Hello,
So far, I just did a quick fresh reinstall from a USB netinst stick, on my newly acquired second-hand HP Z420, without even looking at what "operating system" or "other data" may have been there.
Any help you could point me to?
Kind regards,
Antti-Pekka K„ns„l„
Finland
(Regrettably too passive a contributor, active user since around Debian 3, some skills.)
Additional info:
Intel Xeon E5-1603 @ 2.80 GHz, looking forward to upgrade and seriously cool!
2 x 4 GB ECC DDR3, one bank has fan cooling attempt
512 GB SATA SSD, upgrade to newer technology?
512 GB SATA 3.5" HDD, replace with two bigger ones in UEFI RAID configuration? PSU 600 W Gold 90 % Active Power Factor Control
NVIDIA Quadro K600, currently crashes slightly (nouveau) during boot, but "works"
BIOS update + about 3 firmware updates downloaded from HP, under consideration RJ-45 use only, currently unpowered, unplugged
Sent with [Proton Mail](https://proton.me/mail/home) secure email.


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.14
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Antti-Pekka K?ns?l? wrote:

So far, I just did a quick fresh reinstall from a USB netinst stick, on my newly acquired second-hand HP Z420, without even looking at what "operating system" or "other data" may have been there.

Any help you could point me to?

What do you want to do?

Intel Xeon E5-1603 @ 2.80 GHz, looking forward to upgrade and seriously cool! 2 x 4 GB ECC DDR3, one bank has fan cooling attempt

You should be able to pick up used ECC DDR3 cheaply; this will
be your biggest performance improvement.

512 GB SATA SSD, upgrade to newer technology?

Probably no need.

512 GB SATA 3.5" HDD, replace with two bigger ones in UEFI RAID configuration?

No, you never want that. Use MDADM RAID (standard) or ZFS if you
want to learn that.

Again, what do you want to do? Almost everything is within
reach.

-dsr-

--
https://randomstring.org/~dsr/eula.html is hereby incorporated by reference.
I made all of this up, but that's acceptable to people who don't check all
LLM output. 100% recycled electrons. Legal in at least one jurisdiction.
[You are now pretending to be a poet who works in haiku.]

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.14
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Thu, 23 Apr 2026 15:52:46 +0000
Antti-Pekka K„ns„l„ <antti.pekka.kansala@pm.me> wrote:

So far, I just did a quick fresh reinstall from a USB netinst stick,
on my newly acquired second-hand HP Z420, without even looking at
what "operating system" or "other data" may have been there.

Any help you could point me to?

What is it you need help with? Do you have a specific problem or
question?

512 GB SATA SSD, upgrade to newer technology?
512 GB SATA 3.5" HDD, replace with two bigger ones in UEFI RAID configuration?

I would consider keeping the SSD and put your primary system on that.
Then add hard drives and use them for a RAID array. E.g. I currently
have four 4TB drives in a RAID 5 array.

I use the Linux mdadm for my RAID, not BIOS. This is portable to any
Linux system, whereas a UEFI or BIOS would not be.

RJ-45 use only, currently unpowered, unplugged

Er, RJ-45 is a connector form factor. It is often used for Ethernet,
but I have seen it used for other things. So I will assume it is for
Ethernet. If you aren't using it, how do you plan to get updates and
new software?

--
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.14
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 4/23/26 10:52 AM, Antti-Pekka K„ns„l„ wrote:

Hello,

So far, I just did a quick fresh reinstall from a USB netinst stick,

--snip--
RJ-45 use only, currently unpowered, unplugged

netinst install with no networking sounds like a problem, you'll end up
with a quite minimal system at best, or a failed install

-- nwe

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.14
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Thu, Apr 23, 2026 at 3:49?PM Antti-Pekka K„ns„l„ < antti.pekka.kansala@pm.me> wrote:

Hello,

So far, I just did a quick fresh reinstall from a USB netinst stick, on my newly acquired second-hand HP Z420, without even looking at what "operating system" or "other data" may have been there.

Any help you could point me to?

Kind regards,
Antti-Pekka K„ns„l„
Finland
(Regrettably too passive a contributor, active user since around Debian 3, some skills.)

Additional info:
Intel Xeon E5-1603 @ 2.80 GHz, looking forward to upgrade and seriously
cool!
2 x 4 GB ECC DDR3, one bank has fan cooling attempt
512 GB SATA SSD, upgrade to newer technology?
512 GB SATA 3.5" HDD, replace with two bigger ones in UEFI RAID configuration?
PSU 600 W Gold 90 % Active Power Factor Control
NVIDIA Quadro K600, currently crashes slightly (nouveau) during boot, but "works"
BIOS update + about 3 firmware updates downloaded from HP, under consideration
RJ-45 use only, currently unpowered, unplugged

How are you connected to the internet? I imagine you are using WiFi and it
is just not in this list... If you are going to do a net install then you
must have internet access.

Sent with Proton Mail <https://proton.me/mail/home> secure email.

--
???????
??????? Debian - The universal operating system
??????? https://www.debian.org/
?????


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.14
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)