Re: Digital Server 5305 Linux compatible?

Lynn Snyder (lynns@aspsys.com)
Tue, 19 May 1998 13:38:53 -0600

At 05:51 PM 5/19/98 +0300, you wrote:
>
>Hullo,
>
>a certain group of people I know are planning on buying a Digital Server
>5305. According to the vendor and one poxy fax-festered Digital tech info
>sheet, the specimen at hand sports the following:
>
> * 1 533MHz 21164 cpu with 4 MB cache
> * 1 GB RAM
> * 6 PCI + 1 PCI/EISA- slots
> * 2*9GB UltraSCSI hot-swap disks
> * TZ88N 20/40GB internal DLT tape drive
> * an _unspecified_ 3-channel RAID controller
> * an integrated 1 MB DRAM PCI SVGA controller
> * an integrated PCI Fast-Ethernet controller
>
>Of course there are also the usual extras thrown in for measure, such as
>cd-rom drive, floppy drive, monitor, keyboard, blah blah blah. Now, while
>all this seems so very fine and dandy, I'd like some expert opinions and
>educated guesses as to whether this machine would run Linux/Alpha without
>any hindrance, as the server is only designated as "64-bit Windows
>NT-ready" and having Windows NT 4.0 as "Certified Operating System", oh
>the horror! ;)
>
>Specifically, do any of you see any reason why the RAID controller or the
>DLT drive wouldn't work (driver availability etc.)?

There should not be any problem with the DLT Tape drive as it is a pure
SCSI device. However, the RAID controller is another story. I know of no
PCI based RAID controllers that run under Alpha Linux. (By the way, DECs
RAID card is a Mylex controller.) An easy solution to the RAID is to use a
SCSI-to-SCSI RAID controller and take any software or drivers out of the
equation.

Do you plan on running the 5305 as an SMP box in the future? I know DEC
was working on compiling a kernel for linux to run SMP Alpha. This is in
preparation for the 21264. I have not heard recently of there progess though.

The make and type
>of the RAID controller is strangely unspecified;

I am not sure of the standard make and model of DECs SCSI controllers.
However, it would be an easy swap to install an Intraserver SCSI controller
with linux compatible drivers.

Hope this helps!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mr. Lynn Snyder
Aspen Systems Inc.
RISC Workstation and Server Technology
3900 Youngfield St.
Wheat Ridge, CO 80033-3862
Phone: (303) 431-4606 ext. 117
Fax: (303) 431-7196
Internet: lynns@aspsys.com
WWW: http://www.aspsys.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~