[9fans] OT: OpenForge Re: new here (fwd)

[9fans] OT: OpenForge Re: new here (fwd)

[Jim Choate]

Hi,

One time notice...

The name resolver issues are resolved. The domains should be updated and
active by Thursday. We'll be moving SSZ over from it's current connection
sometime this weekend. All the current SSZ mailing lists will move with
the exeption of the Cypherpunks related ones and Club Inferno. These bring
me entirely too many subpeonas and visits from 'shady characters' for me
to want to share that privilige with others ;) The Austin Cypherpunks are
expected to be active in projects however (I'm still wanting to build a
radiation based diode RNG, versus a Geiger-Meuller tube). First I need to
get 'igor' (Perl based anon remailer/mail list manager) working and that
isn't really scheduled to even start until something like July (we've got
to finish the initial server farm first).

Stu is working on the physical meeting and we should have something worked
out in the next week or two. We hope to have the first meets the last of
Feb. or first week of March. We hope to have weekly meetings with topics
in a variety of areas. However, we are NOT primarily a support
organization, we are focused on projects and services. The Austin
Cypherpunks will continue with their traditional monthly 'social' meeting.
For more mundane project discussion one of the Open Groups meetings will
be more workable.

The 802.11b's are about 10 miles apart (~183@Target, & ~48th@Duval,
we'll be adding one in Leander in the near term as well) and will be
accessible only by Open Forge/Hangar 18 participants (to all those local
users groups that declined our invitation - your loss - we tried to be
more liberal and you said 'no'). The proposed site in Elgin was dropped
when the sponsor decided it wasn't worth his time. We are looking for any
potential participants in that area.

I understand that OpenMosix is now available (see /. for more info). As
soon as I can get some time I'll build up a box and make it available to
participants.

Thank you and good night.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 07:46:15 -0600 (CST)
From: Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com>
Reply-To: openforge@ssz.com
To: hangar18@einstein.ssz.com
Cc: openforge@einstein.ssz.com
Subject: OpenForge Re: new here


Welcome Subhash,

On Tue, 12 Feb 2002, Prajapati, Subhash wrote:
 
> Guys I have been in touch with Linux for the
> past 1.5 years and have loved it.
> I used SuSE linux 7.0 and have installed it
> on many occasions.
> 
> I heard that Plan9 is much better than any 
> other Unix ... and want to try it out.
> so i joined this news group

Then learn rule #1 - NO OS WARS, we have better things to do with our
time.

If you have access to a "Running Linux" 1st or 2nd ed., look in the
appendix under sites to obtain Linux in the 512 area code...:)

> How shud i proceed...
> Will downloading the OS and installing it 
> rightaway be an advisable step, or shud I
> read some documentation about this OS first.

What I discovered is that Plan 9 is a distributed OS, therefore to use it
you need a distributed infrastructure. That implies several machines. I'd
suggest loading a I/O-Auth server and learn the basic sys admin (the first
thing you ALWAYS do with a OS after getting a good load). Then build a
file server, followed by at least two (2) process boxes.

Our current state is that we have the T1 in stalled and two 802.11b
wireless AP's in Austin, Tx. We are currently fighting name resolver
issues under SuSE 7.3, as soon as they are resolved in the next couple of
days we'll link the two sites together (ie ssz.com w/ mansion.org &
open-forge.org/com goes live). Once we have the firewall and routing
issues taken care of we'll be replacing our primary DNS machine with a
Plan 9 box (once we figure out how). The best target for a Plan 9 cluster
of services (ie a I/O/Auth/DNS server, a 80G file server, and at least two
process boxes is July). We stongly(!) invite others to put up resources
sooner. Once the resources are up we've got to figure out a way to control
access (probably a sign-up via webpage).

Hangar 18 (and Open Forge) is not the usual 'user group'. We are a
co-op. This means that if you want to play, you have to provide some sort
of service to grow the co-op.

Rule #2: No free loaders or lurkers. If you're not working on an active
project you're in the wrong place.

If you just want to munge system resources then you'll have to find a
current co-op member who is willing to give away access gratis. The Open
Forge group doesn't do that. This means that in order to get a reliable
connection to Open Forge through ssz.com, mansion.org, or
open-forge.org/com you'll need to have something to share with the
community. It could be a machine with 24*365 access (part-time isn't
acceptable for servers), program on projects, host a cluster of mail
lists (we're currently at 200+ when we go live). Users will of course be
able to access the 80G file server and a small (maybe 2-4) sub-set of our
planned process cluster. This small set of resources will be available for
anyone to use via Plan 9 (file and process) or Linux and other OS'es (NFS
to the file server only currently). The first time is free ;)

If you'd like more info:

http://einstein.ssz.com/hangar18

http://einstein.ssz.com/openforge

Rule #3: In general we are NOT working with the Bell Labs organization or
any of their sub-groups or associates.

Consider it a core split of the development community from the get go.
They aren't interested in several of the aspects that Hangar 18 is focused
on and we don't really like their attitude (we do acknowledge their
technical skills and admire them for it). So outside of sharing code we
don't forsee a lot of interaction. Otherwise one of us would have to hurt
the other I suspect ;)

I'd suggest you also take a look at Unununium as well. Very cool
kernel-less design.

> Like Maurice Bach is a good beginning for 
> Unix what would you suggest for Plan 9 ?

That sentence makes zero sense to me, who or what is a 'Maurice Bach'? A
books author? I prefer the O'Reilly sys-admin books for Unix but there
ain't such a beastie for Plan 9. The consequence is read the supplied dox
and peruse the source Luke...

Again welcome aboard!


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                James Choate - ravage@ssz.com - www.ssz.com

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