OpenBSD Journal

HP Donates Gear to the Hackathon

Contributed by mbalmer on from the memory-a-gogo dept.

Hewlett Packard (Canada) has decided to support our ongoing efforts to support large memory configurations on 64-bit machines by donating two servers with SCSI RAID configurations and large amounts of memory (one machine has 24GB of RAM installed)! dlg@ is developing and testing his new mpt(4) replacement driver mpi(4) on one of these donated machines.

In addition to the donation of these two machines, HP has also decided to loan us 10 Gigabit networking gear. The loaning of this gear will facilitate identifying bottlenecks in the network stack and help us optimize the code for other slower cards, too.

These top-of-the-line servers and high-end network gear will really help OpenBSD become an even better OS. Of course it's no surprise that support for HP gear will really improve. And such is the essence of donating hardware to OpenBSD, existing customers will be happier as support improves, and there will be new customers who buy HP gear due to the level of support that was made possible by these donations.

Many thanks to Hewlett Packard (Canada) and to Jeffrey, Allan D. of HP (Canada) for generously supporting us!

(Comments are closed)


Comments
  1. By Anonymous Coward (131.130.1.143) on

    Please send some hardware-porn pics of these cute things :)

    thanks!

    Comments
    1. By Al (198.53.109.207) on

      Oh wow, absolutely amazing.

      It's great to see large company's showing such support.

      Cant wait to see what improvements are made as a result of this donation!

    2. By Carlos Andrade (69.91.71.37) candrade@gmail.com on

      > Please send some hardware-porn pics of these cute things :)
      >
      > thanks!

      Agreed! Some specs please

      Comments
      1. By Anonymous Coward (203.113.232.89) on

        > > Please send some hardware-porn pics of these cute things :)
        > >
        > > thanks!
        >
        > Agreed! Some specs please

        Yes. What are the specs?

  2. By Anonymous Coward (156.34.211.102) on

    A hardware vendor lending support! The surprises just keep coming. Thanks HP!

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward (64.231.232.229) on

      > A hardware vendor lending support!

      It sounds like the servers were donated, not loaned. Whoa!

      Thanks HP! I'll definitely put them at the top of the list when making purchasing decisions at work now.

      Comments
      1. By Anonymous Coward (69.70.207.240) on

        > Thanks HP! I'll definitely put them at the top of the list when making purchasing decisions at work now.

        Same here! 100%!


    2. By MotleyFool (207.188.170.35) on

      > A hardware vendor lending support! The surprises just keep coming. Thanks HP!

      There are other vendors who support OpenBSD with donations, just checkout the donations page.

    3. By Anonymous Coward (83.79.54.97) on

      After supporting FreeBSD with a package cluster they also support OpenBSD.
      That's great, I will fully recommend HP machines to all my customers.

  3. By Anonymous Coward (87.78.71.118) on

    why did i just check the offers on hp.com?!?

  4. By frantisek holop (165.72.200.11) on

    most interesting..

    as far as i know, hp is not interested in getting support for their hardware from non-microsoft, non-linux circles. and hp-ux 11i v3
    just around the corner..

    this donation makes no sense at all.

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward (68.104.220.48) on

      > most interesting..
      >
      > as far as i know, hp is not interested in getting support for their hardware from non-microsoft, non-linux circles. and hp-ux 11i v3
      > just around the corner..
      >
      > this donation makes no sense at all.

      A commercial entity not interested in a pathway that could possibly lead to more sales? I think you're mistaken about their motives. Or lack of...

      Regardless, it is a Good Thing and we thank HP for their generous donations. This is an example of good support from a hardware vendor and what keeps a project running current and useful.

      DS

    2. By odnomzagi (81.182.116.109) on

      > as far as i know, hp is not interested in getting support for their hardware from non-microsoft, non-linux circles.

      http://www.testdrive.hp.com/os/#bsd

      Comments
      1. By Anonymous Coward (156.34.211.102) on

        > http://www.testdrive.hp.com/os/#bsd

        Just NetBSD and FreeBSD -- somehow OpenBSD didn't make the cut in their test-drive program. Oh well .. a lot better than Linux only I suppose!


        Comments
        1. By Anonymous Coward (82.150.62.62) on

          > > http://www.testdrive.hp.com/os/#bsd
          >
          > Just NetBSD and FreeBSD -- somehow OpenBSD didn't make the cut in their test-drive program.

          Just... LOL. Please show me at IBM something like HP's BSD testdrive. You can't? Then stfu. HP is a great supporter of the FOSS community.


          Comments
          1. By Anonymous Coward (66.11.66.41) on

            > > > http://www.testdrive.hp.com/os/#bsd
            > >
            > > Just NetBSD and FreeBSD -- somehow OpenBSD didn't make the cut in their test-drive program.
            >
            > Just... LOL. Please show me at IBM something like HP's BSD testdrive. You can't? Then stfu. HP is a great supporter of the FOSS community.

            There is no "FOSS community" to be a supporter of. What people refer to when they say that is in fact many distinct and very different projects and people, with very different needs and views.

    3. By Anonymous Coward (66.11.66.41) on

      > most interesting..
      >
      > as far as i know, hp is not interested in getting support for their hardware from non-microsoft, non-linux circles. and hp-ux 11i v3
      > just around the corner..
      >
      > this donation makes no sense at all.

      It makes plenty of sense. They don't make money on hp-ux anyways, they make it on hardware. And if their servers are better supported, then they sell more hardware.

  5. By Anonymous Coward (202.45.98.115) on

    wow these are nice machines, i certainly didn't expect this from HP, whilst companies like Mozilla and Google donating money just seemed kind of "normal" given their status within the community.

    Althought I purchase hardware wholesale rather than buying premade retail computers, I will certainly look upon HP more favorably in the future should I be in the market for any of their produts. hmm I do need a new laptop within the next few years. Previously I wouldnt even review the HP laptops when purchasing them, I've bought Toshiba, Dell, and Compaq (before the acquisition) laptops. Now when I buy or recommend to someone the next laptop purchase, I will do a thorough review of HPs line up.

  6. By Anonymous Coward (64.231.232.229) on

    Not to seem ungrateful, but any chance of getting an alpha or five out of them? ;]

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on

      I think HP would like to forget Alpha even exists. Shame really as the OpenBSD Alpha port could do with some work.

  7. By Anonymous Coward (24.207.248.243) on

    This is the best thing they've done since getting rid of Carly. What a company destroyer she was.

    Anyway, I may even consider looking at HP now. I haven't bought anything from HP in years. When Carly got rid of calculator designers and started nixing system programmers and destroying things for the employees, I stopped buying HP. When we were buying big iron like HP 256/512 multi terabyte storage arrays, I moved away from them. I had previously spent about $20 million US on hardware and openview licenses from them. It was my little fuck you for what she did to the HP employees. I can't tell you how many people I've talked out of HP/Compaq laptops.

    So this is worthy of cautious optimism.

    It's funny how much these companies advertise, spending millions of dollars yearly, and they don't support the things that would really endear them to the tech community like supporting openbsd and openssh. This is cheap advertising. They'll spend 10's of thousands for a one time print of an add in a computer magazine and it won't get a 10th of the attention as this act. It really amazes me how stupid all these people are.

    Granted, we aren't linux (Thank God) and don't get as much attention, but they definitely have my attention.

    So anyway, thank you HP. Personally, I care.

  8. By Anonymous Coward (66.11.66.41) on

    HP's servers are really nice, and their ILO kicks ass. Hopefully this will also lead to support for all the nice status stuff like fan status, power supplies, disks, etc.

  9. By Anonymous Coward (70.51.11.162) on

    Just curious, but does this mean they're also releasing hardware specs or is this not an issue for these particular donated systems?

    Regardless though, this is a very nice donation and I will definatly be looking into purchasing more HP hardware for my company and our clients, mostly because of this nice donation.

    What helps OpenBSD also helps those who donate or help... In the end, it's all a win-win situation; unfortunatly, some companies just don't clue in to this.

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward (66.11.66.41) on

      > Just curious, but does this mean they're also releasing hardware specs or is this not an issue for these particular donated systems?

      In most cases, they just work. They are pretty typical i386/amd64 servers. The ciss driver supports the raid controllers in them, their network adapters tend to be bge. Last I checked there wasn't much sensor info supported though.

  10. By Tony (172.212.96.55) on

    Good stuff. I may be in need of machines with 6GB (or larger) MFS drives, being able to stick with openbsd would definetly be a plus.

    It would be nice if one of the big boys was more openbsd friendly in general, lets hope that this goes for more than HP canada in the future.

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward (172.212.96.55) on

      BTW, please post the model and specs of these machines. If I can use the same hardware as the obsd developers...

    2. By Anonymous Coward (202.45.98.115) on

      > It would be nice if one of the big boys was more openbsd friendly in general

      I agree

      AFAIK OpenBSD isn't very well supported in the high end of town. So companies whose high end products are well supported under OpenBSD should have a relative market advantage in this niche.

      Comments
      1. By sthen (81.168.66.231) on

        > AFAIK OpenBSD isn't very well supported in the high end of town.
        > So companies whose high end products are well supported under OpenBSD
        > should have a relative market advantage in this niche.

        The list on armorlogic.com shows that at their last testing, Dell and IBM are mostly well-supported, also some Sun... and according to Theo's recent post all the new Sun amd64 should be working with latest -current. I suspect Fujitsu-Siemens should mostly be ok but haven't seen confirmation.

        In the past HP has been a bit of a mixed bag for OpenBSD support, some kit work well, other kit has problems - hopefully this donation will help there.

        I think we're now at the point that more things work than not, and I think it would be a foolish vendor that doesn't do all they can to ensure that their kit works well with OpenBSD; certainly much of their competitor's kit is likely to.

  11. By Anonymous Coward (62.252.32.11) on

    I read that as "HP Donates *BEER*". Large quantities of amber liquid might make the hackathon more interesting, but I think the gear might come in more handy.

    Thanks, HP :)

  12. By rednerd (69.129.157.147) on

    Anyone know if HP still sells HP x86 servers or are they all Compaq based garbage? I'm always in the market for more Xeon and AMD 64bit servers/workstations but after HP became HP/Compaq/DEC/Etc. I refused to buy anything other than printers from them for fear of ending up with Compaq junk.

    (P.S. I'm not brand biased, after receiving my fifth server with atleast one component DOA I swore I would never buy another Compaq x86 box. )

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward (66.11.66.41) on

      > Anyone know if HP still sells HP x86 servers or are they all Compaq based garbage? I'm always in the market for more Xeon and AMD 64bit servers/workstations but after HP became HP/Compaq/DEC/Etc. I refused to buy anything other than printers from them for fear of ending up with Compaq junk.
      >
      > (P.S. I'm not brand biased, after receiving my fifth server with atleast one component DOA I swore I would never buy another Compaq x86 box. )

      They have the proliant name on them, and use the compaq raid controllers. That's about the extent of it though. Of course, if you weren't an idiot, you would realize that's about all that various compaq models had in common too. You are "brand biased", and its based on your
      silly superstitious nonsense.

      Comments
      1. By Anonymous Coward (85.200.255.58) on

        > You are "brand biased", and its based on your
        > silly superstitious nonsense.

        IMNSHO, the ones who don't like (the computers previously known as) Compaq has never worked with their professional series. Both the Proliant and the Armada (later known as Evo) series has an excellent track record.

        Their Presario series on the other hand is just as bad as any low cost consumer-grade PCs.

        Comments
        1. By Anonymous Coward (203.113.232.89) on

          > > You are "brand biased", and its based on your
          > > silly superstitious nonsense.
          >
          > IMNSHO, the ones who don't like (the computers previously known as) Compaq has never worked with their professional series. Both the Proliant and the Armada (later known as Evo) series has an excellent track record.
          >
          > Their Presario series on the other hand is just as bad as any low cost consumer-grade PCs.
          >

          Presario Sucks

          Proliant is good

          Comments
          1. By Anonymous Coward (203.113.232.89) on

            > > > You are "brand biased", and its based on your
            > > > silly superstitious nonsense.
            > >
            > > IMNSHO, the ones who don't like (the computers previously known as) Compaq has never worked with their professional series. Both the Proliant and the Armada (later known as Evo) series has an excellent track record.
            > >
            > > Their Presario series on the other hand is just as bad as any low cost consumer-grade PCs.
            > >
            >
            > Presario Sucks
            >
            > Proliant is good

            hmm actually Proliant is Excellent

        2. By Shane (202.45.125.5) on

          > Their Presario series on the other hand is just as bad as any low cost consumer-grade PCs.

          The Presario's are low cost consumer-grade PCs. Mine is actually an ASUS.

          My Presario is now completely f%cked, because Compaq/HP bought ASUS motherboards which have 4 or 5 DIFFERENT models, but all of which have the exact same model number. I updated my BIOS in the hope that I could fix a Ricoh no-assigned-interupt problem, and now the machine does not even beep error codes.

          So I have a non-working Compaq/HP Athlon motherboard, with a soldered-in flashrom and a quote from HP spares for about double the retail price for a replacement board which it seems I can't get anywhere else now. And for double the price, they're willing to give me 90 days warrantee on that new, expensive part.

          My fault for buying really low end. I'm certainly frightened off Compaq/HP and ASUS though. I hope my problem was due to Compaq and not HP. I love my HP calc and in the late 80's I enjoyed the really high quality of HP's test and measurement gear. Carly, you suck.

          BTW, thank you HP Canada for the nice high end gear!

      2. By rednerd (69.129.157.230) on

        Thanks for your reply. I used to do a lot of consulting and here is what I remember from Compaq.

        - I'd insist that any customer with sigle power supply proliant models keep at least spare one power supply in stock at all times.
        - At the time they were using "Lite-On" power supplies that would die on a regular basis.
        - I had a telephony server with hot swapable power supplies that would blow a power supply just about every month.
        - Compay used to use so much packaging it was incredible. How many trees did they have to kill so that the coupld put a little ergonomics booklet into every every box, including each and every hard drive?
        - Lets see, I had multiple "Lites-Out" boards that came DOA, causing the server to not even post.
        - I had a raid controller that was always rebuilding itself, multiple on-site trips from Compaq support reps.
        - The first words out of any support persons mouth was, "Have you upgraded the firmware?"
        - The only time you would ever get a support satisfaction survey call was when they had shipped a replacement hdd or power supply. I.E. the amber light was on.
        - I was never a fan of "Smart Start."
        - I once asked a Compaq rep. at a Telephony show why they would wouldn't drop the Presario line so I wouldn't have to hear horror stories from customers every time I would propose a Compaq product. I got a blank stare followed by some B.S. about their presario line having the best customer satisfaction of any in the industry. If that isn't a bunch of B.S. I don't know what is.

        I simply got tired of trying to explain to customers why I was having to bill them for repairs to equipment that I had recommended. Especially when "we never had a problem with our old [white box] server." Most of the servers I buy now come from Dell. This is primarily due to company policy. I'm not a big fan of Dell either, I can't get spare parts easily, they don't support AMD 64 processors which kick but in certain cluster apps and their Precision line of desktops ("workstations") have terrible disk I/O problems. But overall I haven't seen nearly the problems with Dell equipment that I used to see with Compaq. Granted that was right before the take over and maybe people at Compaq saw the hand writing on the wall and were spending more time on Monster.com then on engineering and QA.

        I must say that Compaq raid controller used to kick ass as well as HP and DEC Unix hardware. HP, thanks for supporting OpenBSD. I hope you have learned a few lessons. Maybe I'll try buying a half dozen or so DL385's the next time I need to build a cluster.



    2. By Dave in SF (72.5.115.161) on

      > Anyone know if HP still sells HP x86 servers or are they all Compaq based garbage? I'm always in the market for more Xeon and AMD 64bit servers/workstations but after HP became HP/Compaq/DEC/Etc. I refused to

      We buy HP dx5150 workstations for all our developers that want an x86 platform.

      Dual core Athlons with nice SATA drives and 2 GB of RAM for about $1075! (get the smartbuy and upgrade the RAM). Pretty sweet. I think someone did a review and found that you could beat that by $30 if you bought all the parts and assembled it yourself. Of course, you wouldn't get the 3 year warranty that comes standard if you bought the parts yourself. Pretty sweet machine.

      Of couse, everytime we try to get them they seem to be backordered because everyone else knows these are bad assed stations as well, so I don't think I'm doing myself any favors by posting this.

      We keep some spares around anyway. Nice to see HP helping out with my favorite OS.


      Comments
      1. By rednerd (69.129.157.230) on

        Hey, thanks. I'll give them a shot.

        > > Anyone know if HP still sells HP x86 servers or are they all Compaq based garbage? I'm always in the market for more Xeon and AMD 64bit servers/workstations but after HP became HP/Compaq/DEC/Etc. I refused to
        >
        > We buy HP dx5150 workstations for all our developers that want an x86 platform.
        >
        > Dual core Athlons with nice SATA drives and 2 GB of RAM for about $1075! (get the smartbuy and upgrade the RAM). Pretty sweet. I think someone did a review and found that you could beat that by $30 if you bought all the parts and assembled it yourself. Of course, you wouldn't get the 3 year warranty that comes standard if you bought the parts yourself. Pretty sweet machine.
        >
        > Of couse, everytime we try to get them they seem to be backordered because everyone else knows these are bad assed stations as well, so I don't think I'm doing myself any favors by posting this.
        >
        > We keep some spares around anyway. Nice to see HP helping out with my favorite OS.
        >
        >
        >

  13. By Nicolai (12.216.45.89) on http://www.public.iastate.edu/~free-unix/OpenBSD

    Wow, talk about a win-win situation.

    OpenBSD gets some sweet gear, and HP gets a bunch of inexpensive, positive publicity and quality code for its products.

    Why are other companies not doing this?

    Either way, great to see.

  14. By Jonas (85.226.192.15) on

    Thanks HP, Great news!

    We are using only HP servers with OpenBSD. Been running flawless for years!

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