Brion Vibber schrieb:
My understanding is that the system shipped with SuSE
Professional
8.1 for AMD64 preinstalled. If that's not production ready, somebody
should really tell Penguin Computing that they're shipping broken
goods.
I think, we should use as much existing knowledge as possible, this
machine is not intended as a learning environment. If nobody here has
experience with 64bit Linux Kernels, we shouldn't use them. We
''have''
experience with 32Bit SMP kernels, so let's go for it. If someone has
access to the remote console during boot, install GRUB instead of LILO,
it helps debug kernel related boot problems, but of course only if you
can reach the console.
If nobody here has experience with SuSE Professional 8.1 for AMD 64, we
should replace it with an distribution we ''are'' familiar with, be it
Red Hat Linux, Fedora Project, or Debian GNU/Linux. However, we have to
eliminate as much variables as possible, and to my understanding that
means, we have to use an operating system base, which the people who
administer the machine are familiar with and trust [1].
The latest 64Bit hardware is more than enough to explore, we don't need
no more SPOFs than necessary.
If the hardware ''is'' working properly is a totally different story [2].
Greetings & good luck, -asb
[1] Because of experiences at work with GNU/Linux-based Internet and
enterprise infrastructure services, I personally don't trust SuSE. But I
''do'' trust Red Hat Linux, and Debian GNU/Linux - but only if it's
administered by someone with enought expererience with Red Hat Linux, or
Debian GNU/Linux (and ''only'' then).
[2] I personally don't like SMP machines based on AMD CPUs like the
Athlon MP because (a) neither I nor my dealer nor the manufacturer of
the mainboards (Tyan) was ever able to chill them down to acceptable
temperatures without watercooling, which definitely ain't no fun on
remote SMP systems (lm_sensors will tell you more than you want to know
about this), and (b) the BIOS manufactured by AMD I know so far are too
buggy (whatever this Opteron is using might be totally different).