raid on a new server

[Paul Melson]

On Fri, Apr 28, 2000 at 08:25:05AM -0400, Mike Rambo wrote:
> We're setting up a new server for one of the elementary
> schools.  It'll be the first school that we try a Linux only
> server solution.  The hardware is a Compaq Proliant 2500 with a
> pair of 4.3GB SCSI hard drives.  I'd like to raid0 (or even
> raid-linear if I could figure it out) at least part of both of
> these drives to obtain as large a file storage space as I can.
> I was thinking I'd put /boot, /, and the swap space on sda with
> /var & /usr on sdb - then raid the rest of both drives for
> /home.  The only way I know to accomplish this is with the GUI
> install of RH6.2 (I've successfully done it once before that
> way), the text install doesn't appear to support raid.  The
> problem is the RH install won't work with the Cirrus GD54xx
> chipset in the server in GUI mode - which I don't understand at
> all as I thought CL chipsets were supported by X11.  I've also
> tried Mandrake 7 and it won't come up in GUI either.
> 
> Anybody have any ideas how I can either get RH6.2 to come up in
> GUI mode, or ways to do the raid setup from text either before
> or after the server install is accomplished?

	According to both RedHat and XFree86, the CLGD5400s
	are all supported as "Tier 1" adapters, which means
	they're supported by the Linux kernel itsself.  I've
	installed Caldera and RedHat on Proliant 1600 and 2500 
	machines w/ no problem at all, so I don't know how or 
	why X wouldn't work w/ your machine.  I saw this in 
	the RedHat support docs a few months back, and maybe 
	it applies:

http://www.redhat.com/support/docs/gotchas/6.1/gotchas-6.1-4.html#ss4.13


	If not, my first suggestion would be to try using 
	XF86_FBDev instead of XF86_SVGA.  It's a bit more CPU 
	intensive, but if it gets you up and running it's worth 
	it, right?  My second suggestion would be to use the 
	kernel support for the Compaq SMART2 controller and 
	linuxconf to set up your array in text mode.  I haven't 
	actually tried this with Compaq hardware, but I've set 
	up kernel mirroring on clone hardware that way before.

	Hope that helps!


PaulM

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