[Tfug] Linux Friendly PCs (HP, Dell, etc)?

[Zack Williams]

> It's been a long time since I've bought a server class PC intending to run
> Linux on it. I'm a "build it, install it" guy so hardware compatibility has
> been easy to over come. Does anyone recommend a server class PC (tower) from
> HP, Dell, etc that works out of the box with distros like Ubuntu Server?
>
> I've looked at the HP PRoliant ML350 G5 but the RAID card has reported
> performance issues that have not been resolved yet.

I'm partial to Dell or Sun hardware.   I'll second the Dell 2950 III
recommendation - the PERC 6 card is an LSI design, and thus works fine
with not only Windows and Linux, but also OpenBSD, Solaris, etc.
(anything with a MegaRAID/SAS driver).  Sun's hardware is bulletproof
and has a great lights out manager, and comes with more gig-e ports by
default, if you need those features.

If you're going to be installing a server and want it to run for the
foreseeable, it may be better to go with an enterprise distro or one
with long term release support.    I've been a Redhat-style distro
user for about 12 years, so CentOS is what I tend to use most often if
Linux compatibility is required.

Otherwise, if you're just building a fileserver or similar and don't
need to run linux specific hardware, you might check out OpenSolaris,
mainly for the ZFS filesystem.

- Zack