[1839] in RedHat Linux List
Re: Support for Compaq Smart-2 Array Controller
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Otto Hammersmith)
Wed Oct 30 12:39:11 1996
From: Otto Hammersmith <ohammers@cu-online.com>
To: redhat-list@redhat.com
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1996 11:31:55 -0600 (CST)
In-Reply-To: <199610301231.NAA03127@minnie.xos.nl> from "Jos Vos" at Oct 30, 96 01:31:36 pm
Resent-From: redhat-list@redhat.com
Reply-To: redhat-list@redhat.com
Jos Vos wrote:
>
> > > We have a customer running a Linux distribution delivered by us on
> > > about 10 Compaq Prosignia 300 and 500 systems all over the world.
> > ^^^
> > > And every new system where Linux is put on seems to be working fine.
> > > The kernel includes (w.r.t. SCSI) just the NCR53c7,8xx driver.
> > > The systems all use a SCSI-disk, SCSI-tape (HP-DAT), and the standard
> > > CD-ROM, and they all work fine from the very beginning.
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > Just out of curiosity, how old are those servers? I'm wondering if
> > the one I got was just bad.
>
> The first one we used was bought about november 1995, I guess, the last
> one a couple of weeks ago.
Lesse... ours was a P133 that we got around March 1996. I wouldn't be
surprised if Solaris had bugs in certain drivers, so maybe that was
the problem. (I won't start a thread on why I'll never use Solaris on
x86 hardware, this time. ;)
> > I jut won't ever buy Compaq hardware again... nothing personal, I just
> > would rather know what I'm getting, and be sure that the manufactuer
> > didn't try something "clever" with standard part.
>
> The situation of our customer: they want to be able to tell their
> offices all over the world "buy brand X model Y and put our tape in it"
> (and it should work fine by default). They thought this would work for
> Compaq and until now (...) they didn't have any compatibility problems.
The flaw in that logic... well, you -know- some clever manager down
the road is gonna get brand X model Y+ because he wants a P166 and not
a P133 (so much faster, you know) and, in my expereince, Compaq can't
be trusted not to tweak (read: break) things majorly between model Y
and model Y+.
> So, any local PC clones (like we always buy our own components and build
> our own systems) are not acceptable in that situation.
Understandable.. 'twas the same argument the CEO and I at that old
company had. IMNSHO, it's just a furry blanket to comfort yourself,
and cover the real problem. In both cases (generic and brand name
hardware) problems will happen... and at least with the generic
hardware, you can say "xxx SCSI controller has known problems, get yyy
and they'll go away" then for $200 your customer can fix the problem.
While with the Compaq hardwired stuff, you have to say "there are
known problems with model xxxx get model yyy"... I doubt many
customers would appreciate or even accept having to shell out
(hopefully they can return the "broken" one) another several thousand
dollars to fix the problem.
> Does anyone have suggestions for world-wide available PC's (brands, models)
> that could be used in these kind of situations?
Personally, I'd offer the option of buying the hardware from me. At
slightly inflated prices, but with a guarantee (and preinstalled, of
course) that there weren't gonna be hardware incompatabilities.
Since, that's -really- impractial, you may be able to spec out what
hardware should go into a system, and point your customers to a
company that will build custom systems with very precise parts. I'd
bet one of the several vendors that sell Linux preinstalled would be
able to make some kind of arrangement.
Good luck.
--
-Otto
--
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