Ubuntu Desktop on server hardware..

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Evening all,

I've decided to use a spare PowerEdge 2600 as a workstation, primarily for VMware Server 2, but also for some other specific things. One of them being acting as a transcoding station to convert MKV files and stream them to my 360.

With this in mind, and the fact that I haven't got a Linux desktop machine at my disposal at my current location, I thought I'd install 8.10 Desktop Edition onto the 2600.

Install went fine - however the display driver isn't working at all well. 800x600 is what the generic install provides, and I've modded my xorg.conf file to look like below but I'm now left with 640x480.

Code:
Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Configured Video Device"
	Driver		"ati"
	Option		"UseFBDev"		"true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Configured Monitor"
	Modeline        "1280x1024_60.00"  108.88  1280 1360 1496 1712  1024 1025 1028 1060  -HSync +Vsync
    	Option          "PreferredMode" "1280x1024_60.00"

EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Default Screen"
	Monitor		"Configured Monitor"
	Device		"Configured Video Device"
	DefaultDepth	24
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth	24
		Modes	"1280x1024" "1024x768" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier	"Default Layout"
	Screen		"Default Screen"
EndSection

From what I can gleam from Professor Google the 2600 uses the Rage XL chipset, hence why I've edited xorg.conf to use the ATI driver - though I suspect this may not be enough?

All help/advice/ideas/biscuits appreciated :)
 
get ESX3i. much better (I use ESX3.5 extensively and Server a bit...).

Yep I've already got it downloaded and was considering installing it - however I want to be able to have local access to a Linux workstation for various things..

However, seeing as I'm not having any luck with it it might be a RDP/VNC job :)

Thanks for the post - you may have just pushed me over the edge ;)
 
i'm not sure tbh. to make sure use:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Didn't see this - I'd already tried a reconfigure via dpkg but it just leaves me with the same 'generic' xorg.conf. From the little reading I've done it would seem that xorg.conf isn't used any more in 8.10.. though I've yet to find the config file that is now responsible. :confused:
 
get ESX3i. much better (I use ESX3.5 extensively and Server a bit...).

Took your advice, ESXi is installed - Ubuntu, Fedora, Vista, Windows Server 2008 installing as I speak - though installs are a little slow because of ISO over WiFi :p

If I can figure out a cheap way of doing backups (currently using VMware Server 2 we just suspend and copy via the CLI) I'll be thinking of upgrading all our host's to it :)
 
Took your advice, ESXi is installed - Ubuntu, Fedora, Vista, Windows Server 2008 installing as I speak - though installs are a little slow because of ISO over WiFi :p

If I can figure out a cheap way of doing backups (currently using VMware Server 2 we just suspend and copy via the CLI) I'll be thinking of upgrading all our host's to it :)

It is substantially better than Server - because there's a much smaller overhead (there is only the hypervisor layer). Unfortunately, as 3i doesn't have a service console - and hence no SSH access to it - to my knowledge, backup solutions are somewhat limited to in guest backups or the method that you have mentioned above... However - I suspect (although have not looked into it, as I work mostly with the ESX3.5 0 not 3i) that it may be possible using the RCLI virtual appliance.

Also - if you're planning on migrating all your hosts to this, you can use VMware converter for the guests...
 
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