Aldo Saavedra wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We are thinking upgrading our server for our home directories.. we have t
> wo
> choices
> and I was wondering if anyobdy had experience running SL on either of the
> m..
>
>
>   
Hi Aldo - Haven't had a lot of experience with Dell servers, but the few 
desktops
I've come across seem to play well with SL, though with Dell you always 
have to
make sure that they haven't slightly changed a chip set without changing 
the name
of the component - I got bit by a Sound Blaster card that wouldn't work 
under
Linux a couple of years ago since they had shipped something that was a 
Sound Blaster,
but the chipset was slightly different and I couldn't tell from any of 
the spec sheets that
it had changed and was not working under Linux.  However, I believe that 
with their
servers you can actually get Linux pre-installed (is this still the 
case?), so you're probably
in better shape there. 

Most of my purchases I make through ASL.  They've been around for quite 
a while
and provide high performance machines with Linux pre-installed 
(including CentOS,
so SL works fine). I've been pretty satisfied with them: 
http://www.aslab.com
Not shilling for them, just been happy with what I've gotten from them.  
In addition,
if you're comfortable building your own box, I've been guilty of using 
their machine
specs as a blueprint for putting together my own machines - it has the 
advantage that
you don't have to do a tremendous amount of research on hardware 
compatibility.

-Karl


-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------
| Karl A. Misselt                             Office: Steward 254  |
| Steward Observatory                          Phone: 520-626-0196 |
| University of Arizona                          FAX: 520-621-9555 |
| Tucson, AZ 85721-0065                     [log in to unmask] |
--------------------------------------------------------------------
|   "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for  |
|    the urge to rule it." - H. L. Mencken                         |
--------------------------------------------------------------------