RHEL 4.7 or 4.8 on DL380 G6

[Rob Leadbeater]

Hi,

According to HP, the minimum release of RHEL for the DL380 G6 is 4.7:

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/os/certification.html?var1=DL380%20G6

According to Red Hat it's 4.8.

https://hardware.redhat.com/show.cgi?id=486415

I normally go with what Red Hat say, however I'm planning a few installations on these servers where RHEL 4.7 has been stipulated.

Does anyone know why Red Hat have only certified 4.8 ?

Regards,

Rob

[Matti_Kurkela]

I don't see anything on RedHat's pages explicitly saying that 4.8 is the _minimum_ version. Perhaps it's just the version they used to test it.

(In general, RedHat wants their customers to always use the latest update release of their chosen RHEL major version, because the latest update release has the smallest amount of known bugs and security weaknesses. All the 4.x versions should be functionally equivalent: when moving from 4.x to 4.(x+1), new features are added only after a careful consideration, and even then only if they don't disturb existing functionality or are essential for fixing a severe bug.)

It might also be that 4.7 is the first version that allows the installation kernel to boot without errors (= it has the necessary chipset support) and the storage driver can be provided with a HP-provided driver disk.

RedHat's certification usually means that the OS is installable with no need for driver disks: perhaps the DL380 G6 SAS driver was not yet included in the installation CD/DVD images in 4.7, but it is in 4.8.

From the RedHat hardware certifications FAQ:
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Q: For which versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a hardware certification valid?

A RHEL hardware certification is valid for the posted release, for example RHEL 4 Update 3, and will also be valid for subsequent updates: U4, U5, U6, etc., as they are released. However, a RHEL hardware certification does not apply to future or past versions of RHEL, such as RHEL 5 or RHEL 3 in the above example; these RHEL certifications must be obtained separately.
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MK

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

Shalom,

Red Hat only certified 4.8 because of their unwillingness to spend the money to certify the older OS. It is part of the push to upgrade cycle and a serious cost issue for Red Hat which is a much smaller company than HP.

If HP certified the release 4.7 you should move forward with confidence. Using 4.7 on G6 hardware should not invalidate your RH support.

SEP