installing RedHat7.3 to Dell 1850....

Wed Feb 23 14:06:38 PST 2005

Quoting Kwan Low (kwanseng at yahoo.com):

> A client send us a brand new Dell Poweredge 1850 and want us to
> install Redhat 7.3.

Which is a truly awful and faintly preposterous idea, really, for lots
of reasons including security.  But of course the customer wants what
the customer wants.

> Having all kind of trouble getting it to install due to 7.3 unable to
> deal with the newer hardware. 

Specifically, it's the installation kernel's lack of support for some
crucial chipsets, notably for block-device and network support.

> Any tricks/workaround to get 7.3 installed on 1850?  can it be done?
> or I'm screwed?

Getting meaningful hardware-chipset information out of Dell is like
pulling teeth, if memory serves.  <time passes>  Yep, still the same
good ol' Dell.[1]

It's a dual-Xeon Nocoma (EM64T), Intel 7520, two SCSI HDs. 1U enclosure.
Optional PERC 4e/Si, 4/DC, 4/SC, or 4e/DC hardware RAID (megaraid2
driver).  Embedded SCSI is (probably?) some sort of LSI Logic MegaRAID.
ATI Radeon 7000-M video.  The i7520 has Intel PRO/1000 MT ethernet
(needs e1000 driver v5.3.17 or later).

Basically, your client has set you a herculean task -- maybe because he
doesn't know better.  Before tackling this, you might want to ask him,
"Kindly client, are you _sure_ you specifically need RH 7.3?  Do you
have any idea how ancient that is?  Maybe you'd be a lot better off with
a modern RHEL rebuild like CentOS?"

If it turns out that, no, he really does need RH 7.3, at a minimum,
you're going to have level with your client about the fact that the box,
once you get it going, is _not_ going to be running a stock 7.3 kernel,
but rather a replacement kernel with a more-modern set of drivers.  (The
RH 7.3 version of XFree86 isn't going to suffice, either, but I'll
assume you don't care on a rackmount machine.)

Then, take one of these approaches:

1.  Remove one of the 1850's SCSI drives, and mount it in a box
consisting otherwise of circa 1999 hardware.  Install RH 7.3.  Replace
the kernel with one supporting all of the 1850's essential hardware.
Move the hard drive back.  Boot from a very current maintenance disk
(SystemRescue CD, Timo's Rescue Disk, Knoppix, etc.) and fix the lilo
bootloader.  You're done.

2.  Perform installation _on_ the 1850 of a Linux distribution with a
really recent installation kernel, e.g., SUSE Linux 9.2, Knoppix, Zen
Linux, Ubuntu Linux.  Install RH 7.3 into a chroot jail.  Replace the
chrooted installation's kernel.  Fix lilo as per the above.

3.  Remaster the RH 7.3 boot CD to use a modern kernel.

With any of these approaches, beware that upgrading the kernel will
probably necessitate upgrading other core system utilities such as
modutils, as well.

You may need further help from the linux-poweredge mailing list:
http://lists.us.dell.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-poweredge

RHEL rebuilds including CentOS are described at:  "RHEL Forks" on
http://linuxmafia.com/kb/RedHat .

Good luck.  I hope they're paying you well.

[1] http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/Class-Action-Lawsuit-Accuses-Dell-of-Bait-and-Switch-Tactics-40839.html