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I am looking at purchasing a Dell PowerEdge R720 with no OS on it. Then, I will likely put on Fedora Core or CentOS. My question is this, will the drivers on Dell's support site under the OS heading of "Linux" work on any distro? Or, can I use the RedHat Enterprise drivers with either of the above flavors.

I'm coming up to speed on Linux but haven't had to do much hardware/driver work, so this is a gray area for me.

I'm seeing some other threads here that indicate they may, or may not. Thought I'd see what the current consensus was.

Thanks!

ewwhite
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KTech
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2 Answers2

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In order to install the Linux value-add drivers onto a Dell system, you need to take advantage of the Dell OMSA repository.

See: http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/latest/

Dell have made it quite easy for CentOS/RHEL-style systems. I would not plan on Fedora working... but that's not a good server platform choice for other reasons...

wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/latest/bootstrap.cgi | bash

Folllowed by:

yum install srvadmin-all
ewwhite
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  • Did some more research on CentOS and it looks like a good fit, not the least reason being the driver functionality from Dell. Thanks! – KTech Aug 15 '13 at 15:53
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    CentOS is probably better for a server-oriented machine. And yes, you could use the Red Hat drivers for it as well as the OMSA stuff. – TheFiddlerWins Aug 15 '13 at 16:34
  • Thanks Fiddler. I was still wondering whether RH drivers would work with CentOS. You answered the un-asked question. – KTech Aug 15 '13 at 18:36
  • @KTech a note on OMSA: You need to add the appropriate string to /etc/redhat-release in CentOS so the installation will work. Just look at what the setup-script does search for to distinguish the RedHat versions. – Nils Oct 22 '13 at 13:41
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NOTE FROM DELL: Dell Linux Repository (DLR) is deprecated with this final repository release. Please use Dell System Update (DSU) which is the revamped DLR providing all the features in DLR including firmware inventory, update and OMSA update. For more detail information about DSU, please have a look at DSU. The DSU repository will be refreshed once in every month, whereas previously DLR used to be posted once in a quarter.

Reference: http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/latest/

Dell System Update (DSU) provides updates for BIOS, OMSA, Drivers (like netxtreme pci driver) and Dell Unified server configurator. I prefer to provide the official link in case the process to update your Dell server changes in the future.

Here is the link to Dell System Update (DSU): http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/dsu/

How does it work?

  1. You install the repository
  2. You install the package
  3. You run the command DSU which is a command line program to update you Dell Poweredge server
  4. You choose what you want to update and you run the update.
  5. Reboot
Nicolas Guérinet
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  • By default DSU install srvadmin 8.2 but it is not compatible with my hardware (Dell 2950) how i can istall srvadmin 7.4? I can't find it on repo `sudo yum --disablerepo="*" --enablerepo="dell-system-update_dependent" list available` – Alex Mar 09 '16 at 11:35
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    Solved: Need to install repo for 7.4 `wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/OMSA_7.4.0/bootstrap.cgi | sudo bash` and you have to edit file `sudo vim /opt/dell/srvadmin/sbin/CheckSystemType` (replace entry "OEM String 1" with"Vendor"). – Alex Mar 09 '16 at 15:38
  • The comment above worked for me (PE2950) as of this afternoon (August 23, 2016), however I needed to follow these instructions: http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/OMSA_7.4.0/ – a coder Aug 23 '16 at 16:26