So I went to install Debian on my new PowerEdge SC430 yesterday, only to discover that the standard install CD doesn’t work because its kernel is too old. I’d been lulled into a false sense of security by the Ubuntu 5.10 live CD that I’d tested with, which has kernel 2.6.12, just recent enough to include support for the SC430’s SATA chipset.

But Debian stable is … well, Debian stable. So I had to dig around a bit.

Turns out that Kenshi Muto (who is a champ!) has backported 2.6.15 onto Debian Sarge, built it for x86_64, and then bundled it all up into a mini-ISO. It worked perfectly first time (well, after a modprobe). Thanks mate!

Now to recompile my kernel with SMP support as well as 64-bit support …