Dell PowerEdge 1850

Introduction
This is a 1U high rack optimized server with 2 CPU slot and 6 DIMM memory slot (ECC supported). Maximum 2x3.5" SCSI hard disk supported or you can use external storage. Recommended for virtualization, high availability applications, virtualhosting or clustered applications.

Processor compatibility
Intel® Xeon® processors-

two dual-core 64-bit Intel Xeon processors at 3.2GHz

Chipset

 * Intel E7520

Memory

 * 6 DIMM slots
 * 256MB/12GB DDR-2 400 SDRAM; 16GB with availability of dual rank 4GB DIMMs

Storage

 * 36GB, 73GB, 146GB and 300GB (10,000 rpm) Ultra320 SCSI
 * 18GB, 36GB, 73GB and 146GB (15,000 rpm) Ultra320 SCSI

Slots

 * Two total: two PCI-X® slots (1 x 64-bit/133MHz and 1 x 64-bit/100MHz)
 * Or two PCI ExpressTM slots (1 x 4 lane and 1 x 8 lane)

Drive controllers

 * Embedded single channel Ultra320 SCSI
 * Optional single channel ROMB (PERC 4e/Si), PERC 4/DC, PERC 4/SC and PERC 4e/DC adapters

Communication

 * Dual embedded Intel Gigabit NICs; single and dual port Intel PRO/1000 MT Gigabit adapters
 * Intel PRO/1000 MF (optical)

Availability

 * ECC memory
 * Single Device Data Correction (SDDC)
 * Spare Bank
 * Memory Mirroring
 * Hot-plug SCSI hard drives
 * Optional hot-plug redundant power
 * Redundant cooling
 * Tool-less chassis
 * High availability fibre channel and SCSI cluster support
 * Optional ROMB with battery-backed cache
 * Optional RAID controllers

Chassis

 * 1U Rack-mountable chassis
 * Size: 1.69(?)x19x30

Ports
Rear: 1x Serial 2x USB 2x PS/2 1x VGA 2x Ethernet

Front: 1x VGA 2x USB

Management

 * Baseboard Management Controller with IPMI 1.5 compliance, accessible via network or serial port
 * Optional slot-free DRAC 4/I

Cpuinfo output (depends on your configuration)
/proc/cpuinfo

Lspci output
lspci

Lsusb output
lsusb

Installation notes

 * With installation CD possibly needed boot flag 'doscsi'.
 * If you want to use Evms support 'doevms' or 'doevms2' boot flag required too.
 * Both x86 and x86_64 profiles supported and tested with the machine. (Problems not discovered.)
 * Hardened and non hardened profiles tested and used for a month. (Problems not discovered.)

Video card
Console support tested. Works well with vesa driver. No framebuffer or any eyecandy.

Have not tested X in Gentoo, but tested used server by booting an Ubuntu LiveCD, everything worked fine.

SCSI card
Working well with 'LSI Logic MegaRAID SAS RAID Module' kernel driver.

Lan card
Working with kernel driver Intel e1000.

Sensors
LM-sensors not detected any module, but the motherboard contains a BMC chip so IPMI (ipmitool or ipmiutil) can be usefull for system monitoring.

IPMI
Working well with kernel drivers and ipmitool

Install IPMI tools for managing server parameters.

Example usage for ipmitool:

Get raid and drive bay status: ipmitool sdr type "Drive Slot / Bay"

Get temperatures: ipmitool sdr type "Temperature"

Acpi
Working mostly with kernel drivers.


 * Button: working (system shutdown initiated when button pressed)
 * Fan: not working (nothing see in /proc/acpi/fan/)
 * Processor: working (standard information can be see in /proc/acpi/processor/)
 * Thermal: not working (Use IPMI for get CPU temperature)

Kernel options for ACPI.

Install ACPID daemon and config it to start at system boot.

CPU Frequency scaling
Working well with kernel drivers.

Install cpufreq utils for get information and set options.