I just setup 8 Dell Precision Workstation 610's (dual 400 MHz PII
Xeons, which are very nice machines!) as part of our Beowulf cluster,
so maybe I can help.
> Apparently, SCSI support is integrated with BOTH Adaptec "AIC-7890
> Ultra-2/LVD SCSI" AND "AIC-7860 Ultra/Narrow SCSI-3". Will these be OK for
> Linux? (Or should that question go to the Kernel list???)
The 610s have AIC-7890 Ultra-2/Wide SCSI adaptors. Installation went
fine with RedHat 5.2 - it detected the SCSI controller with no
problem. I later installed the 2.1.125 kernel with no trouble. I'm
not sure about the Ultra/Narrow (note that RH5.2 claims to
support multiple SCSI adaptors during installation)
> Also, there is a choice of 100Mbit NICs between "Intel Pro 100B" and "3Com
> 3C905". Any preferences between them for linux support, SMP behaviour, or
> just general behaviour?
Go with the Intel. The 610's have 3Com905B network support built in
to the motherboard. RedHat 5.2 had no trouble detecting the cards,
but I soon discovered that they would only work in 10 Mb, half duplex
mode. I tried several suggestions that I culled from DejaNews, but
ended up disabling the onboard network hardware and installing some
spare Intel cards that we had laying around. We've had very good
results with Intel EtherExpress Pro cards in the past.
-jason
====================================================================
Jason Abate [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ticam.utexas.edu/~abate
Texas Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics
University of Texas at Austin, 2.400 Taylor Hall, Austin, TX 78712
Work: 512-471-6947 or 232-2705 Home: 512-912-1012 Fax: 512-471-8694
