On Fri, 2 Jul 1999, Eric Ladner wrote:
> My secret to success? Get the latest APPROVED kernels (mentioned
> on this list), apply the latest patches from ftp.kernel.org, and run
> the latest raidtools from that same site. As for kernel upgrades,
> unless it fixes some pain for you, why up a minor point level just
> for the heck of it (read below...). I learned my lesson.
I have to agree with you there - why upgrade just for the sake of
upgrading? I ran a Debian 0.93R6 (ish) system with a 1.2.13 kernel for 2
years previously and that system served some very busy mailing lists,
(sendmail & Majordomo) a web server, my X console and a MUD almost
flawlessly for all that time.
Today, I'm running Debian 2.1 with a 2.2.6 kernel with the 0.90 raid utils
and associated kernel patches on an SMP board (Dual Xeon III) with an
on-board dual channel adaptec controller, on-board Intel Ethernet, 2 IDE
drives to boot/mirror root from and 4 x 18GB IBM SCSI UW drives, 2 on each
bus in a RAID 5 configuration. (oh, with a 70GB DLT drive on one of the
busses too) The only kernel patches I have are the raid ones - everything
else is stock as supplied. the machine is 3 weeks into production, serving
just over 100 PC's running NT or Win98, nearly 2 dozen Sparcs and a small
handfull of other Linux workstations. It runs as the NIS Master and
central mailserver and internal web server (Intranet server if you want)
for our company. I cook a few of my own installations from source because
I'm not 100% happy with the way Debian does things, (also because I've
been doing it that was for the past 12 years) but I suspect a lot of other
sysadmins do that anyway (eg. sendmail, apache, CVS and Amanda), but
everything else is just as is.
I originally installed 2.2.9 just because that was the latest at the time,
but when I started digging deeper to find out all I could about the RAID
stuff, I saw that they supported 2.2.6, so simply fetched and installed
that kernel without asking anything about it.
I can't say it's perfect - I had a few hardware teething problems and
there are still 1 or 2 other little problems - ypserve falls over
occasionally and a few problems with NFS to the Suns and Samba 2.0.x
crashes NT5 boxes, but for the whole, it lets our hardware & software
developers get on with their jobs without too many whinges!
It's also bloody fast!
Kodos to the folks who did the RAID (& SMP) stuff - thanks guys, I owe you
one!
Gordon
--
Gordon Henderson, \ Pixelfusion Ltd.
Senior Systems Administrator \ 2430 The Quadrant,
+44 0 1454 878 740 \ Aztec West,
+44 0 1454 878 644 (fax) \ Almondsbury, Bristol. BS32 4AQ
