John Andersen wrote:
> Huge overwrought rant snipped...
>
> Now lets suppose it was a power supply, or a memory module.
> What then?
>
> If this machine is so sensitive
---
You seem to be really scared of some bogeyman that doesn't
exist. Who are you writing to or about? I never said anything
about a sensitive machine. If my desktop was to go out randomly for
a day or weeks due to attempts to make a "complete" upgrade work,
it wouldn't be acceptable either.
> If this machine can't be taken off line
Another bogeyman -- no one said the machine couldn't be
taken offline for a kernel reboot or hardware upgrade.
I asked a hard technical question, maybe that triggered
your way-off-base rant: If the kernel of an Operating system can
be replaced while running, then what possible program above the kernel can't be
hot-upgraded (i.e. without taking the machine down).
If there is any rant, maybe this is it. When Windows 95, 98
and ME came out -- it was a running source of amusement about how primitive
Windows was because it required rebooting on not, just
OS updates, but even user-level software. Among unix users,
it was considered a primitive throw-back -- because unix users
never got a "Permission Denied" message when deleting or renaming a
file they had access to. It's long been a bug-a-boo on Windows; not
being able to delete "in-use" files -- making updates famously
difficult!
It's A BUG!!! Not a feature!
If you weren't installing a kernel, changing hardware or reformatting the
system disk, you didn't need to reboot.
Then along unix's and linux's on the PC. On PC's people were
"used" to the need to reboot when installing software. So for some
reason, most of the PC-*nix distributions unconsciously(?) leaned toward
Microsoft as a model for how to do things on the PC. Unfortunately,
instead of bringing unix ways to the PC ("we don't need no stinkin'
reboots for no userspace-update badges"), MS seduced them unto the
dumb side of software updating. :-( ( :-))
> why don't you have a hot spare?
---
How does a hot spare allow upgrading a few (or one) package at a time on a live
machine to see how it runs with your live configuration?
Or how does it help upgrading, testing and verifying one package
or one package group at a time? How can one consider it more
user-friendly to force users into a full update rather than allowing
incremental upgrades of only the packages they need? Why
replace everything if most of everything is working? Why not just
add or replace the one new package you are interested in?
But maybe most important: How does install a hot-spare while logged in
*remotely* (as mentioned in the base-note) over ssh?
> You want to go from 9.3 to 10.3, seamlessly, on a machine that
> (by all accounts) hasn't been down for more then a heartbeat
> since 9.3!?!
----
Seemlessly? Hasn't been down since 9.3? Oh no! More scary bogeymen!! Dude,
chill out, pop a reality pill. Those are your personal
demons and projections. I think the longest thisi machine has been up,
non-interrupted, has been around 8 months. At the very least, there are
kernel's that come out and need to be upgraded to. But even in the
kernel world, responsible software (kernel) engineers are addressing
that problem. They aren't ranting about users not wanting to
have to be down for software updates -- they are going one better --
kernel replacement with out reboots!
I'll say it again -- the only software that was famously known for
requiring reboots for user-level software was Windows 95 and 98.
That's not a standard to strive for.
> Why? What ever for? [go from 9.3 to 10.3]
---
Why not? If I can do it one package at a time and not
experience any downtime, It might go better with the usually,
shiny new kernels that come out regularly w/better hardware
support, more efficient algorithms, etc. Or are you trying
to make the case that there are no improvements in 10.3 vs. 9.3
worth upgrading for?
If I find a bug in a software program, wouldn't it be more
productive to report that bug against 10.3? Do you think
reporting a bug against 9.3 would even be accepted, let alone
useful?
> If its not broke, don't fix it.
---
Not a bad sentiment, but this is the computer industry.
You either move ahead, or get left behind. Take your pick. I
choose to move ahead -- on my schedule when its convenient for
me. You seem to feel that one should be a slave to the Distro's
schedule and jump on every update in the prescribed manner. How
quaint. In the real world, business schedules or practices don't
and shouldn't be forced to revolve around a distro maker's release
schedule.
> Prepare its replacement, but leave it the hell alone, and don't try
> upgrading in place across a compiler change, 3 (or was it 4) kernel
> changes, disk driver changes, USB changes, etc, etc, etc.
----
??? Why not? It's a great machine -- the hardware started
with P-II/450's, but allowed upgrading to dual P-III/1G -- why
I upgrade hardware and software to squeeze a longer life out
of the HW? That's what linux does! It might not be sufficient for
a state-of-the-art desktop, but for a disk-server....she's doing
great! From 7.2KATA to 15K-SCSI driven, with over a Terabyte of
PATA space and a SATA controller& drive waiting in the wings. If I
don't upgrade the software, how will I support the newer hardware?
Even the network -- from built-in 100Mb (now disabled), to running
a dual 1Gb -- it's been tuned to serve up disk material faster
than many laptop drives through the early "aught's".
> You've already waited TOO LONG to be ranting at others for poor
> planning or weak upgrade abilities.
---
Too late -- to want good software? Yeah...but "ranting at
others" about it? Dude, it's your veins that are poppin' off your
head. Cut back on the testosterone pills and reread my original
note. There's no rant.
> You're the one in trouble here, do to your own mismanagement and
> absence of planning. Try to remember the 6 Ps:
> Prior Planning Prevents Piss Pour Performance.
----
I think you're focused on the one "P": preaching. You
seem to have a need to create crises where there are none, so you
can get up on a soap-box and self-aggrandize while tilting at
windmills (and bogeymen).
I am in no trouble (at least not related to hardware
upgrades...:-), and there has been no mismanagement.
Quite the opposite. There has been deliberate planning *NOT* to
upgrade every to every new release due based on stability concerns.
You are either incredibly naive or sadistic if you think people
should be on the "alpha-test-train" by being the first on their
blocks to upgrade to each new version. Sorry dude, but 10.0
sucked. So did 10.1. 10.2 at least "worked" but wasn't a net
benefit over 9.3. 10.3 is the first version that was stable
enough to warrant an upgrade consideration (and about time, had
been concerned about the future of promoting SuSE as a best-of-
breed linux, as I've done since my trying it in the 7.x time
frame.
In case you hadn't noticed, customers aren't leaping
to install Vista over the top of XP, either -- because XP is
_still_ a superior product in nearly every respect. Customers
should be allowed to upgrade on their schedule -- not yours, and
not the OS-manufacturer's. Congress should pass a law requiring
a release of sources for widely used, manufacturer-abandoned software.
It's potentially a country-wide IT infrastructure stability and
productivity issue. The customers should be allowed to do their
own planning rather than living by some externally imposed event --
especially in a slowing economy, where software 'giants' may try
to squeeze income out of customers who's businesses would be better
off staying put for the time being.
I've wasted too much time indulging your created
bogeyman foolishness. There is no hardware crisis or
"can't be down" crisis -- you made those up in response to what
I can only assume are your personal "issues". My only preference
is for software-updates not requiring a machine's unnecessary
downtime.
It's not like it can't be done -- and has not already been
done by me scores of times before and hundreds of others of computer
scientists managing their own hardware. It may not be your
idea of standard "IT" practice for the non-computer literate masses,
but that's not me.
Go back and reread the base note. I asked if anyone else
did what I did and if there were already tools to do or assist in
what I was doing.
I was asking if anyone else who did as I did might find
such tools useful... and that I had begun work on some of my own
helper-scripts to help me do some of the 'research' leg-work
needed with such upgrades.
As for conflicting versions of compiler and glib versions --
EVEN WINDOWS XP in 2001 supported side-by-side dynamic linking with
different versions of libraries in memory at the same time for
different applications. And where is linux in this "ease of use
issue?"
I mention in passing that I find the Distro support for
updates to be poor -- only supporting upgrades from the immediately
previous version (even MS doesn't stoop so low these days), and
forcing a user to take a computer "off-line" and be physically
present to shuffle DVD's, CD's or floppies -- PC-console only
maintenance was (is) a BAD feature of PC-based software. Remote
system administration (including software updates), was long
considered a strength of Unix...to remind people of that is
a *good thing*. Linux should be able to be managed (and
updated) remotely. If it can't, it's little better than
Windows management.
While a windows admin can effectively admin ~20-30 machines
in their domain, a unix or linux admin can as easily deal with 2-3x
as many due to remote administration. Being forced to walk around
to each computer and take it offline to babysit offline-updates is
a major step backwards.
The main issues here are being able to do selective package
updates, as a way of upgrading a machine "over time", remotely, vs.
taking it down and forcing me to babysit a computer install process.
The computer is there to serve ME, not the other way around. How
long have you been in submission to the tyranny of the server or the
distro update? I wonder if this is a good basis for another
IBM Blade server commercial....the overweight Dilbertian manager type is
all apoplectic about his servers' requirements and doing things
when the servers' tell him to...when they say jump, when their
Distro vendors say jump...etc. Get off the Distro-Beta treadmill.
Upgrade when *you* want to and when it's right for your business.
Hmmm...maybe I should try my hand at writing ad-copy in my
spare time... :-)
-l
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