Are there any special requirements to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux on an HP xw4300 workstation?

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The HP xw4300 workstation ships with an integrated Broadcom 5752 A2 network card which requires the 3.27 version tg3 driver. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 U5 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux v4 U1 ships with the 3.22 tg3 driver. You must use a driver disk when doing network installations. This driver update disk can be obtained from HP. A driver disk will not be required when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Update 6 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 2. When upgrading from tg3 v.3.22 to v.3.27 a full power off reset may be required to reset the internal state of the NIC.

To download the driver, visit www.hp.com/go/workstationsupport/ and select the product name 'HP Workstation xw4300.' Then click on the 'download drivers and software' link. Select the operating system and then download the "HP Installer Kit for Linux - Red Hat Driver Disk" for Red Hat Enterprise rev Update 5.

Additionally, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 does not ship with the ALSA subsystem. In order to get audio working in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, you must contact HP for a driver that will work with the xw4300's integrated Intel HD audio.

Support for the xw4300's Intel HD Audio on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 will be provided with Update 2.

HP xw4300 workstations equipped with the ICH7 chipset will require initial installation through Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 2 media or the kernel will panic. It is possible to install this system with RHEL4 U0 media, then use the 'up2date' command to update the system to RHEL4 U2. However, this process may result in a kernel panic when booting to the new kernel. RHEL4 U2 updates support the ICH7 chipset and SATA devices and should be used during the primary install to avoid this issue.

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