When I went to the custom configuration page for the Poweredge 6300 the default setup is for no OS, and if you want WindowsNT server it's an additional $799.
I bet the margins on these things are large enough that Microsoft's pricing leverage isn't as powerful.
I am also disappointed that Dell's "supported configurations" do not include either SMP or RAID. If you take away SMP and RAID it would seem to be more of workstation than a server, at least by today's standards.
Vendors like VA Research have been offering SMP and RAID solutions for quite some time, so it is obviously viable. I believe I read something recently about MegaDrive RAID controller drivers for linux. They make good, expensive RAID enclosures. Also, many people have pointed out that SMP on Linux is natively supported quite well.
The only reason I would guess Dell isn't offering these options is that they are tied to part suppliers (in the case of RAID hardware) who do not yet support Linux. Perhaps they are also waiting for an official RedHat 2.2 Kernel distribution before they officially support SMP.
I'm glad they are becoming more serious about Linux, but lets see a *real* server configuration please. I hope it won't be too long.
Slashdot Mirror
This is the same "GossiTheDog" disassemble that was already posted here. It's not the actual source code from the authors.
When I went to the custom configuration page for the Poweredge 6300 the default setup is for no OS, and if you want WindowsNT server it's an additional $799.
I bet the margins on these things are large enough that Microsoft's pricing leverage isn't as powerful.
I am also disappointed that Dell's "supported configurations" do not include either SMP or RAID. If you take away SMP and RAID it would seem to be more of workstation than a server, at least by today's standards.
Vendors like VA Research have been offering SMP and RAID solutions for quite some time, so it is obviously viable. I believe I read something recently about MegaDrive RAID controller drivers for linux. They make good, expensive RAID enclosures. Also, many people have pointed out that SMP on Linux is natively supported quite well.
The only reason I would guess Dell isn't offering these options is that they are tied to part suppliers (in the case of RAID hardware) who do not yet support Linux. Perhaps they are also waiting for an official RedHat 2.2 Kernel distribution before they officially support SMP.
I'm glad they are becoming more serious about Linux, but lets see a *real* server configuration please. I hope it won't be too long.
-OT