Installing Our First Linux Virtual Machine for Learning Systems Administration
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Something that I'd like a better grasp on is how the mindset is different. Coming from a decade+ of Windows admin work, some of the things that others call easy, or assume that it should be understood, I don't get. There are many examples, but today I ran across an irritating one: installing RAID drivers. In Windows, this is either easy, or undoable. In Linux (during install) it appears to require a significant background. "Just compile from source." is not an easy answer for me at this point because I don't even know where on my mental grid to fit that, much less how to do it for the variety of needed scenarios.
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@Kelly said:
Something that I'd like a better grasp on is how the mindset is different. Coming from a decade+ of Windows admin work, some of the things that others call easy, or assume that it should be understood, I don't get. There are many examples, but today I ran across an irritating one: installing RAID drivers. In Windows, this is either easy, or undoable. In Linux (during install) it appears to require a significant background. "Just compile from source." is not an easy answer for me at this point because I don't even know where on my mental grid to fit that, much less how to do it for the variety of needed scenarios.
Wait. What? You shouldn't really be installing RAID drivers at least not to my knowledge. As far as the OS is concerned that is just raw disk right?
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@Kelly said:
In Windows, this is either easy, or undoable. In Linux (during install) it appears to require a significant background. "Just compile from source." is not an easy answer for me at this point because I don't even know where on my mental grid to fit that, much less how to do it for the variety of needed scenarios.
That's a major difference in Linux. Windows is often perceived as easy because "impossible" and "give up" are common answers. In Linux, when it is easy it is normally way easier, when it is hard it is almost always still possible. It's odd that Linux being easier causes it to be seen as harder.
What RAID drivers did you have an issue with? Linux should generally need nothing, I've never seen an enterprise RAID card not supported out of the box,.
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@coliver said:
Wait. What? You shouldn't really be installing RAID drivers at least not to my knowledge. As far as the OS is concerned that is just raw disk right?
Once in a while you need special ones no different than on Windows. While the OS sees it as a SAS card, sometimes they even need drives even just for a SAS adapter.
I've not seen any OS need this in a very long time, though.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@coliver said:
Wait. What? You shouldn't really be installing RAID drivers at least not to my knowledge. As far as the OS is concerned that is just raw disk right?
Once in a while you need special ones no different than on Windows. While the OS sees it as a SAS card, sometimes they even need drives even just for a SAS adapter.
I've not seen any OS need this in a very long time, though.
I know I've had to install some commodity RAID drivers into a workstation before. Never on a server though.
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It is an onboard SAS controller that I'm trying to install in XenServer during boot. I didn't go into the details because it was just an example of a current issue, and that detail I didn't feel was germane. The XS installer is not seeing the configured arrays, only the drives themselves. Perhaps I should start a new thread...
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@Kelly said:
It is an onboard SAS controller that I'm trying to install in XenServer during boot. I didn't go into the details because it was just an example of a current issue, and that detail I didn't feel was germane. The XS installer is not seeing the configured arrays, only the drives themselves. Perhaps I should start a new thread...
Sounds like FakeRAID. I think @DustinB3403 and @scottalanmiller have a guide to setup MD RAID in XenServer.
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@Kelly said:
It is an onboard SAS controller that I'm trying to install in XenServer during boot. I didn't go into the details because it was just an example of a current issue, and that detail I didn't feel was germane. The XS installer is not seeing the configured arrays, only the drives themselves. Perhaps I should start a new thread...
FakeRAID is the issue there. Windows just hides this from you making you think that you have something that you don't. Linux is just helping you here by telling you the truth. For this setup, Linux kicks butt over Windows because with regular Linux and/or XenServer you just use the included enterprise software RAID on those drives and have something way better than Windows offers with or without the FakeRAID hardware.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@FATeknollogee said:
Inquiring minds are asking about Lesson Plan #2
It is partially written and open on my desktop (I write in Atom then post over to keep my browser from crashing and losing it.) Hopefully later today.
Any update on # 2?
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@FATeknollogee said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@FATeknollogee said:
Inquiring minds are asking about Lesson Plan #2
It is partially written and open on my desktop (I write in Atom then post over to keep my browser from crashing and losing it.) Hopefully later today.
Any update on # 2?
Have you looked at all of the new content that went up over the last few days? There are more than a dozen lessons there now.
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@scottalanmiller I love all the new content. Much appreciated.
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Glad to see that this has made the popular posts list this morning!
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Had a spare laptop laying around. Installing CentOS now. Also planning on installing NextCloud here soon as well. Creating a repository/shared calendar for the family with this machine.
