HP Announces Support for Debian Linux

Bain writes "PC World reports that HP is to offer support for Debian Linux on its ProLiant and HP BladeSystem servers. Support will be provided by HP telephone operators rather than the discussion-group method that current Debian users rely on. The move to support Debian continues HP's relationship with the community-based OS, which stretches back to 1995."

Linux support

[Riding Spinners]

Knoppix is a linux distroy anyone can use, the automated hardware detection etc is supurb. The DVD 4.0 version does demonstrate a lot of the incompatability issues he's talking about though. because knoppix has about 6 GB of applications (they're compressed on the DVD image) many of the applications are broken.

Debian is the distro Knoppix is based of of, so it has really good hardware detection, but the "stable" version is using the "older" proven stable detection routines. That means it doesn't configure everything perfectly; for instance I had to enable DMA on my DVD-ROM, and I had to use k3b to "configure the system" for CD/DVD burning.

I also have the advantage of having prior experience, So I know how to install Flash support for my secondary browser, and how to configure Java (which isn't included in Debian because it's not FOSS). I knew that the FOSS drivers suck compared to the proprietary ones, so I knew where to find them, and I knew what settings to set in the "install" script for them, because I've been messing around with X11 config files for years now!

So basically, initial set up is probably beyond most users, but the same is true of Windows XP. Most Windows users can't even install applications by themselves, and when they try to the end up with a million spyware programs.

Debian is "ready" for the desktop: the installer is painless for geeks, and simple enough for rice boys. A few noobs might even get lucky with it. The stable version while old, has a very simple gui based app finder that anyone who can use Download.com can learn how to use.

Re:Other Debian distro's?

[neonprimetime]

"We've had a number of customers continuing to ask us to have broader support for Debian," and HP decided to oblige, said Jeffrey Wade, worldwide marketing manager at HP's Open Source and Linux Organization.

I thought the above quote from the CNet article was also particularly interesting. Hooray for those HP customers that spoke up. When HP says "a number of customers", I assume they don't just mean 5 or 10.

Hey, It's a start

[neonprimetime]

I think this is a distro for people who already know/whant to learn GNU/Linux. pretty useless for me.

But it's a start. HP offers Debian support. Next comes Company X. Then Company Y. Now there is competition, cause 3 companies support Debian. HP decides they want to jump out ahead of the crowd, so they start supporting Ubuntu and Fedora. Company X and Y slowly follow suite. The process continues. Boom, Linux is now part of every Server company's business plan.

This is vital

[Almahtar]

Support is vital for any OS to be taken seriously where downtime is unacceptable. I know way too many IT guys who would love to run some form of *nix for their servers, but their CEO's wouldn't let them. The reason? If there's a problem they can't fix, they resort to googling, mailing lists, forums, etc: they're pretty boned.

If there's a Windows problem they can't fix they can fly someone in from Redmond to get the job done in a few hours. Unfortunately Red Hat can't compete with that (yet). If minutes of downtime = millions in losses, Official support that always gets the job done is a requirement that can't be ignored.

Troubleshooting Linux is easier than Windows.

[khasim]

I feel very, very bad for the poor folks answering the help line in 3-4 years when there are hundreds of small companies without someone who knows what they are doing. You think helpline support for Windows is bad? Wait until you've got to help someone who's only ever used Windows with their Debian install. And no, you can't tell them to RTFM.

In my experience, working through the boot process of a Linux box is incredibly simple compared to Windows.

Remember, this won't be troubleshooting Apache/SSL or anything. This will be determining why the OS doesn't like the hardware and whether it is an OS problem or hardware problem.

Re:hooray!

[Curmudgeonlyoldbloke]

As an ex-HP-support user, sometimes it wasn't obvious that their helpdesk people had ever used Windows. The front-line people had been given a script, and followed it with no comprehension. When (in the case of the laptop hardware problems that I was logging at the time) it was impossible to follow their instructions, the only solution was to box it up and send it back. With a laptop that's feasible; just swap for another one - but with a server it isn't.

I suppose that there are always the HP-UX and ex-Dec Unix people - they're already familiar with some of the software (see http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hppd/hpux/Gnu/ [connect.org.uk]) and the concept of a package manager shouldn't be too alien to them (HP .depot files).

Debian support means any GNU/Linux should work

[psydeshow]

As someone who recently tried to install Debian on a newish ProLiant, and failed miserably because of unsupported hardware, I'm happy to see this announcement. It means that HP will be using hardware for which Linux drivers already exist, and that the Debian installer will be able to load those drivers into the kernel at install-time.

The bigger bonus is that if vanilla Debian can do it, any Linux disto can: Ubuntu, Gentoo, Slackware, whatever.

Re:hooray!

[timeOday]

This is good to hear, but as always implementation is everything.

I disagree, in this case it's the declaration of support that matters. Am I ever going to actually call HP for debian support? No, I'll search the web like usual. But when spec'ing out the system, it could help to say my OS of choice is "supported" by HP. And this is a very good indication that all the hardware will work, even on other distros.

Re:Troubleshooting Linux is easier than Windows.

[Dielectric]

No kidding, is there even a Windows equivalent of dmesg or /var/log/*? I'm genuinely curious. I just looked in C:\Windows\Debug, and there are some empty log files. I found one that was a few KB, so I tried to open it. MS Application Search services didn't recognize the file, which seems like a really bad design to me. (Description: Windows does not recognize this file type).

.debs?!

[ldspartan]

Does this mean I'll be able to get debian packages of the tools for my DL380 Gen4 without having to do magic with alien and their crap ass RPMs?

--
Phil

Oh god...

[Short Circuit]

Think of all the people who don't know what "Ampersand" means.

Re:Linux support

[kwark]

You are little to enthusiastic.

Knoppix has failed me many times (but worked even more times) on desktop machines. Even knoppix 5.0.1 failed to do the simple task of installing grub. Any grub related command completly froze on an opteron, something you kinda need after moving the root partition to soft RAID-1.

And the persons who made the new debian installer images should be the first ones against the wall. Please supply some utilities with the installer, a cp with recursion or a tar that can actualy create archives would be nice, even grub is missing.