Why Can't I install BSD on this machine?

Question

I can't seem to find any info on how to get BSD installed on this server (sc1435). Is there some explicit reason why I can't run whatever OS I want on the machine? If not, can anyone point me in the direction of how to get BSD installed on it.

Thanks very much.

Message Edited by drdredel on 11-25-2007 08:54 PM

at5147 · Answer

Make sure that all hardware is supported by checking here: http://www.openbsd.org/i386.html#hardware If all hardware is supported, have a read here: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html

drdredel · Answer

The problem is that even though there appear to be no hardware conflicts, the machine refuses to recognize any disk in the drive except for the DELL cd that came with it. So... I was hoping there would be some additional info about what that disk needs to look like in order for the bios to allow me to boot from it with the BSD.iso data.

diyana_ali · Answer

Did you check for the md5 sum before burning the ISO? Double check and make sure it's not corrupted.   Personally, I did try to install Debian and Ubuntu (gasping sound heard from the background :)) on PE2950, the PERC controller (Debian Stable -- can't install because no HDD was found :'() and the Network card (Ubuntu) were not recognized. The only way was to compile the source and it was a No No, just in case there's a kernel update and one-by-one will start falling apart :)   My best bet always to go for RedHat (or their free variants).   Or Gentoo. Everything is from source(TM).

tigersim303 · Answer

First question: Which flavour of BSD do you mean to install? Of the Big Three, I have experience of FreeBSD & OpenBSD, but not NetBSD. I have a number of SC1420s - not sure how similar they are to the SC1435 but here's my experience:

I've been running all versions of FreeBSD since 5.3 up to 6.2 on these SC1420s with no problems. They install smoothly and run rock solid as production DB & web servers (my 6.2 machine is currently reporting an uptime of 196 days and counting... :)

Of course they're unsupported by Dell, but you knew that already!

What exact h/w do you have? For example I have the PERC 320 SCSI card in RAID 1 - obviously you have to run the Adaptec firmware to set up the array before installing, but after that it should be plain sailing.

***BUT.... If you're running *OpenBSD* on that set-up you have a problem. OpenBSD does NOT support the PERC320 (which from memory is really an Adaptec 2200S) as Adaptec won't release documentation allowing the development of an Open Source driver (OpenBSD don't do binary blobs...). So in that case your only bet is to switch to FreeBSD or to eBay your SCSI card and get one from LSI, which is what I did for my OpenBSD machine, which now works perfectly.

Hope this helps... sim

Message Edited by tigersim303 on 12-08-2007 10:13 AM

drdredel · Answer

Thanks all. I was being an idiot and simply not burning the ISO correctly. Once I figured that out the OS (Free BSD) installed without any problems whatsoever. I think the biggest issue is that the disk that comes with the machine makes it sound like other than the OSs that they list, none other are supported. They should make it clearer that SUSE and RED HAT are what dell recommends but that ultimately you can run whatever you desire on the machine. That's just my two cents. Thanks for the advice.

tigersim303 · Answer

That's right. When they say an OS isn't 'supported' they mean that they won't offer help or tech support, and that they make no guarantee that it will work properly, so you're on your own.

Glad you got it sorted - good luck!

sim

Message Edited by tigersim303 on 12-10-2007 06:44 AM

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Why Can't I install BSD on this machine?

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