We have just been "given" a Dell Precision T1700 workstation with Nvidia 
graphics, a wide format monitor, etc., that is configured to boot
MS Win 8 using a mirrored RAID configuration.  I have a SL 7 install DVD 
that is fine (passes startup testing, etc.) and has installed on other 
systems.
On this one, the install process starts (with some complaint from the 
stock noveau GPU driver), but simply hangs.  On a previous Dell thread, 
there
is some mention of waiting up to 8 minutes to boot

Re: Dell T310: 2.6.32-358.6.1.el6.x86_64 hangs on boot Mon, 29 Apr 2013 
20:25:22 -0500
<[log in to unmask]>

  -- I have only waited two minutes or so.  The monitor screen simply 
goes black and there is no
indication of any activity from the hardware, making me guess that the 
install system is hung.

I have seen no indications of problems about this particular system with 
Linux -- it was available with RHEL 6.4 preinstalled (not the way it was 
delivered to us).
It also seems to work with OpenSUSE 13.2

https://en.opensuse.org/HCL:Dell_desktops --

Precision T1700 	13.2 	Icon-checked.png 
<https://en.opensuse.org/File:Icon-checked.png> 	Icon-checked.png 
<https://en.opensuse.org/File:Icon-checked.png> 	Icon-checked.png 
<https://en.opensuse.org/File:Icon-checked.png>


End Open SUSE


and Ubuntu

http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201302-12684/

Ubuntu on Dell Precision T1700

Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS 64-bit

Available from ubuntu.com

Download 
<http://releases.ubuntu.com/releases/12.04/ubuntu-12.04.5-desktop-amd64.iso> 



        Certification notes

There are no notes for this release.

BIOS
    Dell: A06 (Legacy)

End Ubuntu

Thus, I expect it should work with SL 7 .  If necessary, I could install 
with OpenSUSE 13.2, partition the drive system (probably all XFS except 
for swap), and then install SL 7 over that (MS Windows thus having been 
removed), but I would prefer simply to start with SL.

Does anyone have any experience with this platform?  Any suggestions?  
Are there BIOS (secure boot, whatever) configurations that must be used 
other
than what came with the MS Windows system?

Yasha Karant