blog:ex475_with_fedora_17

ex475 with Linux (fedora 20)

You need a video cable for this as it requires a bios tweak

CREATOR: gd-jpeg v1.0 (using IJG JPEG v62), default quality I got fed up with trying to figure out how to install WHS2011 onto my ex475. So I bit the bullet and just installed a linux distribution.

  1. Pull bottom drive from your ex475
  2. Put drive into spare USB container
  3. Create a VM using VM workstation and point it at a physical disk (Advanced settings for this)
  4. Install Fedora 20.
  5. Put drive back and boot it up

A couple of things I had to do. Disable Network Manager (NM) controlling the interface.

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

UUID="b65270ab-2b79-473d-8dce-942908383ff2"
NM_CONTROLLED="no"
BOOTPROTO="static"
DEVICE="eth0"
ONBOOT="yes"
IPADDR=192.168.1.20
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1
NETMASK=255.255.255.0

To resolve the slow disk startup issue required tweaking a BIOS setting. You'll need video cable http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8066 just the bare minimum VGA only will do as keyboard/mouse on USB are fine.

  • Change from 4P(IDE)+4S(RAID) to 4P(IDE)+4S(IDE)

The video switches to a small font I prefer to see the BIOS font and all the startup messages - /etc/sysconfig/grub

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="rd.md=0 rd.dm=0  KEYTABLE=us SYSFONT=True rd.lvm.lv=vg/lv_root rd.luks=0 rd.lvm.lv=vg/lv_swap LANG=en_US.UTF-8"
GRUB_TERMINAL="console"

4x 1Tb drives online.

[root@cheese sysconfig]# df -h
Filesystem              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs                   50G  1.7G   46G   4% /
devtmpfs                930M     0  930M   0% /dev
tmpfs                   939M     0  939M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                   939M  1.1M  938M   1% /run
/dev/mapper/vg-lv_root   50G  1.7G   46G   4% /
tmpfs                   939M     0  939M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs                   939M     0  939M   0% /media
/dev/sda1               485M   66M  394M  15% /boot
/dev/mapper/vg-lv_home  864G  762G   94G  90% /u01
/dev/sdb1               917G  200M  908G   1% /u02
/dev/sdc1               917G  200M  908G   1% /u03
/dev/sdd1               917G  105G  803G  12% /u04

Same old boring processor. I never bothered upgrading this.

[root@cheese ~]# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD
cpu family      : 15
model           : 79
model name      : AMD Sempron(tm) Processor 3400+
stepping        : 2
microcode       : 0x62
cpu MHz         : 1000.000
cache size      : 256 KB
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 1
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow up rep_good nopl extd_apicid pni cx16 lahf_lm extapic cr8_legacy
bogomips        : 1999.88
TLB size        : 1024 4K pages
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp tm stc

The ethernet NIC is working just fine at 1000Mbps

[    7.024358] sis190: sis190 Gigabit Ethernet driver 1.4 loaded
[    7.024551] sis190 0000:00:04.0: setting latency timer to 64
[    7.024576] sis190: 0000:00:04.0: Read MAC address from EEPROM
[    7.042027] sis190: 0000:00:04.0: Atheros PHY transceiver at address 0
[    7.178369] sis190 0000:00:04.0: eth0: 0000:00:04.0: SiS 191 PCI Gigabit Ethernet adapter at ffffc9000035c000 (IRQ
: 19), 00:0a:e4:86:6b:83
[    7.178554] sis190 0000:00:04.0: eth0: RGMII mode.
[    7.178660] sis190 0000:00:04.0: eth0: Enabling Auto-negotiation
[   18.728031] sis190 0000:00:04.0: eth0: mii ext = 0000
[   18.734019] sis190 0000:00:04.0: eth0: mii lpa=c1e1 adv=01e1 exp=000f
[   18.738022] sis190 0000:00:04.0: eth0: link on 1000 Mbps Full Duplex mode

File transfers are significantly faster than when it was running Windows - I can sustain ~83 MB/s on a 40Gb file.

  • blog/ex475_with_fedora_17.txt
  • Last modified: 2014/10/16 08:06
  • by brett