DC7600 and Debian Sarge (stable)

[OTPABA]

I just successfuly installed Sarge on dc7600 - hyperthreading (HT), SATA, NIC and graphics works. I wan't to share technical details with you, maybe somebody will spare time.

Since default installer does not recognize SATA and NIC first we need to boot the system some way. I used simple method - connected IDE disk instead of CD-ROM. Disk contained "normal" sarge installation with ide-disk support. Take such a disk from any working Linux machine (IDE, x86). After dc7600 booted I took newest kernel (2.6.14.3) source (from kernel.org) and compiled it (kernel configuration attached). While strict setup was needed I disabled support for kernel modules. Be free and enable it if you need. Be sure you left these options:
CONFIG_SMP=y (for HT)
CONFIG_ACPI=y (for HT)
CONFIG_ACPI_PROCESSOR=y (for HT)
CONFIG_TIGON3=y (NIC)
CONFIG_SCSI=y (SATA)
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SD=y (SATA)
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA=y
CONFIG_SCSI_ATA_PIIX=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDISK=y (you are running from an IDE disk :-)

Without SMP HT will not work at all, if you leave APIC option enabled kernel will not boot at all, so don' t play and enable SMP.
Without ACPI options youl see only one CPU because HT processor will not be registered in MultiProcessor table.

Compile new kernel, install it. After reboot your HT CPU, SATA and NIC should be up. Try ifconfig -a, dmesg | egrep -i "(sata|scsi)", also look at /proc/cpuinfo. Partition your SATA drive, and install Sarge there. I copied installation from IDE disk, and manualy edited /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/menu.lst. Mount you new installation, chroot to it and install GRUB. After you disconnect IDE disk, SATA drive will jump from HD1 to HD0. On GRUB promt edit line containing "root (hd1,?)" to "root (hd0,?)", boot the system and edit coresponding line /boot/grub/menu.lst. If your /boot is on separate mount point also change line "kernel /boot/vmlinuz..." to "kernel /vmlinuz...". That's it!

M.

[mverwijs]

I've been using this: http://wiki.osuosl.org/display/LNX/Debian+on+Dell+Servers

You do need to insert a second NIC though. And it installs Woody by default.

Other than that, it's sweet.