Quimby upgrade

Quimby upgrade

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Due to the recent exim hole, I'm upgrading Quimby from potato to
woody right now.  Hopefully things will still work afterwards.  If
not, give a shout.
 
-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: Quimby upgrade

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> Due to the recent exim hole, I'm upgrading Quimby from potato to
> woody right now.  Hopefully things will still work afterwards.  If
> not, give a shout.

Things should be up now.  What took the longest was converting the
news spool to something that the new version of inn2 understands.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Quimby Upgrade

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

I'm going to upgrade Quimby to something faster, more stable and less
BSD-ey in the not-too-distant future.  I. e., Debian on a 2xPII
instead of OpenBSD on a P.

Have I ever mentioned how un-impressed I am with OpenBSD?  No?  Good.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Harry Putnam]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> I'm going to upgrade Quimby to something faster, more stable and less
> BSD-ey in the not-too-distant future.  I. e., Debian on a 2xPII
> instead of OpenBSD on a P.
> 
> Have I ever mentioned how un-impressed I am with OpenBSD?  No?  Good.

I run Freebsd on a laptop but I took one look at OpenBSDs logo, and
gnu immediately it was not for me... he he

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Robin S. Socha]

* Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> I'm going to upgrade Quimby to something faster, more stable and less
> BSD-ey in the not-too-distant future.  I. e., Debian on a 2xPII
> instead of OpenBSD on a P.

You should stop smoking that stuff, really. OK, OpenBSD does not do SMP,
which is bad. OTOH, is quimby really being hit that hard?

> Have I ever mentioned how un-impressed I am with OpenBSD?  No?  

No. And I think you shouldn't. It's not meant to impress. If you want to
be impressed, get Linux. I am regularly impressed by the amount of
stupidity displayed by $LINTENDO_VENDOR. Especially compared to, say,
FreeBSD ports.

> Good.

No. But it's your life. While you're waiting for all the goodies to
download (KDE integration into quimby would *really* rock), may I humbly
suggest some additions along the lines of
<http://socha.net/content/forum.php> or
<http://socha.net/content/mig.php?pageType=folder&currDir=./Gnus> and
<http://socha.net/content/links.php>?

I mean, it's all nice and dandy to have the best NR/MUA in the world,
but in order for the Windos lusers to switch, gnus.org should scream
"it's hard, but it pays". Also, having dozens of half-baked tutorials,
readmes, and screenshots scattered all over the place is, errr,
stupid. Make quimby or gnus.org the central pickup point for all that
stuff, and make it more attractive for people to submit things. Like,
people love to flaunt their stuff, and having a truckload of screenshots
with different WMs, OSes and all that is Good(tm).

Rant over, move right along...
-- 
Robin S. Socha, Bastard Consultant From Hell <http://socha.net/>
Note to experienced users: Please don't encourage anti-support behavior.
Don't try to answer questions from users who don't provide the necessary
information. Guessing what they did is an incredible waste of time. (DJB)

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Matthias Wiehl]

Robin S. Socha <robin@socha.net> writes:
> You should stop smoking that stuff, really.

Forgive him, Lars.  Robin doesn't know Debian. }:->

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Josh Huber]

Matthias Wiehl <mwiehl@gmx.de> writes:

> Robin S. Socha <robin@socha.net> writes:
> > You should stop smoking that stuff, really.
> 
> Forgive him, Lars.  Robin doesn't know Debian. }:->

mmm...debian. :)

-- 
Josh Huber

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

"Robin S. Socha" <robin@socha.net> writes:

> > I'm going to upgrade Quimby to something faster, more stable and less
> > BSD-ey in the not-too-distant future.  I. e., Debian on a 2xPII
> > instead of OpenBSD on a P.
> 
> You should stop smoking that stuff, really. OK, OpenBSD does not do SMP,
> which is bad. OTOH, is quimby really being hit that hard?

No, the 2xPII is just the machine we have available at the moment.
It's old and weary.  But, yes, Quimby often has a load of 1-4 for
periods of time.  Nothing too dramatic, though, but it will be nice to
be able to run more taxing stuff on Quimby...

> > Have I ever mentioned how un-impressed I am with OpenBSD?  No?  
> 
> No. And I think you shouldn't. It's not meant to impress. If you want to
> be impressed, get Linux. I am regularly impressed by the amount of
> stupidity displayed by $LINTENDO_VENDOR. Especially compared to, say,
> FreeBSD ports.

What I'm impressed by is something that works.  OpenBSD doesn't work.
Out of all the unixoid machines we have (which aren't too many; just
60-70), the OpenBSD machines are, by far, the most unstable.  They,
like, die.  Quimby has died five or six times during its (what?) two
year existence.  That's five or six times too many.

What this mailing list needs is a good old-fashioned OS flame war, so
let me start it off by mentioning some of the stuff that makes OpenBSD
a pain.

When I first installed it on the first machine, I was really
impressed.  It installed without a hitch, ports was nice -- stuff
worked.  Then I did a "cvs up" in the ports directory, and hell broke
loose.  There's lots of dependencies between ports and the rest of
OpenBSD, so if you want to use new versions of, say, Emacs from ports,
you have to upgrade your make, which requires that you upgrade your
cc, which requires that you upgrade your libraries, which...

(Not to mention that much of the stuff in ports plain don't compile.
And is crappy and older than Methusaleh.)

OpenBSD is even more crappy than Red Hat in that department, as
difficult as that is to believe.  Once you start upgrading, there's no
end.  And just like Red Hat, it's filled with non-explicit
dependencies.

I installed my first Debian half a year ago, and I was expecting
something similar.  I've been very impressed by Debian.  So far, there
has not been one single problem of this nature.  The Debian
maintainers show great taste and restraint.  I've never experienced
any other system that needs so little work to maintain.  Ever.  It
just... works.  That's impressive.

> No. But it's your life. While you're waiting for all the goodies to
> download (KDE integration into quimby would *really* rock), may I humbly
> suggest some additions along the lines of
> <http://socha.net/content/forum.php> or
> <http://socha.net/content/mig.php?pageType=folder&currDir=./Gnus> and
> <http://socha.net/content/links.php>?

Well -- since you're doing those kinds of things, I don't need to.
:-)  Should probably be linked from gnus.org more prominently,
though...

> I mean, it's all nice and dandy to have the best NR/MUA in the world,
> but in order for the Windos lusers to switch, gnus.org should scream
> "it's hard, but it pays". Also, having dozens of half-baked tutorials,
> readmes, and screenshots scattered all over the place is, errr,
> stupid. Make quimby or gnus.org the central pickup point for all that
> stuff, and make it more attractive for people to submit things. Like,
> people love to flaunt their stuff, and having a truckload of screenshots
> with different WMs, OSes and all that is Good(tm).

I'd rather something like that be hosted somewhere else for the time
being -- I may be re-organizing the networking so that Quimby gets its
own security zone.  (It's now in the company DMZ, which means that a
break-in there shouldn't be serious, but there's other machines there,
and trolling through all the logs on the rest of the DMZ machines (in
case of a break-in on Quimby) sounds like work.)

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Colin Marquardt]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> I installed my first Debian half a year ago, and I was expecting
> something similar.  I've been very impressed by Debian.  So far, there
> has not been one single problem of this nature.  The Debian
> maintainers show great taste and restraint.  I've never experienced

So maybe that long flamewar about Debian unstable having a pgnus
package etc. was actually good for something... :-)

Cheers,
  Colin

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Manoj Srivastava]

>>"Colin" == Colin Marquardt <colin.marquardt@usa.alcatel.com> writes:

 Colin> So maybe that long flamewar about Debian unstable having a pgnus
 Colin> package etc. was actually good for something... :-)

	Depends on what you call good. I still hold thast that
 decision was valid -- and given similar situations, I may well choose
 to do the same thing. Oort debs are available now, though not in
 unstable. 

	manoj
-- 
 Faith is under the left nipple. Martin Luther
Manoj Srivastava   <srivasta@acm.org>  <http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>
1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B  924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Colin Walters]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> I installed my first Debian half a year ago, and I was expecting
> something similar.  I've been very impressed by Debian.  So far,
> there has not been one single problem of this nature.  The Debian
> maintainers show great taste and restraint.  I've never experienced
> any other system that needs so little work to maintain.  Ever.  It
> just... works.  That's impressive.

I personally am still trying to get over my continual surprise that
people actually use operating systems other than Debian...

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Robin S. Socha]

* Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
> "Robin S. Socha" <robin@socha.net> writes:

[...]
> What this mailing list needs is a good old-fashioned OS flame war, 

Indeed. Have you considered running quimby on W2k or OsX?

[OpenBSD]
> Then I did a "cvs up" in the ports directory, and hell broke
> loose.  There's lots of dependencies between ports and the rest of
> OpenBSD, so if you want to use new versions of, say, Emacs from ports,
> you have to upgrade your make, which requires that you upgrade your
> cc, which requires that you upgrade your libraries, which...

Yup. That's quite natural, though, because there is usually a good
reason (bugfix) why the new version exists.

> (Not to mention that much of the stuff in ports plain don't compile.
> And is crappy and older than Methusaleh.)

Indeed. Like, OpenBSD ships with BIND4. It should ship with BIND8, so it
gets affected by the latest idioci^Wfeatures introduced by the gang of
hippies^W^W^WBIND company.

> OpenBSD is even more crappy than Red Hat in that department, as
> difficult as that is to believe.  Once you start upgrading, there's no
> end.  And just like Red Hat, it's filled with non-explicit
> dependencies.

Ummmm... Could it be that you're running a rather old version of OpenBSD?
I haven't seen this since 2.6, and 2.8 is really nice. And comparing
OpenBSD to RedHat is really, really mean, too. Anyway, we are talking
about a server, aren't we? There shouldn't be much more than the base
system on it, so quite whining. Now. Damn version junkies... Hehehe...

> The Debian maintainers show great taste and restraint.  

Say, aren't you the guy who maintains this, like, news thingy? The one
the Debian D00d3s broke quite severely several times?

> I've never experienced any other system that needs so little work to
> maintain.  Ever.  It just... works.  That's impressive.

Different strokes. I could say the same for FreeBSD. It's pointless. OpenBSD
wins by merit of its logo. EoD. }:->

>> <http://socha.net/content/forum.php> [more bragging]

> Well -- since you're doing those kinds of things, I don't need to.
> :-)  Should probably be linked from gnus.org more prominently,
> though...

If anything (and if it were remotely good enough for that), it should be
news.gnus.org. If you want that, I'll set it up (not using phpNuke but
http://www.daCode.org/ (thanks Fabien). Thing is that some things on
gnus.org are a little counter-intuitive. First thing /I/'d would be to
introduce a search engine that
    - searches gnus.org
    - offers searches for the ML archive (ht/dig is nicer than wilma, just
      for the record...)
    - offers searches for the "other resources"
That way, finding stuff would be easier. I'd also set up a separate
"Win/NT" corner, because that stuff isn't easy to grok, either. And
screenshots... If you guys want to upload your screenshots, there is a
"upload yor screenshot" link on socha.net ;-)
-- 
Robin S. Socha  <http://socha.net/>
"The new glue is, unfortunately, ignored by recent versions of the BIND
cache; the detailed technical explanation for this is that the BIND
company is a bunch of idiots." (DJB)

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

"Robin S. Socha" <robin@socha.net> writes:

> Indeed. Have you considered running quimby on W2k or OsX?

I say!  No need for that kind of language, young man!

> Yup. That's quite natural, though, because there is usually a good
> reason (bugfix) why the new version exists.

Sure.  But when I install the latest release, and do the recommended
thing to install Emacs, I don't really appreciate having to spend
hours and hours chasing down cryptic error messages.  I just want my
Emacs!  And I want it now!

> Ummmm... Could it be that you're running a rather old version of OpenBSD?

2.5 was the current one when I installed Quimby.

> I haven't seen this since 2.6, and 2.8 is really nice. And comparing
> OpenBSD to RedHat is really, really mean, too. Anyway, we are talking
> about a server, aren't we? There shouldn't be much more than the base
> system on it, so quite whining. Now. Damn version junkies... Hehehe...

Well, Emacs.  You need new Emacs.  Emacs is good.  Newer Emacses is
gooder. 

> > The Debian maintainers show great taste and restraint.  
> 
> Say, aren't you the guy who maintains this, like, news thingy? The one
> the Debian D00d3s broke quite severely several times?

They didn't break it that bad.  And I follow Potato, which has nothing
except the facts, ma'am.

> > I've never experienced any other system that needs so little work to
> > maintain.  Ever.  It just... works.  That's impressive.
> 
> Different strokes. I could say the same for FreeBSD.

I couldn't.  I see I have to tell my tale of woe of FreeBSD, but it's
shorter.  And more recent -- I installed my first and only FreeBSD
last month.

FreeBSD has the best install I've ever seen.  I just chose the
"paranoid safety minimal version with no X or nuttin'", or whatever
it's called, and it installed itself without me having to do anything
but hit RET a couple of times.  That's impressive.

Then I installed ports (from the same CD), and did the obligatory "cd
/usr/ports/editors/emacs; make".  And it broke.  It didn't compile.
(Something 

Lars sad.

So I thought I'd just install a pre-compiled Emacs, so I pkd_add-ed
it.  It installed without a hitch, but when I tried to run it, it
didn't work, since it didn't find the X libraries.

Lars sadder.

After staring at the error messages from ports, I found it that it
failed when trying to compile libtool, so I installed a binary package
of that, and then the ports Emacs compiled.  I was no longer sad, but
I was also distinctly unimpressed.

> If anything (and if it were remotely good enough for that), it should be
> news.gnus.org. If you want that, I'll set it up (not using phpNuke but
> http://www.daCode.org/ (thanks Fabien). Thing is that some things on
> gnus.org are a little counter-intuitive. First thing /I/'d would be to
> introduce a search engine that
>     - searches gnus.org
>     - offers searches for the ML archive (ht/dig is nicer than wilma, just
>       for the record...)
>     - offers searches for the "other resources"
> That way, finding stuff would be easier. I'd also set up a separate
> "Win/NT" corner, because that stuff isn't easy to grok, either. And
> screenshots... If you guys want to upload your screenshots, there is a
> "upload yor screenshot" link on socha.net ;-)

Sounds like a plan.  :-)

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Robin S. Socha]

* Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> [010405 09:35]:
> "Robin S. Socha" <robin@socha.net> writes:

> > Indeed. Have you considered running quimby on W2k or OsX?
> I say!  No need for that kind of language, young man!

Uuuups. Sorry.

> > Ummmm... Could it be that you're running a rather old version of OpenBSD?
> 
> 2.5 was the current one when I installed Quimby.

Yup. And now you go ahead and do the equivalent of 
cd /usr/src && cvs up && make build
with Debian.

> > There shouldn't be much more than the base system on it, so quite
> > whining. Now. Damn version junkies... Hehehe...
> 
> Well, Emacs.  You need new Emacs.  Emacs is good.  Newer Emacses is
> gooder. 

You got a severe pronunciation problem. The X in XEmacs is *not* silent.

> I couldn't.  I see I have to tell my tale of woe of FreeBSD, but it's
> shorter.  And more recent -- I installed my first and only FreeBSD
> last month.
> 
> FreeBSD has the best install I've ever seen.  I just chose the
> "paranoid safety minimal version with no X or nuttin'", or whatever
> it's called, and it installed itself without me having to do anything
> but hit RET a couple of times.  That's impressive.
> 
> Then I installed ports (from the same CD), and did the obligatory "cd
> /usr/ports/editors/emacs; make".  And it broke.  It didn't compile.
> (Something 

I see. I think you'll just love Linux. But get SuSE, it requires less
reading:

(robin@socha.net):(/usr/ports/editors/emacs)$ grep FLAVOR Makefile
FLAVORS=        no_x11
FLAVOR?=
.if ${FLAVOR:L} == "no_x11"

> Lars sad.

No. Lars dyslexic luser.

> So I thought I'd just install a pre-compiled Emacs, so I pkd_add-ed
> it.  It installed without a hitch, but when I tried to run it, it
> didn't work, since it didn't find the X libraries.

Logged in to ftp.openbsd.org.
Current remote directory is /pub/OpenBSD/2.8/packages/i386.
ncftp ...nBSD/2.8/packages/i386 > ls *emacs*x11*
emacs-20.7-no_x11.tgz

> Lars sadder.

No. Lars patheticcer luser. Lars deserve Corel Easy Linux.

> After staring at the error messages from ports, I found it that it
> failed when trying to compile libtool, so I installed a binary package
> of that, and then the ports Emacs compiled.  

Eh. You're supposed to be one of my lesser Gods, not such a total
lackwit. Did you *ever* read the docs? Or at least the Makefile?

> I was no longer sad, but I was also distinctly unimpressed.

Now, just imagine how your poor BSD must feel. *sniff*

> > If anything (and if it were remotely good enough for that), it should be
> > news.gnus.org. If you want that, I'll set it up (not using phpNuke but
> > http://www.daCode.org/ (thanks Fabien). Thing is that some things on
> > gnus.org are a little counter-intuitive. First thing /I/'d would be to
> > introduce a search engine that
> >     - searches gnus.org
> >     - offers searches for the ML archive (ht/dig is nicer than wilma, just
> >       for the record...)
> >     - offers searches for the "other resources"
> > That way, finding stuff would be easier. I'd also set up a separate
> > "Win/NT" corner, because that stuff isn't easy to grok, either. And
> > screenshots... If you guys want to upload your screenshots, there is a
> > "upload yor screenshot" link on socha.net ;-)
> 
> Sounds like a plan.  :-)

Errrr... yes. And now what? };->

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Oyvind Moll]

* Robin S. Socha <rsocha@kens.com>
|
| * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> [010405 09:35]:
| >
| > 2.5 was the current one when I installed Quimby.
| 
| Yup. And now you go ahead and do the equivalent of 
| cd /usr/src && cvs up && make build
| with Debian.

apt-get update ; apt-get dist-upgrade

Have you ever used Debian?



(Where I'm standing?  I have run nothing but FreeBSD on my own
workstation for a few years and maintain a FreeBSD port or two.
Still, when it comes to easily staying up-to-date on applications,
/usr/ports can _not_ compete with Debian yet.  Not by far.  But I
still run FreeBSD, and will continue to do so in the overseeable
future.  Thank you.)

-- 
   Øyvind Møll              <oyvindmo@initio.no>
   Initio IT-løsninger AS   <URL: http://www.initio.no/ >

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Stephen Zander]

>>>>> "Oyvind" == Oyvind Moll <oyvindmo@orakel.ntnu.no> writes:
Still, when it comes to easily staying
    Oyvind> up-to-date on applications, /usr/ports can _not_ compete
    Oyvind> with Debian yet.  Not by far.  But I still run FreeBSD,
    Oyvind> and will continue to do so in the overseeable future.
    Oyvind> Thank you.)

    Oyvind> -- Øyvind Møll <oyvindmo@initio.no> Initio IT-løsninger AS
    Oyvind> <URL: http://www.initio.no/ >




-- 
Stephen

"And what do we burn apart from witches?"... "More witches!"

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Stephen Zander]

>>>>> "Oyvind" == Oyvind Moll <oyvindmo@orakel.ntnu.no> writes:
    Oyvind> Still, when it comes to easily staying up-to-date on
    Oyvind> applications, /usr/ports can _not_ compete with Debian
    Oyvind> yet.  Not by far.  But I still run FreeBSD, and will
    Oyvind> continue to do so in the overseeable future.

The Debian GNU/BSD effort may interest you.

-- 
Stephen

"Farcical aquatic ceremonies are no basis for a system of government!"

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Arcady Genkin]

Oyvind Moll <oyvindmo@orakel.ntnu.no> writes:

> (Where I'm standing?  I have run nothing but FreeBSD on my own
> workstation for a few years and maintain a FreeBSD port or two.
> Still, when it comes to easily staying up-to-date on applications,
> /usr/ports can _not_ compete with Debian yet.  Not by far.  But I
> still run FreeBSD, and will continue to do so in the overseeable
> future.  Thank you.)

I'll challenge that 'up-to-date'.  If you run potato (which I do on my
workstation), you'll be stuck with old versions of everythig ((x)emacs
including), unless you want to compile from sources (which I do).  Of
course, you can try compiling a source package from unstable, but that
only works 50% of the time without having to upgrade `debhelper' and
half of the system (including Perl).

In my experience the ports collection gets newer versions of
applications a lot faster.  It may have its glitches sometimes, but
works for me 90% of the time on my server (which also has X libraries
and a ton of software, all installed from ports).

Debian is as good as Linux gets in my experience, but I like BSD's
ports so much that if there were not some applications that only run
under Linux, I would have switched even on my workstation.  I sure
wish there were ports for Linux.
-- 
Arcady Genkin

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Colin Walters]

Arcady Genkin <antipode@thpoon.com> writes:

> I'll challenge that 'up-to-date'.  If you run potato (which I do on
> my workstation), you'll be stuck with old versions of everythig
> ((x)emacs including), unless you want to compile from sources (which
> I do).  Of course, you can try compiling a source package from
> unstable, but that only works 50% of the time without having to
> upgrade `debhelper' and half of the system (including Perl).

Well, this is simply a tradeoff.  One of the advantages of Debian
style freeze-release cycles is that everything has been very well
tested and integrated.  You should never really have to install
incompatible versions of libraries, or for example.

But on the other hand, it does mean that some of the software is
pretty old.  But, one can't have everything...

Personally, I just use Debian stable for servers, and unstable for my
desktops, and it works pretty well.  Not that unstable can't be a bit
*too* bleeding edge sometimes...anyone using potato when it was
unstable remember the broken makedev package that caused all of one's
devices in /dev to disappear?  That was fun...

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Arcady Genkin]

Colin Walters <walters@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes:

> Well, this is simply a tradeoff.  One of the advantages of Debian
> style freeze-release cycles is that everything has been very well
> tested and integrated.  You should never really have to install
> incompatible versions of libraries, or for example.

But the point is that this is exactly the kind of stuff that Lars had
in his OpenBSD experience: he wanted a newer application, but had to
install a few dependencies.
-- 
Arcady Genkin
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Arcady Genkin]

Kirk Strauser <kirk@strauser.com> writes:

> > Debian is as good as Linux gets in my experience, but I like BSD's ports
> > so much that if there were not some applications that only run under
> > Linux, I would have switched even on my workstation.  I sure wish there
> > were ports for Linux.
> 
> These applications don't run under FreeBSD's Linux "emulation"?

No.  I'm talking about cdparanoia on my workstation and a Linux kernel
driver for my laptop's Lucent winmodem.  Also, latest jdk, but that
one is supposed to run under Linux emulation.  I tried installing it
from ports, but it failed and I didn't have time to investigate why.
-- 
Arcady Genkin
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

"Robin S. Socha" <rsocha@kens.com> writes:

> Yup. And now you go ahead and do the equivalent of 
> cd /usr/src && cvs up && make build
> with Debian.

$ apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

And it actually *works*.  Which is something that you can't say about
BSD. 

> > Then I installed ports (from the same CD), and did the obligatory "cd
> > /usr/ports/editors/emacs; make".  And it broke.  It didn't compile.
> > (Something 
> 
> I see. I think you'll just love Linux. But get SuSE, it requires less
> reading:
> 
> (robin@socha.net):(/usr/ports/editors/emacs)$ grep FLAVOR Makefile
> FLAVORS=        no_x11
> FLAVOR?=
> .if ${FLAVOR:L} == "no_x11"

No, the problem was not with X; the problem was with libtool (which
Emacs depends on) not compiling.  That's called "a bug".  That Emacs
didn't compile even after libtool was installed, but failed when it
didn't find X, was (naturally) something that I fixed in the Makefile.
(It's probably "a feature".)  I mean, it's impossible for
installations to determine if they have X installed.  Perhaps someone
should invent something to allow systems to find that out.  They could
call it "configure" or something.

> > Lars sad.
> 
> No. Lars dyslexic luser.

Lars not masochist.  Diff'rent strokes, I guess.

> > So I thought I'd just install a pre-compiled Emacs, so I pkd_add-ed
> > it.  It installed without a hitch, but when I tried to run it, it
> > didn't work, since it didn't find the X libraries.
> 
> Logged in to ftp.openbsd.org.
> Current remote directory is /pub/OpenBSD/2.8/packages/i386.
> ncftp ...nBSD/2.8/packages/i386 > ls *emacs*x11*
> emacs-20.7-no_x11.tgz

Wasn't included on the CD.

> > Lars sadder.
> 
> No. Lars patheticcer luser. Lars deserve Corel Easy Linux.

Oh, BSD!  Spank me harder!  Make me *work*!  I have *too* *much*
*time* on my hands!  Waste it!

> > After staring at the error messages from ports, I found it that it
> > failed when trying to compile libtool, so I installed a binary package
> > of that, and then the ports Emacs compiled.  
> 
> Eh. You're supposed to be one of my lesser Gods, not such a total
> lackwit. Did you *ever* read the docs? Or at least the Makefile?

So libtool wasn't supposed to compile?  I guess it was documented.
That's ok, then.

> > I was no longer sad, but I was also distinctly unimpressed.
> 
> Now, just imagine how your poor BSD must feel. *sniff*

I can imagine how it felt.  It got its jollies.  I jumped through its
hoops.  I wasted my time.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Florian Weimer]

"Robin S. Socha" <rsocha@kens.com> writes:

> > 2.5 was the current one when I installed Quimby.
> 
> Yup. And now you go ahead and do the equivalent of 
> cd /usr/src && cvs up && make build
> with Debian.

apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade

Debian and OpenBSD have rather different goals and distribution
mechanisms.

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Manoj Srivastava]

>>"Robin" == Robin S Socha <robin@socha.net> writes:

 Robin> Say, aren't you the guy who maintains this, like, news thingy?
 Robin> The one the Debian D00d3s broke quite severely several times?

	I broke Gnus several times? When? There was a pre-release
 version that was in Debian unstable for a while, and it only
 supported FSF Emacs, but badly broken? Can you quote chapter and
 verse, please?

	manoj
-- 
 Conserve energy, kill yourself. jon@dscatoh0.sac.ca.us
Manoj Srivastava   <srivasta@acm.org>  <http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>
1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B  924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Alex Schroeder]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> What this mailing list needs is a good old-fashioned OS flame war, so
> let me start it off by mentioning some of the stuff that makes OpenBSD
> a pain.

ROTFL!! Awesome! :]

Did I mention want a "Gnus/Linux" mug to hit other people over the
head with at my office?  :)  With that mug, I could hit Non-Emacs
users, non Linux users, GNU lovers, RMAIL users, BSD fans, nit-pickers
-- the perfect mug to spread a little bit of dissent wherever I go.

Alex.
-- 
http://www.geocities.com/kensanata/emacs.html
"There are more than 30 color themes available in  color-theme.el."

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,

        People who want to play around with *unofficial* nightly debs
 of CVS ognus can put this in their /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/ packages/ 
deb-src http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/ packages/source/

	It currently contains a build from midweek; nightly builds
 should start in 5 hours or so.

	manoj
-- 
 "Neighbors!!  We got neighbors!  We ain't supposed to have any
 neighbors, and I just had to shoot one." Post Bros. Comics
Manoj Srivastava   <srivasta@acm.org>  <http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>
1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B  924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Jason R. Mastaler]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> What this mailing list needs is a good old-fashioned OS flame war,

Well how about this then.  While Linux makes a cute desktop/notebook
OS, it falls miserably short in most of the categories that matter for
larger-scale, high-performance applications (filesystem, network stack,
NFS, SMP, etc..).  Linux is like a zoo without a keeper.

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Daniel Pittman]

On 10 Apr 2001, Jason R. Mastaler wrote:
> Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
> 
>> What this mailing list needs is a good old-fashioned OS flame war,
> 
> Well how about this then. While Linux makes a cute desktop/notebook
> OS, it falls miserably short in most of the categories that matter for
> larger-scale, high-performance applications (filesystem, 

Particularly what areas of them?

> network stack, 

Ditto.

> NFS, 

Here, I agree completely. 

> SMP, 

Details on what areas?

> etc..). Linux is like a zoo without a keeper.

In a lot of ways, yes.

        Daniel

PS: I am looking for actual facts here, not flame bait. I occasionally
need to recommend to people which of the free Unix clones to chose and,
because /I/ don't know what the differences are, I go Debian.

I am quite happy to learn why I want something else, though.

-- 
Conservatives say if you don't give the rich more money, they will lose their
incentive to invest. As for the poor, they tell us they've lost all incentive
because we've given them too much money.
        -- George Carlin

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Robin S. Socha]

* Daniel Pittman <daniel@rimspace.net> [010411 01:56]:
> On 10 Apr 2001, Jason R. Mastaler wrote:
> > Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
> > 
> >> What this mailing list needs is a good old-fashioned OS flame war,
> > 
> > Well how about this then. While Linux makes a cute desktop/notebook
> > OS, it falls miserably short in most of the categories that matter
> > for larger-scale, high-performance applications (filesystem, 
> 
> Particularly what areas of them?

Try ext2 against UFS with softupdates. Good luck.

> > network stack, 
> Ditto.

As of 2.4, it's upposed to be an urban legend. But who knows?

> > NFS, 
> Here, I agree completely. 

Who cares? AFS and Coda are available. NFS should be shot, along with
sendmail and BIND. At least OpenBSD ships with BIND 4.

> > SMP, 
> Details on what areas?

What sort of a flamewar is this, anyway? Who needs stinking SMP? Anyway,
OpenBSD does not have it *harrump* and here's the deal for FreeBSD:
http://people.freebsd.org/~jasone/smp/

> > etc..). Linux is like a zoo without a keeper.
> In a lot of ways, yes.

In one single way it is not. "Linux" as in "the kernel" is not. Linux
distributions, however, are an entirely different thing. Unfortunately,
I don't know Debian very well, but it looks good. For my purposes
(security, stability, maintainability in this order), DeadRat and SuSE
are inadequate.

> PS: I am looking for actual facts here, not flame bait. I occasionally
> need to recommend to people which of the free Unix clones to chose and,
> because /I/ don't know what the differences are, I go Debian.

... which AFAIK is a good choice if you go for Linux. The BSD system of
ports, packages and CVS to keep the core system up to date is, well,
very good.

> I am quite happy to learn why I want something else, though.

If you want to learn things the hard way, grab an OpenBSD CD and see if
you like it (also: see sig - this is a very good mail server) A good read:
http://sites.inka.de/mips/unix/bsdlinux.html 
-- 
Robin S. Socha http://mail.socha.net/about/

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Gunnar Evermann]

"Robin S. Socha" <rsocha@kens.com> writes:

> * Daniel Pittman <daniel@rimspace.net> [010411 01:56]:
> > On 10 Apr 2001, Jason R. Mastaler wrote:

> > > NFS, 
> > Here, I agree completely. 
> 
> Who cares? 

For example people who hava a lab full of random machines (Suns, HPs,
x86, SGIs) that all need to access the same set of disks (about 1TB
worth of them).

> AFS and Coda are available.

honest question: do they give acceptable performance (i.e. comparable
to decent NFSv3 implementations) and stability under heavy load (i.e.
do not crash every other week)?

 Gunnar

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Robin S. Socha]

* Gunnar Evermann <ge204@eng.cam.ac.uk> [010411 09:53]:
> "Robin S. Socha" <rsocha@kens.com> writes:
> > * Daniel Pittman <daniel@rimspace.net> [010411 01:56]:
> > > On 10 Apr 2001, Jason R. Mastaler wrote:

> > > > NFS, 
> > > Here, I agree completely. 
> > Who cares? 
> For example people who hava a lab full of random machines (Suns, HPs,
> x86, SGIs) that all need to access the same set of disks (about 1TB
> worth of them).

Well...

> > AFS and Coda are available.
> 
> honest question: do they give acceptable performance (i.e. comparable
> to decent NFSv3 implementations) and stability under heavy load (i.e.
> do not crash every other week)?

Have you ever worked with AFS? I don't know Coda well enough, but I know
AFS and I'd never use NFS unless my life depended on it.

Samba over IPSEC anyone? }:->

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Colin Walters]

"Robin S. Socha" <rsocha@kens.com> writes:

> In one single way it is not. "Linux" as in "the kernel" is
> not. Linux distributions, however, are an entirely different
> thing. Unfortunately, I don't know Debian very well, but it looks
> good.

I'd like to note that Debian is not just a Linux distribution - it's a
project to produce a free operating system.  There are currently two
kernels it runs on: the Linux kernel and the HURD.  There's even a
project to port it to a BSD kernel.  Join the debian-bsd mailing list
if you want to see some real OS flamewars :) Last I heard, there was a
Debian developer working on a port to the OpenBSD kernel...

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Wes Hardaker]

>>>>> On Wed, 11 Apr 2001 05:23:54 -0400, "Robin S. Socha" <rsocha@kens.com> said:

Robin> Who cares? AFS and Coda are available. NFS should be shot, along with
Robin> sendmail and BIND.

Here here!  Though NFSv4 is supposed to be a decent replacement.

Robin>  At least OpenBSD ships with BIND 4.

Hope you don't need protocol security in your bind server (as opposed
to security in the code, sigh).

Actually, what should be shot in the BSD world is their method of
initialization.  The many many applications being initialized from a
single (or a few) script(s) should be shot as well.

-- 
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Harry Putnam]

"Robin S. Socha" <rsocha@kens.com> writes:

> > PS: I am looking for actual facts here, not flame bait. I occasionally
> > need to recommend to people which of the free Unix clones to chose and,
> > because /I/ don't know what the differences are, I go Debian.
> 
> ... which AFAIK is a good choice if you go for Linux. The BSD system of
> ports, packages and CVS to keep the core system up to date is, well,
> very good.
> 

He wanted facts Robin... "very good" doesn't quite fill the bill.

The BSD system of ports is overplayed bird hockey.  It lacks any
serious method to uncover information about installed packages.  Only
the most rudimentary information can be had.  Where as with a few compact
commands you can unearth every fact known to man about your filesystem
and its residents on an rpm package based system.

Also there is lots of stuff unavailable.  (Giving Robin an opening
here:) Try finding a sendmail port or pkg.  It must be done from
FreeBSD source directory.  At least last time I checked.

As a package manager; ports, packages and CVSup sucks.

A full CVSup and build world is about the furthermost thing from `very
good' as can be imagined.  Its an esoteric art form riddled with
problems as can be seen on `FreeBSD-questions' constantly. With dozens
of subjects like:

`Build world broke/stopped/aborted/flailed/stymied/jitterbugged/
quit/careemed/disembowled/flopped/thrashed....please help'

The group is one of the hardest on record to get help from, since the
mailing lists are constantly swamped.  Clear evidence of something amiss.

The full ports installation is some 80-90MB, yet lacks any real data
keeping system other than the very meager offering under /var/db/pkg.
which is little more than a list of the files in a package.

Someone familiar with the usefullness of rpm will not be impressed at
all.

Here is the kind of delima you can get into with FreeBSD.  I run it on
my laptop (FreeBSD-4.0).  I've not updated to more recent versions
because I couldn't fathom out how to do CVSup and build world in less
than a week of intense study.  It is explained to some extent in the
book that comes with a full distro, but still not understandable by us
illiterates.  I don't want to risk breaking a very hard fought battle
of hand writing drivers etc for my pccard (pcmcia)

Fortunately, since I've retired from a lifetime of construction work,
I don't use the laptop much any more.

It was so difficult to get the networking to work (pccard stuff) that
I really don't want to use a reinstall to get current.  There seems no
other way.  So I leave it alone until the day comes I have time to
learn about CVSup and several practice installs.

It comes with a little jive editor called `ee'.  Doesn't even have vi
by default (as I remember) and I had lots of problems getting a
working emacs installation.  FreeBSD by default uses a jive TERM called
cons25. I still have not gotten META (left alt) recognized and must
use ESC for it in console mode.  FreeBSD people are not big emacs fans.

FreeBSD does provide a fairly handy routine for kernel rebuilds but
then every little thing requires a rebuild and full reboot.  In that
way its like a windows OS.

FreeBSD uses this silly concept of a `slice' as distinct from a
partition, making partitioning a disk a ridiculously complicated issue.
Try an `fdisk' on FreeBSD.  There is almost no usefull information
displayed in a handy format.  I'd insert some here but can't get to my
laptop right now.

And last but not least, the search engine on FreeBSD home page really
sucks.  Its WAIS based so should be very good, but has been neutered.
Norbert and Uli would probably both shoot themselves if they tried it.

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Robin S. Socha]

* Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:
> "Robin S. Socha" <rsocha@kens.com> writes:

>> > PS: I am looking for actual facts here, not flame bait. I
>> > occasionally need to recommend to people which of the free Unix
>> > clones to chose and, because /I/ don't know what the differences
>> > are, I go Debian.
>>
>> ... which AFAIK is a good choice if you go for Linux. The BSD system
>> of ports, packages and CVS to keep the core system up to date is,
>> well, very good.
>>

> He wanted facts Robin... "very good" doesn't quite fill the bill.

Right. But then again, how are we supposed to wage the OS war Lars asked
for?

> The BSD system of ports is overplayed bird hockey.  It lacks any
> serious method to uncover information about installed packages.  

man pkg_info

> Also there is lots of stuff unavailable.  (Giving Robin an opening
> here:) Try finding a sendmail port or pkg.  It must be done from
> FreeBSD source directory.  At least last time I checked.

Well, certainly. Same for Apache or lynx. They are part of the base
system.

> A full CVSup and build world is about the furthermost thing from
> `very good' as can be imagined.  

export CVSROOT=some.cvsup.server
cd /usr/
cvs co src
cvs co srcsys
cvs co ports
cd src
make buildworld
shutdown
make installworld

> Its an esoteric art form riddled with problems as can be seen on
> `FreeBSD-questions' constantly. With dozens of subjects like:
> `Build world broke/stopped/aborted/flailed/stymied/jitterbugged/
> quit/careemed/disembowled/flopped/thrashed....please help'

Yup. Lusers. Kill them all, let God sort them out.

> The group is one of the hardest on record to get help from, since the
> mailing lists are constantly swamped.  Clear evidence of something
> amiss.

Uhhh... Ever seen the SuSE ML?

> The full ports installation is some 80-90MB, yet lacks any real data
> keeping system other than the very meager offering under /var/db/pkg.
> which is little more than a list of the files in a package.

man pkg_info

> Someone familiar with the usefullness of rpm will not be impressed at
> all.

Right, like "I run SuSE but this RPM only exists for RedHat. Let's
install it anyway. *kawoom* *whine*". man alien for some real joy.

> Here is the kind of delima you can get into with FreeBSD.  I run it on
> my laptop (FreeBSD-4.0).  
[more whining]

I spent 3 days trying to get Linux to run on a Sony Vaio. I had it
running in 37m with FreeBSD. Different strokes. And Laptops are an
eternal pain.

> Fortunately, since I've retired from a lifetime of construction work,
> I don't use the laptop much any more.

Wouldn't, like, a hammer been more appropriate?

> It comes with a little jive editor called `ee'.  

It comes with vi. XEmacs is in the ports.

> FreeBSD uses this silly concept of a `slice' as distinct from a
> partition, making partitioning a disk a ridiculously complicated
> issue.  Try an `fdisk' on FreeBSD.  There is almost no usefull
> information displayed in a handy format.  I'd insert some here but
> can't get to my laptop right now.

man dangerously_dedicated - why run another OS on a FreeBSD machine? And
anyway, the concept is simple and straightforward. I installed my first
FreeBSD without any instructions via a Linux ftp server in my cupboard.

Anyway. This is boring. You are a clueless luser and deserve to run
EasyLinux until hell freezes over. Haha! EoT?
-- 
Robin S. Socha, Bastard Consultant From Hell <http://socha.net/>
Note to experienced users: Please don't encourage anti-support behavior.
Don't try to answer questions from users who don't provide the necessary
information. Guessing what they did is an incredible waste of time. (DJB)

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Harry Putnam]

"Robin S. Socha" <robin@socha.net> writes:

> > The full ports installation is some 80-90MB, yet lacks any real data

> > keeping system other than the very meager offering under /var/db/pkg.
> > which is little more than a list of the files in a package.

> man pkg_info

Which reads from the wimpy database mentioned above.
The key word there was `real'.

> man pkg_info

Man that is lame compared to the power of rpm commands.  You can't be
serious about offering those limp pkg_* as being similar.
No kind of cross referencing or any other basic data minipulations.

To someone not initiated on FreeBSD that may look like some kind of
similar tool.  Don't be fooled. Robin is misleading you.  The pkg
suite is nearly useless for any serious investigation.  Does not
compare at all to rpm.

> Anyway. This is boring. You are a clueless luser and deserve to run
> EasyLinux until hell freezes over. Haha! EoT?

Clueless luser... why I aughta....
EoT?
Jeez, I thought you'd at least flame me.  This is a flame war bubba,
wake up.  Where is that flame thrower you used to have in your sig?
Don't let sheer boredom slow you down.

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[jason-dated-321e0a263c46f421]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> Man that is lame compared to the power of rpm commands.  You can't
> be serious about offering those limp pkg_* as being similar.

Possibly, but because of the relative difficulty of preparing RPMs,
you tend to be dependent on the vendor to produce them before you can
upgrade/install said software.  ports/packages are much easier to
prepare, and the effort is massively distributed, so you end up
getting your software packaged and installed sooner.

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Florian Weimer]

jason-dated-321e0a263c46f421@mastaler.com writes:

> Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:
> 
> > Man that is lame compared to the power of rpm commands.  You can't
> > be serious about offering those limp pkg_* as being similar.
> 
> Possibly, but because of the relative difficulty of preparing RPMs,
> you tend to be dependent on the vendor to produce them before you can
> upgrade/install said software.  ports/packages are much easier to
> prepare, and the effort is massively distributed, so you end up
> getting your software packaged and installed sooner.

s,ports/,Debian , ;-)

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Kai Großjohann]

On 12 Apr 2001, jason-dated-321e0a263c46f wrote:

> Possibly, but because of the relative difficulty of preparing RPMs,
> you tend to be dependent on the vendor to produce them before you
> can upgrade/install said software.

But everybody and their dog seem to be creating RPMs.  Maybe because
Redhat is so popular, and they want to gain visibility...

kai, wondering whether `dated' means the opposite of `up to date', or
  means `dat-ed' (data editor?), or maybe it's a normal last name?
-- 
Be indiscrete.  Do it continuously.

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Harry Putnam]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> kai, wondering whether `dated' means the opposite of `up to date', or
>   means `dat-ed' (data editor?), or maybe it's a normal last name?

I think it means Jasson took Ms. 321e0a263c46f out on a date.
(US idiom meaning to take a girl out for a good time)

On the other topic, have you seen the web site where they have German
Shepards and Collies packaging rpms:

http://www.kaninesforredhat.com

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Kai Großjohann]

I'm amazed that it was so difficult to update the FreeBSD base
system.  I just edited /etc/make.conf, then:

    cd /usr/src
    make update         # may take long, Internet connection
    make buildworld     # 2 hours?
    shutdown now        # go to single-user mode
    make buildkernel
    make installkernel
    make installworld
    reboot

After this, you can frob /etc as described in the manual.  Mergemaster
is your friend, presumably.

I think this is all explained in /usr/src/UPDATING, too.

I think there is actually an Emacs keymap for the FreeBSD console,
isn't there?  Just like the one for Linux where you have two Ctrl keys
on the left hand side?

As to information about the ports installed: yes, maybe there isn't
much.  I mostly did `pkg_info -I' and then grepped the output.  Very
low-tech stuff.

But maybe I was just lucky to have circumvented all the pitfalls?  It
seems that I am that way sometimes.  Don't know why.  Others discover
plenty of bugs, for me it just works.  Viz, Emacs 20.2 running in a
Latin-1 locale and the infamous \201 characters -- I didn't have too
many problems with those.

kai
-- 
Be indiscrete.  Do it continuously.

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Eric Jacoboni]

>>>>> "Kai" == Kai Großjohann <Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE> writes:


Kai> As to information about the ports installed: yes, maybe there isn't
Kai> much.  I mostly did `pkg_info -I' and then grepped the output.  Very
Kai> low-tech stuff.

No mention of "pkg_version -v | grep '<' " and portupgrade... that's
enough for me.

That a fact that port system doesn't deal with dependencies as well as
Debian but that's a fact that Linux /usr/bin and /etc are a crazy
world, too...

-- 
Éric Jacoboni : don't say my mother i'm running FreeBSD, she
                believes i'm using Linux...

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Harry Putnam]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> But maybe I was just lucky to have circumvented all the pitfalls?  It
> seems that I am that way sometimes.  Don't know why.  Others discover
> plenty of bugs, for me it just works.  Viz, Emacs 20.2 running in a
> Latin-1 locale and the infamous \201 characters -- I didn't have too
> many problems with those.

We can't really count Kais experiences.  Kai has been known to get
FreeWAIS to work too.  That alone should tell us we're not dealing
with a  regular mortal here.

I have been known to suffer from the `pinhead' syndrome at times.
Seems to be brought on by heavy bouts of manual reading.  
The cranial bone begins to thicken in self defense. Trying to protect
itself. 

The only known cure for chronic `pinhead syndorome' is EasyLinux.

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Alan Shutko]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> We can't really count Kais experiences.  Kai has been known to get
> FreeWAIS to work too.  That alone should tell us we're not dealing
> with a  regular mortal here.

It's all about Computer Karma.  Same principle as when your car is
acting up, but it behaves for the mechanic.

-- 
Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> - In a variety of flavors!
A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation.

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Kai Großjohann]

On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Alan Shutko wrote:

> It's all about Computer Karma.  Same principle as when your car is
> acting up, but it behaves for the mechanic.

Maybe this disqualifies me as a pretester/beta tester... ;-)

kai
-- 
Be indiscrete.  Do it continuously.

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Harry Putnam]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Alan Shutko wrote:
> 
> > It's all about Computer Karma.  Same principle as when your car is
> > acting up, but it behaves for the mechanic.
> 
> Maybe this disqualifies me as a pretester/beta tester... ;-)

Yeah, its not fair to the other developers.  They think there putting
out wonderfull bug free code.... he he.

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Florian Weimer]

Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> writes:

> Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:
> 
> > We can't really count Kais experiences.  Kai has been known to get
> > FreeWAIS to work too.  That alone should tell us we're not dealing
> > with a  regular mortal here.
> 
> It's all about Computer Karma.  Same principle as when your car is
> acting up, but it behaves for the mechanic.

Hmm, I've experienced a lot of unexplainable software failures with
system I don't like (the first time I used a Mac I made it crash
almost instantly because I used a menu entry to eject the disk, not
the very intuitive drag-to-trashcan metaphor).  OTOH, if other people
encounter problems while using such systems and ask me for help, the
problems suddenly go away. :-/

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Arcady Genkin]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> Try finding a sendmail port or pkg.  It must be done from FreeBSD
> source directory.  At least last time I checked.

Yes, that's because it's part of base system.  It's still upgradable
by a simple "make install" in its source directory, AFAIK.  Who needs
sendmail anyways?  The following solves the sendmail problems forever:

,----[ /etc/rc.conf ]
| sendmail_enable="NO"
`----
,----[ /etc/make.conf ]
| NO_SENDMAIL=true
`----
Done!

> As a package manager; ports, packages and CVSup sucks.

As a user, I say that ports and CVSup rock.  The main advantage is
separation of applications from the OS distribution.  It doesn't
matter whether you run FreeBSD 3.4, 4.2, or 5.0, you still have the
same port for Apache, and if you want to upgrade, it's there.  With
any Linux distro you have to constantly upgrade your base system only
in order to stay current with vital software.  And in case of Debian
even this is infeasible, because their releases are so infrequent.
I'm absolutely fine with running the same distribution for over a
year, but *give me my new apache whith that annoying PDF bug fixed*!
;^)

> A full CVSup and build world is about the furthermost thing from `very
> good' as can be imagined.  Its an esoteric art form riddled with
> problems as can be seen on `FreeBSD-questions' constantly. With dozens
> of subjects like:
> 
> `Build world broke/stopped/aborted/flailed/stymied/jitterbugged/
> quit/careemed/disembowled/flopped/thrashed....please help'

I see those, too.  But strangely, this has always worked for me.  I've
been doing upgrades via "make world" even since FreeBSD 3.3, and it
worked *every* time.  Generally, it seems that at least FreeBSD
developers know what they are doing.  I've installed an OpenBSD server
two weeks ago.  Installed from the first try *with only one
installation diskette* and over the network.  I was very impressed.

As for Linux, I have to give credit to the 2.4 kernel for really fast
networking.  Finally I'm seeing 8M/s transfers on my workstation's
interface; something I've been enjoying on the FreeBSD server all
along.

However, WTF did they do with swapping in 2.4 kernels?  Is it only me,
or the swapping, like, totally sucks?  I brought my workstation to its
knees (had to hard reset, stopped responding) with a Matlab's
hilb(4000), once it started swapping.  The same happened to our
school's compute server which is a 2-way 1GHz PIII running 2.4.2 with
2GB of RAM.  It just died from two matlab processes. :-\  Not a
pleasant experience.  I know that I was mean with hilb(4000), but it
shouldn't die, or should it?
-- 
Arcady Genkin
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Daniel Pittman]

On Wed, 11 Apr 2001, Robin S. Socha wrote:
> * Daniel Pittman <daniel@rimspace.net> [010411 01:56]:
>> On 10 Apr 2001, Jason R. Mastaler wrote:
>> > Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
>> > 
>> >> What this mailing list needs is a good old-fashioned OS flame war,
>> > 
>> > Well how about this then. While Linux makes a cute desktop/notebook
>> > OS, it falls miserably short in most of the categories that matter
>> > for larger-scale, high-performance applications (filesystem, 
>> 
>> Particularly what areas of them?
> 
> Try ext2 against UFS with softupdates. Good luck.

Last time I saw benchmarks, they suggested that the differences were not
that great. Not that this signifies that much.

> 
>> > network stack, 
>> Ditto.
> 
> As of 2.4, it's upposed to be an urban legend. But who knows?

Hey, I am personally /much/ more annoyed by the BSD "let's byte-swap the
content of ICMP errors" bug than one of the Linux ones, but that's
because I have suffered from the BSD one.

Anyway, the 2.4 stack seems quite capable of saturating networks on any
scale, as well as lacking in stupidly annoying bugs. :)

>> > NFS, 
>> Here, I agree completely. 
> 
> Who cares? AFS and Coda are available. NFS should be shot, along with
> sendmail and BIND. 

Oh, indeed. I just keep waiting for the SMB/Unix extension that the
Samba people talked about a while back...

> At least OpenBSD ships with BIND 4.

Which has it's bonus points... and it's own suckages. Admittedly,
though, it's not /nearly/ as bad as Bind 8 (on 9, given the number of
bug reports I have seen so far).

Debian ships both, anyway, so I am not that impressed. :)

>> > SMP, 
>> Details on what areas?
> 
> What sort of a flamewar is this, anyway? Who needs stinking SMP?

*giggle*  I do try, I just don't actually fell /that/ much interested in
proving BSD bad, just knowing what it does well. :)

> Anyway, OpenBSD does not have it *harrump* 

Indeed. Difference people, different desires. 

[...]

>> > etc..). Linux is like a zoo without a keeper.
>> In a lot of ways, yes.
> 
> In one single way it is not. "Linux" as in "the kernel" is not. Linux
> distributions, however, are an entirely different thing. 
> Unfortunately, I don't know Debian very well, but it looks good. For
> my purposes (security, stability, maintainability in this order),
> DeadRat and SuSE are inadequate.

Heck, yeah. RedHat and friends also have *sucky* upgrade paths, on par
with Windows for "oh, look, my system broke!". :/

Debian is good. If you need to go Linux, go Debian. They get upgrading
right, at least. Plus their defaults seem about as secure as FreeBSD,
from what I can tell.

No one in the world is as paranoid as OpenBSD. This tells against anyone
else WRT new-install security.

[...]

>> I am quite happy to learn why I want something else, though.
> 
> If you want to learn things the hard way, grab an OpenBSD CD and see
> if you like it

Which is really the only way to really know, sadly. One day when I find
some of my copious free time(tm), I will get around to doing just that.

        Daniel

-- 
The only infallible rule we know is, that the man who is
always talking about being a gentlemen never is one.
        -- R. S. Surtees, _Ask Momma_

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Bjørn Mork]

Daniel Pittman <daniel@rimspace.net> writes:
> On Wed, 11 Apr 2001, Robin S. Socha wrote:
> 
> > At least OpenBSD ships with BIND 4.
> 
> Which has it's bonus points... and it's own suckages. Admittedly,
> though, it's not /nearly/ as bad as Bind 8 (on 9, given the number of
> bug reports I have seen so far).

You should probably get an appointment with an eye specialist.


Bjørn

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Daniel Pittman]

On 12 Apr 2001, Bjørn Mork wrote:
> Daniel Pittman <daniel@rimspace.net> writes:
>> On Wed, 11 Apr 2001, Robin S. Socha wrote:
>> 
>> > At least OpenBSD ships with BIND 4.
>> 
>> Which has it's bonus points... and it's own suckages. Admittedly,
>> though, it's not /nearly/ as bad as Bind 8 (on 9, given the number of
>> bug reports I have seen so far).

Ahem. That should have been /or/ 9. :)

> You should probably get an appointment with an eye specialist.

Unless it's the typo which, admittedly, looks silly... Bind4 seems to
have less day-to-day breakages than 8 or 9. It lacks *many* newer
features, though, which some sites need.

I don't quite follow what you meant, though.
        Daniel

-- 
With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a
good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are going to land, and it could be
dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead.
        -- RFC 1925

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Bjørn Mork]

Daniel Pittman <daniel@rimspace.net> writes:
> On 12 Apr 2001, Bjørn Mork wrote:
> > Daniel Pittman <daniel@rimspace.net> writes:
> >> On Wed, 11 Apr 2001, Robin S. Socha wrote:
> >> 
> >> > At least OpenBSD ships with BIND 4.
> >> 
> >> Which has it's bonus points... and it's own suckages. Admittedly,
> >> though, it's not /nearly/ as bad as Bind 8 (on 9, given the number of
> >> bug reports I have seen so far).
> 
> Ahem. That should have been /or/ 9. :)

I kind of guessed that, hence my comment below :-)

> > You should probably get an appointment with an eye specialist.
> 
> Unless it's the typo which, admittedly, looks silly... Bind4 seems to
> have less day-to-day breakages than 8 or 9. It lacks *many* newer
> features, though, which some sites need.
> 
> I don't quite follow what you meant, though.
>         Daniel

I just couldn't see why you included bind 9 in this. 

Bind 9 is a completely new DNS package which has only the name in
common with earlier bind versions.  There hasn't been a single
security related bug in bind 9 yet, has there? But, unlike bind 4 and
8, developers are still working on bind 9 so you will of course see
*small* bug fixes all the time. I still don't think it makes much
sense comparing active development with the critical fixes necessary
on bind 4 and 8.

Bind 4 and bind 8 are based on the same code and share many of the
same security flaws. Some of which have only recently been discovered,
as I am sure you are all aware of. Stating that bind 4 isn't nearly as
bad as bind 9 just doesn't make any sense at all. Bind 4 is as bad as
bind 8, and that's *really* bad.


Bjørn

Re: Quimby Upgrade

[Daniel Pittman]

On 13 Apr 2001, Bjørn Mork wrote:
> Daniel Pittman <daniel@rimspace.net> writes:
>> On 12 Apr 2001, Bjørn Mork wrote:
>> > Daniel Pittman <daniel@rimspace.net> writes:
>> >> On Wed, 11 Apr 2001, Robin S. Socha wrote:
>> >> 
>> >> > At least OpenBSD ships with BIND 4.
>> >> 
>> >> Which has it's bonus points... and it's own suckages. Admittedly,
>> >> though, it's not /nearly/ as bad as Bind 8 (on 9, given the number
>> >> of bug reports I have seen so far).
>> 
>> Ahem. That should have been /or/ 9. :)
> 
> I kind of guessed that, hence my comment below :-)

Fair enough. :)

>> > You should probably get an appointment with an eye specialist.
>> 
>> Unless it's the typo which, admittedly, looks silly... Bind4 seems to
>> have less day-to-day breakages than 8 or 9. It lacks *many* newer
>> features, though, which some sites need.
>> 
>> I don't quite follow what you meant, though.
>>         Daniel
> 
> I just couldn't see why you included bind 9 in this.

The way that I saw a half-dozen failed assertion reports from fairly
standard use in a friendly network environment. Not my reports, not
people I know well, so it /could/ be local breakage.

Anyway, those bugs are undoubtedly fixed, but there will be plenty of
bugs, security related and otherwise, left.

> Bind 9 is a completely new DNS package which has only the name in
> common with earlier bind versions.  There hasn't been a single
> security related bug in bind 9 yet, has there? 

Not that I know of, although IIRC some of the reports were trivial DoS
attacks. Define that as you will.

[...]

> Stating that bind 4 isn't nearly as bad as bind 9 just doesn't make
> any sense at all. Bind 4 is as bad as bind 8, and that's *really* bad.

>From a reliability point of view, BIND 9 seems as flawed *today* as BIND
8 *in my eyes*.

>From a security point of view, it's almost certainly better. Reliable
and skilled people have asserted so and, while I have not audited the
code myself, I trust them. :)

Security, though, is not the be-all and end-all of network servers. If
it were, I would happily ditch BIND * it in favour of DJB-DNS.

        Daniel

-- 
The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt
the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation.
        -- Pearl S. Buck