Andrew Sharp
Kernel investigation
Confirmation from Lance that the current kernel fails to boot on newer hardware. So, on my agenda then is to get some newer hardware so that testing of a new kernel can be done. According to the HP store website, the Havic box I have now newly spec'd would ship on 4/22, which is a ways out. So if we want to do that, we should get it started now. Note the spec that I emailed out before is not the current spec.
Road ahead
Getting stock 5.X kernel source and doing some 64-bit builds to see what I can see vis-a-vis getting it to boot, support the various boot parameters and so forth.
Investigate building the host kernel drivers against a 5.X kernel. I won't be able to load those drivers, but just getting them to build will be a good first step.
I'll be going over the host kernel driver source to try and get an understanding of any 32/64 issues that might be looming. It appears that the embedded kernel driver source is also there, so I can look at that as well.
I will also home in on a spec for the Gen3 hardware replacement. This will be more generic as I suspect whatever sub HP uses to build them will choose specific cases, motherboards and the like.
It is now pretty clear that Rick was correct in that I do need the testing hardware that attaches to these two boxes, so we should get that ball rolling. I'm not sure what the lead time might be on that.
I will be investigating the distro question over the next couple of days. Lance made a good point regarding the systemd question, so I'll be taking a look at that. The only other distro I would consider is Debian, for it's longevity, long term support for security patches, and for it's [possible] technical superiority. Gentoo and Debian have different philosophies regarding ongoing adoption of new versions, so that will be considered as well.