Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 22:31:51 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "ChrisC" <chrisc123@cox.net>, <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: Where to find good/cheap tech support Message-ID: <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNEEDDFBAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.0.20050425081112.01b04dd0@pop.east.cox.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org wrote: > You seem to be making assumptions and are looking into this > to deeply > my friend. But thanks for the feedback anyway :) - > The $150 was only an arbitrary number thats common in the field. I > could have chosen another number. It would not have mattered, the > question would have been the same. That is baloney, when you titled the post good/CHEAP, quite obviously the number matters greatly. > - > The SCSI adapter is an Adaptec Ultra320 built into a $3000+ 1U web > server and not a common inexpensive controller. Since it works fine > for both RedHat and Windows we are probably going to go with > another OS on this server other than FreeBSD. Um, that would be Windows, right? That is, your going to drop an additional $1200 on Windows OS and licensing for it just because you don't want to drop $150 into an hour of support? If that isn't true then why are you even listing Windows here? Windows isn't a UNIX OS, and has no relevance to anything. Is it because your thinking that if you tell us Windows runs on this server that we are all going to be real impressed? Aren't you forgetting a lot of us already run 1U webservers fine with FreeBSD with no problems? The fact RedHat runs on this is significant since the FreeBSD and RedHat Adaptec driver have a common ancestor. > Why arm wrestle the > situation when no one seems to know the solution to our issue. - Simple, because the OS is free. If you want to save the money on licensing fees then you spend your time arm wrestling problems when they come up. If you own a car and you want to save a lot of money on mechanics fees then you learn how to fix it, buy a lot of tools, and do the work yourself. Why is this any different with operating systems? > And I am in a VERY small company that could barely pay for what we > just purchased. We where lucky to get what we did and the idea of > having a duplicate is wishful thinking and not realistic, so thats > a risk we will have to take until we can afford better solutions. In short, you overreached yourself. So let me ask you, why should customers use you when your competition has actually spent the money for backup servers? I work for a small company too, lots of people do that is no excuse. But when I have a problem, such a fielding a mailserver, that really ought to have a backup server, if I have $3K to spend on it, I don't run out and buy a new server. I instead get creative and perhaps buy 2 used servers at $1500, or roll my own clones, or get a leasing company involved, etc. I don't shortchange my customers because I'm not willing to gamble with their livelihoods. Sure, I may not be out there saying to them that I have a brand new P4 3Ghz server for them like you are, but I am telling them that for what they need, a P4 3Ghz server won't be any different than a P3 1.5Ghz system, (which it isn't) and that I have redundancies in that P3 1.5Ghz network that allow me to guarentee to them that if my server blows chunks that I will have them back online within 20 minutes. > Its not the perfect situation but its the best we can do with what > we have. No, it isn't. > I would love a new house but the cold numbers dictate > what's really possible right now. - No, they don't. You are simply making up justfications for yourself to try to sleep better at night. You don't have the moral leg to stand on to sell server services to your customers, because when your customers buy services from you there is an implied understanding that they are buying server services that are done in a professional manner, better than they could do them. And if you aren't selling server services to customers, but instead using this server for your own business, the moral issues still remain because your customers depend on your product, and if you go offline a week because your all-the-eggs-in-one-basket solution blew chunks, then your still affecting your customers. I'm sure you can probably go on making excuses, but I'm not interested in them. You said you couldn't afford to have the server down for days at a time. Well, either that was a baldfaced lie and you were full of crap, or your abrogating your responsibility to provide solid IT services and infrastructure. Sites that cannot afford to have a server down for days at a time MUST have backup servers, it is simple as that, and no amount of whining and excuses justify anything different. > Now if your interested in the problem, here is the support > issue/question no one seems to have any clue about..... - > I am attempting to install FreeBSD 5.3 onto a new server, but > during the initial bootup it fails / times out from what I think > is it trying > to initialize the SCSI adapter. The server has an Adaptec AIC-7902 > dual-channel Ultra320 SCSI controller which the i386 ahd(4) > driver has > listed as a supported device. > - > I have been reading and searching this lists archives as well as > the bsdforums.org site for possible solutions, but so far what I > have found has not worked. I have tried disabling/enabling ACPI, > removing all but one SCSI drive and re-checking the adapter > settings comparing them to a different Adaptec controller on > another server running FreeBSD 5.3 which works fine. The servers > BIOS and firmware > is all up > to date and is mainly running on its default settings. - Have you looked at PR kern/71778 it is still open, is applicable to your problem. You should post followup to it with the same output as requested "pciconf -lv". You should also check out FreeBSD release 4.11 on this system, as the original creator of that PR did. Without feedback the developers do not know there is a problem. The Questions mailing list is NOT the place for submitting bugs to FreeBSD. It is rather where people who don't know better get their paradigm adjusted to be realistic, or if their too emotionally envolved in their excus.. paradigm adjusted and cannot take the forced therapy, then they get pissed off and go away and run Windows or something and sooth their ruffled feathers by telling themselves they were right all along. The fact that someone else has a similar problem with this chipset is a much better indicator it's a driver bug than the original single post to the PR, and much more likely to get the driver author to take a look at it. If the driver author does not look at it I am sorry about that, but I would bet that if you offered him half the amount of money as what it would cost to run Windows on this server of yours that the bug would be fixed quickly. But of course, you won't do that because you seem to have a moral adversion to spending money on software or support. Hardware I guess is OK to spend money on, with a grudge, I guess. I wonder how long you would stay in business if all your customers had this same money spending attitude to your product? Ted
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNEEDDFBAA.tedm>