Re: [cobalt-users] Have SUN stopped supporting XTR?

[Gerald Waugh <gwaugh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 21 Oct 2002, Travis Ogdon wrote:
> I've been entertaining thoughts lately of doing an 'rpm -qa' and starting at the
> top and working my way down the list. The basic list of things that need to be
> done:
>
> 0. Repackage in a working manner all of the broken/old/cruddy pieces of software
> currently installed on the box (and while we're add it toss in ssh, lsof, and a
> bunch of other tools that should have shipped on the boxes in the first place).
> Fairly easy since almost everything we're talking about is Open Source.

  Maybe better to get the list of 260+ (RaQ4r) rpms off the OSRCD
  Also, are we talking about supporting;
  RaQ2, Qube2, RaQ3, Qube3, RaQ4, XTR, RaQ550?

> 1. Figure out how to reliably flash the firmware so that we may use 2.4 kernels
> on the boxes.

I think Tim Hockin has this down!
  ftp://ftp-eng.cobalt.com/pub/users/thockin/2.4/

> 2. Get a working 2.4 kernel (I think Sun has these somewhere in the
> depths of their ftp site along with the firmware upgrades). By working I mean
> the whole thing, including the front panel.

Again ftp://ftp-eng.cobalt.com/pub/users/thockin/2.4/

> 3. Unroll the os-restore cds (there were instructions posted at some point) so
> that we can roll out "new" boxes based on our version.

That is not a problem, we do it all the time, thanks to Bruce
Timberlake

> 4. "Patch" the os-restore cds to a known state (ie. renagade cobalt v1). We'd
> likely need to write some sort of shell script that made it easy for newbies. I
> have a feeling that Sun wouldn't be happy with us redistributing an OS restore
> CD, especially if it's going to contain some of their proprietary stuff. If
> we're just distributing a shell script and a tarball of rpms that did the heavy
> lifting...

Yes, I don't think you can use their "proprietary stuff" that is why we
are working on these candidates -  debian, slackware or gentoo port

> 5. Burn our patched OS Restore CD and cross our fingers as we OS restore a bunch
> of test boxes.
>
> IF we could get this working in a reliable manner and we were able to document
> it I think we could collectively forget that Sun doesn't care about us and move
> on with our lives.

That is a problem, there are distros that are well supported, most,
Sun/Cobalt being the exception. I don't think we want to start a project that will duplicate the work already
being done by many good people.


> When new vulnerabilties were found in software we could just release a .pkg or
> .rpm that patched the vulnerabilty, and not in a cop out manner using the
> version from the vendor. There's no doubt in my mind that we could do it faster
> than Sun.

Again, there are distros that are well supported, Sun/Cobalt being the
exception. I like their hardware!


> When new software is released with tons of great new features (php, a version of
> snmp from this millenia, etc.) we could release packages for those as well. I
> suppose we could even have two release branches, a "slightly bleeding edge," and
> a "more stable than Sun ever got it."

Many distros already do this, We need to make the Sun/Cobalt hardware
dance to a drummer that supports the system. A new distro, hell webmin is
not that bad as a user GUI.

> They're not supporting us in the first place, so what do we have to lose? I
> contend that given enough time we could get it working and still have a fully
> functional Cobalt UI.
>
Youre talking about one hell of a lot of work Travis.
Your intentions are excellent! But I really think that getting the
hardware to run a well supported distro is the way to go.

Gerald
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