
some 5-7 years, as FreeBSD's demands to hardware grow much slower, not
quite linear but close to it than to exponent or even power law.

>
> I'd like to not have to go over 600-700 dollars, so I know my choices
> are somewhat limited if I want to avoid the 400-500 dollar windows 10
> junk^H^H^H^Hsystems from BJs, etc.
>
> Something with a quad-core processor, and all hardware works with C7.
>
> I've glanced at Lenovo Thinkpads on amazon where there are several
> "factory refurbished" ones with similar specs to what I mention above
> in the $500-700 range, but I don't know if they're any good or not

"Factory refurbished" is always big red flag for me (Lenovo is another big
red flag - I mentioned elsewhere why). This basically means that this
particular model is poorly designed (and/or manufactured), so it comes
with defects or fails withing short period of time so customers are so
outraged that they return it, or Lenovo prefers to get them "luckier" new
sample of the same, and buff-up and sale the bad one as refurbished, with
lower expectations of whoever buys it.

Anyway, your reasoning will be of more value for you, as it will be your
money that will be affected.

Good luck!

Valeri

>
> I'm open to suggestions from any/all of you!
>
> thanks in advance!
>
> Fred
>
> --
>  Fred Smith -- fre...@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us
> -
> The Lord is like a strong tower.
>  Those who do what is right can run to him for safety.
> --- Proverbs 18:10 (niv)
> -
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Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
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Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[m . roth]

Valeri Galtsev wrote:
>
> On Thu, November 2, 2017 11:21 am, hw wrote:
>> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>>> hw wrote:
 Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or
 8
 3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much*
 more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. For the
 price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.
>>>
>>> I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives
>>> have been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and
>>> 4tb
>>> drives, ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too.
>>> Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).
>>
>> Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
>> everyone is doing about storage.
>
> Ignoring existence of 2.5 inch, and getting rackmount machines with with
> 3.5 inch drives. Space wise (meaning GB wise) per U of rack they are at
> the very least the same, only much cheaper per GB.
>
Y'know, I just had a thought: are there folks here who, when they say
"server", are *not* thinking of rackmount servers?

   mark

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[m . roth]

hw wrote:
> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>> hw wrote:
>>> Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8
>>> 3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much*
>>> more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. For the
>>> price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.
>>
>> I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives
>> have been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb
>> drives, ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too.
>> Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).
>
> Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
> everyone is doing about storage.

Sorry, that depends 100% on what you *order*. We tell our resellers that
we want 3.5" drives, that's what we get. All the vendors, intluding Dell,
and the smaller ones, online you can configure what you want, to price it
out, and they *all* offer 3.5" drives.

The only 2.5" drives that we're ok with getting are the two internal SSD's
for RAID 1 for the o/s, and nothing else.

You may not be talking to the right sales folks.

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[m . roth]

hw wrote:
> m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
>> hw wrote:
>>> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
 DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then
 (especially
 if using CentOS 6.x)
>>>

>> And I do *not* want to buy from HP, because their
>> support is nothing like good.
>
> Indeed, I wouldn´t buy HP new.  They don´t even give you a price for
> a new battery for an UPS but tell you to open a ticket to get a price
> and expect you to pay for opening the ticket, and they have finally
> managed to completely mess up their web site so that you can´t find
> anything anymore.

But wait, it's worse: the replacement *parts* have a different part number
than the original. I had to replace a PSU on a blade enclosure, and had to
get HP, or maybe a reseller, I forget, to tell me what the correct part
number for the replacement part was, and, IIRC, there were both 6-digit
number, or maybe 12

>> Another company that's ok is ThinkMate, though their support ain't
>> great,
>> I think they're better than HP...oh, sorry, for a server, it'll be HPE
>> (the company divided a year or two ago).
>
> I´ve never heared of ThinkMate.

No biggie. As I said, they're another reseller of Supermicro h/w. Good
prices, so-so support.
>
>> If you get a Dell, and one of their PERC cards, you're getting a
>> rebranded LSI, sorry, Avago, um, who bought it last? Those are good
>> and reliable, not super expensive.
>
> Those don´t work at all.  I had to return two of them because none of them
> worked in any of the boards I tried them, and the smart arrays I replaced
> them with work in the same boards.  Dell always had a reputation for
> making incompatible hardware, and that experience proved it.
>
> Maybe they work when you have Dell hardware, but I have none.

Oh, ok, I was assuming you did. No, if you're not buying Dell hardware,
with their own PERC cards, get an LSI/AVAGO/whoever. They *do* work on
anything, and MegaRAID software is not hard to find. Note: if you go that
route, I have a script I found only that makes basic monitoring *much*
easier than the hostile MegaRAID interface

   mark

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[CentOS] modestly priced laptop for C7

[Fred Smith]

I'm looking to replace my (old, creaky) netbook (Acer Aspire One D255e,
a screaming dual core 1.6 GHz Atom, and a whole 2 gigs of RAM) with
something faster but not too large. Sometimes (usually) the netbook is
painfully slow.

Something like a  hi-res 14 (or 15) inch screen (full HD), minimum of 4 gigs
RAM, HD of a half terabyte or bigger.

I'd like to not have to go over 600-700 dollars, so I know my choices
are somewhat limited if I want to avoid the 400-500 dollar windows 10
junk^H^H^H^Hsystems from BJs, etc.

Something with a quad-core processor, and all hardware works with C7.

I've glanced at Lenovo Thinkpads on amazon where there are several
"factory refurbished" ones with similar specs to what I mention above
in the $500-700 range, but I don't know if they're any good or not

I'm open to suggestions from any/all of you!

thanks in advance!

Fred

-- 
 Fred Smith -- fre...@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us -
The Lord is like a strong tower. 
 Those who do what is right can run to him for safety.
--- Proverbs 18:10 (niv) -
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[Richard Zimmerman]

>Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what 
>everyone is doing about storage.

The DL20 gen9 I bought was setup LFF (3.5")

The DL380 gen9 could be either SFF (2.5) or LFF. I had to buy SFF for our new 
server due I was told to spec / build it exact to vendor recommendation.

To better? Answer this. Agreed, I'm not a fanboy of 2.5" stuff in enterprise 
equipment. To me a better but more costly answer would be setup a LFF SAN 
server and go from there. 

My employer is a SMB (60 people?) and our storage is exploding at times. SAN's 
can give more economical storage and flexibility. Especially since were 
considering fail-over scenarios for not only our Windows ERP software but our 
all Linux based :) file servers.

Regards,

Richard

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[Valeri Galtsev]

On Thu, November 2, 2017 11:18 am, hw wrote:
> m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:
>> hw wrote:
>>> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
 DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then
 (especially
 if using CentOS 6.x)
>>>
>>> What would you suggest as alternative, something from Dell?
>>
>> Yep, Dell's are good.
>
> That´s good to hear.
>
>> And I do *not* want to buy from HP, because their
>> support is nothing like good.
>
> Indeed, I wouldn´t buy HP new.  They don´t even give you a price for
> a new battery for an UPS but tell you to open a ticket to get a price
> and expect you to pay for opening the ticket, and they have finally
> managed to completely mess up their web site so that you can´t find
> anything anymore.
>
>> And once you run out the warranty, they
>> don't want to even let you get things like firmware updates. Dell will.
>
> Yes, this is a really big problem which makes me look out for other
> manufacturers.  I really like their hardware, but the manufacturer not
> standing behind their product breaks the deal.
>
>> Another company that's ok is ThinkMate, though their support ain't
>> great,
>> I think they're better than HP...oh, sorry, for a server, it'll be HPE
>> (the company divided a year or two ago).
>
> I´ve never heared of ThinkMate.
>
>> If you get a Dell, and one of their PERC cards, you're getting a
>> rebranded
>> LSI, sorry, Avago, um, who bought it last? Those are good and reliable,
>> not super expensive.
>
> Those don´t work at all.  I had to return two of them because none of
> them
> worked in any of the boards I tried them, and the smart arrays I replaced
> them with work in the same boards.  Dell always had a reputation for
> making
> incompatible hardware, and that experience proved it.
>
> Maybe they work when you have Dell hardware, but I have none.

If you have not Dell server hardware my choice of [hardware] RAID cards
would be:

Areca
LSI (or whoever owns that line these days - Intel was the last one, I
recollect)

With LSI beware that they have really nasty command line client, and do
not have raid watch daemon with web interface like late 3ware had (alas,
3ware after they were bought out several times by competitors were drawn
down out of existence).

Good luck!

Valeri

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University of Chicago
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[Valeri Galtsev]

On Thu, November 2, 2017 11:21 am, hw wrote:
> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>> hw wrote:
>>> Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8
>>> 3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much*
>>> more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. For the
>>> price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.
>>
>> I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives
>> have been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb
>> drives, ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too.
>> Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).
>
> Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
> everyone is doing about storage.

Ignoring existence of 2.5 inch, and getting rackmount machines with with
3.5 inch drives. Space wise (meaning GB wise) per U of rack they are at
the very least the same, only much cheaper per GB.

Just my $0.02

Valeri

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University of Chicago
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On 2 November 2017 at 12:21, hw  wrote:
> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>>
>> hw wrote:
>>>
>>> Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8
>>> 3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much* more
>>> expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. For the price of a
>>> 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.
>>
>>
>> I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives have
>> been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb drives,
>> ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too. Unfortunately,
>> that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).
>
>
> Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
> everyone is doing about storage.
>

The 2.5 inch drives have a pretty good lifetime these days and seem to
be all you can get for various storage systems. It is like back when
we all wanted and loved 5.25 drives and all you could get was the
crappy 3.5 inch ones. And I expect in 3-5 years the 2.5 inch ones will
be replaced with only able to get the in card SIMM like drives.

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[hw]

Richard Zimmerman wrote:

hw wrote:

Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8 3.5" drives be enough (DO 
NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much* more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and 
>smaller disk space. For the price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.


I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives have been an 
issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb drives, ZERO issues. 
I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too. Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon 
(With WD owning HGST).


Most servers can fit only 2.5" disks these days.  I keep wondering what
everyone is doing about storage.
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[hw]

m.r...@5-cent.us wrote:

hw wrote:

Richard Zimmerman wrote:

DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then (especially
if using CentOS 6.x)


What would you suggest as alternative, something from Dell?


Yep, Dell's are good.


That´s good to hear.


And I do *not* want to buy from HP, because their
support is nothing like good.


Indeed, I wouldn´t buy HP new.  They don´t even give you a price for
a new battery for an UPS but tell you to open a ticket to get a price
and expect you to pay for opening the ticket, and they have finally
managed to completely mess up their web site so that you can´t find
anything anymore.


And once you run out the warranty, they
don't want to even let you get things like firmware updates. Dell will.


Yes, this is a really big problem which makes me look out for other
manufacturers.  I really like their hardware, but the manufacturer not
standing behind their product breaks the deal.


Another company that's ok is ThinkMate, though their support ain't great,
I think they're better than HP...oh, sorry, for a server, it'll be HPE
(the company divided a year or two ago).


I´ve never heared of ThinkMate.


If you get a Dell, and one of their PERC cards, you're getting a rebranded
LSI, sorry, Avago, um, who bought it last? Those are good and reliable,
not super expensive.


Those don´t work at all.  I had to return two of them because none of them
worked in any of the boards I tried them, and the smart arrays I replaced
them with work in the same boards.  Dell always had a reputation for making
incompatible hardware, and that experience proved it.

Maybe they work when you have Dell hardware, but I have none.
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Re: [CentOS] HP laptops with CentOS 7?

[Ian Pilcher]

Anybody care to chime in with a comment or hint on the laptop situation
and-or their experiences?


I'm very happy with my Dell Precision 5520 "developer edition".  It
shipped with Ubuntu and runs Fedora pretty much flawlessly.  I haven't
tried CentOS, but Dell claims that RHEL support on their spec sheet, so
I would expect it to work well.

Dell also have the XPS 13 "developer edition" for those looking for a
smaller footprint.

--

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 "I grew up before Mark Zuckerberg invented friendship" 


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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[m . roth]

Richard Zimmerman wrote:
> hw wrote:
>>Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8
>> 3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much*
>> more expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. For the
>> price of a 1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.
>
> I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives have
> been an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb
> drives, ZERO issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too.
> Unfortunately, that will come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).
>
Yeah - the WD Reds, and there are Seagate also NAS-rated, are about 1.3 or
so times the price of consumer-grade, but work in servers (consumer grade
WILL NOT*), whereas enterprise-grade are about 3 times the price of
consumer grade, and the quality of NAS-rated vs enterprise isn't
especially noticeable.

* The big differences, in addition to quality, between NAS-rated, or
enterprise-rated, vs consumber/desktop grade are this: the desktop REALLY,
REALLY want to spin down, whenever they can, and, most significant: TLER
(time limit error recovery, I think). The consumer or desktop or laptop
drives will, on encountering a hardware error, will keep trying for up to
two *minutes*. The ones meant for server give up and relocate the sector
after seven *seconds*. Servers gag and actively dislike a drive when it
takes too long

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[Richard Zimmerman]

I can help a little here... Yes, dropping NPAPI is a huge problem. FireFox ESR 
is available for Linux x32 and x64.

Solved my problems using Lantronix Spider IP/KVM device until Java updates, 
then refuses to run it yet again :(

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq/

Hopes this helps

Richard


-Original Message-
From: CentOS [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf Of Leroy Tennison
Sent: Thursday, November 2, 2017 11:08 AM
To: centos
Subject: Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

Good to know about the HPE and Dell "gotchas", thanks to those who posted.

I can speak to SuperMicro (11 systems, mostly X9 and X10).  Hardware seems to 
be fine, management utilities (IPMI - like iLO) are more basic.  The real 
heartburn right now is that the browsers for Linux have pretty much dropped 
NPAPI which means remote console doesn't work since it needs Java.  They have 
alternatives on their web site (look for IPMIView and IPMICFG).  One of their 
solutions only works with Gnome (but I don't remember which one - too long 
ago).  Differing versions of IPMI firmware have their own quirks.  Bottom line: 
support is there but more basic and not as easy to use.
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[Leroy Tennison]

Good to know about the HPE and Dell "gotchas", thanks to those who posted.

I can speak to SuperMicro (11 systems, mostly X9 and X10).  Hardware seems to 
be fine, management utilities (IPMI - like iLO) are more basic.  The real 
heartburn right now is that the browsers for Linux have pretty much dropped 
NPAPI which means remote console doesn't work since it needs Java.  They have 
alternatives on their web site (look for IPMIView and IPMICFG).  One of their 
solutions only works with Gnome (but I don't remember which one - too long 
ago).  Differing versions of IPMI firmware have their own quirks.  Bottom line: 
support is there but more basic and not as easy to use.

- Original Message -
From: "Richard Zimmerman" 
To: "centos" 
Sent: Thursday, November 2, 2017 8:33:17 AM
Subject: Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

I just put a call into AT Office 365 asking them to explain the spoof warning 
thing...

To answer your question

At the moment, no I can't. I like HPE stuff, we bought a DL380 gen9 say five 
months ago and totally happy with it. In fairness, its running Server 2012 r2 
too but I didn't run into the hardware gotchas I did on the other stuff. It 
just seems HPE skimped on their lower end stuff and CentOS 6.x doesn't play 
well. 

This whole incident with the DL20 JUST happened. It's (finally) been spinning 
Server 2012 r2 for about a week now. It was a long 5 week process just to get 
to to this answer.

I haven't had the time to research out what my next buys are going to be. I'm 
listening as well if someone has a suggestion.

Honestly, I'm leaning against Dell because their stuff just doesn't seem to be 
built to last. We have 1 T620, 2 R620 servers. So far just past the 5 year 
mark, 3 dead hard drives, 2 power supplies. That is with the machines mostly 
TURNED OFF. (Failed IT project after I was hired; aborted a move to a new ERP 
system) With my personal Dell laptop just bought 4 months ago, periodically get 
the 6 beep on power on error. Tells me Dell quality / quality control might not 
be where it needs to be. 

Then again, I get a constant flow of HPE advisories. :(

I've thinking of taking a look at Supermicro severs. 

Bottom line is, they all have their quirks, problems, deficiencies

WHY did Lenovo have to quit selling the RS140's? I *LOVE* those machines 
Fast, reliable and just work GREAT with Centos 6.9!

Regards,

Richard


-Original Message-
From: CentOS [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf Of hw
Sent: Thursday, November 2, 2017 9:09 AM
To: centos@centos.org
Subject: Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

Richard Zimmerman wrote:
> DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then (especially if 
> using CentOS 6.x)

What would you suggest as alternative, something from Dell?
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[Richard Zimmerman]

hw wrote:
>Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8 3.5" 
>drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much* more 
>expensive than the 3.5" drives, and >smaller disk space. For the price of a 
>1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.

I will second Marks comments here. Yes, 2.5" drive enterprise drives have been 
an issue. +1 for the WD Red drives, so far 3.5" w/ 2tb and 4tb drives, ZERO 
issues. I've had good luck with HGST NAS drives too. Unfortunately, that will 
come to an end soon (With WD owning HGST).

Regards,

Richard

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Re: [CentOS] HP laptops with CentOS 7?

[m . roth]

Valeri Galtsev wrote:
>
> On Thu, November 2, 2017 8:29 am, Sorin Srbu wrote:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I'm looking into getting HP laptops for our department running CentOS 7.

> To be fair I must mention here that I love HP printers, and the whole
> attitude of HP towards printers they make. Decent HP laser printers are
> manageable, last forever, and HP keeps making supplies for them. I just
> retired still working B/W LaserJet 4050, that worked for over 16 years,
> was heavily used, still works, print quality is the same as it always had,
> and HP still makes supplies for it.

We buy compatible toner for our HP printers - it's less than half the OEM
price, and works just fine. The vendor I like dealing with is
tonerprice.com. We got a pallet of toner a few years ago; six or so months
later, I needed toner for my cute l'il Laserjet at home... and got the
*same* service, in terms of price and response time.
>
> I usually recommend Dell: business lines of laptops, see which are offered
> with 3 to 5 years warranty, I do get cheapest 3 year warranty, but Dell
> committing to maintain it for 5 years tell you that that is solidly built,
> and is not expected to be obsoleted soon.

Seconded. Hell, I tell everyone, including my kids, DO NOT BUY
consumer-grade laptops, only business-grade. Even buying one used online,
they'll last longer than any crap consumer grade.

We have a lot of Dell Latitudes here at work.

  mark

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[m . roth]

Gary Stainburn wrote:
> On Thursday 02 November 2017 14:10:25 Bowie Bailey wrote:

> By using H/W RAID, it's literally just a case of removing the dead drive
> and inserting the replacement. I've got a number of IBM and DELL boxes
> like this.
> it's just a pity they're not compatible with Linux so I can't monitor or
> manage them while the servers are running. The only way I know I have
> problems is by watching the LEDS

I don't understand the above - what's not compatible with Linux? We've got
a ton, and if it's a Dell PERC/LSI, MegaRaid works just fine to monitor
the drives.

mark

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[m . roth]

Richard Zimmerman wrote:

> Honestly, I'm leaning against Dell because their stuff just doesn't seem
> to be built to last. We have 1 T620, 2 R620 servers. So far just past the
> 5 year mark, 3 dead hard drives, 2 power supplies. That is with the
> machines mostly TURNED OFF. (Failed IT project after I was hired; aborted
> a move to a new ERP system) With my personal Dell laptop just bought 4
> months ago, periodically get the 6 beep on power on error. Tells me Dell
> quality / quality control might not be where it needs to be.

That's... odd. We have a bunch of Dells, R4[123]0's, R520's, R7[23]0's, an
R815, etc, and they keep chugging. Some of them are 5, 6, 7 years old, and
I rarely have any h/d issues, and PSU issues are equally rare.

If you're having this kind of issue, you should talk to Dell support, and
escalate it, so that a manager takes ownership. I've had one do that,
years ago, when we kept having issues with one machine, and they were
*serious* about "taking ownership" (as opposed to Sun/Oracle, file them
under "none of the above").

  mark

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[Chris Adams]

Once upon a time, Gary Stainburn  said:
> I've used MDADM before on previous servers, but have found that this setup 
> isn't hot swap. Ultimately if I had to replace a drive it involved a lot of 
> effort, especially the first drive.

I use mdadm RAID in a bunch of places; it isn't automated, but it isn't
that hard to replace a drive.  It would be nice if the storaged project
had support for this (I think the various needed bits are there, just
needs somebody to write a front-end to make the calls I guess).

> By using H/W RAID, it's literally just a case of removing the dead drive and 
> inserting the replacement. I've got a number of IBM and DELL boxes like this. 
> it's just a pity they're not compatible with Linux so I can't monitor or 
> manage them while the servers are running. The only way I know I have 
> problems is by watching the LEDS

I also use Dell servers with various hardware RAID cards in a bunch of
places.  I install the Dell tools (they have yum repos for this), and
then can use omreport and omconfig to monitor and manage RAID from
within Linux, and their SNMP agent to monitor system health from my
external monitoring system.

One nice thing with omreport/omconfig is that it doesn't matter what
type of RAID card/chip/whatever they use (because they change things
over generations), the commands are the same.

Newer Dell servers also have integrated RAID management to the DRAC
directly, so you can monitor/manage/etc. through the out-of-band web and
SSH UI.

-- 
Chris Adams 
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Re: [CentOS] HP laptops with CentOS 7?

[m . roth]

Sorin Srbu wrote:
>
> I'm looking into getting HP laptops for our department running CentOS 7.
>
> Last time I checked this was some five or so years ago, and when I look at
> https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Laptops, nothing much seems to have
> happened since.
>
> At that time, I had to give up CentOS on laptops, as both Wi-Fi and
> graphics wasn't too well supported with CentOS 5 and 6.
> Is the situation better now with CentOS 7?
>
> We're only allowed to buy the HP, Dell and Apple brands here at this
> university, so what I'm looking at is basically HP. Apple is not of
> interest > because of their pricing.

I'd prefer Dell, as I said in the post on low-end server, because Dell's
support is decent or better. Also, Dell does know Linux on the server side
- they offer RHEL... and their OMSA DVD boots... into CentOS. 

And about CentOS on laptops... I've got this circa 2009 HP Netbook. The
ancient Ubuntu netbook-remix was way obsolete, so I needed to update it (I
only use it while traveling, for email and browsing). I just dd'd a CentOS
6.9 i386 live iso to a flash drive (and I still HATE systemd)... and it
booted. Perfectly. First time. Then I rebooted, and "install" is an
option. Did that, and it worked perfectly.

Happy camper, here.

   mark


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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[m . roth]

hw wrote:
> Richard Zimmerman wrote:
>> DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then (especially
>> if using CentOS 6.x)
>
> What would you suggest as alternative, something from Dell?

Yep, Dell's are good. And I do *not* want to buy from HP, because their
support is nothing like good. And once you run out the warranty, they
don't want to even let you get things like firmware updates. Dell will.

Another company that's ok is ThinkMate, though their support ain't great,
I think they're better than HP...oh, sorry, for a server, it'll be HPE
(the company divided a year or two ago).

If you get a Dell, and one of their PERC cards, you're getting a rebranded
LSI, sorry, Avago, um, who bought it last? Those are good and reliable,
not super expensive.

Next question: you want RAID, how much storage do you need? Will 4 or 8
3.5" drives be enough (DO NOT GET crappy 2.5" drives - they're *much* more
expensive than the 3.5" drives, and smaller disk space. For the price of a
1TB 2.5", I can get at least a 4TB WD Red.

One more thing: if you go with a vendor like ThinkMate, know that most of
them are reselling Supermicro systems. We used to buy a lot of Penguins,
but their quality control At any rate, the direct names are cheaper:
if you go for Dell, find a reseller, who may get you a better deal than
Dell direct. If you go this route, email me offlist, and I'll recommend my
preferred reseller for Dell - the discounts are good.

   mark

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Re: [CentOS] HP laptops with CentOS 7?

[Valeri Galtsev]

On Thu, November 2, 2017 8:29 am, Sorin Srbu wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I'm looking into getting HP laptops for our department running CentOS 7.

I usually recommend against HP laptops. I had Compaq quite some time ago
(the last was bought out by HP shortly after I got my laptop), and I have
seen a bunch of HP laptops people in our Department got themselves. That
(dealing with these, looking inside hardware etc) developed strong allergy
towards HP laptops in me. My Compaq, BTW, has a list of "approved
hardware" in BIOS, which is evil: I had to edit BIOS with hex editor to
replace piece of crap broadcom wireless adapter with Intel one.

To be fair I must mention here that I love HP printers, and the whole
attitude of HP towards printers they make. Decent HP laser printers are
manageable, last forever, and HP keeps making supplies for them. I just
retired still working B/W LaserJet 4050, that worked for over 16 years,
was heavily used, still works, print quality is the same as it always had,
and HP still makes supplies for it.

I usually recommend Dell: business lines of laptops, see which are offered
with 3 to 5 years warranty, I do get cheapest 3 year warranty, but Dell
committing to maintain it for 5 years tell you that that is solidly built,
and is not expected to be obsoleted soon.

I recommended IBM before they sold laptop line to Lenovo. After watching
Lenovo for about 3 years, I started recommending them (they were same well
engineered as IBMs were), but shortly after that they had a scandal: sold
a bunch of laptops with malware preinstalled, that did it: I gave up on
Lenovo for good.

>From smaller players, I would just see which makes business oriented
laptops for some time (offering purchase of long warranties is a good
sign). And if you can handle one before purchasing - say, you can go to
computer store and handle on on display, - I would recommend "propeller
test". Grab sides of laptop and try to twist it into propeller shape. If
it is flexible, it is junk that will fail soon. If it is solid, it has
great chance to last long. Flexing system board - motherboard is common
jargon for over 30 years - leads to developing microcracks in it: copper
when going through plastic deformation hardens, then cracks.

Good luck.

Valeri

>
> Last time I checked this was some five or so years ago, and when I look at
> https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Laptops, nothing much seems to have
> happened
> since.
>
> At that time, I had to give up CentOS on laptops, as both Wi-Fi and
> graphics
> wasn't too well supported with CentOS 5 and 6.
> Is the situation better now with CentOS 7?
>
> We're only allowed to buy the HP, Dell and Apple brands here at this
> university, so what I'm looking at is basically HP. Apple is not of
> interest
> because of their pricing.
> All our desktops and laptops are HP's running Windows 7 and 10, and they
> work fine.
> We do have some Dells, but only in the server area.
> Currently all our CentOS 6 and 7 workstations are custom built OEMs used
> for
> molecular modelling, but are now getting rather long in the tooth.
> I have a laptop at the office as a backup, running Ubuntu 16 LTS, as that
> was the only thing that found all the hardware properly at the time.
> However, I'd rather not go down that particular road for various reasons.
>
> The thing that interests me first and foremost is whether the latest
> CentOS
> 7 iteration will install right out of the box with all hardware properly
> detected, no manual compiling of drivers or jumping through hoops to
> _maybe_
> getting stuff to work with eg a HP Elitebook 850 G4.
>
> Anybody care to chime in with a comment or hint on the laptop situation
> and-or their experiences?
>
> --
> BW,
>   Sorin
> ---
> # Sorin Srbu, Sysadmin
> # Uppsala University
> # Dept of Medicinal Chemistry
> # Div of Org Pharm Chem
> # Box 574
> # SE-75123 Uppsala
> # Sweden
> #
> # Phone: +46 (0)18-4714482
> # Visit: BMC, Husargatan 3, D5:512b
> # Web: http://www.orgfarm.uu.se
> ---
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> #
> # This message was not sent from an iProduct!
> #
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>
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Valeri Galtsev
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Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[Gary Stainburn]

On Thursday 02 November 2017 14:10:25 Bowie Bailey wrote:
> If you want raid 5 or 6, then you should get a hardware controller. For
> raid 1, mdadm should work just fine.  I would suggest trying it before
> buying a raid controller.  If it works for you, you save a few hundred
> dollars and you have one less piece of hardware to worry about.
>
> I haven't looked at them in quite a few years, but last time I was in
> the market for a raid controller, Areca controllers were the way to go.

I've used MDADM before on previous servers, but have found that this setup 
isn't hot swap. Ultimately if I had to replace a drive it involved a lot of 
effort, especially the first drive.

By using H/W RAID, it's literally just a case of removing the dead drive and 
inserting the replacement. I've got a number of IBM and DELL boxes like this. 
it's just a pity they're not compatible with Linux so I can't monitor or 
manage them while the servers are running. The only way I know I have 
problems is by watching the LEDS
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Re: [CentOS] HP laptops with CentOS 7?

[Tru Huynh]

On Thu, Nov 02, 2017 at 01:29:53PM +, Sorin Srbu wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I'm looking into getting HP laptops for our department running CentOS 7.

At daily work, we have elitebook 840g2 and 840g3, works out of the box with C7.
(on the g3, the FN/light shortcuts are not working). ymmv.

Cheers

Tru
-- 
Tru Huynh 
http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get=0xBEFA581B


pgpNA7fAYsmWy.pgp
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[Bowie Bailey]

On 11/2/2017 8:04 AM, Gary Stainburn wrote:

I'm just about to build a new server and I'm looking for recommendations on
what hardware to use.

I'm happy with either a brand name, or building my own, but would like a
hardware RAID controller to run a pair of disks as RAID1 that is actually
compatible with and manageable through Linux.

Any recommendations would be appreciated.


If you want raid 5 or 6, then you should get a hardware controller. For 
raid 1, mdadm should work just fine.  I would suggest trying it before 
buying a raid controller.  If it works for you, you save a few hundred 
dollars and you have one less piece of hardware to worry about.


I haven't looked at them in quite a few years, but last time I was in 
the market for a raid controller, Areca controllers were the way to go.


--
Bowie
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Re: [CentOS] HP laptops with CentOS 7?

[Gary Stainburn]

On Thursday 02 November 2017 14:04:11 Gary Stainburn wrote:
> On Thursday 02 November 2017 13:54:41 Sorin Srbu wrote:
> > Thanks.
> > Would you know what chipset that particular wifi-dongle is running?
> >
> > A wifi-dongle may work, but I'm thinking it's not really desirable to go
> > that way.
> > I'm figuring the users will loose that dongle sooner than later! :-)
>
> The laptop is in the car so I can't check at the moment, but this is the
> item.
>
> I understand your concern regarding the users, but thet can't be any worse
> than mine, and they're capable of not losing their mouse dongle.
>
> It would be nicer to get it working with the internal one at some point.


It would have helped to incluide the URL

https://thepihut.com/collections/raspberry-pi-wifi/products/usb-wifi-adapter-for-the-raspberry-pi
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Re: [CentOS] HP laptops with CentOS 7?

[Gary Stainburn]

On Thursday 02 November 2017 13:54:41 Sorin Srbu wrote:
> Thanks.
> Would you know what chipset that particular wifi-dongle is running?
>
> A wifi-dongle may work, but I'm thinking it's not really desirable to go
> that way.
> I'm figuring the users will loose that dongle sooner than later! :-)

The laptop is in the car so I can't check at the moment, but this is the item.

I understand your concern regarding the users, but thet can't be any worse 
than mine, and they're capable of not losing their mouse dongle.

It would be nicer to get it working with the internal one at some point.
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Re: [CentOS] HP laptops with CentOS 7?

[Sorin Srbu]

> -Original Message-
> From: CentOS [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf Of Gary
> Stainburn
> Sent: den 2 november 2017 14:48
> To: centos@centos.org
> Subject: Re: [CentOS] HP laptops with CentOS 7?
> 
> I've got a HP Envy laptop and I'm fairly happy with it. The internal WiFi
> doesn't work with Centos but a £5 WiFi dongle sorted that. Oddly, it still
> stops working once the battery drops below 50% ish.
> 
> Mine is dual boot with Win8 which is pants. The biggest problem is that
> whenever I do much with the config, e.g. when I re-installed centos, the
> boot
> loader doesn't sort properly and I have to fiddle with it.
> 
> That's the reason I've not upgraded to Win10.
> 
> Video, sound, LAN, etc all work fine straight out of the box.

Thanks. 
Would you know what chipset that particular wifi-dongle is running?

A wifi-dongle may work, but I'm thinking it's not really desirable to go
that way.
I'm figuring the users will loose that dongle sooner than later! :-)
--
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Re: [CentOS] HP laptops with CentOS 7?

[Gary Stainburn]

I've got a HP Envy laptop and I'm fairly happy with it. The internal WiFi 
doesn't work with Centos but a £5 WiFi dongle sorted that. Oddly, it still 
stops working once the battery drops below 50% ish.

Mine is dual boot with Win8 which is pants. The biggest problem is that 
whenever I do much with the config, e.g. when I re-installed centos, the boot 
loader doesn't sort properly and I have to fiddle with it.

That's the reason I've not upgraded to Win10.

Video, sound, LAN, etc all work fine straight out of the box.


On Thursday 02 November 2017 13:29:53 Sorin Srbu wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I'm looking into getting HP laptops for our department running CentOS 7.
>
> Last time I checked this was some five or so years ago, and when I look at
> https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Laptops, nothing much seems to have happened
> since.
>
> At that time, I had to give up CentOS on laptops, as both Wi-Fi and
> graphics wasn't too well supported with CentOS 5 and 6.
> Is the situation better now with CentOS 7?
>
> We're only allowed to buy the HP, Dell and Apple brands here at this
> university, so what I'm looking at is basically HP. Apple is not of
> interest because of their pricing.
> All our desktops and laptops are HP's running Windows 7 and 10, and they
> work fine.
> We do have some Dells, but only in the server area.
> Currently all our CentOS 6 and 7 workstations are custom built OEMs used
> for molecular modelling, but are now getting rather long in the tooth. I
> have a laptop at the office as a backup, running Ubuntu 16 LTS, as that was
> the only thing that found all the hardware properly at the time. However,
> I'd rather not go down that particular road for various reasons.
>
> The thing that interests me first and foremost is whether the latest CentOS
> 7 iteration will install right out of the box with all hardware properly
> detected, no manual compiling of drivers or jumping through hoops to
> _maybe_ getting stuff to work with eg a HP Elitebook 850 G4.
>
> Anybody care to chime in with a comment or hint on the laptop situation
> and-or their experiences?



-- 
Gary Stainburn
Group I.T. Manager
Ringways Garages
http://www.ringways.co.uk 

https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/garys-march-march
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[Richard Zimmerman]

I just put a call into AT Office 365 asking them to explain the spoof warning 
thing...

To answer your question

At the moment, no I can't. I like HPE stuff, we bought a DL380 gen9 say five 
months ago and totally happy with it. In fairness, its running Server 2012 r2 
too but I didn't run into the hardware gotchas I did on the other stuff. It 
just seems HPE skimped on their lower end stuff and CentOS 6.x doesn't play 
well. 

This whole incident with the DL20 JUST happened. It's (finally) been spinning 
Server 2012 r2 for about a week now. It was a long 5 week process just to get 
to to this answer.

I haven't had the time to research out what my next buys are going to be. I'm 
listening as well if someone has a suggestion.

Honestly, I'm leaning against Dell because their stuff just doesn't seem to be 
built to last. We have 1 T620, 2 R620 servers. So far just past the 5 year 
mark, 3 dead hard drives, 2 power supplies. That is with the machines mostly 
TURNED OFF. (Failed IT project after I was hired; aborted a move to a new ERP 
system) With my personal Dell laptop just bought 4 months ago, periodically get 
the 6 beep on power on error. Tells me Dell quality / quality control might not 
be where it needs to be. 

Then again, I get a constant flow of HPE advisories. :(

I've thinking of taking a look at Supermicro severs. 

Bottom line is, they all have their quirks, problems, deficiencies

WHY did Lenovo have to quit selling the RS140's? I *LOVE* those machines 
Fast, reliable and just work GREAT with Centos 6.9!

Regards,

Richard


-Original Message-
From: CentOS [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf Of hw
Sent: Thursday, November 2, 2017 9:09 AM
To: centos@centos.org
Subject: Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

Richard Zimmerman wrote:
> DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then (especially if 
> using CentOS 6.x)

What would you suggest as alternative, something from Dell?
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[CentOS] HP laptops with CentOS 7?

[Sorin Srbu]

Hello all,

I'm looking into getting HP laptops for our department running CentOS 7.

Last time I checked this was some five or so years ago, and when I look at
https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Laptops, nothing much seems to have happened
since.

At that time, I had to give up CentOS on laptops, as both Wi-Fi and graphics
wasn't too well supported with CentOS 5 and 6.
Is the situation better now with CentOS 7?

We're only allowed to buy the HP, Dell and Apple brands here at this
university, so what I'm looking at is basically HP. Apple is not of interest
because of their pricing.
All our desktops and laptops are HP's running Windows 7 and 10, and they
work fine. 
We do have some Dells, but only in the server area.
Currently all our CentOS 6 and 7 workstations are custom built OEMs used for
molecular modelling, but are now getting rather long in the tooth.
I have a laptop at the office as a backup, running Ubuntu 16 LTS, as that
was the only thing that found all the hardware properly at the time.
However, I'd rather not go down that particular road for various reasons.

The thing that interests me first and foremost is whether the latest CentOS
7 iteration will install right out of the box with all hardware properly
detected, no manual compiling of drivers or jumping through hoops to _maybe_
getting stuff to work with eg a HP Elitebook 850 G4.

Anybody care to chime in with a comment or hint on the laptop situation
and-or their experiences?

-- 
BW,
Sorin
---
# Sorin Srbu, Sysadmin
# Uppsala University
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# Div of Org Pharm Chem
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# SE-75123 Uppsala
# Sweden
#
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[hw]

Richard Zimmerman wrote:

DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then (especially if 
using CentOS 6.x)


What would you suggest as alternative, something from Dell?
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[Richard Zimmerman]

DO NOT buy the newer HPE DL20 gen9 or ML10 gen9 servers then (especially if 
using CentOS 6.x)

I don't use hardware raid (mdadm for the win!) so cannot speak to that.

DL20, bought it on a stock 'B' sale. Great price. Works well on Windows. HPE 
doesn't sell hard drive trays, etc. You pretty much have to buy their equipment.

You CAN get 3rd party parts (drive trays, etc.) but will nickel and dime you. 
Example, try to get an HPE-ODD power to sata power adapter. I haven't been able 
to locate one. The one HPE sells, doesn't work on a standard SSD drive. **NO** 
standard place inside machine to mount an SSD drive either. **NO** standard 
power connectors either. So trying in install a bootable SDD, then raid your 
storage drives will be a task. One I gave up on.

THEIR website says the DL20 gen9 it supports CentOS 6.x In reality, NO 
unless you want the pain of downloading, compiling drivers, etc. 
If you don't use THEIR hard drives, they work but you don't get "LED Support" 
from the smart array controller. i.e. A drive craps, the smart array won't lite 
up the dead drive tray. You have a 50/50 shot at guessing which one. At least 
the Smart Array software (in Windows) will tell you what bay its in.

The DL20 once you get past the crap in setting it up (again, you have to use 
the smart provisioning utility to install server 2012 r2 on it; Seriously HPE) 
but once up and running, so far no more headaches.

My ML10 gen9 experience is a mix. 

The newer ML10 gen9 experience was worse. First several installs just never ran 
right. Unexplained lockup and crashes. Onboard nic never ran right. Now, it's 
using a transplanted install of CentOS 6.9, using installed Intel nics and this 
setup so far is running pretty well, no issues so far.

On the other hand, I've got an year (maybe two) older ML10 gen9 running CentOS 
6.9. Hasn't given me a day of trouble from day one. 

Hopefully some of this helps...

Regards,

Richard


-Original Message-
From: CentOS [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf Of vychytraly .
Sent: Thursday, November 2, 2017 8:28 AM
To: CentOS mailing list
Subject: Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

Hello, what is the purpose of this server?

On Thursday, November 2, 2017, Gary Stainburn  wrote:
> I'm just about to build a new server and I'm looking for 
> recommendations
on
> what hardware to use.
>
> I'm happy with either a brand name, or building my own, but would like 
> a hardware RAID controller to run a pair of disks as RAID1 that is 
> actually compatible with and manageable through Linux.
>
> Any recommendations would be appreciated.
>
> Gary
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Re: [CentOS] NoScript allow scripts globally reversible?

[James B. Byrne]

On Wed, November 1, 2017 10:51, Michael Hennebry wrote:
>
> I'm running NoScript because otherwise Firefox freezes up a lot.
> Recently I've had difficulty accessing a site.
> I suspect the reason is that it uses redirection in a way that
> frustrates my efforts to give it permission.
> To test the notion, I'm considering temporarily allowing script
> globally.
> How hard is it to reverse?
> Will I need to redo previous permissions one at a time?
>

The way I handle this is by creating a special profile which has no
extensions or security settings.

Inside your desktop manager open a terminal session and run 'firefox
-P --no-remote'  The no-remote option opens a new Firefox window and
session whether or not you already have one running.  Then press
'Create Profile', give it a name, and use that whenever you get into a
Firefox / Extensions conflict on a particular web site.

I have my Firefox panel launcher set up to use 'firefox -P
--no-remote' always. Tthis allows me vastly more flexibility dealing
with multiple websites at the price of a trivial delay during the
browser start-up.

This problem is the result of recent changes made to the extensions
interface. I can hardly wait to see what is broken with v57.

-- 
***  e-Mail is NOT a SECURE channel  ***
Do NOT transmit sensitive data via e-Mail
 Do NOT open attachments nor follow links sent by e-Mail

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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[hw]

Gary Stainburn wrote:

I'm just about to build a new server and I'm looking for recommendations on
what hardware to use.

I'm happy with either a brand name, or building my own, but would like a
hardware RAID controller to run a pair of disks as RAID1 that is actually
compatible with and manageable through Linux.

Any recommendations would be appreciated.


DL380 G7+ or the like, depending on how much data you want to store
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Re: [CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[vychytraly .]

Hello, what is the purpose of this server?

On Thursday, November 2, 2017, Gary Stainburn  wrote:
> I'm just about to build a new server and I'm looking for recommendations
on
> what hardware to use.
>
> I'm happy with either a brand name, or building my own, but would like a
> hardware RAID controller to run a pair of disks as RAID1 that is actually
> compatible with and manageable through Linux.
>
> Any recommendations would be appreciated.
>
> Gary
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[CentOS] low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

[Gary Stainburn]

I'm just about to build a new server and I'm looking for recommendations on 
what hardware to use.  

I'm happy with either a brand name, or building my own, but would like a 
hardware RAID controller to run a pair of disks as RAID1 that is actually 
compatible with and manageable through Linux.

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Gary
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Re: [CentOS] PHP package versions

[Pete Biggs]

> 
> http://php.net/eol.php says that PHP 5.5 and 5.4 are EOL, but a
> freshly installed Centos 7 box, then fully upgraded, gives me PHP
> 5.4.16-42.el7. What do people do about maintaining current versions
> of software on a variety of machines? We have some users who manage
> their own machines, and would rather not force them to jump through
> hoops of managing repos to get later versions.
> 
> I just hope I've missed something straightforward, and that someone
> here can offer advice.
> 
That's not the point of an enterprise distro. The point is that once a
distro version is released the versions of the software contained
therein does not change. The OS predictably uses certain versions so
that it is a known environment.

Yes, those versions are EOL, but RedHat spends vast amounts of money
back porting security (and bug) fixes from later versions into the EOL
versions so that they remain a viable option for the life of that
particular version of the distro - that's what the '-42' on the version
is all about.

If you *need* the most recent versions you have two options. Firstly
you could use a more dynamic distro (F26 has PHP 7.1) - but you will
need to upgrade every 12 months (preferably every 6 months). Second,
you could use Software Collections - they have PHP 5.5, 5.6, 7.0
packaged in a way that's safe to use in RHEL/CentOS. There are also
repositories that have other versions of PHP in them (such as Remi).

What you really, really must not do is to replace the default installed
version of the various things in CentOS - that has the potential to
break many things. (I heard of someone who replaced the default version
of Python in CentOS with the latest greatest one - panic and confusion
ensued.)

P.



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[CentOS] PHP package versions

[Gregory Orange]

Hi everyone,

http://php.net/eol.php says that PHP 5.5 and 5.4 are EOL, but a freshly 
installed Centos 7 box, then fully upgraded, gives me PHP 5.4.16-42.el7. What 
do people do about maintaining current versions of software on a variety of 
machines? We have some users who manage their own machines, and would rather 
not force them to jump through hoops of managing repos to get later versions.

I just hope I've missed something straightforward, and that someone here can 
offer advice.

TIA,
Greg.
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