Comment some comments on promise linux support (Score 4, Informative) 597
I've passed this feedback onto the author of the ide raid-roundup - i figured i might as well post it here too.
I just thought i'd share some of my experiences with promise support.
Frankly, they have been terrible. I would not voluntarily buy another promise product again at this stage based on my experience with them.
I have been attempting to get support for the Promise FastTrack which is a popular embedded raid controller option, under Linux.
Promise indeed "support" RedHat but do so with a binary only, closed source module that in the end turns out to be useless.
Promise hard code a supported kernel version for this driver such that you can run it under say RedHat 7.3, but only the initial 2.4.18-3 kernel, which has a number of critical bugs which have been addressed in later (errata) kernel updates.
Needless to say, promise's driver will not run on any later kernel or at least they are unwilling to answer questions on how to do this.
A comparable analogy would be if they had released Windows XP drivers and then your hard drive failed to work if you installed a hot fix or a service pack because the driver is keyed to only the specific intial installed released of XP. Promise don't treat windows users this way, so why do they do this for linux users ?
I've managed to get two responses out of their support, none of which will address my problem - support the hardware under linux by releasing the source or provide updated kernel drivers for the released kernel images that will actually work.
In terms of driver support for Linux/FreeBSD, 3ware wins hands down in this group.
regards,
-jason
I just thought i'd share some of my experiences with promise support.
Frankly, they have been terrible. I would not voluntarily buy another promise product again at this stage based on my experience with them.
I have been attempting to get support for the Promise FastTrack which is a popular embedded raid controller option, under Linux.
Promise indeed "support" RedHat but do so with a binary only, closed source module that in the end turns out to be useless.
Promise hard code a supported kernel version for this driver such that you can run it under say RedHat 7.3, but only the initial 2.4.18-3 kernel, which has a number of critical bugs which have been addressed in later (errata) kernel updates.
Needless to say, promise's driver will not run on any later kernel or at least they are unwilling to answer questions on how to do this.
A comparable analogy would be if they had released Windows XP drivers and then your hard drive failed to work if you installed a hot fix or a service pack because the driver is keyed to only the specific intial installed released of XP. Promise don't treat windows users this way, so why do they do this for linux users ?
I've managed to get two responses out of their support, none of which will address my problem - support the hardware under linux by releasing the source or provide updated kernel drivers for the released kernel images that will actually work.
In terms of driver support for Linux/FreeBSD, 3ware wins hands down in this group.
regards,
-jason
