Looking for a good entry level server board that plays well with FC3.

[Alexander Dalloz]

Am Fr, den 09.09.2005 schrieb N. Johnson um 6:20:

> I am looking for entry-level motherboard which works well under FC3 - 
> basically all the drivers are available.
> It should also have the following:
> - SATA support with RAID 1.

If onboard those chipsets are (nearly) always just BIOS supported
software RAIDs (especially on mid price enty level server boards). You
better go using Linux software RAID directly or if the budget allows,
buy a small 3ware controller.

> - Built in video.
> - Built in GigE.

Watching out for onboard LAN keep care to get a Linux kernel supported
device, where you don't have to rely on external, vendor only drivers.

> I was thinking about this board.
> http://www.intel.com/design/servers/boards/se7221bk1-e/
> 
> However there is a posting which basically says it does not play well with 
> FC3.  Also Intel does not have any FC3 specific drivers.

Probably you found in the list archive this thread

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=fedora-list&m=111085201717364&w=2

Yes, I had that board and it was a pain. From my experience I say "keep
your hands off!". It would be a good board if it would work as it
should. But have a look at

ftp://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/sb/se7221bk1specupd2.pdf

You'll find that it is half broken (i.e. the FRUSDR). The main chipset
made some problems with SATA under specific situations. And finally
after a 5 hours burn-in test my board died completely (I tested with
constant but moderate CPU load under Windows® 64bit server - just to be
sure the problems were not Linux caused).
I had 2 of those boards, one the exchange of the first which had a
smaller revision number. Even the newer one wasn't any better.

And be aware that these "entry level server boards" by Intel are
"dieing" products. On this year's CeBit Intel stated that they will kick
this products line. So actually they are just selling in their stock.

> Panos

Alexander


-- 
Alexander Dalloz | Enger, Germany | GPG http://pgp.mit.edu 0xB366A773
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Fedora Core 2 GNU/Linux on Athlon with kernel 2.6.11-1.35_FC2smp 
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