myrddin.org: weblog

I thought I’d escape the wrath of Serial Attached SCSI, dodgy vendors and not having suitable source code when I left my previous job.. however it turns out that the shitfight had only just begun!

Previously I had a handful of xSeries machines that had SAS raid controllers of which there were no source code released for. This meant we were at the whim of the vendor to release binary modules for relevant distro kernels. There was one scenario in particular where the was only 1 binary module released, for a kernel that was about 2 years old! It was one of those fuck arounds that I had hoped to have left behind. This as I found out last week was not going to be the case.

My new employer has another hardware vendor that also have started producing hardware based on the new Intel dual core rigs which have embedded Intel raid controllers. The 2RU database servers aren’t much of an issue as the kernel module for their SAS raid controllers are in the 2.6.17 kernel and work quite well, however there are a significant number of new 1RU boxes for smaller tasks like web/application servers that use the embedded controller of which there are no open source kernel modules available. A quick visit to the Intel website uncovers some binary modules for those nasty RHEL and SLES servers (not the most up to date kernel versions either I might add so that also doesn’t help me in the slightest!).

I’ve since made a bit of progress in the last few days, but we’re still waiting for the vendor to pass on the relevant source so I can go off and install *lots* of sexy new machines. It has been a fair bit of a run around which isn’t surprising at all. The vendor doesn’t really know what they are doing at all and keep going back to Intel, Intel don’t seem to be willing to cough up either relevant kernel modules or the source as appropriate.. I really felt like pulling out my hair today.

Now to move onto the other part of the topic, I installed ‘ubuntu edgy’ last week on my new work slappy. I did it because I couldn’t install debian on it straight from the installer *shock horror*.

I spent a good half a day trying to convince debian stable and testing installers to install on my new Dell work laptop but they wouldn’t have a bar of it. I could have quite easily have done the install by booting off a live linux cd containing a recent kernel, doing a simple bootstrap install and going to my usual unstable/experimental combo, but I succumbed to Nicholas’ ranting about Ubuntu so I thought I’d give it a go. Surprisingly enough it was really easy to install, but that was most likely to do with the more recent kernel used by the installer. I must say that ubuntu is very ‘pretty’ looking… I’m really not into ‘pretty’ looking as opposed to functionality though… I have my own ways of doing things, which really isn’t what Ubuntu is about… Either way, I’ve had it installed on this laptop for a week now I think and I haven’t trashed it (yet). I’m even using it with firefox 2.0 to write this entry, downstairs over wireless… Yes, it really is quite simple to get ubuntu (or debian in general for that matter) configured with wireless, however, I don’t like using clickity clickity gui tools to do so, I prefer cli (voodoo: man interfaces #:P) I’m a shit stirrer aren’t I? hehe

Dammit, spent too much time getting side tracked .. slaptop flattery is almost.. flat.. *beep*beep*beep*

Filed under: m.o