[OpenIndiana-discuss] Dell Precision T3600 with Openindiana 151a7 ?

[Udo Grabowski (IMK)]

On 11/10/2012 10:25, Udo Grabowski (IMK) wrote:
> Hello, vendor wants us to buy Dell Precision T3600 with Xeon E5-1650 16 GB
> ECC. processor (C600 series Chipset, Raid Card H310 PCIe, Intel 82579 Gbe
> controller). Does anybody know if that works with OI151a7 ? Don't want to
> return 3 large boxes ..
>

So thanks for all suggestions so far.
Boxes arrived, and, of course, we had HUGE PROBLEMS ....

First, the BIOS had to be upgraded to version A07, otherwise
there's no chance to get it up at all (seems to be a homebrew
BIOS...).

Next problem: The 151a7 full live DVD does not boot, instead failed
with 'console login services cannot be run'. Booting with
the text-only live cd solved that. Maybe something wrong on
that DVD ?

Next problem: The @!#$... PERC310 card has no driver, so we
ripped that out and connected to one internal sata port.
Found that the imr_sas driver available from elsewhere supports
the pci id 1000,73 needed here, so we will try later to use
that one without reflashing the card (using the non-RAID BIOS
switch). mr_sas (even not the newer release available elsewhere)
does NOT work with that card (maybe after reflashing to a
different firmware/pci id, if flashable at all).

Next problem: After loading the KVM virtualization module, the
system freezes. A long search for the cause finally led us to
<https://www.illumos.org/issues/1723>, which was just fixed
4 weeks ago. So 'set apix_enable=0' in /etc/system fixed that
problem, to boot with the DVD you have to switch off virtualization
support in the BIOS (both vt and vt-d).

Next problem: Our older Syskonnect 9E81 pciex LC optical network
Gigabit HBA is not seen at all by that machine (not in prtconf on
OI, not in lspci in Ubuntu, switched slots, machines, cards, no
hope), that's probably because that BIOS relies on the newer AMT
mechanism to recognize that card. Called Dell, they may give an
answer to that problem the next days. In parallel, we ordered a
couple of Intel 82572GI based optical EXPI9400PFBLK cards, hope
they will work with OI and that system.

Next problem: Independent of the non-recognized network card
inside or not, we get these spurious, cryptic warnings spitting
into the boot process: 'pci_lcap_locate: unexpected pci header type:6d'
where the number is quite random ranging from 4 to ff. No
idea where that comes from, but it seems to have no visible impact
so far.

Next problem: ddu tells us that a couple of components still have
no driver:
     Intel Corporation C600/X79 series chipset MEI Controller #1
     NEC Corporation uPD720200 USB 3.0 Host Controller
Don't know if the first one harms us. USB 3 is known to be
missing from illumos.

Next problem: DVDs cannot be burned anymore (dumped 3 different
vendors, tried Brasero DVD creator as well as cdrecord, DVD is
not readable after burn). This seems to be a more general problem
not connected to the machine since ~151a7, I remember I burned an
a7 DVD on a5 (but had problems there too with non-matching md5sums).
A boot with such a DVD hangs somewhere near the beginning with
SCSI errors (maybe wrong burn parameters are used while creating).
This is a severe bug, cause yet unknown. There seem to be a few
reports about that problem already.

So far this was one of the harder setups we ever had. The
essential lessons to learn for OI are these:

1. The live DVD should work without having to fall back to the
    text DVD, and it should work for newer machines that trigger
    the apix driver, that means, the live /etc/system should either
    have 'set apix_enable=0', or OI should quickly import the
    illumos bug fix #1723. This workaround (as well as the BIOS
    vt/vt-d workaround) should be published in the 'Release Notes',
    since that affects almost all new machines (>= Ivy Bridge,Sandy Bridge).

2. If imr_sas works, that should be included in OI, since the
    options for available workstations that really work are getting
    smaller and smaller, and the DELL is one of the few that are leftover.

3. OI should concentrate on importing working new drivers for
    new hardware, a lot of stuff is already out there in the
    illumos cloud and elsewhere and just needs to be packaged.
    Otherwise, we will quickly loose users since no hardware will
    be left where OI will run without problems or hassles like we have
    now. This all reminds me of the early years of Linux... USB 3 should
    be of maximum priority now, e.g., shortly before Christmas it was
    really difficult to find any external HDDs that do NOT rely on USB 3.
    It seems that it will (or already does) completely dominate the market
    for external small scale storage in less than a few months.

4. User visible problems (like the DVD write bug, missing USB 3) should
    get more priority than esoteric enhancements. Given the small maintainer/
    developer base, we should concentrate to have OI in good shape,
    that will attract users and, in the longer run, more developers.

-- 
Dr.Udo Grabowski    Inst.f.Meteorology a.Climate Research IMK-ASF-SAT
www.imk-asf.kit.edu/english/sat.php
KIT - Karlsruhe Institute of Technology            http://www.kit.edu
Postfach 3640,76021 Karlsruhe,Germany  T:(+49)721 608-26026 F:-926026