Ubuntu and CentOS support questions

[chuckk281]

Azhar had a Linux variant question:

******************

One of my customer is looking to use BL460 G7 with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS / 12.04 LTS and CentOS 6.

The HP Drivers page shows support for both, but not the versions customer is looking to use,

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DriverDownload.jsp?prodNameId=4194638&lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=3709945&prodSeriesId=4194735&taskId=135

Anyone knows if BL460c G7 will be certified with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS / 12.04 LTS and CentOS 6.

Interestingly the Ubuntu site does not even show any HP Blade Server as Certified, http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/make/HP/servers

***************

From Vincent::

And to be more specific on the versions,  Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is in the HP drivers page you mentioned. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS does not exist yet (Ubuntu version number is its release date year.month).

CentOS 6 should come I guess but I don't know when, there's a directory for it on http://downloads.linux.hp.com/SDR/downloads/ProLiantSupportPack/CentOS/ but it's empty right now.

From Marc:

Canonical has moved to a new certification process and have achieved their old certification site.  They are attempting to get acquire HP ProLiant servers they intend to certify in house at this time.  Once Canonical has the ProLiant servers in place they will begin testing and certifying ProLiant servers with Ubuntu. 

I will inquire to find out how long it will be before G7 servers start showing up on the new site., but bear in mind that Ubuntu is supported by Canonical and not by HP.  There are no plans to support Ubuntu at this time.  All support is provided by Canonical.

Regarding CentOS, there is no certification program and HP does not support CentOS.  CentOS is supported by the CentOS community.  By submitting drivers into the upstream kernel, CentOS is taken from Fedora/RHEL, and CentOS usually has longer release timeframes and customers can be reasonably confident that CentOS will work and run well on ProLiant servers.  Even so, it is not supported by HP and HP has no plans to support CentOS.

Reply from Azhar:

I wanted to get some clarification,

So CentOS 6 drivers will be created by CentOS community, so when they are available they will show up on the HP drivers site, it that correct?

And also what could be the reason for not seeing any Blade servers at all (even older BL460 G6) on Ubuntu Certified servers page?

***************

Are you using CentOS or Ubuntu? Any comments?

[chuckk281]

More on this discussion from Marc:

*********************

Actually HP puts all Linux drivers into the upstream kernel; however, we work with partners like RH and SUSE more to ensure that even when the hardware and OS releases do not align HP is still able to provide time to market driver coverage for those drivers that were not able to make it into the upstream kernel.  In this case, the drivers would be in the PSP or soon to be SPP or out on the SDR.

As I mentioned CentOS lags in their release so when they eventually put out a new version generally most if not all of the drivers are in the CentOS distro.

As for Ubuntu, they retired the old page that listed many of the blade servers you cannot find.  On the new page servers only appear if they have the servers in their labs and they have completed their certification test suite.  Since they are acquiring HP hardware the certifications are definitely lagging behind.  See attached.

Here is the explanation I received from Canonical:

The difference is a change to our certification program leading to the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS release next April.

With the Ready program, we (myself and Ameet) were allowed to certify the HP servers onsite, in the HP lab.

With the new program (Ready has been retired), Canonical has to have the HW in the Canonical lab in order for the systems to get an Ubuntu certification. This allows Canonical to conduct ongoing tests with certified HW and major and minor software/OS releases before they get released to the public.

****************

Hope this helps.