Re: [PE1400sc]

[Nick Holland <nick@holland-consulting.net>]

Øyvind Vadset wrote:
> 
> I am changing a web/mail server and was looking at Dell PowerEdge 1400SC,
> my question
> is easy. Have anybody had any problems running OpenBSD on it ?
> 
> -- Øyvind

I booted and installed OpenBSD on a PE1400sc recently, I do believe,
client's machine destined to become a Netware server, but got
sidetracked for most of a day as I tried to verify that the new MBR
code worked properly on it...

Answer: Apparently worked well with a few gotchas:
1) The *stock* MBR code does not work, as is true for many Dells. 
This is fixed in -current, or by the proceedure in FAQ 14 on "Drive 0
Partition 3".  As this machine has a maintenance partition, this
really shouldn't be an issue for you, *if* you set the machine up
"properly" (i.e., load maintenance partition on all HDs before loading
OpenBSD), you won't end up installing the OpenBSD MBR.
2) The Dell servers typically use the Serverworks IDE chipset, which
is NOT supported in UDMA mode by OpenBSD at this point.  This means
your IDE performanc will, uh, suck.  As I recall, the SC stands for
SCSI, so this may not be an issue for you, but the CDROM is IDE. 
Note, this isn't to say the IDE doesn't work, it is just running in
the "compatability" mode, a.k.a. PIO, a.k.a.,
beat-the-heck-out-of-processor mode.

Other than the above, fairly nice box.  Dual SCSI channels which are
nice, so I could have the HDs and the tape drive on separate channels
(drives were Ultra160, the tape drive was content at 10MB/s...bad
things to pair up).

Note: The machine spent <24 hours running OpenBSD, and never really
*did* anything productive, so I really can't say how well it worked,
but it appeared to run fine in the time I ran it.

Could I ask that you not send subjectless messages to the list?  Makes
it very hard to figure out if no one has responded or if ten people
have already said the same thing I am telling you...

Nick.
-- 
http://www.holland-consulting.net