Dell create easy install firmware, drivers, management utilities and such for Redhat. These seldom work in Debian, often because of the different package management systems they use (rpm for Redhat / dpkg for Debian) .
I had to upgrade the firmware on a PERC 5/E raid controller, and we mainly run Debian where I work, so I’ve poked around for a solution on this issue.
There might have been a solution with creating a floppy or using some Dell utilities boot cd, but I’m 300 kilometres from the server so that wasn’t an option.
Here’s some links that helped me in the process.
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/how-to-extract-an-rpm-package-without-installing-it.html
http://linux.dell.com/repo/community/deb/latest/
http://sysadmin.wikia.com/wiki/PERC_firmware_upgrade_on_debian
Sysadmin.wikia.com’s solution didn’t do the trick for me, there was some script that really wanted rpm on my system (?) . I ended up with something like this:
# apt-get install alien # rpm2cpio srvadmin-storelib-sysfs-7.0.0-4.1.4.el4.i386.rpm | cpio -idmv # cp -a ../unpack_rpm/opt/lsi/ /opt/ # vi /etc/ld.so.conf.d/lsi_tmp.conf (adding to this file these lines) /opt/lsi/3rdpartylibs/ /opt/lsi/3rdpartylibs/x86_64 # ./sasdupie -u -s ./payload/
I then got the xml output which told me a reboot was required .