Re: [Server-devel] CentOS hardware support doubts
On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 9:09 PM, Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com wrote: I assume here that CentOS is reasonably in sync with RHEL. Does http://elrepo.org/bugs/print_bug_page.php?bug_id=126 help? More generally, does any of the external repos have a kmod-staging or kmod-atl1e that works for you? I've returned that system now; if I get the time and opportunity to test again, I will do so. Where is the list of external repos? I'm worried about the expertise required in order to identify such repos and packages. We need this process to be doable without me in the room. My assumption is that RHEL/CentOS have fairly decent hardware support from backported drivers, some in the RH kernels, EPEL or external repos (in order of decreasing quality expectations...). I assume that RHEL is pretty good for server-class hardware found in US/EU; I can imagine why the support of desktop-class hardware found in the poorer parts of latin america may be lesser so. I wonder if you've been unlucky in the mix of hw you got there; or whether the driver support situation for essential things like NICs and disk controllers is weaker than I had expected. Maybe others with more practical experience with current RHEL/CentOS can comment...? I've now seen 3 failure cases - the AR8152 mentioned above, and another case which I only had time to do a quick boot check of F9/C6/F16 (F16 was the only one that recognised the onboard NIC of the asrock motherboard). Yesterday we received 10 servers based on an Intel motherboard (and 12 more will be coming next week). F9 doesn't recognise the onboard NIC. C6 recognises the onboard NIC but isn't able to send/receive packets. F16 works fine (using e1000e driver). As these boards only have 1 PCI socket it is not possible to have 2 NICs (unless we resort to USB...) unless we move beyond C6. Also, F9 and C6 do not recognise the SATA DVD drive in these systems - no /dev/sr0 created, error in dmesg during boot. This will be a pain for field work. With F16 this works fine. I haven't yet found a case where the F9--C6 upgrade adds hardware support for any hardware that we have here. I like your idea of using a F16 kernel on top of CentOS 6.2. So far, his seems to be working fine (and solves all of the compatibility problems mentioned above). If this continues to work I would like to push it as the default for XS install media. Daniel ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] CentOS hardware support doubts
On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 2:07 PM, Daniel Drake d...@laptop.org wrote: On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 9:09 PM, Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com wrote: I assume here that CentOS is reasonably in sync with RHEL. Does http://elrepo.org/bugs/print_bug_page.php?bug_id=126 help? More generally, does any of the external repos have a kmod-staging or kmod-atl1e that works for you? I've returned that system now; if I get the time and opportunity to test again, I will do so. Where is the list of external repos? I'm worried about the expertise required in order to identify such repos and packages. We need this process to be doable without me in the room. My assumption is that RHEL/CentOS have fairly decent hardware support from backported drivers, some in the RH kernels, EPEL or external repos (in order of decreasing quality expectations...). I assume that RHEL is pretty good for server-class hardware found in US/EU; I can imagine why the support of desktop-class hardware found in the poorer parts of latin america may be lesser so. I wonder if you've been unlucky in the mix of hw you got there; or whether the driver support situation for essential things like NICs and disk controllers is weaker than I had expected. Maybe others with more practical experience with current RHEL/CentOS can comment...? I've now seen 3 failure cases - the AR8152 mentioned above, and another case which I only had time to do a quick boot check of F9/C6/F16 (F16 was the only one that recognised the onboard NIC of the asrock motherboard). Yesterday we received 10 servers based on an Intel motherboard (and 12 more will be coming next week). F9 doesn't recognise the onboard NIC. C6 recognises the onboard NIC but isn't able to send/receive packets. F16 works fine (using e1000e driver). As these boards only have 1 PCI socket it is not possible to have 2 NICs (unless we resort to USB...) unless we move beyond C6. Also, F9 and C6 do not recognise the SATA DVD drive in these systems - no /dev/sr0 created, error in dmesg during boot. This will be a pain for field work. With F16 this works fine. I haven't yet found a case where the F9--C6 upgrade adds hardware support for any hardware that we have here. I like your idea of using a F16 kernel on top of CentOS 6.2. So far, his seems to be working fine (and solves all of the compatibility problems mentioned above). If this continues to work I would like to push it as the default for XS install media. I suggest using the F-15 kernel. The 2.6.42.x kernel in F-15 is the 3.2.x kernel but there's issues with a number of utilises plain not working because they can't work out the kernel version because they don't expect a major version of 3. Peter ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] CentOS hardware support doubts
On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 9:07 AM, Daniel Drake d...@laptop.org wrote: I'm worried about the expertise required in order to identify such repos and packages. We need this process to be doable without me in the room. Agreed. I assume that RHEL is pretty good for server-class hardware found in US/EU; I can imagine why the support of desktop-class hardware found in the poorer parts of latin america may be lesser so. Grumble. And we know where our users are. I haven't yet found a case where the F9--C6 upgrade adds hardware support for any hardware that we have here. That's all around bad news. I like your idea of using a F16 kernel on top of CentOS 6.2. So far, his seems to be working fine (and solves all of the compatibility problems mentioned above). If this continues to work I would like to push it as the default for XS install media. The F15 version of the same kernel that Peter proposes seems sane to me. Still, it's a surprise to me. m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- Software Architect - OLPC - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] CentOS hardware support doubts
On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 9:07 AM, Daniel Drake d...@laptop.org wrote: I've now seen 3 failure cases - the AR8152 mentioned above, and another case which I only had time to do a quick boot check of F9/C6/F16 (F16 was the only one that recognised the onboard NIC of the asrock motherboard). Yesterday we received 10 servers based on an Intel motherboard (and 12 more will be coming next week). F9 doesn't recognise the onboard NIC. C6 recognises the onboard NIC but isn't able to send/receive packets. F16 works fine (using e1000e driver). As these boards only have 1 PCI socket it is not possible to have 2 NICs (unless we resort to USB...) unless we move beyond C6. It's worth noting that if you have to, there are NIC cards available with more than one port per PCI slot. They just tend to be rarer and as server-grade hardware, more expensive. Coming from a networking/ODM background, I have worked with plenty of 2-8 port e1000 NIC cards, and even 8-port tulip adapters. Just make sure that the PCI-E/X/etc. slot you are using has enough lanes to fit the NIC card in the slot, and for the load a schoolserver generates you should be fine. Historically I have seen e1000's and Broadcom Gigabit adapters in server-grade hardware. But given I have been out of the industry for a few years, I don't know what companies are using nowadays. ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] CentOS hardware support doubts
On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 2:38 PM, Samuel Greenfeld greenf...@laptop.org wrote: On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 9:07 AM, Daniel Drake d...@laptop.org wrote: I've now seen 3 failure cases - the AR8152 mentioned above, and another case which I only had time to do a quick boot check of F9/C6/F16 (F16 was the only one that recognised the onboard NIC of the asrock motherboard). Yesterday we received 10 servers based on an Intel motherboard (and 12 more will be coming next week). F9 doesn't recognise the onboard NIC. C6 recognises the onboard NIC but isn't able to send/receive packets. F16 works fine (using e1000e driver). As these boards only have 1 PCI socket it is not possible to have 2 NICs (unless we resort to USB...) unless we move beyond C6. What's the exact version of the centos kernel? There always seems to be lots of new revisions of the e1000 cards that need slightly newer drivers. Have you checked out the Centos Continuous release repo to see if a newer kernel is available? http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-announce/2011-September/018078.html It's worth noting that if you have to, there are NIC cards available with more than one port per PCI slot. They just tend to be rarer and as server-grade hardware, more expensive. No so much now. I think our cost price for 2 port cards is around £30-40 for standard cards. Depending on the switch it's being attached to you could also use vlan trunking. Coming from a networking/ODM background, I have worked with plenty of 2-8 port e1000 NIC cards, and even 8-port tulip adapters. Just make sure that the PCI-E/X/etc. slot you are using has enough lanes to fit the NIC card in the slot, and for the load a schoolserver generates you should be fine. PCI-e 1.0 is 1Gb per lane. PCI-e 2 is double. On newer boxes it should be the later so a single lane is generally enough for a 2x 1Gb card. Historically I have seen e1000's and Broadcom Gigabit adapters in server-grade hardware. But given I have been out of the industry for a few years, I don't know what companies are using nowadays. Nothing has changed there what so ever at the 1Gb level :-) Peter ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] CentOS hardware support doubts
On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 2:30 PM, Daniel Drake d...@laptop.org wrote: However, having installed/run CentOS 6.2 for the first time I now have my doubts about this. I installed it on a server where the network interface does not appear with F9 (but does work with more recent Fedora). With CentOS, the same problem as F9 is presented: no network adapter. Digging further, I see that support was added to the Linux kernel for this particular network adapter (Atheros AR8152) on February 16th I assume here that CentOS is reasonably in sync with RHEL. Does http://elrepo.org/bugs/print_bug_page.php?bug_id=126 help? More generally, does any of the external repos have a kmod-staging or kmod-atl1e that works for you? My assumption is that RHEL/CentOS have fairly decent hardware support from backported drivers, some in the RH kernels, EPEL or external repos (in order of decreasing quality expectations...). I wonder if you've been unlucky in the mix of hw you got there; or whether the driver support situation for essential things like NICs and disk controllers is weaker than I had expected. Maybe others with more practical experience with current RHEL/CentOS can comment...? We should keep in mind that any LTS OS will have to rely on driver packages and/or kernel updates to support current hw... of course we want something reasonably sane and straightforward. But having to handle some extra driver installs isn't in itself a big deal. cheers, m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- Software Architect - OLPC - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] CentOS hardware support doubts
Hi, You can try the work done by Alsroot: http://gitorious.paraguayeduca.org/paraguayeduca-server is based on Ubuntu server. Regards, Carlos 2012/2/1 Abhishek Singh abhishek.si...@olenepal.org: On 02/01/2012 01:15 AM, Daniel Drake wrote: Hi, Like others, I'm interested in moving the XS to a newer OS base. My key motivation for this is that the Foundation Zamora Teran (OLPC Nicaragua) is having difficulty buying servers for new schools being added to the project - Fedora 9 is too old to support this hardware. For the next XS release, Martin suggests that CentOS 6.2 (or another RHEL equivalent) is used as a base. As my contribution here will likely be limited to just this rebase, I'm prepared to accept that preference. However, having installed/run CentOS 6.2 for the first time I now have my doubts about this. I installed it on a server where the network interface does not appear with F9 (but does work with more recent Fedora). With CentOS, the same problem as F9 is presented: no network adapter. Digging further, I see that support was added to the Linux kernel for this particular network adapter (Atheros AR8152) on February 16th, 2010. However, since CentOS 6.2 uses a kernel from 2009, it does not support this hardware. This seems excessively old for a distro that was released in December 2011, and I imagine that we will see many such problems if we run with this. With this in mind, is there still a strong preference to go with CentOS, or would a more recent Fedora (e.g. 16/17?) be a better choice? Thanks, Daniel ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel Hi Daniel, Moving to CentOS or some enterprise Linux makes sense for rebasing XS on but given the limitations with hardware compatibility, this might be a blocker. New hardware are being used at deployments so probably we might have to stick with newer versions of Fedora. -- Abhishek Singh System Engineer Open Learning Exchange (OLE) Nepal साझा शिक्षा ई-पाटी http://www.olenepal.org Tel: +977-1-551 ext. 102 ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel -- Carlos Daniel Garay Departamento de Tecnología, Paraguay Educa. ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
[Server-devel] CentOS hardware support doubts
Hi, Like others, I'm interested in moving the XS to a newer OS base. My key motivation for this is that the Foundation Zamora Teran (OLPC Nicaragua) is having difficulty buying servers for new schools being added to the project - Fedora 9 is too old to support this hardware. For the next XS release, Martin suggests that CentOS 6.2 (or another RHEL equivalent) is used as a base. As my contribution here will likely be limited to just this rebase, I'm prepared to accept that preference. However, having installed/run CentOS 6.2 for the first time I now have my doubts about this. I installed it on a server where the network interface does not appear with F9 (but does work with more recent Fedora). With CentOS, the same problem as F9 is presented: no network adapter. Digging further, I see that support was added to the Linux kernel for this particular network adapter (Atheros AR8152) on February 16th, 2010. However, since CentOS 6.2 uses a kernel from 2009, it does not support this hardware. This seems excessively old for a distro that was released in December 2011, and I imagine that we will see many such problems if we run with this. With this in mind, is there still a strong preference to go with CentOS, or would a more recent Fedora (e.g. 16/17?) be a better choice? Thanks, Daniel ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] CentOS hardware support doubts
On 02/01/2012 01:15 AM, Daniel Drake wrote: Hi, Like others, I'm interested in moving the XS to a newer OS base. My key motivation for this is that the Foundation Zamora Teran (OLPC Nicaragua) is having difficulty buying servers for new schools being added to the project - Fedora 9 is too old to support this hardware. For the next XS release, Martin suggests that CentOS 6.2 (or another RHEL equivalent) is used as a base. As my contribution here will likely be limited to just this rebase, I'm prepared to accept that preference. However, having installed/run CentOS 6.2 for the first time I now have my doubts about this. I installed it on a server where the network interface does not appear with F9 (but does work with more recent Fedora). With CentOS, the same problem as F9 is presented: no network adapter. Digging further, I see that support was added to the Linux kernel for this particular network adapter (Atheros AR8152) on February 16th, 2010. However, since CentOS 6.2 uses a kernel from 2009, it does not support this hardware. This seems excessively old for a distro that was released in December 2011, and I imagine that we will see many such problems if we run with this. With this in mind, is there still a strong preference to go with CentOS, or would a more recent Fedora (e.g. 16/17?) be a better choice? Thanks, Daniel ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel Hi Daniel, Moving to CentOS or some enterprise Linux makes sense for rebasing XS on but given the limitations with hardware compatibility, this might be a blocker. New hardware are being used at deployments so probably we might have to stick with newer versions of Fedora. -- Abhishek Singh System Engineer Open Learning Exchange (OLE) Nepal साझा शिक्षा ई-पाटी http://www.olenepal.org Tel: +977-1-551 ext. 102 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
