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I have a Dell PowerEdge R510 and I want to install the latest version of CentOS on it (currently 7.1) so I can maintain the system with updates. RHEL is supported by Dell, so I assume CentOS can be installed also. Tricking the Dell software in believing it's RHEL being installed on should do the trick?

According to the Dell Support page for the R510, Dell supports RHEL 6 but not RHEL7. Dell supports RHEL7 for some other 11G servers but the R510 is not one of them.

I tried installing CentOS 7.1 on it and it installed without a problem, so I could start using the system as of now. But what do I miss if I don't install any software from Dell? Should I return to CentOS 6 so I can install Dell Software?

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  • What kind of Dell software do you want to install? Do you need a support contract from Dell (beyond hardware replacement) that might be valid only for supported operating systems?
    – Sven
    Oct 16, 2015 at 10:33
  • I don't have clear view over the Dell Software needed for the R510. I suppose Dell Openmanage, but there is also a Dell Driver Pack For Linux OS available in the software downloads. Would this contain drivers I need for a good functioning system? I don't need software support from Dell, only hardware support, but I don't want to run a cripled system because I wasn't able to install something from Dell. Oct 16, 2015 at 11:48

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The only Dell software that you really need is DSET and LSI_megaRAID, and you only need it when you want to feed the Dell's hardware support folks during the failure/problem. Don't worry, all other bloatware is not needed for a properly functioning Linux system and Dell support never required anything else. Well you cannot resize the RAID online, but that's about it.

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  • dmesg shows me these lines: [ 0.893242] megaraid_sas 0000:02:00.0: irq 77 for MSI/MSI-X [ 0.893253] megaraid_sas 0000:02:00.0: [scsi0]: FW supports<0> MSIX vector,Online CPUs: <8>,Current MSIX <1> [ 0.978077] megaraid_sas 0000:02:00.0: Controller type: MR,Memory size is: 512MB. Can I presume I don't have to the LSI_megaRAID anymore and that the megaraid driver is included in CentOS 7 or do I have to install a more specific driver. So far I had no issues with the RAID. Nov 24, 2015 at 13:15
  • @StevenDeVoogt I didn't say you need custom drivers - no. What comes with CentOS works great for me. I said you only need custom software for diagnostics - when you have a failure, and you open a support case with Dell, and they require you to install some custom software and gather some diagnostic information before they help you.
    – kubanczyk
    Nov 24, 2015 at 14:02
  • Ok, got it. I'll leave the megaraid driver alone. I tested DSET and I can run a report if I temporarily set SELinux to permissive. All set for Dell Support to give them the diagnostics they need in case of a hardware failure. Thanks for clearing up everything! Nov 25, 2015 at 15:03
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Steven -

I have a Dell R610 with CentOS 7 running on it and I have had zero issues with stability. It is running as a KVM server and I have a few linux based VMs running on it. I was able to install OpenManage software on it with zero issues, but I haven't been able to get the Storage tab to work to manage the PERC controller. I haven't had much time to troubleshoot that page of it yet. Here's a link to the OpenManage software setup, official from Dell if you want to get that installed:

http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/omsa.html

Note that the services don't start automatically. There are 4 startup scripts in /etc/init.d/ to get it going. See this post about the specifics:

https://serverfault.com/a/737886/321511

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  • Thanks for the info. I have CentOS running now without OpenManage-software. I will leave my current config as is and won't jump into a CentOS-R510-OpenManage adventure for now. But I'll keep your info in mind if I come across the need for OpenManage-software on the R510. Nov 25, 2015 at 15:07
  • @StevenDeVoogt you're welcome! You're not going to miss out on much functionality without the OpenManage unless you're depending on some hardware metrics for monitoring in production. Good luck! Nov 25, 2015 at 16:39

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