• For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your flavor?

    From DaiTengu@VERT/ENSEMBLE to Accession on Fri Jun 7 20:25:03 2024
    Re: For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your flavor?
    By: Accession to DaiTengu on Fri Jun 07 2024 07:11 pm

    Meh, I've been using Gentoo for probably 20 years at this point. It has
    its quirks, but no distro has taught me more than Gentoo has.

    I used it for about 5 years when I first started. I actually _chose_ to use it when I wanted to learn and transition to Linux. Boy was I a glutton for punishment, back then.

    However, I agree with you there, as far as no distro has taught me more than Gentoo, also. All the sleepless nights fixing what 'emerge -avuDN world" did to me after compiling all night (and sometimes half of the next day, too) to install and/or upgrade packages. :)

    Fun fact, Gentoo now offers binary packages. This is a thing they did recently.

    one of my co-workers also runs Gentoo, but he's a bit more insane than I am. he just did an update with the latest profile and it completely hosed his system.

    I'm still running a Gentoo profile from 2017 I think. I got a notification the other day that I need to update my profile to something newer, but you better believe I'll be using some kind of clonedisk or something first just in case :D

    DaiTengu

    ...Death is hereditary

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  • From Accession@VERT/PHARCYDE to DaiTengu on Sat Jun 8 07:52:56 2024
    On Sat, 8 Jun 2024 01:14:34 -0500, you wrote:

    Yeah, basically. The rage over it is from enterprise customers.
    CentOS stood for "Community Enterprise Operating System". It's entire focus was around stability, and moving upstream of RHEL potentially
    reduces some of that stability.

    All of this is has been a worry for XCP-ng users as well, apparantly. I had installed it on Virtualbox to test it out recently, and had read a lot of articles where the developers were swearing up and down that while they were using some upstream CentOS stuff, they were still basically running their own OS, and could pick and choose what went into their updates to keep it stable. However, I'm sure it still kept (and is keeping) current and possible future users of it on their toes.

    That doesn't mean things can't be upgraded. There are many official,
    and even more unofficial repositories that install newer versions of programs, but users potentially sacrifice stability when that's done.

    "Stability" has come a LONG way in the last, say 10 years, though. Even rolling distributions are doing more behind the scenes testing before pushing things through. At least that seems to be my experience with Arch. As I said before, I've been live updating my server, rebooting into a new kernel, etc. whenever I feel like it since I re-installed it in 2017. Speaking of which, looks like linux-6.9.3.arch1-1 is out, so time for another. :)

    There may have been a couple times over those years, where after updates there would be a note saying something didn't work with some version of something else, so I had to head to the forums and figure out what to do to undo it (which wasn't a big deal at all). Then keep an eye out and/or wait like a week for the fix to be pushed, and re-update. Never had any breakage or downtime, though.

    Definitely had *way* more breakage and downtime with Gentoo, but that was probably 10-15 years ago. It has probably gotten a lot better since then. However, my Gentoo days are over. I'd rather spend my free time working on the BBS stuff, or testing new packages, etc.. than battle my OS for some time to do all that.

    Regards,
    Nick

    ... Take my advice, I don't use it anyway.
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  • From Accession@VERT/PHARCYDE to DaiTengu on Sat Jun 8 08:04:28 2024
    On Sat, 8 Jun 2024 01:25:02 -0500, you wrote:

    Fun fact, Gentoo now offers binary packages. This is a thing they did recently.

    I take it you mean, "officially", or something? I remember there being side projects that tried to introduce it, especially when Sabayon Linux was popular. But to be honest, Gentoo is Gentoo. Binary packages kind of defeats the entire purpose and meaning of Gentoo. :)

    one of my co-workers also runs Gentoo, but he's a bit more insane than
    I am. he just did an update with the latest profile and it completely
    hosed his system.

    For some reason, I'm starting to have a case of deja vu. lol

    I'm still running a Gentoo profile from 2017 I think. I got a
    notification the other day that I need to update my profile to something newer, but you better believe I'll be using some kind of clonedisk or something first just in case :D

    Even back when I used Gentoo, *most* of the normal stuff was usually fine, and wouldn't break your system. It usually wasn't until you had X and whatever desktop environment of your choice installed where your graphics drivers needed to be re-installed a certain specific way or everything was trashed. Then you would have to go through and make sure every trace of the old driver was gone, in order to maybe successfully install the new one.

    It was a pain in the ass, but that was across all distros at that time. However, definitely worse off for the Ubuntu kids that couldn't log into their systems because of their login managers (mostly just because of lack of know-how). Ah, those were the days. :)

    Regards,
    Nick

    ... Take my advice, I don't use it anyway.
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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to Nightfox on Sun Jun 9 16:06:49 2024
    Re: For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your flavor?
    By: Nightfox to DaiTengu on Fri Jun 07 2024 10:02 am

    Ah, I've heard something about that. I had the impression that CentOS as we know it will be discontinued. Wikipedia even says CentOS is a "discontinued Linux distribution". It sounds like CentOS Stream won't be much different than the current CentOS?

    It seems to me that IBM/Red Hat wanted to offer a free-tier RHEL that wasn't a real clone (such as CentOS used to be). The existence of a free RHEL is something that generates lots of indirect business and free marketing, but I bet they could not allow the free alternative to be a 1:1 clone.

    CentOS Stream is a bit like a RHEL "Debian" Testing offered free of charge. If you just want to try the distribution or are a non-enterprise customer you can get the non-production ready code and roll with it for free. If you want to run the production-ready version you buy RHEL. It is the same business model Proxmox is based on, actually. The only problem is IBM/Red Hat is quite ineffective at preventing the creation of additional 1:1 clones of their flagship distro.


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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to Accession on Sun Jun 9 16:14:16 2024
    Re: For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your flavor?
    By: Accession to DaiTengu on Sat Jun 08 2024 08:04 am

    Fun fact, Gentoo now offers binary packages. This is a thing they did recently.

    I take it you mean, "officially", or something? I remember there being side projects that tried to introduce it, especially when Sabayon Linux was popular. But to be honest, Gentoo is Gentoo. Binary packages kind of defeats the entire purpose and meaning of Gentoo. :)

    Distributions and Operating Systems that have an integrated way of dealing with both binary packages and source ports are the best man-made thing ever, I swear .

    One of the reasons why I think the BSDs rock is precisely because you can install binary packages if you are in a hurry, but if you want to install something after adding a custom patch yourself or do some nifty tricks, you can use the ports trees and build a package (with its dependencies) tailored to your system.

    In fact, one of the big pluses of Slackware is that it has ports-like tools that allow you to build your stuff as you see fit without needing to go the wacko-crazy way of building absolutely everything from the ground up :-p


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  • From Accession@VERT/PHARCYDE to Arelor on Sun Jun 9 18:59:00 2024
    Hello Arelor,

    On Sun, Jun 09 2024 21:14:16 -0500, you wrote:

    One of the reasons why I think the BSDs rock is precisely because you
    can install binary packages if you are in a hurry, but if you want to install something after adding a custom patch yourself or do some nifty tricks, you can use the ports trees and build a package (with its dependencies) tailored to your system.

    I usually do non-distro related compiles and custom patching on stuff I install to a src directory straight from github. If I'm using 'pkg install' on BSD, or 'pacman -S' on Arch, I usually tend to stick with that route. Not sure how it is these days, but I would assume mixing the two could lead to dependency issues or whatever else.

    In fact, one of the big pluses of Slackware is that it has ports-like
    tools that allow you to build your stuff as you see fit without needing
    to go the wacko-crazy way of building absolutely everything from the
    ground up :-p

    If you have the time to spend on your distro, by all means go ahead and compile everything. However, I don't. :)

    Regards,
    Nick

    ... Take my advice, I don't use it anyway.
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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to Accession on Thu Jun 13 06:55:43 2024
    Re: For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your flavor?
    By: Accession to Arelor on Sun Jun 09 2024 06:59 pm

    I usually do non-distro related compiles and custom patching on stuff I install to a src directory straight from github. If I'm using 'pkg install' on BSD, or 'pacman -S' on Arch, I usually tend to stick with that route. Not sure how it is these days, but I would assume mixing the two could lead to dependency issues or whatever else.


    On OpenBSD -stable you are very unlikely to break dependencies by mixing packages and ports as long as you don't mess with core libraries. If you mess with core libraries you can actually survive anyway because it will only break stuff if you make api/abi breaking changes.

    On -current it is a different matter entirely, because stuff changes all the time.
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  • From nelgin@VERT/EOTLBBS to Gamgee on Wed Jun 26 19:48:26 2024
    On Wed, 5 Jun 2024 19:25:23 -0500
    "Gamgee" (VERT/PALANTIR) <VERT/PALANTIR!Gamgee@endofthelinebbs.com>
    wrote:

    1: Ubuntu
    2: Debian
    3: A Debian variant (Mint/MX/other)
    4: Redhat/CentOS/Fedora
    5: Suse and variants
    6: Slackware
    7: Arch and variants
    8: One of the BSDs
    9: AIX/Solaris/HP-UX ;-)
    10: Something else

    Ubuntu, it just works. Everyone should use it.
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  • From DaiTengu@VERT/ENSEMBLE to nelgin on Wed Jun 26 23:45:53 2024
    Re: Re: For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your flavor?
    By: nelgin to Gamgee on Wed Jun 26 2024 07:48 pm

    Ubuntu, it just works. Everyone should use it. --

    Ubuntu works, poorly. It's a bit bloated and you're forced into using quite a few things. It's the Linux version of OSX.

    Performance on older hardware can be problematic, and there are far better distros out there that don't suck up precious memory and/or CPU cycles that are needed elsewhere.

    ...RAM = Rarely Adequate Memory

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  • From Gamgee@VERT/PALANTIR to nelgin on Thu Jun 27 07:35:00 2024
    nelgin wrote to Gamgee <=-

    On Wed, 5 Jun 2024 19:25:23 -0500
    "Gamgee" (VERT/PALANTIR)
    <VERT/PALANTIR!Gamgee@endofthelinebbs.com> wrote:

    1: Ubuntu
    2: Debian
    3: A Debian variant (Mint/MX/other)
    4: Redhat/CentOS/Fedora
    5: Suse and variants
    6: Slackware
    7: Arch and variants
    8: One of the BSDs
    9: AIX/Solaris/HP-UX ;-)
    10: Something else

    Ubuntu, it just works. Everyone should use it.

    Well.... it works for some. Certainly not everyone. :-)



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  • From Gamgee@VERT/PALANTIR to DaiTengu on Thu Jun 27 07:37:00 2024
    DaiTengu wrote to nelgin <=-

    Re: Re: For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your
    flavor?
    By: nelgin to Gamgee on Wed Jun 26 2024 07:48 pm

    Ubuntu, it just works. Everyone should use it.

    Ubuntu works, poorly. It's a bit bloated and you're forced into
    using quite a few things. It's the Linux version of OSX.

    It's very bloated, and I might even up that ante and say it's the Linux version of <cough> Windows.

    Performance on older hardware can be problematic, and there are
    far better distros out there that don't suck up precious memory
    and/or CPU cycles that are needed elsewhere.

    100%.



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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Gamgee on Thu Jun 27 09:03:41 2024
    Re: Re: For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your flavor?
    By: Gamgee to DaiTengu on Thu Jun 27 2024 07:37 am

    Ubuntu, it just works. Everyone should use it.

    Ubuntu works, poorly. It's a bit bloated and you're forced into using
    quite a few things. It's the Linux version of OSX.

    It's very bloated, and I might even up that ante and say it's the Linux version of <cough> Windows.

    And suggesting that "everyone should use it" seems a bit odd. There are a lot of Linux distros, and Ubuntu isn't the only one that Synchronet works well with.

    Nightfox

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  • From Accession@VERT/PHARCYDE to Nightfox on Fri Jun 28 18:25:11 2024
    On Thu, 27 Jun 2024 09:03:41 -0700, you wrote:

    And suggesting that "everyone should use it" seems a bit odd. There
    are a lot of Linux distros, and Ubuntu isn't the only one that
    Synchronet works well with.

    Besides that, there's not many linux distros that Synchronet *doesn't*
    work well with. :)

    Regards,
    Nick

    ... Take my advice, I don't use it anyway.
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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to nelgin on Sun Jun 30 17:40:07 2024
    Re: Re: For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your flavor?
    By: nelgin to Gamgee on Wed Jun 26 2024 07:48 pm

    Ubuntu, it just works. Everyone should use it.

    I got an Ubuntu Bulgie DVD with Linux Magazine and, while it actually brings something new to the table, it doesn't feel very Linuxy to me. It certainly took more time for me to set it up as I liked than, say Devuan. Part of the issue I have with Ubuntu is that at this point they are trying very hard for everything to be a Snap.


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  • From MRO@VERT/BBSESINF to Arelor on Sun Jun 30 19:30:44 2024
    Re: Re: For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your flavor?
    By: Arelor to nelgin on Sun Jun 30 2024 05:40 pm

    Re: Re: For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your flavor?
    By: nelgin to Gamgee on Wed Jun 26 2024 07:48 pm

    Ubuntu, it just works. Everyone should use it.

    I got an Ubuntu Bulgie DVD with Linux Magazine and, while it actually

    brings
    something new to the table, it doesn't feel very Linuxy to me. It certainly took more time for me to set it up as I liked than, say Devuan. Part of the issue I have with Ubuntu is that at this point they are trying very hard for everything to be a Snap.

    when was this? wasn't linux magazine done in the 2000s? or is linux magazine back?

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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANTIR to MRO on Mon Jul 1 05:02:06 2024
    Re: Re: For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your flavor?
    By: MRO to Arelor on Sun Jun 30 2024 07:30 pm

    when was this? wasn't linux magazine done in the 2000s? or is linux magazine back?

    Dude, Linux New Media had not stopped paying me last time I checked :-P

    Linux Journal crashed and burned around 2010 or so. Linux Voice sold itself to Linux New Media to avoid bankrupcy maybe two or three years ago. Linux Magazine still marches quite strong because we are borging all the failed magazines in.


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  • From Prowler@VERT/PROWLER to Nightfox on Mon Jul 29 09:03:03 2024
    Re: Re: For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your flavor?
    By: Nightfox to Gamgee on Fri Jun 07 2024 03:27 pm

    Re: Re: For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your flavor?
    By: Gamgee to fusion on Fri Jun 07 2024 01:34 pm

    I never got aboard the OS/2 train. Straight from DOS to Win, and eventually Linux.

    I went from DOS to Windows too, but in 1996 I experimented a bit with OS/2 because I was curious about it. I could definitely see how it would have been nice to run a BBS in OS/2 (even a DOS BBS). I had also played a bit with Ray Gwinn's SIO drivers, which allowed telnet access to a virtual serial port.. I tried setting up a copy of RemoteAccess (BBS software for DOS) with those SIO drivers and was impressed that I could successfully telnet into it. I also looked into an OS/2-native BBS package that I thought looked interesting (AdeptXBBS) but never actually used it to run a BBS.

    By that time though, Windows was the main OS I was using, and OS/2 was on its way out, with not much software being made for it.

    Nightfox


    Your post really resonated with me. I really had big hopes for OS/2. While serving in the Navy we used Windows NT Server and Workstation primarily but OS/2 Warp made it's way into our internal network for managing building security (badging, door sensors, alarms). I wanted to run BBS's on OS/2 but ended up using Windows instead. It's so nice now to have so many options all the way from CP/M and DOS all the way to Raspian, Debian, and some really cool distros. I've even got Mint installed on a spare laptop which is pretty decent and gives Ubuntu a run for it's money from a desktop perspective.

    Prowler (Tom)

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  • From Prowler@VERT/PROWLER to Accession on Mon Jul 29 09:06:12 2024
    Re: For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your flavor?
    By: Accession to Nightfox on Fri Jun 07 2024 06:54 pm

    On Thu, 6 Jun 2024 23:52:10 -0700, you wrote:

    I may give CentOS a try one of these days as I've always heard great
    things about it, but my servers will most likely always run Arch.

    Considering CentOS is being end-of-lifed soon (as of June 30), there probably isn't much point in trying it now.

    CentOS 8's EOL is soon. CentOS 9 has just begun. :)

    Regards,
    Nick

    ... Take my advice, I don't use it anyway.
    I ran CentOS for a long time in a datacenter environment for headless servers. It was really just an alternative to RHEL at the time and I never regretted it from a security and ease-of-use standpoint. It's been a few years now since I've used it, but I'll have to check out 9.

    Prowler (Tom)

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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Prowler on Mon Jul 29 09:34:30 2024
    Re: Re: For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your flavor?
    By: Prowler to Nightfox on Mon Jul 29 2024 09:03 am

    Your post really resonated with me. I really had big hopes for OS/2. While serving in the Navy we used Windows NT Server and Workstation primarily but OS/2 Warp made it's way into our internal network for managing building security (badging, door sensors, alarms). I wanted to

    That's cool that there was some use of OS/2 there.

    run BBS's on OS/2 but ended up using Windows instead. It's so nice now to have so many options all the way from CP/M and DOS all the way to Raspian, Debian, and some really cool distros. I've even got Mint installed on a spare laptop which is pretty decent and gives Ubuntu a run for it's money from a desktop perspective.

    Yeah, I like the options we have today. And although I think it would have been nice to see things like OS/2 and Amiga continue on, we can at least run those through emulation and virtual machines.

    Nightfox

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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@VERT/REALITY to Prowler on Mon Jul 29 09:48:56 2024
    Re: Re: For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your flavor?
    By: Prowler to Nightfox on Mon Jul 29 2024 09:03 am

    I never got aboard the OS/2 train. Straight from DOS to Win, and
    eventually Linux.

    I was all-in for quite some time. Worked with OS/2 1.2 and 1.3 in a IBM AS/400 and Lan Manager environment, then 2.0, then Warp 3 working with Netware - and then Windows NT 3.51 came out and it just *worked*.

    Ran the BBS under OS/2 Warp 3 for a couple of years, loved that I could have a mailer, busy BBS and all the utilities running in an OS/2 console in the background of my desktop and not even notice it was there.



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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Jul 29 13:51:51 2024
    Re: Re: For you SBBS Sysops operating on *NIX, what's your flavor?
    By: poindexter FORTRAN to Prowler on Mon Jul 29 2024 09:48 am

    I was all-in for quite some time. Worked with OS/2 1.2 and 1.3 in a IBM AS/400 and Lan Manager environment, then 2.0, then Warp 3 working with Netware - and then Windows NT 3.51 came out and it just *worked*.

    Ran the BBS under OS/2 Warp 3 for a couple of years, loved that I could have a mailer, busy BBS and all the utilities running in an OS/2 console in the background of my desktop and not even notice it was there.

    I feel like I may have missed the heyday of OS/2, which seems to have been the early 90s. My first computer, in 1992, was a hand-me-down 286 and I wasn't old enough to get a job yet - and I didn't get my first job until 1996, so in the meantime I don't think I had a PC that was really up to running OS/2. Before I got my first job and bought my own parts for a new PC, the fastest PC I had was a 386DX-40, which I think could have ran OS/2, but I don't think I had enough RAM (I think I had 4MB max at the time) and maybe not enough hard drive space either.

    Around 1994 or 1995, I bought a used copy of OS/2 Warp 3 at a used software store in my area (before they closed, I think due to legal reasons), and it was on floppies, and many of the floppies were bad.. Later (1996 or 1997), I bought a new sealed copy of OS/2 Warp 4 from my local Egghead Software (and I wondered if spending the $120 on it would be worth it), and I had my PC in a dual-boot setup with that and Windows for a little while. I think one of the things I tried that I thought was really cool was using Ray Gwinn's SIO driver for OS/2 to make my DOS-based RemoteAccess telnettable. But I only did that as an experiment; I continued running my DOS BBS in DOS/Desqview (and later Windows).

    Nightfox

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