Product

The Dell PowerEdge 1600SC is a server box (tower format).

Drivers

Here, I'll just list the main components of the system, and the linux drivers used to drive them. The Ubuntu distribution 6.06 LTS (aka Dapper Drake) properly detects all of the hardware in this system. See here for an excellent guide to the recommended installation procedure.

Disk Drives

The system has room for six hard drives, either SCSI or IDE. This one is using four SCSI and one IDE, hardly a standard configuration. The SCSI drives are driven by the LSI Logic MPT Fusion 53C1030 which is an integrated single-channel LVD Ultra 320 SCSI controller (on the motherboard). There are two IDE connectors on the motherboard. There's also a hot-plug kind of SCSI enclosure available, but in that case all your drives would have to be SCSI drives, which can make it awkward to boot some older linux distros.

PCI slots

• two 32-bit 33MHz PCI slots, suitable for pcHDTV HD-3000 ATSC capture card and nVidia 5200 video card (for example).
• two 64-bit 66MHz PCI slots, suitable for SCSI cards like the Adaptec 39160 or the Adaptec 3950 which work reliably in linux.
• two 64-bit 100MHz PCI-X slots (which support 3.3V or universal cards), suitable for a Creative Labs Audigy2 sound card, for example.

Update: Issues with nVidia 6200 card

It has been reported that a Dell PowerEdge 1600SC with BIOS revision A12 doesn't work with a PCI nVidia 6200 card. Two beeps are heard, but no video is displayed. I'm using an nVidia 5200 "Apollo" card with no problems in a 1600SC system with BIOS revision A09.

Power Supply

The power supply is 450W, non-redundant. Some models have a redundant power supply setup (i.e. two separate power connectors).

Optical Drives

There are two bays for optical drives. We can scan the ATAPI bus to see the device ID the drives are using as follows:

  cdrecord dev=ATAPI -scanbus

and the result is like this on Dapper Drake:

Cdrecord-Clone 2.01.01a01 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2004 Joerg Schilling
NOTE: this version of cdrecord is an inofficial (modified) release of cdrecord
      and thus may have bugs that are not present in the original version.
      Please send bug reports and support requests to <cdrtools@packages.debian.org>.
      The original author should not be bothered with problems of this version.

cdrecord: Warning: Running on Linux-2.6.15-26-686
cdrecord: There are unsettled issues with Linux-2.5 and newer.
cdrecord: If you have unexpected problems, please try Linux-2.4 or Solaris.
scsidev: 'ATAPI'
devname: 'ATAPI'
scsibus: -2 target: -2 lun: -2
Warning: Using ATA Packet interface.
Warning: The related Linux kernel interface code seems to be unmaintained.
Warning: There is absolutely NO DMA, operations thus are slow.
Using libscg version 'debian-0.8debian2'.
cdrecord: Warning: using inofficial version of libscg (debian-0.8debian2 '@(#)scsitransp.c      1.91 04/06/17 Copyright 1988,1995,2000-2004 J. Schilling').
scsibus0:
        0,0,0     0) *
        0,1,0     1) 'HL-DT-ST' 'RW/DVD GCC-4480B' 'C103' Removable CD-ROM
        0,2,0     2) *
        0,3,0     3) *
        0,4,0     4) *
        0,5,0     5) *
        0,6,0     6) *
        0,7,0     7) *
scsibus1:
        1,0,0   100) 'SONY    ' 'DVD RW DW-D22A  ' 'BYS2' Removable CD-ROM
        1,1,0   101) *
        1,2,0   102) *
        1,3,0   103) *
        1,4,0   104) *
        1,5,0   105) *
        1,6,0   106) *
        1,7,0   107) *

This means that if, for example, we want to read the contents of an unsuspecting disc (e.g. the Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2 on DVD, kindly sent in July 2006 as part of MSDN subscription) in the Sony drive, we'd use:

  /usr/bin/readcd -v dev=ATAPI:1,0,0 f=./vista.iso

The output would be as follows (it's not all that slow, despite the warnings):

scsidev: 'ATAPI:1,0,0'
devname: 'ATAPI'
scsibus: 1 target: 0 lun: 0
Warning: Using ATA Packet interface.
Warning: The related Linux kernel interface code seems to be unmaintained.
Warning: There is absolutely NO DMA, operations thus are slow.
Read  speed: 22160 kB/s (CD 125x, DVD 16x).
Write speed: 22160 kB/s (CD 125x, DVD 16x).
Capacity: 1638476 Blocks = 3276952 kBytes = 3200 MBytes = 3355 prMB
Sectorsize: 2048 Bytes
Copy from SCSI (1,0,0) disk to file './vista.iso'
end:   1638476
addr:    14931 cnt: 63

Floppy Drive

There is a floppy drive, mounted vertically on the right-hand side of the optical drive bays.

Video

The video is an integrated ATI Technologies Inc Rage XL with 8MB SGRAM. There's no AGP slot on the motherboard (it's a server, after all). I tested playback of 1080i ATSC streams using an nVidia 5200 PCI card, and it worked very well, see the link for more info.

Ethernet

The 1000baseT (gigabit) ethernet is provided by an Intel Corporation 82540EM Ethernet Controller, and the e1000 module in the linux kernel drives this just fine.

USB

The two USB 1.0 ports.

Audio

The sound is provided by a Creative Labs Audigy2 sound card (added into one of the two 32-bit PCI slots, not part of the original machine), and the ALSA subsystem drives this.

Physical Dimensions

This big brown steel box is 17.6 inches high, 8.57 inches wide and 22.53 inches deep. The front panel is plastic, opens with a sliding catch at the top (unless it's locked using the little key), and contains power and reset buttons which depress tiny little switches on the incredibly fragile-looking circuit just above the hard drive bay (take care when sliding in the drive enclosure, to avoid damaging this circuit). There are two pairs of little feet on the base of the unit, that stick out an inch or so, to help it keep its balance.

Weight

The unit weighs 76lb without any drives. Probably around 90 pounds, when five hard drives and two optical drives are installed.

Serial port

There's one serial port. Used for apcupsd package.

Parallel port

Haven't tested the parallel port.

Linux Installation

It's convenient to install Ubuntu Dapper Drake, or Novell/SuSE SLES 10 on this machine. It also works OK with Novell/SuSE SLES 9, although there was a very occasional problem with the LSI Logic MPT Fusion SCSI controller.

Suspend and Hibernate

Don't work in Dapper Drake.

Rear I/O

• PS/2 KB/Mouse
• 2 x USB 1.0 ports
• 1 x RJ45(LAN)
• 1 x VGA
• 1 x Parallel
• 1 x Serial
• 1 x Firewire (on the Audigy2 sound card)

Memory

The system uses 184 pin DDR PC2100 CL2.5 ECC registered 128x72 memory, max it can use is 4GB in four 1024MB pieces (four slots). This kind of memory is also called DDR266. PC2100 refers to the bandwidth of the memory. A PC2100 module has a bandwidth of 2.1GB/sec. The term DDR266 refers to the effective front-side bus speed, i.e. twice the data transferred per cycle compared to a non-DDR 133MHz system. You can of course use faster memory (in theory, to get closer to matching the 400MHz frontside bus speed, e.g. DDR PC2700 DDR333), but the motherboard is only capable of 2.1GB/s bandwidth so it's a waste to use this type of memory, as it's still expensive (in 2006). DDR PC2700 has a bandwidth of 2.7GB/sec and is designed for use in systems and motherboards with a 166MHz front-side bus, i.e. with an effective front-side bus speed of 333MHz, but it will also work in slower systems such as the 1600SC.

The contents of /proc/meminfo for Dapper Drake look like this:

cat /proc/meminfo

MemTotal:      4087644 kB
MemFree:        122124 kB
Buffers:         26060 kB
Cached:        3432624 kB
SwapCached:          0 kB
Active:        1902572 kB
Inactive:      1885248 kB
HighTotal:     3211136 kB
HighFree:         6604 kB
LowTotal:       876508 kB
LowFree:        115520 kB
SwapTotal:     2104464 kB
SwapFree:      2104096 kB
Dirty:             480 kB
Writeback:           0 kB
Mapped:        1478372 kB
Slab:           116672 kB
CommitLimit:   4148284 kB
Committed_AS:   635292 kB
PageTables:       3260 kB
VmallocTotal:   114680 kB
VmallocUsed:     11692 kB
VmallocChunk:    99944 kB

Motherboard

The motherboard is a ServerWorks GC-SL (GC stands for "grand champion").

CPU

The system can take two Intel Xeon CPU (it has two socket 603 INT-mPGA, Intel 860 chipset). The frontside bus speed is 400MHz (i.e. it's using DDR memory with a 200MHz clock frequency. DDR memory transfers data on both the rising and the falling edges of the clock cycle). The system here is using two processors running at 2GHz. Step code SL6EM. Markings on CPU are: 2000DP/512L2/400/1.5V - SL6EM 3247A747-0443.

cpuid

 eax in    eax      ebx      ecx      edx
00000000 00000002 756e6547 6c65746e 49656e69
00000001 00000f27 0702080b 00004400 bfebfbff
00000002 665b5001 00000000 00000000 007b7040
80000000 80000004 00000000 00000000 00000000
80000001 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
80000002 20202020 20202020 20202020 20202020
80000003 6e492020 286c6574 58202952 286e6f65
80000004 20294d54 20555043 30302e32 007a4847

Vendor ID: "GenuineIntel"; CPUID level 2

Intel-specific functions:
Version 00000f27:
Type 0 - Original OEM
Family 15 - Pentium 4
Extended family 0
Model 2 - 
Stepping 7
Reserved 0

Brand index: 11 [not in table]
Extended brand string: "                  Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.00GHz"
CLFLUSH instruction cache line size: 8
Initial APIC ID: 7
Hyper threading siblings: 2

Feature flags bfebfbff:
FPU    Floating Point Unit
VME    Virtual 8086 Mode Enhancements
DE     Debugging Extensions
PSE    Page Size Extensions
TSC    Time Stamp Counter
MSR    Model Specific Registers
PAE    Physical Address Extension
MCE    Machine Check Exception
CX8    COMPXCHG8B Instruction
APIC   On-chip Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller present and enabled
SEP    Fast System Call
MTRR   Memory Type Range Registers
PGE    PTE Global Flag
MCA    Machine Check Architecture
CMOV   Conditional Move and Compare Instructions
FGPAT  Page Attribute Table
PSE-36 36-bit Page Size Extension
CLFSH  CFLUSH instruction
DS     Debug store
ACPI   Thermal Monitor and Clock Ctrl
MMX    MMX instruction set
FXSR   Fast FP/MMX Streaming SIMD Extensions save/restore
SSE    Streaming SIMD Extensions instruction set
SSE2   SSE2 extensions
SS     Self Snoop
HT     Hyper Threading
TM     Thermal monitor
31     reserved

TLB and cache info:
50: Instruction TLB: 4KB and 2MB or 4MB pages, 64 entries
5b: Data TLB: 4KB and 4MB pages, 64 entries
66: 1st-level data cache: 8KB, 4-way set assoc, 64 byte line size
40: No 2nd-level cache, or if 2nd-level cache exists, no 3rd-level cache
70: Trace cache: 12K-micro-op, 4-way set assoc
7b: 2nd-level cache: 512KB, 8-way set assoc, sectored, 64 byte line size

There are two processors, with hyperthreading, which show up as four processors in /proc/cpuinfo when running the linux-image-2.6.15-26-686 kernel (note that the Dapper Drake installer only installs linux-image-2.6.15-23-386 by default, so you have to install it manually afterwards.

cat /proc/cpuinfo|head -19

processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 15
model           : 2
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.00GHz
stepping        : 7
cpu MHz         : 1993.984
cache size      : 512 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 2
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe cid xtpr
bogomips        : 3992.39

Output of lspci -v

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Broadcom GCNB-LE Host Bridge (rev 01)
        Flags: fast devsel

0000:00:00.1 Host bridge: Broadcom GCNB-LE Host Bridge
        Flags: fast devsel

0000:00:02.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 02)
        Subsystem: Dell: Unknown device 0135
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 225
        Memory at fe100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128K]
        I/O ports at ecc0 [size=64]
        Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [e4] PCI-X non-bridge device.
        Capabilities: [f0] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-

0000:00:04.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy (rev 04)
        Subsystem: Creative Labs: Unknown device 1002
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 233
        I/O ports at ec80 [size=64]
        Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2

0000:00:04.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy MIDI/Game port (rev 04)
        Subsystem: Creative Labs: Unknown device 0060
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32
        I/O ports at ec78 [size=8]
        Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2

0000:00:04.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Creative Labs SB Audigy FireWire Port (rev 04) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
        Subsystem: Creative Labs SB Audigy FireWire Port
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 217
        Memory at fe12a000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K]
        Memory at fe124000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2

0000:00:06.0 Mass storage controller: Promise Technology, Inc. 20269 (rev 02) (prog-if 85)
        Subsystem: Promise Technology, Inc. Ultra133TX2
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, slow devsel, latency 32, IRQ 177
        I/O ports at ec70 [size=8]
        I/O ports at ec68 [size=4]
        I/O ports at ec58 [size=8]
        I/O ports at ec50 [size=4]
        I/O ports at ec30 [size=16]
        Memory at fe120000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Expansion ROM at fe000000 [disabled] [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 1

0000:00:0e.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage XL (rev 27) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: Dell: Unknown device 0135
        Flags: bus master, VGA palette snoop, stepping, medium devsel, latency 32
        Memory at fd000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        I/O ports at e800 [size=256]
        Memory at fe129000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Expansion ROM at fc000000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [5c] Power Management version 2

0000:00:0f.0 Host bridge: Broadcom CSB5 South Bridge (rev 93)
        Subsystem: Broadcom CSB5 South Bridge
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32

0000:00:0f.1 IDE interface: Broadcom CSB5 IDE Controller (rev 93) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
        Subsystem: Dell: Unknown device 4135
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64
        I/O ports at <ignored>
        I/O ports at <ignored>
        I/O ports at <ignored>
        I/O ports at <ignored>
        I/O ports at 08b0 [size=16]

0000:00:0f.2 USB Controller: Broadcom OSB4/CSB5 OHCI USB Controller (rev 05) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
        Subsystem: Broadcom OSB4/CSB5 OHCI USB Controller
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
        Memory at fe128000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]

0000:00:0f.3 ISA bridge: Broadcom CSB5 LPC bridge
        Subsystem: Broadcom: Unknown device 0230
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0

0000:00:10.0 Host bridge: Broadcom CIOB-X2 PCI-X I/O Bridge (rev 03)
        Flags: 66MHz, medium devsel
        Capabilities: [60] 
0000:00:10.2 Host bridge: Broadcom CIOB-X2 PCI-X I/O Bridge (rev 03)
        Flags: 66MHz, medium devsel
        Capabilities: [60] 
0000:01:04.0 SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic 53c1030 PCI-X Fusion-MPT Dual Ultra320 SCSI (rev 07)
        Subsystem: Dell: Unknown device 0135
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 72, IRQ 185
        I/O ports at dc00 [size=256]
        Memory at fcf10000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Memory at fcf00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Expansion ROM at fce00000 [disabled] [size=1M]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [58] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-

0000:02:02.0 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AHA-3960D / AIC-7899A U160/m (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Adaptec AHA-3960D U160/m
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 193
        BIST result: 00
        I/O ports at cc00 [disabled] [size=256]
        Memory at fcd03000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Expansion ROM at fcc00000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2

0000:02:02.1 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AHA-3960D / AIC-7899A U160/m (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Adaptec AHA-3960D U160/m
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 201
        BIST result: 00
        I/O ports at c800 [disabled] [size=256]
        Memory at fcd02000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Expansion ROM at fc020000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2

0000:02:04.0 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AHA-3950U2D
        Subsystem: Adaptec AHA-3950U2D
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 209
        BIST result: 00
        I/O ports at c400 [disabled] [size=256]
        Memory at fcd01000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Expansion ROM at fc040000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1

0000:02:04.1 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AHA-3950U2D
        Subsystem: Adaptec AHA-3950U2D
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 209
        BIST result: 00
        I/O ports at c000 [disabled] [size=256]
        Memory at fcd00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1

Output of /sbin/lsmod (from Ubuntu Dapper Drake)

Module                  Size  Used by
nls_utf8                2240  0 
nls_cp437               5888  0 
vfat                   14496  0 
fat                    55548  1 vfat
usb_storage            79584  0 
isofs                  38496  0 
udf                    94628  0 
reiserfs              284016  6 
vmnet                  33892  15 
vmmon                 194860  3 
rfcomm                 43604  0 
l2cap                  28192  5 rfcomm
bluetooth              54084  4 rfcomm,l2cap
ppdev                   9668  0 
speedstep_lib           4580  0 
cpufreq_userspace       6496  0 
cpufreq_stats           6688  0 
freq_table              4928  1 cpufreq_stats
cpufreq_powersave       1920  0 
cpufreq_ondemand        7752  0 
cpufreq_conservative     9000  0 
video                  16324  0 
tc1100_wmi              6884  0 
sony_acpi               5580  0 
pcc_acpi               12416  0 
hotkey                 11492  0 
dev_acpi               11236  0 
container               4608  0 
button                  6704  0 
acpi_sbs               20172  0 
battery                 9988  1 acpi_sbs
ac                      5220  1 acpi_sbs
i2c_acpi_ec             5120  1 acpi_sbs
ipv6                  286976  22 
ext2                   74152  1 
dm_mod                 63256  1 
af_packet              24520  2 
md_mod                 76052  0 
sr_mod                 17988  0 
sbp2                   25060  0 
lp                     12356  0 
snd_emu10k1_synth       8096  0 
snd_emux_synth         39968  1 snd_emu10k1_synth
snd_seq_virmidi         8384  1 snd_emux_synth
snd_seq_midi_emul       7680  1 snd_emux_synth
snd_seq_dummy           3908  0 
snd_seq_oss            37216  0 
snd_seq_midi            9600  0 
snd_seq_midi_event      7520  3 snd_seq_virmidi,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq                58160  9 snd_emux_synth,snd_seq_virmidi,snd_seq_midi_emul,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_emu10k1           134756  5 snd_emu10k1_synth
snd_rawmidi            26848  3 snd_seq_virmidi,snd_seq_midi,snd_emu10k1
snd_ac97_codec        100224  1 snd_emu10k1
snd_ac97_bus            2400  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm_oss            56448  0 
snd_mixer_oss          20544  2 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                96708  4 snd_emu10k1,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_device          9228  8 snd_emu10k1_synth,snd_emux_synth,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq,snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi
snd_timer              26884  3 snd_seq,snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc         11304  2 snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm
snd_util_mem            4928  2 snd_emux_synth,snd_emu10k1
parport_pc             37988  1 
snd_hwdep               9952  2 snd_emux_synth,snd_emu10k1
parport                39400  3 ppdev,lp,parport_pc
snd                    60004  18 snd_emux_synth,snd_seq_virmidi,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_device,snd_timer,snd_hwdep
i2c_piix4               9168  0 
floppy                 64676  0 
i2c_core               22848  2 i2c_acpi_ec,i2c_piix4
soundcore              10784  2 snd
pcspkr                  2244  0 
cfi_probe               6784  0 
gen_probe               3712  1 cfi_probe
scb2_flash              4844  0 
mtdcore                 7396  1 scb2_flash
chipreg                 3680  2 cfi_probe,scb2_flash
map_funcs               2080  1 scb2_flash
psmouse                40004  0 
serio_raw               7748  0 
emu10k1_gp              3904  0 
e1000                 124440  0 
gameport               16776  2 emu10k1_gp
sworks_agp              9952  0 
agpgart                36784  1 sworks_agp
sg                     40160  0 
tsdev                   8032  0 
evdev                  10176  3 
usbhid                 42752  0 
ext3                  148104  4 
jbd                    65876  1 ext3
ide_generic             1504  0 
ohci_hcd               22724  0 
usbcore               139076  4 usb_storage,usbhid,ohci_hcd
ohci1394               37524  0 
ieee1394              306520  2 sbp2,ohci1394
aic7xxx               191540  0 
scsi_transport_spi2    26144  1 aic7xxx
sd_mod                 20448  10 
mptspi                  9000  0 
mptscsih               38640  1 mptspi
mptbase                52576  2 mptspi,mptscsih
scsi_mod              145960  9 usb_storage,sr_mod,sbp2,sg,aic7xxx,scsi_transport_spi2,sd_mod,mptspi,mptscsih
ide_cd                 35780  0 
cdrom                  41408  2 sr_mod,ide_cd
serverworks             9992  0 [permanent]
generic                 5124  0 
ide_disk               19136  9 
pdc202xx_new           10240  1 
thermal                13768  0 
processor              26888  1 thermal
fan                     4836  0 
fbcon                  43904  0 
tileblit                2784  1 fbcon
font                    8320  1 fbcon
bitblit                 6464  1 fbcon
softcursor              2304  1 bitblit
capability              4968  0 
commoncap               7328  1 capability

VMware on Dapper Drake

I installed the older VMware workstation 5.0.0 build 13124 like this. See also here for the steps to install the latest VMware workstation release.

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`

wget http://download3.vmware.com/software/wkst/VMware-workstation-5.0.0-13124.tar.gz
tar xzf VMware-workstation-5.0.0-13124.tar.gz -C /tmp
cd /tmp/vmware-distrib
sudo ./vmware-install.pl

When the last prompt shows, say "no":

Before running VMware Workstation for the first time, you need to configure it 
by invoking the following command: "/usr/bin/vmware-config.pl". Do you want this
program to invoke the command for you now? [yes] no

Download the vmware-any-any package to build the vmmon and vmnet kernel modules as follows:

wget http://ftp.cvut.cz/people/vana/vmware/vmware-any-any-update/vmware-any-any-update98.tar.gz
tar xzf vmware-any-any-update98.tar.gz /tmp
cd /tmp/vmware-any-any-update98
sudo ./runme.pl

A useful page gives some hints on how to go about installing Microsoft's beta version of Vista. For Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2, the main hint was that Microsoft Windows Vista requires the VMware tools driver for networking. Because Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2 does not include a vlance (pcnet32) driver for the network adapter, you must use the vmxnet network adapter to enable networking. A driver for this adapter is included in VMware tools. You must install VMware tools to use networking in Microsoft Windows Vista guests. The procedure isn't quite as simple as they make it sound, as you have to use the device manager and prod it to search for the driver on the VMware tools mount point, but you're used to Microsoft's foibles by now.

BIOS Boot Messages

The normal BIOS boot messages for this machine looks something like this. There is a curiously long pause of around two full minutes while the LSI Logic card is apparently are doing domain validation on my probably-highly-suspect attempt at providing a SCSI bus for the four SCSI drives in the machine. This pause only occurs when booting from a fully powered-off state, not when rebooting.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                              F2 = Setup
                                                      F10 = Utility Mode
                                                          F12 = PXE Boot

w w w . d e l l . c o m
PowerEdge 1600SC
BIOS Revision A09
Copyright 1985-1988 Phoenix Technologies Ltd.
Copyright 1990-2003 Dell Computer Corporation and others, All Rights Reserved.

Two 2000 MHz Processors, Bus Speed: 400 MHz, L2 cache: 512 KB

CMIC-SL revision : 1.1
CIOB 1 revision : 1.3
CSB5 revision : 2.1


LSI Logic Corp. MPT BIOS
Copyright 1995-2002 LSI Logic Corp.
MPTBIOS-5.06.01
Dell Build

Press Ctrl-A to start LSI Logic Configuration Utility...

Searching for device at HBA 0, ID 11, LUN 0

...Waits for a loooooong time (2 minutes) before eventually displaying:

HBA ID LUN  VENDOR   PRODUCT             REV  SYNC  WIDE   CAPACITY
--- -- ---  -------- ---------------- ------- ----- ---- -----------
0    7  0   LSILogic 1020/1030[  102] 1030A00 160.0 16
0   11  0   ZJCS     ZJCS2-73GB          S5BS 160.0 16      73412 MB
0   12  0   ZJCS     ZJCS2-36GB          S5BS 160.0 16      36706 MB
0   13  0   ZJCS     ZJCS2-36GB          S5BS 160.0 16      36706 MB
0   14  0   ZJCS     ZJCS2-36GB          S5BS 160.0 16      36706 MB

LSI Logic Corp. MPT boot ROM successfully installed!


Adaptec SCSI Card 39160 BIOS v2.55.0
(c) 1999 Adaptec, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

<<< Press <Ctrl><A> for SCSISelect(TM) Utility! >>>

Ch A, SCSI ID: 0 IBM-PSG  DRHS36D       !#  80.0
      SCSI ID: 1 IBM-PSG  DRHS36D       !#  80.0
      SCSI ID: 2 IBM-PSG  DRHS36D       !#  80.0
      SCSI ID: 3 IBM      DRHS36D           80.0
      SCSI ID: 4 IBM      DRHS36D           80.0
Ch B, SCSI ID: 8 IBM-PSG  DRHS36D       !#  80.0
      SCSI ID: 9 IBM      DXHS36D           80.0
      SCSI ID:10 IBM      DRHS36D           80.0
      SCSI ID:15 IBM      DRHS36D           80.0


GRUB Loading stage 2

-- PeterKnaggs - 14 Aug 2006

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