Install Debian on Dell PowerEdge 2950

There are two tricks of installation on PowerEdge 2950:
1. Driver of BNX2 NIC
2. Driver of PERC5/i RAID card

I use Debian Lenny DVD for the installation.

It will prompt for BNX2 driver during network configuration.
Get BNX2 non-free package from http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free/f/firmware-nonfree/firmware-bnx2_0.14_all.deb . Unpack it and get lib/firmware/bnx2-06-4.0.5.fw file. Save it to root path of your U-Disk, and supply it for the installation. (Maybe you should mount the U-Disk manually if the installation can't find the file automatically).

After GRUB installed, DO NOT reboot! Otherwise it will stopped after initrd loaded because of missing RAID driver.

ALT-F2 to console 2.
# chroot /target/XXX/
[MAKE SURE YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT PATH]

# vi /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
[Add "megaraid_sas" to the last line of the file]

# cp /boot/initrd.img-2.6.XXXX /boot/initrd.img-2.XXXX.old
[For backup]

# update-initramfs -u
[Get new initrd.img with RAID driver]

# reboot

Wish you are lucky. (The server boots slowly...).

Reference:
1. http://www.ducea.com/2009/03/02/debian-lenny-pxe-installation-on-dell-poweredge-19502950-servers-bnx2-annoyances/
2. http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2006-September/027504.html