Dell 2950 & 1950

[Jay Chandler]

Bill Moran wrote:
> In response to "Peter Grigor" <peter.grigor at gmail.com>:
>
>   
>> I've just gotten some quotes on a few dell machines and I was wondering now
>> if freebsd 6.x is able to run on them properly. Perc/5i cards and 64-bit
>> Intel chips are my worries :)
>>
>> Anyone have any experiences they'd like to share? Anyone successfully
>> running mysql on an IA64 architecture with Freebsd?
>>     
>
> We're in the early stages of deployment with these.  None of them are
> actually in production yet, but we're in the final stages of putting
> them there.
>
> 6.1 doesn't work with the onboard NICS -- you have to get a 6.2-RC
> or wait for 6.2.  Otherwise, everything 64-bit works as far as we
> can tell.  We're a little grumpy that we don't have any way to
> monitor the RAID (our Dell x850 systems use megarc to automatically
> signal us if a drive fails)  We've also had occasional problems
> with the reboot and shutdown commands not completing, but it's been
> so intermittent that we can't seem to isolate the cause.  Symptom
> is that it gets to the final stage of reboot/shutdown and then waits
> indefinitely without issuing the final ACPI command.
>
> Do some searches on my name and/or those topics on the stable@
> list archives for more details.
>
>   
Running the same 1950 platform here with the i386 base-- I've seen the
same problems you mention.  The onboard NIC worked intermittently, but
kept crashing, so was replaced with an Intel NIC.  I just placed an
order for 7 more, and made sure to get the Intel onboard NIC option.
Restarting is buggy as well, with the same symptoms.  My (inelegant)
solution is to install a pair of ethernet managed power strips, so I can
kill power remotely to bring it all the way down if need be.

What advantages/disadvantages do you see with running the 64 bit
architecture?  I must confess, it never occured to me to try that...
I'm running the Dual Core Xeon processors, if that helps anything.

-- 
Jay Chandler
Network Administrator, Chapman University
714.628.7249 / chandler at chapman.edu
Today's Excuse: astropneumatic oscillations in the water-cooling