Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
seems there are many machines at freebsd.org network are still using 4-STABLE now. http://www.freebsd.org/internal/machines.html ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 08:45:03AM +0800, lveax wrote.. seems there are many machines at freebsd.org network are still using 4-STABLE now. There is a mix of versions in use, upgrading is done at the discretion of the admins team that controls the FreeBSD.org server farm. That in turn is dependent on the amount of time admins have available etc etc. So what is the problem? -- Wilko Bulte [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
I wrote: That list isn't quite current either; at least two of the machines listed as running 4.X are really running 6.X due to recent hardware swapouts and upgrades. I'll go update the Web page to reflect this. ...except that someone just beat me to it. :-) Bruce. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
If memory serves me right, Wilko Bulte wrote: On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 08:45:03AM +0800, lveax wrote.. seems there are many machines at freebsd.org network are still using 4-STABLE now. There is a mix of versions in use, upgrading is done at the discretion of the admins team that controls the FreeBSD.org server farm. That in turn is dependent on the amount of time admins have available etc etc. So what is the problem? That list isn't quite current either; at least two of the machines listed as running 4.X are really running 6.X due to recent hardware swapouts and upgrades. I'll go update the Web page to reflect this. Bruce. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
On Fri, 29 Dec 2006, Wilko Bulte wrote: On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 08:45:03AM +0800, lveax wrote.. seems there are many machines at freebsd.org network are still using 4-STABLE now. There is a mix of versions in use, upgrading is done at the discretion of the admins team that controls the FreeBSD.org server farm. That in turn is dependent on the amount of time admins have available etc etc. So what is the problem? Indeed...I still run and admin a large number of 4-STABLE servers, and even as I'm currently in the process of deploying 6-STABLE on my own servers, I still regularly deploy 4-STABLE for customers of mine. There's a lot to be said for the why fix what isn't broken train of thought. I bet there are still a decent number of 2.2.8 boxes floating around...perhaps there's even more to be said for version maturity in general. I was hoping to wait for 6.4-R before jumping to the 6 line, but 6.2 is looking pretty solid for my purposes, so it seems like a great time to start migrating. I'm curious if anybody else is planning to migrate a large number of 4-STABLE boxes to 6-STABLE as of 6.2-R. Andy --- Andy Dills Xecunet, Inc. www.xecu.net 301-682-9972 --- ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
Robert Joosten wrote: In that case you can savely mount with the -L option (a.k.a. -o nolockd), an everything will just work. No need for rpc.lockd at all. Hmm, yes. Fiddling in etc/fstab and /etc/rc.d/initdiskless didn't help. Where am I expected to fiddle to enable this ? In the place where the mount happens. It depends on how your PXE clients are set up, i.e. when they mount which file systems. When I set up a bunch of disklesse clients, I configured them to mount the root file system read-only (the kernel does this via the various BOOTP options), and the rest via /etc/fstab. In that case the -L option should be put in /etc/fstab, like this: fsrv:/exp/client01/var /var nfs rw,nosuid,-L 0 0 I'm afraid I don't know how to specify any mount options for the root file system when mounting it via the kernel's BOOTP options, but if you mount it read-only (or just treat it as read-only), then it's not necessary anyway because nothing will try to lock something on it. Make sure that all writable directories (/tmp, /var, /home etc.) are separat from the root file system, i.e. either local (mdfs for /tmp, for example) or mounted via /etc/fstab. Best regards Oliver PS: I never use initdiskless and friends, but rather brew my own diskless setup. YMMV. -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing Dienstleistungen mit Schwerpunkt FreeBSD: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd Any opinions expressed in this message may be personal to the author and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of secnetix in any way. To this day, many C programmers believe that 'strong typing' just means pounding extra hard on the keyboard. -- Peter van der Linden ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
* Oliver Fromme [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2006-12-28 12:34 +0100]: I'm afraid I don't know how to specify any mount options for the root file system when mounting it via the kernel's BOOTP options, but if you mount it read-only (or just treat You can set some, but AFAIK not -L. :( dhcpd.conf: option rootopts code 130 = text ; option rootopts rsize=65536,wsize=65536,tcp; With PXE and without the BOOTP option it's possible to set -L loader.conf: boot.nfsroot.options=nolockd Nicolas -- http://www.rachinsky.de/nicolas ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
In message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freddie Cash [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: : On Friday 22 December 2006 08:09 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: : Pete French wrote on Friday, December 22, 2006 2:44 PM: : Frankly, I can't follow the argument that 6.x is unstable. After all, : it's named 6-STABLE for a reason. I'd say from experience that the : ^ : Not for the reason you think. -STABLE in FreeBSD means API/ABI stability, : not necessarily system stability. It's a promise that a binary compiled : on 6.0-RELEASE will run on 6.32-RELEASE without needing to recompile it : (with very few exceptions). It also means system stability. Warner ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
Robert Joosten wrote: Someone pointed out to disable rpc.lockd completely but that doesn't help either. Unless the pxe-clients have to do something on their end I'm not aware of. Another stated rpc.lockd is broken for years now and we should implement a dummy one accepting and positively ack all locks while doing nothing actually. That should work as long as you know what you're doing :-D My pxe clients all have separate directories so concurrent locks on one specific file shouldn't occur. In that case you can savely mount with the -L option (a.k.a. -o nolockd), an everything will just work. No need for rpc.lockd at all. Best regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing Dienstleistungen mit Schwerpunkt FreeBSD: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd Any opinions expressed in this message may be personal to the author and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of secnetix in any way. Emacs ist für mich kein Editor. Für mich ist das genau das gleiche, als wenn ich nach einem Fahrrad (für die Sonntagbrötchen) frage und einen pangalaktischen Raumkreuzer mit 10 km Gesamtlänge bekomme. Ich weiß nicht, was ich damit soll. -- Frank Klemm, de.comp.os.unix.discussion ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
Hi, In that case you can savely mount with the -L option (a.k.a. -o nolockd), an everything will just work. No need for rpc.lockd at all. Hmm, yes. Fiddling in etc/fstab and /etc/rc.d/initdiskless didn't help. Where am I expected to fiddle to enable this ? Browsig through archives I learned this was told me once before; I already thought -L sounded sooo familiar... Thanks for pointing me once again :-) Kind regards, Robert Joosten ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
Hi, From my understanding, rpc.lockd needs substantial work from a fairly experienced developer, to the point where IIRC we are not in a position to hold up any releases because of it. Someone will surely correct me if I am wrong. Afaik all is correct. Someone pointed out to disable rpc.lockd completely but that doesn't help either. Unless the pxe-clients have to do something on their end I'm not aware of. Another stated rpc.lockd is broken for years now and we should implement a dummy one accepting and positively ack all locks while doing nothing actually. That should work as long as you know what you're doing :-D My pxe clients all have separate directories so concurrent locks on one specific file shouldn't occur. The clients do run without rpc.lockd till the moment sendmail starts or you try to run vipw. I didn't observe other quirks but I didn't monitor lockd-less boxen extensively. Thanks for your reply. Kind regards, Robert Joosten ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
I moved to 5. So far all is honky dory. Regards, Wlodek Just to add my 5 cents. Please guys move on. My mum use to wear an old used and abused red bathrobe, she did not want to hear about any new ones, nicer and better. Finally, we through it away and get her a new one. Imagine the homicidal bitching in the kitchen the morning after. After a year she did admit that she likes the new one.. - Original Message - From: Graham North [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2006 1:51 PM Subject: Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support Mark Linimon wrote: As a point of curiosity, I would like to hear from some of the people in this thread who will continue to run 4.11 or 4-STABLE for a while, to find out what ports they are relying on. A note about whether you consider security updates to be a critical issue would be interesting. I will summarize to the list. * One of the earlier posts just about covered it. Let's keep security fixes, and the core Mail, Webserver and maintenance programs. Postfix, Clamav, Amavisd-new,Spamassassin,courier,apache1.3,php, mysql, cvsup-without-gui,... Midnight Commander is handy too! -- Kindness can be infectious - try it. Graham North Vancouver, BC www.soleado.ca ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
Hi Mark, to find out what ports they are relying on. None are critical, although I usally get bash and cvsup from ports but that's not that important A note about whether you consider security updates to be a critical issue would be interesting. At least I want to hear about hem.. Fixes are highly appreciated ofcourse. Note: I am only interested in the data for machines used as servers. These are nfs servers serving pxe clients.. rpc.lockd trouble is the main reason for not using 6 currently, asr0 performance is secondary not using 5. I admit: I haven't checked the commit-logs for any asr updates on 5 for months now... I know rpc.lockd is PR filed and even offered to help. It stalled; I rest assure re@ is aware of these difficulties and I dind't see any rpc.lockd commit that would be related. Curious for the outcome of your poll. Kind regards, Robert Joosten PS: seasonal wishes for anyone on board :-) ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
On Sun, Dec 24, 2006 at 07:09:51PM +0100, Robert Joosten wrote: I know rpc.lockd is PR filed and even offered to help. It stalled; From my understanding, rpc.lockd needs substantial work from a fairly experienced developer, to the point where IIRC we are not in a position to hold up any releases because of it. Someone will surely correct me if I am wrong. mcl ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
Mark Linimon wrote: As a point of curiosity, I would like to hear from some of the people in this thread who will continue to run 4.11 or 4-STABLE for a while, to find out what ports they are relying on. A note about whether you consider security updates to be a critical issue would be interesting. I will summarize to the list. * One of the earlier posts just about covered it. Let's keep security fixes, and the core Mail, Webserver and maintenance programs. Postfix, Clamav, Amavisd-new,Spamassassin,courier,apache1.3,php, mysql, cvsup-without-gui,... Midnight Commander is handy too! -- Kindness can be infectious - try it. Graham North Vancouver, BC www.soleado.ca ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
On Sun, Dec 24, 2006 at 10:51:51AM -0800, Graham North [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: * One of the earlier posts just about covered it. Let's keep security fixes, and the core Mail, Webserver and maintenance programs. Postfix, Clamav, Amavisd-new,Spamassassin,courier,apache1.3,php, mysql, cvsup-without-gui,... Midnight Commander is handy too! Ditto, though I'd like to mention these ports: sendmail, isc-bind, pure-ftpd. That about covers it. If I uncovered ports that failed to build on 4.11, I would happily provide patches after resolving the issue. - --Trenton Petrasek ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
On Sat, Dec 23, 2006 at 06:45:04AM +, Robert Watson wrote: (2) The ports team will no longer work really hard (tm) to keep ports working there. They will keep building packages, etc. To clarify, we will be building 4.X packages as time and resources permit. Fixing problems that show up there will no longer be a high priority. As a reminder, the ports tree is not branched, so any changes to update a port will also affect 4.X, whether or not these changes are improvements with respect to it. As a point of curiosity, I would like to hear from some of the people in this thread who will continue to run 4.11 or 4-STABLE for a while, to find out what ports they are relying on. A note about whether you consider security updates to be a critical issue would be interesting. I will summarize to the list. Note: I am only interested in the data for machines used as servers. Workstation users only have one real choice: to upgrade to 5.5 or 6.1/6.2. Since the GNOME team no longer supports 4.X, and most desktop environments wind up using some part of GNOME, using 4.X as a desktop is no longer supported. mcl ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
On Sat, Dec 23, 2006 at 06:59:16AM -0600, Mark Linimon wrote: As a point of curiosity, I would like to hear from some of the people in this thread who will continue to run 4.11 or 4-STABLE for a while, to find out what ports they are relying on. A note about whether you consider security updates to be a critical issue would be interesting. I will summarize to the list. Security updates for ports are the second question only. The first is maintaining Makefile syntax compatibility, take a look at http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=java/106964 for example. Besides problem noted in the PR, jdk15 builds and runs tomcat5 just fine for 4-STABLE. Perphaps, RELENG_4 needs an update for its /usr/bin/make. As for important ports, there is clamav antivirus and all ports it depends on. Also Squid, MySQL server client, net-snmp, zebra/quagga routing daemons, cvsup/cvsupd/cvsup-mirror/cvsweb etc, Apache, sudo... Security updates are, basically, the only important thing for legacy systems IMHO. Eugene Grosbein ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
It's Sat, Dec 23, 2006 at 12:00 . I'm in a small dim room with doors labeled Dungeon and Forbidden. There is noise, the door marked Dungeon flies open and [EMAIL PROTECTED] SHOUTS: Message: 5 Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 13:43:54 + From: Pete French [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Because everybody knows that odd numbered releases aren't stable. I've been 20 years in electronics comouting and thats the first time I have ever heard anyone say that! Steer clear of '.0' releases is well known, but suspecting something just because of the odd or evenness of it's numbering scheme seems like pure superstition. Especually since we are Unix people, and the two of the 'biggies' in history are Version 7, System 5 ;-) And as system V progressed it got funkier and I moved the servers at an ISP I was part of back in the mid-90s from a 1/2 dozen or so SGI machine to FreeBSD and I felt I was back home again - as it was so similar to the System III based/derived systems I learned on. My first pass at Sys V was on and ATT 3B2-310, and so many things were far slower than what came before, and some of their programs were so poor in execution it was a pain. I once did a simple benchmark and on an old Z80 based system I was getting times in under 10 seconds in the C test and under 1 minute in the BASIC version. On the 3B2 the program seemed to hang in BASIC. I ran it again and then broke out and looked at the variables. I was aghast when I mentally computed that the program would take an hour to run. The C version ran in a bit under 5 minutes. I will say that the 5.3 things got a bit better but not long after that most of the smaller and the ones that seemed to have decent support disappeared and left us with only a handful of SysV companies. And then there is the classic 1.0 release of NeXTStep. It was pretty stable, considerning the last release before 1.0 was 0.99. Jobs got a lot of press on that one :-) -pete. Bill -- Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
But kernel panic issues are being fixed right up to the last minute in the 6.2 release train (these and em and socket change issues are probably what has delayed the final 6.2). There is a lot of work getting done, but clearly a lot of work to do. I wonder if this is an area where the Foundation can do something. FreeBSD needs someone to troubleshoot all of the panics and LOR issues. Bug hunting is no fun (for most), and no one is going to do it. Actually, I raised hell when the decision was made to release 6.1 when it was KNOWN that there were bugs. ISTR that the response was we gotta ship and can't be bothered to hold up the schedule to fix bugs. I admit that at that point I pretty much gave up. ... First of all, knowing their are bugs, and finding bugs are not the same. Just because you know you can cause a panic under some circumstance, does not translate into a fix. It might take 2 to 3 weeks of work to find the cause of that panic. But this is the problem, everyone just bails out when they see a bug. As I stated, almost no one is really looking for bugs. There are lists of bugs all over the place. But where are the back traces? Where is the analysis? But instead, more postings to the mailing list. Unless more people start trying to re-create these panics, and post usable data to the lists. It is not insane that releases are being made (like 6.1) with some known panic conditions. It is insane that this situation just generates more content-free e-mails to the mailing lists. Tom ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
[Not picking on Michael in particular, several people have made similar comments] On Fri, 2006-Dec-22 00:15:13 -0500, Michael R. Wayne wrote: THAT is why people who run servers, with jails, quotas, ipfw and moderate load keep complaining about 5.X and 6.1 and begging for 4.11 support to be extended. Just because someone has a few FreeBSD boxes running light loads and not using the features that we NEED does not mean that any the port 4.11 releases to date are stable. The FreeBSD Project is a volunteer effort. It is currently supporting 4.11, 5.5, 6.1, preparing to release 6.2 and developing 7.x. You cannot demand that volunteers do anything - they work on FreeBSD because they enjoy it. If your business is relying on FreeBSD 4.11 and you do not believe the _free_ support you have been getting is adequate, you are always welcome to look through the list at http://www.freebsd.org/commercial/consult_bycat.html and find someone to provide whatever level of support you want. -- Peter Jeremy pgp7DHGh8ozjT.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
On 2006-12-22, Peter Jeremy wrote: [Not picking on Michael in particular, several people have made similar comments] On Fri, 2006-Dec-22 00:15:13 -0500, Michael R. Wayne wrote: THAT is why people who run servers, with jails, quotas, ipfw and moderate load keep complaining about 5.X and 6.1 and begging for 4.11 support to be extended. Just because someone has a few FreeBSD boxes running light loads and not using the features that we NEED does not mean that any the port 4.11 releases to date are stable. The FreeBSD Project is a volunteer effort. It is currently supporting 4.11, 5.5, 6.1, preparing to release 6.2 and developing 7.x. You cannot demand that volunteers do anything - they work on FreeBSD because they enjoy it. If your business is relying on FreeBSD 4.11 and you do not believe the _free_ support you have been getting is adequate, you are always welcome to look through the list at http://www.freebsd.org/commercial/consult_bycat.html and find someone to provide whatever level of support you want. This is all good comment. But I would add that anybody who claims to have a substantial investment in antique FreeBSD systems and who thinks it makes sense to whine at the volunteers in an attempt to get them to do something that they have said they will not do is being dishonest. Such an investment is being managed poorly, probably irresponsibly, if it's not accompanied by a suitable investment in adequate levels of support. And, if you wave money around, there is no shortage of suitably qualified people who can provide such support. I would also add that, if these people are experiencing show stopping problems with 6.2, then they should be contributing to the process of solving those problems rather than whining about their need for 4.11 support. For most of us, 6.2 is fine. In fact, I have 4.2, 4.7, 4.9, 6.0, 6.1 and 6.2 boxes all running at multiple sites and all of them are just fine. I update them when there is a reason to, but since I really like the way 6.2 is shaping up, I might just move them all to 6.2 over the Oz summer. Greg ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
You know, if people really do run FreeBSD-4.11 servers which are mission critical (and, hopefully, making money in the process) then please consider donating money to the project to get FreeBSD-6 sorted out. You could perhaps sponsor a FreeBSD developer for a few months to run through the bugs you're seeing in your environment and get the bugs fixed. It might cost you, say, AUD $4kish a month for 6 months but if your stuff is mission critical (and, again, earning you money) then that could just be an operational expense which saves you a whole lot of headache in the long run. Open Software isn't Free. (I have the same problem with the Squid project. Lots of people want Squid to do everything, noone's willing to hire programmers to fix up Squid to do these things and release the work back to the public. Then people complain that Squid doesn't have 21st century features. Grr. Sometimes I think we in the Squid project need better PR..) Adrian ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Communicating with the public (was Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support)
In response to Adrian Chadd [EMAIL PROTECTED]: (I have the same problem with the Squid project. Lots of people want Squid to do everything, noone's willing to hire programmers to fix up Squid to do these things and release the work back to the public. Then people complain that Squid doesn't have 21st century features. Grr. Sometimes I think we in the Squid project need better PR..) You probably do. In my experience, most F/OSS projects need better PR. It's not that we (as a group) are poor communicators. Within the devel teams and so forth, we seem to communicate just fine. The fact is that when crossing cultural boundaries, we usually fall short. This has come up time and again as the complaint that FreeBSD isn't doing well with business and so forth, but it comes up in other areas as well that are more subtle. The lion's share of our community work _very_ well with information. We have to, we're buried in it. I know I sort through a couple hundred emails each day. On the flip side, the average Joe doesn't do so well. We see side effects of this when people post with crappy subject lines or no subject lines. We see bug reports that are completely useless because there's nowhere near enough information to actually do anything about it. Did it ever occur to you that these people have as much trouble understanding stuff that they receive as they do communicating their own thoughts. Consider, also, that those folks are an extreme end of the scale. A couple of years ago, a guy tried to explain to me how you have to deal with people. He laid it out in steps: 1) Tell them. 2) Tell them again. 3) Tell them that you told them. 4) Remind them that you told them. 5) Tell them that you reminded them that you told them. 6) ... The point being that you really have to use The Big Hammer to get your point across. It's the same reason we have to see a McDonalds commercial _every_single_commercial_break_! (egad I hate McDonalds) Anyway ... in most of the F/OSS communities I'm involved with, we're under the mistaken idea that we can make an announcement and people will see/hear it. Usually you have to make an announcement 6 or 7 times, worded differently each time, before it really hits home with the masses. I could be wrong, but I get the impression that this whole EOL issue with 4.x is partly a result of not reminding people when the EOL date for 4.x is every 5 minutes. The result is that it's just hitting home for a lot of people now that it's the 11th hour. -- Bill Moran Collaborative Fusion Inc. ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
On Friday, 22. December 2006 03:59, Garrett Wollman wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: -5.x was never really for production use, in the same way 3.x never was. Why do people continue to say this? Because everybody knows that odd numbered releases aren't stable. Just like .0 and .1 releases are rushed out the door after a few months of mad hackfest and patches being rushed back and forth on kernel.org. Smirk. -- ,_, | Michael Nottebrock | [EMAIL PROTECTED] (/^ ^\) | FreeBSD - The Power to Serve | http://www.freebsd.org \u/ | K Desktop Environment on FreeBSD | http://freebsd.kde.org pgp9eLXAnQTYb.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
On Friday 22 December 2006 09:43, Michael Nottebrock wrote: On Friday, 22. December 2006 03:59, Garrett Wollman wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: -5.x was never really for production use, in the same way 3.x never was. Why do people continue to say this? Because everybody knows that odd numbered releases aren't stable. Just like .0 and .1 releases are rushed out the door after a few months of mad hackfest and patches being rushed back and forth on kernel.org. Smirk. man, if that really is so then it has an easy solution, don't make 7. but make 8. ... :) but the better believe would be in better work instead of blaming odd release numbers -- João A mensagem foi scaneada pelo sistema de e-mail e pode ser considerada segura. Service fornecido pelo Datacenter Matik https://datacenter.matik.com.br ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Communicating with the public (was Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support)
On 22/12/06, Bill Moran [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I could be wrong, but I get the impression that this whole EOL issue with 4.x is partly a result of not reminding people when the EOL date for 4.x is every 5 minutes. The result is that it's just hitting home for a lot of people now that it's the 11th hour. The trouble Squid had was its push to a new codebase (2.5 - 3.0) without adequately considering what users wanted. After all, if users don't get any of what they want then there's probably no chance of any paid work out of it.. Users cried for new features but with the stability of the existing codebase. In the end the developers caved and provided Squid-2.6 which seems to have begun reinvigorating the project somewhat. I'm not saying thats the case here, but all the people I've seen complain about 4.11 isn't because the upgrade path isn't -there-, its because the upgrade path doesn't give them stability. People then answer but its stable for mee!; both sides don't end up agreeing. tsk .:) adrian ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
Because everybody knows that odd numbered releases aren't stable. I've been 20 years in electronics comouting and thats the first time I have ever heard anyone say that! Steer clear of '.0' releases is well known, but suspecting something just because of the odd or evenness of it's numbering scheme seems like pure superstition. Especually since we are Unix people, and the two of the 'biggies' in history are Version 7, System 5 ;-) -pete. ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Communicating with the public (was Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support)
In response to Adrian Chadd [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On 22/12/06, Bill Moran [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I could be wrong, but I get the impression that this whole EOL issue with 4.x is partly a result of not reminding people when the EOL date for 4.x is every 5 minutes. The result is that it's just hitting home for a lot of people now that it's the 11th hour. The trouble Squid had was its push to a new codebase (2.5 - 3.0) without adequately considering what users wanted. After all, if users don't get any of what they want then there's probably no chance of any paid work out of it.. Users cried for new features but with the stability of the existing codebase. In the end the developers caved and provided Squid-2.6 which seems to have begun reinvigorating the project somewhat. I'm not saying thats the case here, but all the people I've seen complain about 4.11 isn't because the upgrade path isn't -there-, its because the upgrade path doesn't give them stability. People then answer but its stable for mee!; both sides don't end up agreeing. tsk .:) Agreed. The problem is that I'm _not_ seeing any problems. The result of this is: 1) I'm not motivated to do anything about it. 2) I don't even know what to do if I was motivated. Until this week, I didn't even know any stability problems existed in post 4.x systems until today, so I _couldn't_ do anything about it. I'm guessing you could say #1 and #2 for any number of developers. There are rumblings about stability issues. The problem is there's very little helpful information. My prediction is that these problems will persist until one of the following conditions is met: 1) Someone knowledgeable just gets interested and starts working on the problem. 2) Someone who needs these features puts some effort in to gathering some truly useful information. 3) Someone who needs these features decides to pay someone knowledgeable to work on it. It's interesting that another party who posted to the list earlier was complaining about how his stability issues went unfixed, yet he had _zero_ useful information on where the problem was originating from. After 5 minutes of searching the PR database, I found an open issue regarding lockups with quotas. This other guy never connected the dots? Never did any diagnosis? Never added his $.02 to the open PR? _That_ is why these things aren't getting fixed. Again, the thing that _absolutely_ boggles my mind is that these folks want to divert developer support _away_ from fixing these issues and to supporting legacy software. Quit bitching and go use Dragonfly. -- Bill Moran Collaborative Fusion Inc. ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fwd: Communicating with the public (was Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support)
-- Forwarded message -- From: Jeff Rollin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 22-Dec-2006 13:18 Subject: Re: Communicating with the public (was Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support) To: Bill Moran [EMAIL PROTECTED] The point being that you really have to use The Big Hammer to get your point across. It's the same reason we have to see a McDonalds commercial _every_single_commercial_break_! (egad I hate McDonalds) Erm, no. We really /don't/! ;-) Anyway ... in most of the F/OSS communities I'm involved with, we're under the mistaken idea that we can make an announcement and people will see/hear it. Usually you have to make an announcement 6 or 7 times, worded differently each time, before it really hits home with the masses. I could be wrong, but I get the impression that this whole EOL issue with 4.x is partly a result of not reminding people when the EOL date for 4.x is every 5 minutes. The result is that it's just hitting home for a lot of people now that it's the 11th hour. -- That would suggest that we either need to pay PR/advertising people for their work, or get volunteer advertisers as excited about our projects as we are. Or both My £0.02 Jeff -- Now, did you hear the news today? They say the danger's gone away But I can hear the marching feet Moving into the street Adapted from Genesis, Land of Confusion http://latedeveloperbasketcase.blogspot.com ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Communicating with the public (was Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support)
On Friday 22 December 2006 10:13, Adrian Chadd wrote: On 22/12/06, Bill Moran [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I could be wrong, but I get the impression that this whole EOL issue with 4.x is partly a result of not reminding people when the EOL date for 4.x is every 5 minutes. The result is that it's just hitting home for a lot of people now that it's the 11th hour. The trouble Squid had was its push to a new codebase (2.5 - 3.0) without adequately considering what users wanted. After all, if users don't get any of what they want then there's probably no chance of any paid work out of it.. Users cried for new features but with the stability of the existing codebase. In the end the developers caved and provided Squid-2.6 which seems to have begun reinvigorating the project somewhat. this is Interesting ... you said in your former mail: (I have the same problem with the Squid project. Lots of people want Squid to do everything, noone's willing to hire programmers to fix up Squid to do these things and release the work back to the public. Then people complain that Squid doesn't have 21st century features. Grr. Sometimes I think we in the Squid project need better PR..) In my opinion squid today is off the track. Firstable seems that the squid project is mostly concerned about beeing a proxy-server for small companies, doing nat and authentication and all this nasty stuff If you target this market there is indeed *NO* money, people hooking corporate network on ADSL are looking for freestuff or cheapstuff. squid-project forgot where the money is: in cache since the trend with PtP application does not help at all squid should look still deeper into cache performance because that is what people are willed to spend money in. but what does happen? this issues regarding squid's cache are turned down (on squid mlists) and are ignored. coss and aufs on freebsd does not give performance like diskd but nobody fixed this stupid cache-emptying problem. Overall Freebsd problems are not taken serious and squid-chief seems to be concerend about linux only. so now I come back to my ... at the top, interesting because even if you did what users wanted you didn't got the results you wanted. So I guess you did hear the wrong thing or you did hear the wrong people right? Or the product was not on the right track. What squid needs in my opinion is a kind of fork with a stripped real cache-server without any proxy enhancements and targetting the real market for it. But that is only my opinion. -- João A mensagem foi scaneada pelo sistema de e-mail e pode ser considerada segura. Service fornecido pelo Datacenter Matik https://datacenter.matik.com.br ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
Could be a reference to the Linux world, where every odd kernel version number (e.g. 2.1, 2.3, 2.5...) are considered experimental/development kernels. When a kernel is suggested to be stable, it gets a new version number. 2.5.X becomes 2.6.0 eventually, which marks the end of the V2.5 development. I guess that's why he mentions kernel.org. I never downloaded a FreeBSD kernel there. ;-) ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
grr, i really hate the way gmail replies to the sender of the message rather than to [EMAIL PROTECTED] It doesn't have that problem with my local lug mailinglist... Jeff ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
Pete French wrote on Friday, December 22, 2006 2:44 PM: Because everybody knows that odd numbered releases aren't stable. I've been 20 years in electronics comouting and thats the first time I have ever heard anyone say that! Steer clear of '.0' releases is well known, but suspecting something just because of the odd or evenness of it's numbering scheme seems like pure superstition. The odd/even rule is just over-generalization, derived from the Linux kernel numbering scheme. Personally, I've been upgrading lots of servers from 4-STABLE to 5-STABLE to 6-STABLE without trouble. Yes, it is some amount of work (particularly if you want UFS2 benefits and thus have to newfs all filesystemes), but it is absolutely doable and certainly not a killer job. Of course upgrading hundreds, even thousands of remote servers is a different task. But then you want professional support anyway... Frankly, I can't follow the argument that 6.x is unstable. After all, it's named 6-STABLE for a reason. I'd say from experience that the reason is perfectly valid. Actually I have two older servers that got just stuck every few weeks with 4-STABLE and 5-STABLE and called for a hard reboot -- these two have been rock solid ever since they were upgraded to 6-STABLE. Greets, Helge ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 17:09:40 +0100 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Pete French wrote on Friday, December 22, 2006 2:44 PM: Because everybody knows that odd numbered releases aren't stable. I've been 20 years in electronics comouting and thats the first time I have ever heard anyone say that! Steer clear of '.0' releases is well known, but suspecting something just because of the odd or evenness of it's numbering scheme seems like pure superstition. The odd/even rule is just over-generalization, derived from the Linux kernel numbering scheme. It's actually fairly common over the past few years on many high-profile projects. Gnome and Xemacs stable releases are always even. Those are just two projects that I tend to pay attention to. But these are an even or odd number AFTER the point, so I don't know why people would get the idea that odd FreeBSD major version numbers are unstable other than 5.0 and 5.1 were clear less than stable (and so announced) and V3 was a bit rough, too, although not unstable for me. People may just have noticed this and decided it was the way things were. From what I see of CURRENT (which I run on my laptop and one desktop system), V7 looks to be a pretty good flavor, although there is lots of time for things to go wrong over the next year. In any case, while I can't see many reasons to run 5.5 when you can run 6.2 or 6.2RC, I have seen a couple of odd issues with specific hardware, so there are a few cases. And, if you have an SMP system, 6 is the only way to go for effective use of the added CPUs. -- R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: +1 510 486-8634 Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4 EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751 pgpr7cxbAkMkg.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
On Friday 22 December 2006 08:09 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Pete French wrote on Friday, December 22, 2006 2:44 PM: Frankly, I can't follow the argument that 6.x is unstable. After all, it's named 6-STABLE for a reason. I'd say from experience that the ^ Not for the reason you think. -STABLE in FreeBSD means API/ABI stability, not necessarily system stability. It's a promise that a binary compiled on 6.0-RELEASE will run on 6.32-RELEASE without needing to recompile it (with very few exceptions). -- Freddie Cash [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
On Friday 22 December 2006 02:15, Michael R. Wayne wrote: FreeBSD 4.11 can survive a simple burn-in test. FreeBSD 5.X and 6.1 can not. Here's what I wrote earlier. burn-in usually is a hardware test and not a software test Take a server. Configure for SMP, add quotas within jails and basic IPFW protection with a few hundred dummynet pipes for b/w throttling (less than 10,000 total IPFW lines). Load the machine a bit so that it constantly maintains a 3 digit load and run sufficient active processes to keep it in moderate swap state. let's then qualify cars by how much miles they stand with a flat tire ... any practical value here? So anybody tries to get a server away from swap and you keep it in swap state ... funny theories you have The result of that minimal-effort test yields machines which can not maintain 30 days of uptime (most fail in under a week). ahem ... faulty memory or what? http://suporte.matik.com.br/swap-3-year.png -- João A mensagem foi scaneada pelo sistema de e-mail e pode ser considerada segura. Service fornecido pelo Datacenter Matik https://datacenter.matik.com.br ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
On Friday 22 December 2006 16:06, Freddie Cash wrote: On Friday 22 December 2006 08:09 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Pete French wrote on Friday, December 22, 2006 2:44 PM: Frankly, I can't follow the argument that 6.x is unstable. After all, it's named 6-STABLE for a reason. I'd say from experience that the ^ v1.0 Not for the reason you think. -STABLE in FreeBSD means API/ABI stability, v2.0 not necessarily system stability. It's a promise that a binary compiled on 6.0-RELEASE will run on 6.32-RELEASE without needing to recompile it v11.0 (with very few exceptions). v45.0 it doesn't matter how many times it is told or not told at all, it will be ever and ever again told wrong again :) (please note the odd numbers on certain versions :) so be carefull huh) -- João A mensagem foi scaneada pelo sistema de e-mail e pode ser considerada segura. Service fornecido pelo Datacenter Matik https://datacenter.matik.com.br ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Pete French wrote on 12/22/06 8:43 AM: Because everybody knows that odd numbered releases aren't stable. I've been 20 years in electronics comouting and thats the first time I have ever heard anyone say that! Steer clear of '.0' releases is well known, but suspecting something just because of the odd or evenness of it's numbering scheme seems like pure superstition. Especually since we are Unix people, and the two of the 'biggies' in history are Version 7, System 5 ;-) I guess you never had the misfortune of Solaris 2.5 and 7. Fortunately I mostly avoided 2.5, but I danced a jig when I upgraded the last of my 7 boxes to 8 (or surplussed the hardware after relieving myself on it). Now I'm trying to get rid of 8, and not having a very good go of it... our department skipped 9 for the odd-numbered-release version superstition, much to my chagrin. Personally, I've run every single release of FreeBSD since 4.2 on production servers (albeit nowhere near as heavy a load as many see) and never had a single hiccup. If dropping support for 4.11 means 7 will be that much better, I'm all for it. Mike -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFFjJHbrqw9H9F0mCQRAjAJAJ9GN0HR0QPaMYLDo/gAdTuAp0hnKwCdEqUi lyYBzgeEtDOnBH0q+hO5hWI= =S6ZE -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
On Fri, 22 Dec 2006, Peter Jeremy wrote: [Not picking on Michael in particular, several people have made similar comments] On Fri, 2006-Dec-22 00:15:13 -0500, Michael R. Wayne wrote: THAT is why people who run servers, with jails, quotas, ipfw and moderate load keep complaining about 5.X and 6.1 and begging for 4.11 support to be extended. Just because someone has a few FreeBSD boxes running light loads and not using the features that we NEED does not mean that any the port 4.11 releases to date are stable. The FreeBSD Project is a volunteer effort. It is currently supporting 4.11, 5.5, 6.1, preparing to release 6.2 and developing 7.x. You cannot demand that volunteers do anything - they work on FreeBSD because they enjoy it. If your business is relying on FreeBSD 4.11 and you do not believe the _free_ support you have been getting is adequate, you are always welcome to look through the list at http://www.freebsd.org/commercial/consult_bycat.html and find someone to provide whatever level of support you want. It's interesting that so far I've actually not yet seen even one person e-mail security-team since the EoL announcement to say, If I volunteer my time or pay for your time to support 4.11 for security patches, can we extend the EoL?. If I missed your e-mail, sorry about that, but I do read pretty fairly carefully so feel some justification in making this claim. Thus far, I really know of only two or so things that will change with the EoL date: (1) Security patches and advisories are no longer guaranteed for 4.11/4-STABLE. That doesn't mean they won't/can't happen, just that we don't promise they will. We don't officially support binary updates on 4.x, and whether availability will change for that will depend on the discretionary of Colin acting in a non-official capacity. Here's the URL for details: http://www.freebsd.org/security/ If there's a remote-to-root or local-to-root vulnerability, I'm pretty certain you'll see it patched, this is simply us not promising to hold the security advisory on that happening. All this work was already being done by volunteers anyway, so our promise remains a promise and not a contract for newer versions as well. (2) The ports team will no longer work really hard (tm) to keep ports working there. They will keep building packages, etc. You can read about what it specifically means here: http://www.freebsd.org/portmgr/policies_releng_4.html Here are some things that won't go away: - The ability to download and run 4.x releases, even download and install packages. - The ability to ask 4.x questions on freebsd-questions, freebsd-eol, and likely even freebsd-stable. - The ability to get committers to commit patches to 4-STABLE (subject to the normal cajoling and convincing process). - If you support 4.x as a product inside your organization, this won't change either, unless you choose to make the change. You'll still be taking support requests, identifying bugs, submitting bug reports, submitting patches when you fix things (right?), cvsupping once in a while to pick up fixes, etc. You'll also still be keeping an eye on security advisories, etc. Here are some things that won't change: - There still won't be many FreeBSD developers regularly working on 4.x, but there will be some. - There will still be lots of people running 4.x, especially older releases that are embedded in appliances, companies with distributed products, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if a few more aging and unhandled PR's are flushed from the bug report database as a result of the EoL, but in practice, 4.x will keep running largely as it has since 4.11 was released. If you have tried a 6.x upgrade in the past, please give it a try again. If you run into a problem, please file a bug report, or at least make sure there's a bug report filed on the issue and that you've followed up at least once confirming the problem is still present with 6.2-RCX. If you know something that doesn't appear in the PR, follow up with that information. You can do this by putting the PR name/number in the e-mail subject and e-mailing the bug-followup address; the body of your message should go into the PR. Robert N M Watson Computer Laboratory University of Cambridge ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
John Smith wrote: Support for FreeBSD 4.11 is going to end sometime in late January. Originally, FreeBSD 6.2 was supposed to be released back in October. This would have given everyone about 3 months to stress test everything and migrate all their boxes from 4.11 direct to 6.2. You've had three months to stress test 6.2-BETA1, 6.2-BETA2, 6.2-BETA3, and 6.2-RC1. We release these for a reason, you know. Now it is near the end of December, and FreeBSD 6.2 RC2 has yet to be seen anywhere. Chances are that FreeBSD 6.2 Release will come out earliest mid-January. This does not give much time for people to migrate to the newest FreeBSD release. I think it would be fair if support is extended for a few more months especially since 6.2 is so late in coming. Your opinion has been noted. Colin Percival ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
Community support will continue on the freebsd-eol mailing list, fwiw. However, note that we have dropped the requirement for ports maintainers to make their ports work on 4.X, although many continue to do so. It is simply too much for the ports team to support 3 major branches and one development tree (as per previous discussions). mcl ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
Colin Percival wrote: John Smith wrote: Support for FreeBSD 4.11 is going to end sometime in late January. Originally, FreeBSD 6.2 was supposed to be released back in October. This would have given everyone about 3 months to stress test everything and migrate all their boxes from 4.11 direct to 6.2. You've had three months to stress test 6.2-BETA1, 6.2-BETA2, 6.2-BETA3, and 6.2-RC1. We release these for a reason, you know. Now it is near the end of December, and FreeBSD 6.2 RC2 has yet to be seen anywhere. Chances are that FreeBSD 6.2 Release will come out earliest mid-January. This does not give much time for people to migrate to the newest FreeBSD release. I think it would be fair if support is extended for a few more months especially since 6.2 is so late in coming. Your opinion has been noted. Colin Percival I have to second the OP's opinion. :-) I think it is important to be able to stress test the *final* release before installing on production machines. There is little use in stress testing BETAs and then install a broken RELEASE. This happened with 6.1-RELEASE where the nfs server was suddenly unusable on amd64. Regards, ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
In response to Heinrich Rebehn [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Colin Percival wrote: John Smith wrote: Support for FreeBSD 4.11 is going to end sometime in late January. Originally, FreeBSD 6.2 was supposed to be released back in October. This would have given everyone about 3 months to stress test everything and migrate all their boxes from 4.11 direct to 6.2. You've had three months to stress test 6.2-BETA1, 6.2-BETA2, 6.2-BETA3, and 6.2-RC1. We release these for a reason, you know. Now it is near the end of December, and FreeBSD 6.2 RC2 has yet to be seen anywhere. Chances are that FreeBSD 6.2 Release will come out earliest mid-January. This does not give much time for people to migrate to the newest FreeBSD release. I think it would be fair if support is extended for a few more months especially since 6.2 is so late in coming. Your opinion has been noted. Colin Percival I have to second the OP's opinion. :-) I think it is important to be able to stress test the *final* release before installing on production machines. There is little use in stress testing BETAs and then install a broken RELEASE. This happened with 6.1-RELEASE where the nfs server was suddenly unusable on amd64. There is something about these please continue to support 4.x discussions that confuses me. The general argument has been that 4.11 support should continue because 6.2 is not at release status yet. Are the people making this argument unaware that 6.1 and 5.5 have been at release status for quite some time, and thus have been providing ample opportunity to upgrade for some time now? Or has this topic simply degraded to Troll bait? -- Bill Moran Collaborative Fusion Inc. ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
On Dec 21, 2006, at 1:35 AM, Colin Percival wrote: Now it is near the end of December, and FreeBSD 6.2 RC2 has yet to be seen anywhere. Chances are that FreeBSD 6.2 Release will come out earliest mid-January. This does not give much time for people to migrate to the newest FreeBSD release. I think it would be fair if support is extended for a few more months especially since 6.2 is so late in coming. Your opinion has been noted. FreeBSD 6.1 is a very nice stable release and has been out for a long time. You could migrate to that, too. ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
John Smith wrote: Support for FreeBSD 4.11 is going to end sometime in late January. Originally, FreeBSD 6.2 was supposed to be released back in October. This would have given everyone about 3 months to stress test everything and migrate all their boxes from 4.11 direct to 6.2. Now it is near the end of December, and FreeBSD 6.2 RC2 has yet to be seen anywhere. Chances are that FreeBSD 6.2 Release will come out earliest mid-January. This does not give much time for people to migrate to the newest FreeBSD release. I think it would be fair if support is extended for a few more months especially since 6.2 is so late in coming. As has been stated many times, the issue here is not one of fairness, or any other theoretical concern. The issue is one of resources, and the resources to continue supporting 4.11 are not there. That said, there is nothing preventing anyone that needs to from stress testing the RELENG_6_2 branch right now, in fact we encourage people to do so! The only thing going into that branch right now are small fixes, so you can be reasonably sure that what you're testing now will be very close to what 6.2-RELEASE will look like. Obviously it would be better if you tracked the -stable and cvs-src mailing lists while doing your testing, but if you're in the position you describe it's probably better that you do that anyway. hth, Doug -- This .signature sanitized for your protection ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
In response to Michael R. Wayne [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Private reply. Not interested in trolling or becoming a troll... On Thu, Dec 21, 2006 at 09:58:11AM -0500, Bill Moran wrote: Are the people making this argument unaware that 6.1 and 5.5 have been at release status for quite some time, and thus have been providing ample opportunity to upgrade for some time now? 4.11 is rock solid. 5.5 and 6.1 both have problems to the point that we can NOT roll them out on production machines. EVERY machine we run those releases (or any 5.x or 6.x release) will hang or reboot at random. And it's not hardware - we take a machine that was happily running 4.11, upgrade it, suffer problems, reformat and reinstall 4.11 and the machine is one again solid. So, 4.11 is unsupported, 5.5 and 6.1 are simply unusable and 6.2 is not released. Is is any wonder we are begging for extended support on 4.11? If 6.2 is as bad as 6.1, we're screwed. Don't know why you sent this to me privately. First off, we're running 5.5, 6.1 and 6.2 all over the place and have zero stability problems. Secondly, how many PRs have you filed regarding these problems? If you've found legitimate issues with the OS, the _correct_ thing to do is help the developers resolve the issues, not clamour about why there aren't enough resources to maintain a system that's old, old, old. -- Bill Moran Collaborative Fusion Inc. ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
On Thu, 21 Dec 2006, Bill Moran wrote: In response to Heinrich Rebehn [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Colin Percival wrote: John Smith wrote: Support for FreeBSD 4.11 is going to end sometime in late January. Originally, FreeBSD 6.2 was supposed to be released back in October. This would have given everyone about 3 months to stress test everything and migrate all their boxes from 4.11 direct to 6.2. You've had three months to stress test 6.2-BETA1, 6.2-BETA2, 6.2-BETA3, and 6.2-RC1. We release these for a reason, you know. Now it is near the end of December, and FreeBSD 6.2 RC2 has yet to be seen anywhere. Chances are that FreeBSD 6.2 Release will come out earliest mid-January. This does not give much time for people to migrate to the newest FreeBSD release. I think it would be fair if support is extended for a few more months especially since 6.2 is so late in coming. Your opinion has been noted. Colin Percival I have to second the OP's opinion. :-) I think it is important to be able to stress test the *final* release before installing on production machines. There is little use in stress testing BETAs and then install a broken RELEASE. This happened with 6.1-RELEASE where the nfs server was suddenly unusable on amd64. There is something about these please continue to support 4.x discussions that confuses me. Personally, I understand it, but my perspective may be skewed. The general argument has been that 4.11 support should continue because 6.2 is not at release status yet. If I were to complain about 4.11 going away (and I'm not), this would be my argument: -5.x was never really for production use, in the same way 3.x never was. It was a release made to introduce new features and to beta test what will become a good 6.x release. In my mind, I always skip over 5.x. I would not shed a tear if support for 5.x was dropped before 4.11. -the 4.x branch was the most stable thing since 2.2.x, so many people are hanging on to it for dear life, much as in the windows world you'll still find people that prefer the (relative) stability of something like W2K over XP or Vista. It is a *compliment* to everyone that put all the effort into making the 4.x branch as good as it was that people want to keep using this functional and stable software. -many people run a ton of machines and are not doing any hardware swaps anytime soon. 4.11 runs well on there, and doing a full reinstall on dozens, hundreds or thousands of hosts might be more than they care to do *right now*. Again, a testament to the stability and quality of 4.11. -upgrades from 4.11 to 6.2 are not simple, and not doable without a fairly significant amount of downtime. Everywhere there are folks with a handful of boxes that shouldn't be a single point of failure, but are. Worse, some people have a mix of unique boxes where their first test of 6.x is going to be their only test of 6.x on that specific piece of hardware. -there certainly are plenty of new features and conveniences in 5/6, but for a 3 or 4 year old box that's happily humming along, new hardware support is not paramount, nor are things like the vastly improved wireless support. In any sort of large server farm there are likely homegrown solutions in place to augment 4.11 to the point where the lack of /etc/rc.d or other little convenience pieces just aren't compelling enough to start over. Are the people making this argument unaware that 6.1 and 5.5 have been at release status for quite some time, and thus have been providing ample opportunity to upgrade for some time now? Or has this topic simply degraded to Troll bait? Again, I think 5.x is probably the least used version of FreeBSD in history. As for 6.1, using a .1 release of something in production is gambling (not a knock on FreeBSD, I'd apply that to anything). People are just voicing their opinion. This is not a democracy, but that also does not preclude the userbase from expressing their views on the matter. If this were a democracy and this was a vote, I'd vote for extending 4.11 support until 6.3 comes out and dropping all support for 5.x tomorrow. :) FWIW, I have about 1/4 of the production boxes I manage up to 6.1 or 6.2-RC1 (mostly throwaway/redundant stuff like spam scanning). The rest are still at 4.11. I do look forward to the bonuses of moving to 6.2 or 6.3 on the rest; my short list of new stuff that would make my life easier: pf, the new rc stuff, jail improvements, support for more GigE interfaces, mysql almost working right/threads. Charles -- Bill Moran Collaborative Fusion Inc. ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
On 21/12/06, Charles Sprickman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 21 Dec 2006, Bill Moran wrote: In response to Heinrich Rebehn [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Colin Percival wrote: John Smith wrote: Support for FreeBSD 4.11 is going to end sometime in late January. Originally, FreeBSD 6.2 was supposed to be released back in October. This would have given everyone about 3 months to stress test everything and migrate all their boxes from 4.11 direct to 6.2. You've had three months to stress test 6.2-BETA1, 6.2-BETA2, 6.2-BETA3, and 6.2-RC1. We release these for a reason, you know. Now it is near the end of December, and FreeBSD 6.2 RC2 has yet to be seen anywhere. Chances are that FreeBSD 6.2 Release will come out earliest mid-January. This does not give much time for people to migrate to the newest FreeBSD release. I think it would be fair if support is extended for a few more months especially since 6.2 is so late in coming. Your opinion has been noted. Colin Percival I have to second the OP's opinion. :-) I think it is important to be able to stress test the *final* release before installing on production machines. There is little use in stress testing BETAs and then install a broken RELEASE. This happened with 6.1-RELEASE where the nfs server was suddenly unusable on amd64. There is something about these please continue to support 4.x discussions that confuses me. Personally, I understand it, but my perspective may be skewed. The general argument has been that 4.11 support should continue because 6.2 is not at release status yet. If I were to complain about 4.11 going away (and I'm not), this would be my argument: -5.x was never really for production use, in the same way 3.x never was. It was a release made to introduce new features and to beta test what will become a good 6.x release. In my mind, I always skip over 5.x. I would not shed a tear if support for 5.x was dropped before 4.11. -the 4.x branch was the most stable thing since 2.2.x, so many people are hanging on to it for dear life, much as in the windows world you'll still find people that prefer the (relative) stability of something like W2K over XP or Vista. It is a *compliment* to everyone that put all the effort into making the 4.x branch as good as it was that people want to keep using this functional and stable software. -many people run a ton of machines and are not doing any hardware swaps anytime soon. 4.11 runs well on there, and doing a full reinstall on dozens, hundreds or thousands of hosts might be more than they care to do *right now*. Again, a testament to the stability and quality of 4.11. -upgrades from 4.11 to 6.2 are not simple, and not doable without a fairly significant amount of downtime. Everywhere there are folks with a handful of boxes that shouldn't be a single point of failure, but are. Worse, some people have a mix of unique boxes where their first test of 6.x is going to be their only test of 6.x on that specific piece of hardware. -there certainly are plenty of new features and conveniences in 5/6, but for a 3 or 4 year old box that's happily humming along, new hardware support is not paramount, nor are things like the vastly improved wireless support. In any sort of large server farm there are likely homegrown solutions in place to augment 4.11 to the point where the lack of /etc/rc.d or other little convenience pieces just aren't compelling enough to start over. Are the people making this argument unaware that 6.1 and 5.5 have been at release status for quite some time, and thus have been providing ample opportunity to upgrade for some time now? Or has this topic simply degraded to Troll bait? Again, I think 5.x is probably the least used version of FreeBSD in history. As for 6.1, using a .1 release of something in production is gambling (not a knock on FreeBSD, I'd apply that to anything). People are just voicing their opinion. This is not a democracy, but that also does not preclude the userbase from expressing their views on the matter. If this were a democracy and this was a vote, I'd vote for extending 4.11 support until 6.3 comes out and dropping all support for 5.x tomorrow. :) FWIW, I have about 1/4 of the production boxes I manage up to 6.1 or 6.2-RC1 (mostly throwaway/redundant stuff like spam scanning). The rest are still at 4.11. I do look forward to the bonuses of moving to 6.2 or 6.3 on the rest; my short list of new stuff that would make my life easier: pf, the new rc stuff, jail improvements, support for more GigE interfaces, mysql almost working right/threads. Charles -- Bill Moran Collaborative Fusion Inc. ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
Charles Sprickman made many good point IMO, but one aluded to in
Chris's follow up concerns me:
there is also uneeded cost involved in piurchasing hardware capable of
running 6.x
Performance on old boxes stability interest me, eg the 486s
in scanners ( http://berklix.com/scanjet/ http://madole.net/scanjet/
) that have become servers, some of which may also be last islands of
secret BSD server sanity in companies that have fallen to the Suits
edict of Only boxes blessed by Mickey$oft ;-)
Sure, I can do cross compile ('cos local make world is Slow), but
when shipped if supporting other server loads, 6.x Might be a
problem on eg Am486DX2 66 MHz 16M Ram ? (I got the impression 4.11
to 6.x will slow by about 1.2 ?) Maybe most people are running
(like me on ~ 20 boxes) mostly 4.11 6.1, so perhaps that suggestion
to drop 5.x rather than 4.x makes numeric sense ?
Julian
--
Julian Stacey. BSD Unix C Net Consultancy, Munich/Muenchen http://berklix.com
Mail Ascii, not HTML. Ihr Rauch = mein allergischer Kopfschmerz.
http://berklix.org/free-software
___
freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: -5.x was never really for production use, in the same way 3.x never was. Why do people continue to say this? Many sites have used, are still using, and plan to continue to use, 5.x in production. ftp5/cvsup3 ran 5.x until a few months ago, and I have a netnews transit server and a Web server that still run 5.5. I'm slowly moving things off 5.x for the better support and performance of 6.x, but it's been stable for me in two fairly tough production applications for quite some time. -GAWollman -- Garrett A. Wollman | The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are [EMAIL PROTECTED]| nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry Opinions not those | grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape of MIT or CSAIL. | our history. - S.J. Gould, Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibility for FreeBSD 4.11 Extended Support
On Thu, Dec 21, 2006 at 09:59:34PM -0500, Garrett Wollman wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: -5.x was never really for production use, in the same way 3.x never was. Why do people continue to say this? Many sites have used, are still using, and plan to continue to use, 5.x in production. I'm going to copy a bit of mail that I sent to someone privately. FreeBSD 4.11 can survive a simple burn-in test. FreeBSD 5.X and 6.1 can not. Here's what I wrote earlier. Take a server. Configure for SMP, add quotas within jails and basic IPFW protection with a few hundred dummynet pipes for b/w throttling (less than 10,000 total IPFW lines). Load the machine a bit so that it constantly maintains a 3 digit load and run sufficient active processes to keep it in moderate swap state. The result of that minimal-effort test yields machines which can not maintain 30 days of uptime (most fail in under a week). And don't even THINK about snapshots in 6.1 or earlier. THAT is why people who run servers, with jails, quotas, ipfw and moderate load keep complaining about 5.X and 6.1 and begging for 4.11 support to be extended. Just because someone has a few FreeBSD boxes running light loads and not using the features that we NEED does not mean that any the port 4.11 releases to date are stable. /\/\ \/\/ ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
