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

[Ryan Verner <xfesty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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On Mon, 21 Oct 2002 14:06:55 -0700 Travis Ogdon <togdon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

| Installing a kernel as an RPM in either a Debian or Gentoo box at the very least
| would be a pain. Installing a generic 2.4.x kernel and then working on getting

How so?

Debian comes with a tool called 'alien' which converts RPM's to DEB's - and even then there's seperate kernel specific tools to package up a kernel package.

With Gentoo, I don't even think there is specific packaging for kernels.

Personally though, I would prefer to use our own compiled kernel with perhaps the LCD panel/whatever else from the kernel RPM.  It shouldn't be too hard to do.

| the panel working in some fashion may be easier. I beleive that the only other
| thing that gets patched in the kernel is the bwmgmt stuff and I thought that
| there were other tools for this these days. I wonder though how many people use
| the bandwidth management stuff, and if we wouldn't be better off documenting how
| to do it by tweaking proftpd/apache config files (I'm pretty sure that given the
| right modules both of them can throttle bandwidth).

Yes and no.  We certainly can duplicate any current functionality already on the units in any case, with room for expansion.  If we're heading up this project, we're not limited to what Sun wants - so hell, why just the one kernel? :-)
 
| The raqs are too underpowered to be good Gentoo canidates. It's a great OS, but
| recompiling large packages on slow boxes can be tedious at best. I believe that
| you can compile them once and then shove out the binaries to other hosts, but
| that's likely experimental at best. I think that Debian would be the best
| canidate. I suppose a well written web interface to the apt tools would be the
| equivalent of a working BlueLinQ.

Yah, for sure.  There's already web interfaces out there for apt, off memory.  Apt would make a great substitute for BlueLinQ, imho.
 
| 
| > I don't think we want to start a project that will duplicate the work already
| > being done by many good people.

Nod, I agree with this completely.

| Other than Gentoo I've never been satisfied with the up-to-date-ness of a
| distro. Debian is probably good enough, but the long time between releases got
| annoying. I imagine that a semi-yearly 'apt-get dist-upgrade' whenever Debian
| gets around to updating is good enough for most people. I'd rather be able to
| run the latest version of Apache+PHP+Mod_ssl, Proftpd, MySQL, OpenSSH, etc. at
| all times. I suppose for those of us interested in that we can just maintain

Uh, long time between releases?

There's more then just the 'stable' ;-)  Additionally, all because we're basing this on debian doesn't mean we have to use debian's actual packages - in fact, I suggest we dont.  We'll likely have our own apt source specifically for each Cobalt.

"When debian gets around to updating" is another incorrect statement, if you've ever used unstable, you'll find new packages every few hours - and security.debian.org is certainly updated within hours of a security exploit.

Semi-yearly isn't really a good security practice either ;)  Every few days for me, at least weekly.

| separate .debs of those packages with less fear of them being required by an
| unrelated patch from Cobalt (ie. you're already running the latest and greatest
| version of PHP, but now you're forced to downgrade in order to install a patch
| to bind).

Dependency on our packages would mean ignoring any future updates from Sun.  Why would we need them? ;-)

| > Again, there are distros that are well supported, Sun/Cobalt being the
| > exception. I like their hardware!
| 
| I got a stack of fans and drives that say otherwise... ;)
|  
| > Webmin is not that bad as a user GUI.
| 
| It must have improved then because it used to be pretty bad. I'll take another
| look.

Webmin's okay, but I don't want to use this.  I'm prepared to write a new web interface from scratch, and I'd sure love my help.
 
| 
| > 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.
| 
| Probably. See my other message on the subject. As long as we can get a modern
| distro running and still maintain things like the front panel, and the ease of
| OS restores (two things I'm certain that given enough time that we could do) I'm
| in. 

Likewise.  Its a fair bit of work, but I'm willing to do it.

| -- Travis
| 
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Ryan Verner <xfesty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

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propaganda as education, no rising above your station.
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