Best company to buy a server from to run Debian?
Submitted by mangler on Tue 16 May 2006
| IBM |
   18% | 158 votes |
| HP |
16% | 146 votes |
| DELL |
14% | 124 votes |
| Apple |
2% | 25 votes |
| Supermicro |
3% | 28 votes |
| Sun |
7% | 66 votes |
|
Buy a whole one? I just collect the parts |
36% | 321 votes |
| Total 868 votes |
Posted by Anonymous (142.58.xx.xx) on Wed 17 May 2006 at 00:01
My gf got Dell to refund her "the cost of the Windows license". She called them up, said she didn't agree to the EULA that comes up on her screen at first boot, and they cut her a cheque for 50 USD. We installed Ubuntu and that was that.
And here we thought that M$ made money on every PC sold no matter what.
And here we thought that M$ made money on every PC sold no matter what.
[ Parent ]
This sounds good! Need to keep this in mind. I've a Dell at work...it's small, fast and so silent (compared to my desktop @ home). Hope this I don't agree to the MS EULA will also work in Europe...
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browse ManPages online!
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browse ManPages online!
[ Parent ]
Well - I guess the option I'd have picked if it was there would be
"whatever PC my friends/collegues/contacts have just thrown out 'cos its too slow/old for windows"
Some of the servers I've had running have really looked out of place in server room at work :)
"whatever PC my friends/collegues/contacts have just thrown out 'cos its too slow/old for windows"
Some of the servers I've had running have really looked out of place in server room at work :)
[ Parent ]
Well - yes - I'd have to agree. But - since I'm only responsible for personal boxen and not commercially used ones - then that's what happens :)
Forgot to mention that in the original comment - oops.
Forgot to mention that in the original comment - oops.
[ Parent ]
Sun :)
I fall in love to their iLOM console!You must try it and fell the power of that tool.
And great performance with AMD64, this is all i need;)
I fall in love to their iLOM console!You must try it and fell the power of that tool.
And great performance with AMD64, this is all i need;)
[ Parent ]
Posted by Anonymous (85.90.xx.xx) on Wed 17 May 2006 at 13:26
since I currently got me a new server and couldn't find anything suitable at dell I voted "Buy a whole one? I just collect the parts"
My new box is an AMD64 dualcore opteron 165 (1.81 GHz), 1 GB RAM, 2 x 250 western digital SATA disks, gigabyte k8 triton motherboard, chieftec dragon big tower atx chasi. however.. it's a pretty nice box which I got for ~1050 EUR only and runs like a charme with debian sarge 64.
greets
My new box is an AMD64 dualcore opteron 165 (1.81 GHz), 1 GB RAM, 2 x 250 western digital SATA disks, gigabyte k8 triton motherboard, chieftec dragon big tower atx chasi. however.. it's a pretty nice box which I got for ~1050 EUR only and runs like a charme with debian sarge 64.
greets
[ Parent ]
But it is not a server. Guess why?
[ Parent ]
I voted for HP. We are running about 80 dl360s. Great servcie, Lite-Out is awsome, and non of the big players fully support debian. Sun is closest with its new announcement of supporting Ubuntu.
[ Parent ]
All the servers we have at work are either Dell or Home-brew, but I don't know how I feel about Dell servers. They seem like good machines apart from the facts that 1. The RAID hardware is kind of screwy and 2. The hard drives tend to fail more than anything else. If there're any pieces of hardware I DON'T want to have trouble with on a server, it'd be the hard drives, or hard-drive related parts (i.e.-- RAID hardware).
Of course, most of my home-brew boxes are made of used workstation parts, so they tend to fail all the time. For some reason I get scoffed at when I ask for a real server for my projects. Oh well, at least debian runs like a champ on that "useless" p3 1GHz that couldn't handle winXP. I should have loads of awesome hardware to play with when Vista obsoletes half our machines.
Of course, most of my home-brew boxes are made of used workstation parts, so they tend to fail all the time. For some reason I get scoffed at when I ask for a real server for my projects. Oh well, at least debian runs like a champ on that "useless" p3 1GHz that couldn't handle winXP. I should have loads of awesome hardware to play with when Vista obsoletes half our machines.
[ Parent ]
I'm abstaining for similar reasons.
We have mostly DELL kit, and whilst the PowerEdge 1425's just chug away happily, some with software mirroring. I couldn't recommend any of the hardware RAID, or the more "advanced" server functionality on the other DELL kit.
Not least there is a bewildering array of documentation to churn through when purchasing to find out precisely whose RAID card is being rebadged, and if it really is exactly the same.
Coming from a Unix world I was use to solid kit from IBM, HP and SUN, but I've no idea how their current offerings stack up for the Debian market. But I'd be surprised if they weren't better at the higher end.
We have mostly DELL kit, and whilst the PowerEdge 1425's just chug away happily, some with software mirroring. I couldn't recommend any of the hardware RAID, or the more "advanced" server functionality on the other DELL kit.
Not least there is a bewildering array of documentation to churn through when purchasing to find out precisely whose RAID card is being rebadged, and if it really is exactly the same.
Coming from a Unix world I was use to solid kit from IBM, HP and SUN, but I've no idea how their current offerings stack up for the Debian market. But I'd be surprised if they weren't better at the higher end.
[ Parent ]
Posted by Anonymous (152.15.xx.xx) on Fri 19 May 2006 at 17:52
Dell is my answer because I just finished setting up two PowerEdge 2450 with Raid 5 all hardware controlled, sarge runs like a champ. I have samba running and openAFS for the distributed filesystem, and its just been a pleasure, no problems from the dell side after you get sarge running. Starting the setup is another deal, (setting all the appropriate flags was not trully fun).
[ Parent ]
The issues arise from things like;
How do you hot plug a SCSI drive into the array?
(We have zero scheduled downtime - it all hurts).
How does it notify you the array needs attention?
How to install the hardware monitoring?
What is the hardware RAID performance like compared to what you might expect.
Or in the case of the 2650 how long it took to get to the bottom of the problem where it started crashing (went away when we low level formatted the disks, which suggests the RAID firmware we have (latest for that controller) has a bug of some sort.
Most of these things can be sorted, but you are pulling in software that does low level fiddling, and which isn't supported by DELL, or worse inventing your own solutions (shouldn't do this, should package them for other Debian users, but we all do). For example their IPMI interface appears to be single threaded, and multiple simultaneous requests cause weird errors to be returned.
It is not when it is working well that you find out what the support is like, it is when it starts misbehaving, especially when it isn't clear where the fault lies. DELL support were very helpful with my problem, but the long and the short is the machine started getting disk errors, no diagnostics it explain or detect a problem, so no obvious place to start troubleshooting.
Perhaps we should do a server comparison table for Debian, see how well the hardware vendors shape up on basic issues like RAID support, lights-out support etc.
How do you hot plug a SCSI drive into the array?
(We have zero scheduled downtime - it all hurts).
How does it notify you the array needs attention?
How to install the hardware monitoring?
What is the hardware RAID performance like compared to what you might expect.
Or in the case of the 2650 how long it took to get to the bottom of the problem where it started crashing (went away when we low level formatted the disks, which suggests the RAID firmware we have (latest for that controller) has a bug of some sort.
Most of these things can be sorted, but you are pulling in software that does low level fiddling, and which isn't supported by DELL, or worse inventing your own solutions (shouldn't do this, should package them for other Debian users, but we all do). For example their IPMI interface appears to be single threaded, and multiple simultaneous requests cause weird errors to be returned.
It is not when it is working well that you find out what the support is like, it is when it starts misbehaving, especially when it isn't clear where the fault lies. DELL support were very helpful with my problem, but the long and the short is the machine started getting disk errors, no diagnostics it explain or detect a problem, so no obvious place to start troubleshooting.
Perhaps we should do a server comparison table for Debian, see how well the hardware vendors shape up on basic issues like RAID support, lights-out support etc.
[ Parent ]
Posted by Anonymous (145.78.xx.xx) on Fri 19 May 2006 at 11:28
Just recieved my first SuperMicro server (quad core opteron, dual AMD 270) It's rock's! It's fast, neatly build and Debian installed straight from the netinstall cd. No extra drivers, no worries... And for the price of a homebuild system (compared to 19" parts that is)
I'll gladly have more of that :-)
Gr,
Zokahn
I'll gladly have more of that :-)
Gr,
Zokahn
[ Parent ]
I've always built my own, but I started my geek career in 1980 as an electronics technician and I can't deny my need for tinkering.
My current web/mail/DNS server for my business is built from parts I got on sale with rebates, and I ended up with quite a powerful box for less than $600USD. I could have trimmed the cost further (~$100USD) if I'd not tricked the thing out just to get one mod-box out of my system. It's got UV glowing geegaws, a windowed case, etc. just because I felt compelled for no rational reason to pretty it up a bit.
Never mind that I haven't turned on the UV cathodes since the week after it went online...
My current web/mail/DNS server for my business is built from parts I got on sale with rebates, and I ended up with quite a powerful box for less than $600USD. I could have trimmed the cost further (~$100USD) if I'd not tricked the thing out just to get one mod-box out of my system. It's got UV glowing geegaws, a windowed case, etc. just because I felt compelled for no rational reason to pretty it up a bit.
Never mind that I haven't turned on the UV cathodes since the week after it went online...
[ Parent ]