Re: [9fans] software archaeology
I think that's all it did. musta been 4e- erikOn Feb 4, 2018 20:24, Benjamin Huntsman wrote: Bizarre and random question, but anyone still have any of the original 3rd Edition floppy images around? Also, anyone remember, did the web-based floppy builder from back in the day actually do anything other than tweak the plan9.ini? Thanks!
[9fans] software archaeology
Bizarre and random question, but anyone still have any of the original 3rd Edition floppy images around? Also, anyone remember, did the web-based floppy builder from back in the day actually do anything other than tweak the plan9.ini? Thanks!
Re: [9fans] RasPi why?
RPi's aren't "the" answer, Exactly. There is no "one" answer. Hardware, peripherals, operating systems ... The "linux is everything" crowd is what's leading to the decimation of technological advancement these days.
Re: [9fans] RasPi why?
RPi3 are reasonably capable for the price. For me, they make sense because: * RPis make it easy to try non-windows OS (including Plan 9). * Provide a usable, yet inexpensive ARM platform for Plan9. * (almost) all RPI hardware components are supported in Plan 9. * There is an enthusiastic community building everything imaginable for, and with, RPI's. RPi's aren't "the" answer, but neither is Intel-inside everything. The speculative execution debacle proves that the entire industry has too much reliance on one architecture. Diversity of architectures is good for Plan 9 and the industry as a whole. In a perfect world there would be equivalent popular platforms for MIPS, Power, RISC-V and other architectures. -Skip On Sun, Feb 4, 2018 at 1:46 AM Ethan Grammatikidis wrote: > On Sat, Feb 3, 2018, at 11:46 PM, Bakul Shah wrote: > > > > Not to mention The RasPis are poor at > > reliability. Even a xenon flash or near a RasPi could power a > > RasPi2 down! And since they do no onboard power regulation, > > people had lots of problems early on -- add one more USB > > device and the thing can become unreliable. > > This is probably an impossible question, but I've got to ask: Why do > people even buy RasPis? Like, for anything? Even when the first RPi was > new, a second hand laptop could offer far more processing power and > reliability for the same price, sometimes excepting the disk of course. Add > a base station with the old printer port and there's some GPIO; not as much > as a RPi, it's true, but there are ways around that. One alternative for > GPIO is the actually cheap boards from Ti or whoever which exist to > interface Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, or USB on one side (depending on the > board) to GPIO and serial on the other. I think they're programmed in > Forth, but I wouldn't be surprised if you can just download programs for > them to do anything you'd want with remote control. > > -- > The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. -- Chaucer > >
Re: [9fans] Is fossil/venti file system a good choice for SSD?
On Sun, 04 Feb 2018 11:02:57 +0100 hiro <23h...@gmail.com> wrote: hiro writes: > For home use a ZFS intent log and caches on a good 2,5" SSD in a > battery-backed thinkpad seems like an easy, silent, fast and stable > (even against data loss from power outage) basis, even if you only > connect shitty USB3 HDD drives externally for the pools. Your data > should be safe on the SSD as long as you make sure it's > underprovisioned enough to make fair use of wear leveling for a long > time. Many of these USB3 HDDs have 1 year warranty for a reason. SMART check on a few month old Seagate USB3 disk I have shows it has already exceeded worst case of many parameters! It still works so I can't return it. You can buy 5 year warranty WD Gold or RE for decent prizes and can put together your own disk array. I don't use a separate ZFS intent log on my main fileserver as I don't rely on NFS much (mostly just readonly access). I also don't use a laptops for fileservice as they don't have ECC memory.
Re: [9fans] Is fossil/venti file system a good choice for SSD?
I am not familiar with the kirkwoods that you mentioned. Just to be clear, the USB drive I was describing is rotating media in an external enclosure, not a memory stick. Generally self powered, as powering a portable hard drive from USB with a RPi is asking for trouble. I have stopped buying flash memory devices from eBay and other vendors that are not well known with a reputation to protect - far to many counterfeits with less storage than the packaging claims on the market, and if you are unfortunate enough to try using them with the FAT or eFAT filesystem they are supplied with, data will eventually wrap around and destroy itself, probably after sufficient time that the seller (who may well be ignorant of why his/her stock was so cheap) is no longer around to complain to. A minor annoyance for me, but must be a lot of unhappy people losing irreplaceable photographs.. Fortunately for me, attempting for reformat with a Linux filesystem tends to fail on such devices, so I find out straight away and get to send them back and be refunded . I had to write a dedicated test program to demonstrate the subterfuge on the original filesystem - to prove that the reformatting was revealing an issue, not the source of it (as was often claimed). I also don't buy cheap USB stick. I like these https://www.kanguru.com/storage-accessories/kanguru-ss3.shtml because they have a real hardware write protect capability. Indispensable if you are going to be inserting them into other people's machines, but surprisingly uncommon. At over $200.00 for 256GB, they are are a bit upmarket, but I havn't had any problem with them yet. Anyway, so long as you are aware of the risks and limitations, flash memory devices are a useful technology, but not a complete replacement for rotating magnetic storage. On 4 February 2018 at 21:46, hiro <23h...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hey, thanks for explaining. this usage is surprisingly valid. I have > some much much older kirkwoods for the same scenario. The benefit is: > gigabit ethernet, higher stability, case included, power supply > included (and no power problems as on rpi), lower price. > I boot them all from USB HDDs, but I see how flash would save more > power. Carry on! :) > > The main disagreement in this thread is calling all kinds of different > flash storage "SSD". common usage reserves this name for the sata or > more recent nvme disks that actually are much more stable, in my > understanding due to better controllers and their better wear leveling > algorithms. > > With sd cards and usb flash drives you are lucky if your 128GB stick > is not really 1GB flash with %1GB "wear leveling algorithm" where > after 1GB you rewrite your already saved data :D > > It's a low-end market with shitty margins, low quality controllers, > and in general too many counterfeits, even from good shops and big > retailers. so you can't even depend on the company/brand/product name. > > Privately I never had surprising problems with HDDs, I don't manage to > fill enough to notice the small risk in practice. > > All my old HDDs still work. They are only unused cause they got too > small to be worth spinning any more (waste of power). > > I project my SSDs will not fail before i get 10/40gbit connection to > my NAS. Till then my write wear will be limited by my low bandwidth > and high latency practical use cases. > > On 2/4/18, Digby R.S. Tarvin wrote: > > static web pages, remote login (so that I can power/depower other > hardware) > > and file remote file distribution (via scp) mostly. > > > > The main requirement is very low standby power consumption so that it can > > survive on batteries which are recharged using solar panels. > > > > Power consumption was the main reason for switching from laptops (~12W) > to > > Reaspberry Pis (1.2W).. > > > > The other advantage to the raspberry pi is that it is a cheap commodity > > item - if I have one misbehave, I can just swap it out and throw it away. > > However, other than failing SSD's, the raspberry Pis have proved very > > reliable. > > > > On 4 February 2018 at 09:52, hiro <23h...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > >> > raspberry pi based servers > >> > >> what are you serving? > >> > >> > > > >
Re: [9fans] RasPi why?
anybody who plans to buy a rpi for a laptop/desktop usage who is price limited please consider a thinkpad t43, x61, etc. from ebay. x201 is slightly faster but might also still be affordable depending on where you are, already has the crappier display ratio though ;)
Re: [9fans] Is fossil/venti file system a good choice for SSD?
The problem is the index. It is heavily updated, and I had a Fossil installation that ate my SSD in about 6 months. The log was OK, so I could rebuild the index on another disk. On Sat, Feb 3, 2018 at 10:39 AM, lchg wrote: > As I know, fossil/venti file system is log-structured, so it may be good > for flash devices, especially in extending life of flash devices. >
Re: [9fans] RasPi why?
On Sun, 04 Feb 2018 09:45:51 + Ethan Grammatikidis wrote: Ethan Grammatikidis writes: > On Sat, Feb 3, 2018, at 11:46 PM, Bakul Shah wrote: > > > > Not to mention The RasPis are poor at > > reliability. Even a xenon flash or near a RasPi could power a > > RasPi2 down! And since they do no onboard power regulation, > > people had lots of problems early on -- add one more USB > > device and the thing can become unreliable. > > This is probably an impossible question, but I've got to ask: Why do people > even buy RasPis? Like, for anything? Even when the first RPi was new, a second > hand laptop could offer far more processing power and reliability for the same > price, sometimes excepting the disk of course. Add a base station with the > old printer port and there's some GPIO; not as much as a RPi, it's true, but > there are ways around that. One alternative for GPIO is the actually cheap > boards from Ti or whoever which exist to interface Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, > or USB on one side (depending on the board) to GPIO and serial on the other. > I think they're programmed in Forth, but I wouldn't be surprised if you can > Just download programs for them to do anything you'd want with remote control. They're all right if you understand and stay within their limitations. Make sure you supply more than enough current for their intended use & Raspis will last a long time. The "flash" problem was for a particular model only and did get fixed (sorry, I over-egged it a bit). If all you want is a laptop/desktop pis don't offer much, especially if you can afford more expensive laptops. But their low cost, small size, low power, GPIO & camera connectivity, standardized models and easy availability open up a lot of new applications. This is over 18 million Pis have been sold. Even though they are supposed to be "educational" devices, they are selling like quite well in the commercial market. I suspect for many embedded device mfrs just use a Pi + their custom h/w to get to market fast and at a low cost. Things like giant wall video display using many screens, 3d scanners and printer, TOR routers, media servers, servers for DHCP/boot/ftp/print/smtp/imap, s/w radios, robots, weather stations, used in weather balloons, various controllers, security cameras, toys, etc.
Re: [9fans] Is fossil/venti file system a good choice for SSD?
Hey, thanks for explaining. this usage is surprisingly valid. I have some much much older kirkwoods for the same scenario. The benefit is: gigabit ethernet, higher stability, case included, power supply included (and no power problems as on rpi), lower price. I boot them all from USB HDDs, but I see how flash would save more power. Carry on! :) The main disagreement in this thread is calling all kinds of different flash storage "SSD". common usage reserves this name for the sata or more recent nvme disks that actually are much more stable, in my understanding due to better controllers and their better wear leveling algorithms. With sd cards and usb flash drives you are lucky if your 128GB stick is not really 1GB flash with %1GB "wear leveling algorithm" where after 1GB you rewrite your already saved data :D It's a low-end market with shitty margins, low quality controllers, and in general too many counterfeits, even from good shops and big retailers. so you can't even depend on the company/brand/product name. Privately I never had surprising problems with HDDs, I don't manage to fill enough to notice the small risk in practice. All my old HDDs still work. They are only unused cause they got too small to be worth spinning any more (waste of power). I project my SSDs will not fail before i get 10/40gbit connection to my NAS. Till then my write wear will be limited by my low bandwidth and high latency practical use cases. On 2/4/18, Digby R.S. Tarvin wrote: > static web pages, remote login (so that I can power/depower other hardware) > and file remote file distribution (via scp) mostly. > > The main requirement is very low standby power consumption so that it can > survive on batteries which are recharged using solar panels. > > Power consumption was the main reason for switching from laptops (~12W) to > Reaspberry Pis (1.2W).. > > The other advantage to the raspberry pi is that it is a cheap commodity > item - if I have one misbehave, I can just swap it out and throw it away. > However, other than failing SSD's, the raspberry Pis have proved very > reliable. > > On 4 February 2018 at 09:52, hiro <23h...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> > raspberry pi based servers >> >> what are you serving? >> >> >
Re: [9fans] RasPi why?
Why do people even buy RasPis? 1) Serial port console servers. A Pi2 + StarTech USB 8-port serial is an inexpensive way to talk to console serial ports on routers, switches, firewalls, etc. 2) DHCP/TFTP servers used to remote PXE install the big iron in our data centres. 3) Interconnecting all the NMEA nav/comm gear on the boat. 4) Sensor monitoring on the boat (battery levels, bilge, tank levels) and sending alarms. Etc.
Re: [9fans] SMART: Silly Marketing Acronym, Rebuts Truth
On Sun, Feb 04, 2018 at 10:10:39AM -0800, Erik Quanstrom wrote: >in my experience smart can be helpful diagnosing grey failures. but it's >useless to generalize about hdd or ssd firmware wrt smart data. I suspect that the huge majority of technical resources is nowadays put on improving the manufacture process so that 99% of the devices will last the duration of the guarantee... but not longer. Since when SMART reports problems, the disk will finally fail but several days or weeks after, this is the grey part you are talking about: near the end of the guarantee but not already pass the guarantee. So SMART can not advertise the failure (because the device is still under guarantee) but not lie totally (to incit you to buy another one). The question the marketing department doesnt ask itself is whether a customer, seeing that the device fails just after the guarantee is void, will have an incentive to buy the same brand. Even if "everybody" (all the brands including the "no brand"---that manufacture in fact for the brands) does the same, the brand I have not tested yet has the benefit of the doubt... -- Thierry Laronde http://www.kergis.com/ http://www.sbfa.fr/ Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C
Re: [9fans] SMART: Silly Marketing Acronym, Rebuts Truth
in my experience smart can be helpful diagnosing grey failures. but it's useless to generalize about hdd or ssd firmware wrt smart data.
Re: [9fans] RasPi why?
i bought one (well, my employer bought me one) as a desktop machine. i don’t know where i could buy a headless pc or a used laptop for £30. i also have drivers for the hardware and an install process that takes 10 mins (copy the image to an sd card). they are not perfect, but a good comprise for me. -Steve > On 4 Feb 2018, at 09:45, Ethan Grammatikidis wrote: > >> On Sat, Feb 3, 2018, at 11:46 PM, Bakul Shah wrote: >> >> Not to mention The RasPis are poor at >> reliability. Even a xenon flash or near a RasPi could power a >> RasPi2 down! And since they do no onboard power regulation, >> people had lots of problems early on -- add one more USB >> device and the thing can become unreliable. > > This is probably an impossible question, but I've got to ask: Why do people > even buy RasPis? Like, for anything? Even when the first RPi was new, a > second hand laptop could offer far more processing power and reliability for > the same price, sometimes excepting the disk of course. Add a base station > with the old printer port and there's some GPIO; not as much as a RPi, it's > true, but there are ways around that. One alternative for GPIO is the > actually cheap boards from Ti or whoever which exist to interface Ethernet, > WiFi, Bluetooth, or USB on one side (depending on the board) to GPIO and > serial on the other. I think they're programmed in Forth, but I wouldn't be > surprised if you can just download programs for them to do anything you'd > want with remote control. > > -- > The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. -- Chaucer
Re: [9fans] Is fossil/venti file system a good choice for SSD?
static web pages, remote login (so that I can power/depower other hardware) and file remote file distribution (via scp) mostly. The main requirement is very low standby power consumption so that it can survive on batteries which are recharged using solar panels. Power consumption was the main reason for switching from laptops (~12W) to Reaspberry Pis (1.2W).. The other advantage to the raspberry pi is that it is a cheap commodity item - if I have one misbehave, I can just swap it out and throw it away. However, other than failing SSD's, the raspberry Pis have proved very reliable. On 4 February 2018 at 09:52, hiro <23h...@gmail.com> wrote: > > raspberry pi based servers > > what are you serving? > >
Re: [9fans] RasPi why?
There’s a fair amount of FUD here. The light sensitivity was fixed with a new component run (and, incidentally, is not specific to the Pi, you can take out other exposed electronics/computers with a flash), and the reliability pretty much became a non-issue since the Pi 2. People buy Pis because of the ecosystem, flexibility (you get a full blown Linux system for a few bucks that can drive an HD monitor, an external hard drive for media and Wi-Fi), the educational aspects (the official distribution ships with Scratch, Python and a free edition of Mathematica) and the relative bang for buck. I have several editions (originals, 2s, 3s and Zeros) and use the smallest instead of Arduino boards for situations where more CPU and expand ability are required—I’ve resurrected a dead synth by wiring in a Pi with a USB DAC and installing timidity, my 3D printer is managed and monitored (with a webcam) by another, my digital oscilloscope is a quad-core Pi 2 with an 800px LCD display, and I use Pi 3s as thin terminals (besides a few other uses). A Pi 3 is good enough to code in, and I have a Pi 2 running Plan 9 without any glitches (although I’ve been meaning to investigate moving to the 3 for Wi-Fi...). I also have a few Arduinos, but have been phasing them out in favor of ESP8266 devices, which are usually smaller and just as easier to work with (I code for those in C, Python or Lua, depending on flavor). Both kinds of devices have (save from initial teething issues) been quite reliable in my experience. ESP8266s, in particular, have become common in commercial consumer devices, but Pi compute modules are used by some media players and digital signage. R. > On 4 Feb 2018, at 09:45, Ethan Grammatikidis wrote: > >> On Sat, Feb 3, 2018, at 11:46 PM, Bakul Shah wrote: >> >> Not to mention The RasPis are poor at >> reliability. Even a xenon flash or near a RasPi could power a >> RasPi2 down! And since they do no onboard power regulation, >> people had lots of problems early on -- add one more USB >> device and the thing can become unreliable. > > This is probably an impossible question, but I've got to ask: Why do people > even buy RasPis? Like, for anything? Even when the first RPi was new, a > second hand laptop could offer far more processing power and reliability for > the same price, sometimes excepting the disk of course. Add a base station > with the old printer port and there's some GPIO; not as much as a RPi, it's > true, but there are ways around that. One alternative for GPIO is the > actually cheap boards from Ti or whoever which exist to interface Ethernet, > WiFi, Bluetooth, or USB on one side (depending on the board) to GPIO and > serial on the other. I think they're programmed in Forth, but I wouldn't be > surprised if you can just download programs for them to do anything you'd > want with remote control. > > -- > The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. -- Chaucer >
Re: [9fans] Is fossil/venti file system a good choice for SSD?
For home use a ZFS intent log and caches on a good 2,5" SSD in a battery-backed thinkpad seems like an easy, silent, fast and stable (even against data loss from power outage) basis, even if you only connect shitty USB3 HDD drives externally for the pools. Your data should be safe on the SSD as long as you make sure it's underprovisioned enough to make fair use of wear leveling for a long time.
Re: [9fans] Is fossil/venti file system a good choice for SSD?
> raspberry pi based servers what are you serving?
Re: [9fans] Is fossil/venti file system a good choice for SSD?
> uSD in raspberry pi there's the error
[9fans] RasPi why?
On Sat, Feb 3, 2018, at 11:46 PM, Bakul Shah wrote: > > Not to mention The RasPis are poor at > reliability. Even a xenon flash or near a RasPi could power a > RasPi2 down! And since they do no onboard power regulation, > people had lots of problems early on -- add one more USB > device and the thing can become unreliable. This is probably an impossible question, but I've got to ask: Why do people even buy RasPis? Like, for anything? Even when the first RPi was new, a second hand laptop could offer far more processing power and reliability for the same price, sometimes excepting the disk of course. Add a base station with the old printer port and there's some GPIO; not as much as a RPi, it's true, but there are ways around that. One alternative for GPIO is the actually cheap boards from Ti or whoever which exist to interface Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, or USB on one side (depending on the board) to GPIO and serial on the other. I think they're programmed in Forth, but I wouldn't be surprised if you can just download programs for them to do anything you'd want with remote control. -- The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. -- Chaucer
Re: [9fans] SMART: Silly Marketing Acronym, Rebuts Truth
On Sat, Feb 03, 2018 at 03:59:26PM -0800, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote: > >The interesting thing (for me) was that > >the SMART data from the drive gave it an all clear right to the end. But > >unlike the SSDs, there was plenty of behavioural warning to remind me to > >have the backups up to date and a spare at the ready... > > FWIW, of the three-four dozen or so drives I have actively SMART monitored > over the years, of the ones that failed, *not* *one* gave a SMART warning > before dying. > > That includes a spinny disk in one of my Mac Minis. Of anyone, I would > expect Apple to be in bed with their HD suppliers enough to have HD firmware > that reliably reports SMART errors (since the disk utilities do pay > attemtion to it). I spent a month listening to that drive's heads slam back > to the home position as it tried to recalibrate itself, before eventually > dying. To the bitter end, SMART reported "a-ok boss!" > I had the same experience. SMART has been totally useless advertising problems only _after_ the disks had failed, repeating "reliable" till disaster. The OSes log were more helpful since the read and write errors were reported (corrected) days or even weeks before the disks became useless---and fortunately, I relied on this information to swap data. -- Thierry Laronde http://www.kergis.com/ http://www.sbfa.fr/ Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C
