RAID Controllers and Linux: Ugh!

[Sarunas]

Warren Luebkeman wrote:
> Since we are on the subject of servers, I am now dealing with an issue that I 
> always face when using a new server configuration:  Is the RAID Card 
> supported in Linux?  I usually like to go with Adaptec RAID cards because 
> they provide Linux driver sources so we can compile the driver ourselves.  
> 
> This Intel board I'm looking at has a very impressive RAID controller built 
> right into it.  However, they only provide drivers for Redhat and Suse.  Our 
> system is based on Debian/Ubuntu, and we use a different kernel.  So it would 
> seem I cannot use this RAID controller, even though it has "Linux" support.
> 
> I guess this is more of a frustrated rant rather than a question.  It looks 
> like I will have to use the Adaptec card, which I have no problem with, 
> except that its about $400.  Just seems silly (and incredibly annoying) to 
> me.
> 
> I'm wondering if you know of any hardware companies that sell server 
> configurations that have REAL Linux support, which basically means all the 
> hardware will work with any Linux distro, vs. just Redhat and Suse?  It would 
> be great to be able to order a server and not have to spend hours determining 
> if all the hardware is actually supported.  
> 
Thinkmate has always agreed to test their systems with whatever Linux 
distro we asked, for example Debian unstable and Ubuntu pre-release.

3WARE controllers are true hardware RAID and the drivers are in Linux 
kernel.

HTH,
Sarunas Burdulis
Sysadmin at Dartmouth Math Dept.