cisco vs. dell switch on fedora

[Skunk Worx]

hello,

i am having a heck of a time getting a dell 5324 switch to dhcp directly 
to a couple linux boxes i have hung off it.

enabling portfast on the cisco switches instantly fixed this problem, so 
i was suprised to see no change on the dell 5324. it's like i changed 
nothing at all.

i have also disabled STP on the ports in question, but it still takes 
1-7 seconds or more for the link to come up. this conflicts with a 5 
second timeout in the network scripts.

does anyone know of another setting i can change on the dell 5324 to 
help with this negotiation/dhcp/spanning-tree problem when i have linux 
boxes connected directly to the switch?

the more machines plugged in, the worse it is. none of our ciscos do this.

disabling STP on the ports got rid of the larger delay of a minute or 
more, but not this 1-7 (or more) second lag when bringing up the interface.

for now we have upped the timeout to 15 seconds in the network scripts 
while we hunt for a real solution.

thx,
flash