Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
On 11 Oct 2005, at 1:33 pm, Thimo Neubauer wrote: Ok, that would perfectly match goedel (also dual, also 4G) :-) One question though: the Symbios Logic 53c895 SCSI-controller in goedel acts weird in SMP mode (tried some 2.4 and 2.6 kernels) which is why the machine runs in single CPU mode all the time. Does it work for you? We don't currently run Linux on any of the larger servers, so I haven't had any experience of that yet. Certainly haven't had any trouble on DS10Ls, which are the largest machine I have yet tried. Judging by the SRM show config output, this machine does not use that SCSI controller, but has dual QLogic controllers: P00show config GCS1A SRM Console:V6.0-8 PALcode:OpenVMS PALcode V1.92-73, Tru64 UNIX PALcode V1.87-69 Processors CPU 0 Alpha EV67 pass 2.6 500 MHz SROM Revision: V1.82 Bcache size: 4 MB CPU 1 Alpha EV67 pass 2.6 500 MHz SROM Revision: V1.82 Bcache size: 4 MB Core Logic Cchip DECchip 21272-CA Rev 2.1 Dchip DECchip 21272-DA Rev 2.0 Pchip 0 DECchip 21272-EA Rev 2.2 Pchip 1 DECchip 21272-EA Rev 2.2 TIG Rev 4.14 Arbiter Rev 2.10 (0x1) MEMORY Array # Size Base Addr ----- - 0 1024 MB0 1 1024 MB04000 Total Bad Pages = 0 Total Good Memory = 2048 MBytes PCI Hose 00 Bus 00 Slot 05/0: Cypress 82C693 Bridge to Bus 1, ISA Bus 00 Slot 05/1: Cypress 82C693 IDE dqa.0.0.105.0 Bus 00 Slot 05/2: Cypress 82C693 IDE dqb.0.1.205.0 Bus 00 Slot 05/3: Cypress 82C693 USB Bus 00 Slot 07: DAPBA-UA ATM155 UTP Bus 00 Slot 08: QLogic ISP10x0 pkb0.7.0.8.0 SCSI Bus ID 7 dkb0.0.0.8.0 RZ1CF-CF dkb100.1.0.8.0 RZ1CF-CF dkb600.6.0.8.0 COMPAQ BA03611C9B mkb300.3.0.8.0 COMPAQ SDX-300C Bus 00 Slot 09: DEC PCI MC mcb0.0.0.9.0 Rev: 22, mcb0 PCI Hose 01 Bus 00 Slot 07: DEC PCI MC mca0.0.0.7.1 Rev: 22, mca0 Bus 00 Slot 08: KGPSA-B pga0.0.0.8.1 WWN 2000--c921-4 dga11.1001.0.8.1 HSG80 dga11.1002.0.8.1 HSG80 dga11.1003.0.8.1 HSG80 dga11.1004.0.8.1 HSG80 Bus 00 Slot 09: QLogic ISP10x0 pka0.7.0.9.1 SCSI Bus ID 7 dka500.5.0.9.1 RRD47 The KGPSA and Memory Channel controllers will not be there when Debian gets the machine (or at least won't be connected to anything - we don't want to keep the HSG80 arrays going, the maintenance is too expensive -- I'd probably use software RAID1 on internal disks instead) Or do you have a different controller? OK, I've double checked with the boss. We're decommissioning an 8- node DS20E Tru64 cluster this week, and he's happy for us to have one of the machines. This will be a dual-CPU 500 MHz EV67 machine with 2GB RAM (not quite what I was hoping for, but hopefully good enough). I hopefully can grab some of the RAM out of one of the others to beef up the new Debian machine. Within a few months he says we can replace it with a quad CPU ES45 once those clusters are decommissioned, which will be 1GHz CPUs at least, and depending on which machine we get, could have anything from 4-16 GB memory. Ok, so I guess that your offer fits all conditions so I'd say that we have a new local buildd admin :-) Any objection? Nope. Got boss approval, and there are three DD's in our systems team (myself, Dave Holland and Simon Kelley) who will be happy to do any console stuff that might be required. Please speak The next steps for the machine to become a buildd would be: * send debian-admin a mail that you're preparing a new machine as a buildd so that we can qualify for etch. Ask, who of the admins would like to get a superuser login. OK, I'll do that today. * install a fresh Sarge on the box, best with no real user so there won't be UID clashes Fair enough. * on goedel and escher there are adminloginR-accounts with uid 0 so that the Debian Admins can do whatever they want and you can keep being root. If they tell you who will care for the start (I guess that'll be Joey) send him a GPG-crypted password * wait for a while (can be weeks) :-) It'll be at least a week for us to install the
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
On 9 Oct 2005, at 5:27 pm, Thimo Neubauer wrote: On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 11:04:40PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: Here are the things that are taken into consideration when the DSA folks evaluate a new buildd offer: - local admin is a DD (or other known quantity) who knows the architecture *and* is available when maintenance is needed - the type of machine -- proc speed, bus speed, disk capacity, memory, and whether the hardware is of a class that can actually handle sustained uptimes as expected A bit more detail about that: one CPU of a DS20E with lots of RAM is enough to keep up with building. I guess another machine of about this strength would be perfect. If we provide a DS20, it will be dual CPU, and will probably have 4 GB of RAM or more. Tim -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 10:26:18AM +0100, Tim Cutts wrote: On 9 Oct 2005, at 5:27 pm, Thimo Neubauer wrote: On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 11:04:40PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: Here are the things that are taken into consideration when the DSA folks evaluate a new buildd offer: - local admin is a DD (or other known quantity) who knows the architecture *and* is available when maintenance is needed - the type of machine -- proc speed, bus speed, disk capacity, memory, and whether the hardware is of a class that can actually handle sustained uptimes as expected A bit more detail about that: one CPU of a DS20E with lots of RAM is enough to keep up with building. I guess another machine of about this strength would be perfect. If we provide a DS20, it will be dual CPU, and will probably have 4 GB of RAM or more. Ok, that would perfectly match goedel (also dual, also 4G) :-) One question though: the Symbios Logic 53c895 SCSI-controller in goedel acts weird in SMP mode (tried some 2.4 and 2.6 kernels) which is why the machine runs in single CPU mode all the time. Does it work for you? Or do you have a different controller? Ok, so I guess that your offer fits all conditions so I'd say that we have a new local buildd admin :-) Any objection? Please speak The next steps for the machine to become a buildd would be: * send debian-admin a mail that you're preparing a new machine as a buildd so that we can qualify for etch. Ask, who of the admins would like to get a superuser login. * install a fresh Sarge on the box, best with no real user so there won't be UID clashes * on goedel and escher there are adminloginR-accounts with uid 0 so that the Debian Admins can do whatever they want and you can keep being root. If they tell you who will care for the start (I guess that'll be Joey) send him a GPG-crypted password * wait for a while (can be weeks) You can of course choose a name but I'd recommend bach. First, it definitely fits the original naming scheme http://people.debian.org/~joey/misc/naming.html of classical composers (including baroque, romantics and impressionists) of choir music and secondly the Alpha machines would form the Goedel, Escher, Bach-triple[1] :-) Cheers Thimo [1] from the very good book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
At 08:15 PM 10/10/2005, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 10 Oct 2005, Rob B wrote: At 03:40 AM 9/10/2005, Falk Hueffner wrote: Hi, following hppa and ia64, I've started a wiki page to start collecting info for the Alpha requalification for etch: http://wiki.debian.org/alphaEtchReleaseRecertification AFAICS, all criteria but two are given: * More developers need to certify in that they're activly developing on this architecture. * There needs to be another buildd. There have been numerous offers in the past. I have no idea what to do to actually make it happen. Please feel free to add to the wiki page, especially on these two points. It would also be nice if more people could install popularity-contest, so that we get a clearer picture on the number of users. Gee, if CPU is an issue there is an 8400 on ebay at the moment for AUD$80 ... 20 min to go :) Unfortunately the 8400 can't run linux because it's PCI architecture isn't supported. Otherwise I would have kept mine :( Bugger .. at AUD$102 it would have been a steal. Rob PS: been a while since I ran Linux on Alpha - switched to FreeBSD a few years ago -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
Hello, On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 02:33:18PM +0200, Thimo Neubauer wrote: You can of course choose a name but I'd recommend bach. First, it definitely fits the original naming scheme http://people.debian.org/~joey/misc/naming.html of classical composers (including baroque, romantics and impressionists) of choir music and secondly the Alpha machines would form the Goedel, Escher, Bach-triple[1] :-) [1] from the very good book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter Second (both statements). That would be great! Greetings Helge -- Dr. Helge Kreutzmann, Dipl.-Phys. [EMAIL PROTECTED] gpg signed mail preferred 64bit GNU powered http://www.itp.uni-hannover.de/~kreutzm Help keep free software libre: http://www.ffii.de/ pgpnLXFmW37kq.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
Hi, Am 09.10.2005 um 22:38 schrieb Ken Raeburn: I've never paid much attention to what goes into the buildd system, so these may be very naive questions, but I'm curious: Why is so much attention required? Is it for stuff that can't be automated, or just hasn't been? (Aside from the really obvious, like hardware issues.) From my point of view it's less about constant care (security updates) than fast response time. If a severe kernel exploit is found James Troup deactivates the logins and drops you a note that a new kernel is needed. A couple of days until the upgrade are ok, but it shouldn't take weeks. The building as such is fully automatic, Ryan Murray will care about that. Can multiple, lower-powered machines help? I'll probably be getting my hands on another alpha system soon, a 400AU I think, but it sounds like that may not be fast enough? One extra high power Alpha would definitely be easier to maintain :) (I've also got spare cycles on another alpha-linux box, and if we had an Alpha equivalent to Xen, I could spare cycles from my alpha- netbsd box too.) No GS320s on the horizon for me. I can't tell you anything about running a buildd on a private machine, but in order to get redundancy we'd need a second Alpha which can do security builds... and the security team wouldn't like that to be on a private machine :-) I'd like to help out, but don't have the biggest amount of resources to contribute, nor lots of my time on an ongoing basis, so it never sounds like it's worth getting into it. But if I it were just a matter of oh, we wedged the machine again, please hit the reset button and boot off the Buildd Live CD when you get a chance so you can rejoin the build cluster, then I'd probably pursue it I had to promise my new employer that maintaining the build machines wouldn't take too much of my work time and I had no difficulties doing that. It's a bit more than pressing reset (especially if new exploits appear...) but otherwise not much after the initial installation. Maybe you could care about a donated high power alpha if Steve picks one? Cheers Thimo -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: popcon ? Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
On Sun, Oct 09, 2005 at 06:06:15PM -0700, Bill Ricker wrote: --- Steve Langasek [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: FWIW, exceedingly unlikely ... is wishy-washy. So if you're on the list, Yes run Debian on an alpha today, Yes and haven't installed popularity-contest yet, please stand up now and be counted. :) apt-get install popularity-contest reports Package popularity-contest is not available, but is referred to by another package. Is there a special repository needed? Nope. My Alphas are still on Woody, $ madison popularity-contest popularity-contest |1.3-1.1 | oldstable | source, all popularity-contest | 1.28 |stable | source, all popularity-contest | 1.31 | testing | source, all popularity-contest | 1.31 | unstable | source, all $ So popularity-contest was present in woody; I don't know why you would be getting that error. Well, upgrading to sarge is a good idea anyway. :) -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
On Mon, 10 Oct 2005, Rob B wrote: At 03:40 AM 9/10/2005, Falk Hueffner wrote: Hi, following hppa and ia64, I've started a wiki page to start collecting info for the Alpha requalification for etch: http://wiki.debian.org/alphaEtchReleaseRecertification AFAICS, all criteria but two are given: * More developers need to certify in that they're activly developing on this architecture. * There needs to be another buildd. There have been numerous offers in the past. I have no idea what to do to actually make it happen. Please feel free to add to the wiki page, especially on these two points. It would also be nice if more people could install popularity-contest, so that we get a clearer picture on the number of users. Gee, if CPU is an issue there is an 8400 on ebay at the moment for AUD$80 ... 20 min to go :) Unfortunately the 8400 can't run linux because it's PCI architecture isn't supported. Otherwise I would have kept mine :( --- Toni Harbaugh-Blackford [EMAIL PROTECTED] System Administrator Advanced Biomedical Computing Center (ABCC) National Cancer Institute Contractor - SAIC/Frederick -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Requalification of Alpha for etch
DS15's are desktop size boxes, the same size as a DS10 (black case instead of blue). Can't comment on price though (because I really don't know). Jeff D -Original Message- From: Jan-Benedict Glaw [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2005 6:07 PM To: debian-alpha@lists.debian.org; debian-release@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch You can buy big iron these days, but probably not desktop-sized boxes.
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 07:40:15PM +0200, Falk Hueffner wrote: following hppa and ia64, I've started a wiki page to start collecting info for the Alpha requalification for etch: http://wiki.debian.org/alphaEtchReleaseRecertification AFAICS, all criteria but two are given: * More developers need to certify in that they're activly developing on this architecture. We're up to four now. Is Peter De Schrijver willing to put his name on this list? As an active proponent of Debian port diversity, and Helge's aforementioned DD aboot co-maintainer, I expect that he would be; but I don't know if he subscribes to the list, so cc:ed. FWIW, exceedingly unlikely that there are less than 50 users is wishy-washy. I would appreciate it if we could get a concrete count that tops 50 users. This shouldn't be hard, AFAICT; and I don't think it's too much to ask for that we have 50 users who care enough about the survival of the port to stand up and be counted. So if you're on the list, run Debian on an alpha today, and haven't installed popularity-contest yet, please stand up now and be counted. :) * There needs to be another buildd. There have been numerous offers in the past. I have no idea what to do to actually make it happen. Well, buildds are one of the more involved bits of our ports because they represent a time committment from a number of people, and when they go wrong they go very, very wrong. So we do want to be careful that we act on the *right* hosting offer; the last thing we want is to put a lot of work into a box that's going to disappear a few months later for whatever reason, and have to start over. Here are the things that are taken into consideration when the DSA folks evaluate a new buildd offer: - local admin is a DD (or other known quantity) who knows the architecture *and* is available when maintenance is needed - the type of machine -- proc speed, bus speed, disk capacity, memory, and whether the hardware is of a class that can actually handle sustained uptimes as expected - where it's hosted -- is the machine in a hosting facility with HVAC and UPS, or is it under someone's desk? Is it hosted by agreement with the owner/management of the facility, or is it being done under the table (which again usually means under someone's desk ;)? - what kind of connection does the machine have -- how much bandwidth is available, is it a reliable connection or is it consumer-grade ADSL? Are there transfer caps that we and/or our sponsors have to worry about, or is the buildd allowed to use whatever bandwidth it can? Are we free and clear of firewall problems that will be an issue for getting packages and mail in and out of the buildd? Note that a preexisting local mirrors will somewhat mitigate the bandwidth costs of running a buildd, but that a buildd must also be able to pull build dependencies from incoming.debian.org. Now, I can't give you any kind of authoritative answer on whether a particular machine would be accepted as a buildd without talking to Ryan and James first, but the more of this information we have up front and the better-sounding the answers are, the easier it would be to make a decision to accept a machine as a new buildd. I do have a collection of emailed alpha buildd offers that came in this spring after the Vancouver blow-up, FWIW; I'll start to go through these and see which sound like they might be good choices. (Up to this point, I've been working on trying to get a sparc buildd first, because the existing vore.debian.org buildd is *not* fast enough to keep up with unstable reliably, which means sparc needs two whole new buildds to qualify...) BTW, interesting tidbit -- according to Ryan Murray, there have actually not been *any* machine offers mailed to debian-admin this year... shrug -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 04:49:06PM -0500, John Goerzen wrote: On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 07:40:15PM +0200, Falk Hueffner wrote: If anybody has an Alpha, I would volunteer to install Debian on it and get it in working condition, and then ship it off to wherever it would be hosted. We do still have lully down at Brainfood which is in an indeterminate state that the local admins haven't been able to recover it from. If we had somewhere else to ship it afterwards, I'd say we could get it sent to you (or I could take it and try to fix it up, too); I agree that in the long-term, though, it would need to be somewhere that a local admin could take care of it, in which case it should probably be sent direct to whoever that would be -- and if we don't have a prospective host, there's no sense in getting SPI to ship it aronud in the first place. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
On Sun, Oct 09, 2005 at 02:13:20PM +0800, Cameron Patrick wrote: Steve Langasek wrote: FWIW, exceedingly unlikely that there are less than 50 users is wishy-washy. I would appreciate it if we could get a concrete count that tops 50 users. This shouldn't be hard, AFAICT; and I don't think it's too much to ask for that we have 50 users who care enough about the survival of the port to stand up and be counted. The University Computer Club at UWA has a whole bunch of Alphas, running various operating systems including Tru64, Netbsd and Debian. We have at one Alpha running Debian with a GNOME desktop for use by club members, and at least one other running Debian Sarge in the machine room. I'm not sure how many members the club currently has but there would be at least 5--10 who regularly use the Alphas. Would you be willing to add this information to the wiki page? Thanks, -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
RE: Requalification of Alpha for etch
Paul, I can offer you hosting in Kent if its any good use. If you can let me know your bandwidth requirements I can get this formally agreed. Regards Eden -Original Message- From: Paul Cupis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 09 October 2005 02:18 To: debian-alpha@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch Paul Cupis wrote: Falk Hueffner wrote: * There needs to be another buildd. There have been numerous offers in the past. I have no idea what to do to actually make it happen. I have a CS20 online which is intended as a buildd, but have not hae time to configure it properly (I don't yet have experience with wanna-build). Consider this an open invitation for any DD with buildd experience who would like to setup/maintain this buildd (and/or teach me the same) to ask me for a login. Ah, and I have another CS20 in Egham, Surrey, UK if someone can offer hosting. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
Steve Langasek wrote: I'm not sure how many members the club currently has but there would be at least 5--10 who regularly use the Alphas. Would you be willing to add this information to the wiki page? Done :-) Cameron signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 11:04:40PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: Here are the things that are taken into consideration when the DSA folks evaluate a new buildd offer: - local admin is a DD (or other known quantity) who knows the architecture *and* is available when maintenance is needed - the type of machine -- proc speed, bus speed, disk capacity, memory, and whether the hardware is of a class that can actually handle sustained uptimes as expected A bit more detail about that: one CPU of a DS20E with lots of RAM is enough to keep up with building. I guess another machine of about this strength would be perfect. - where it's hosted -- is the machine in a hosting facility with HVAC and UPS, or is it under someone's desk? Is it hosted by agreement with the owner/management of the facility, or is it being done under the table (which again usually means under someone's desk ;)? Interestingly, nobody ever asked me where I put the machines :-) They are in a climate controlled server room right now but escher served most of it's time in our printer room. I'd say it should be some balance between reachability and server environment. - what kind of connection does the machine have -- how much bandwidth is available, is it a reliable connection or is it consumer-grade ADSL? Are there transfer caps that we and/or our sponsors have to worry about, or is the buildd allowed to use whatever bandwidth it can? Are we free and clear of firewall problems that will be an issue for getting packages and mail in and out of the buildd? Note that a preexisting local mirrors will somewhat mitigate the bandwidth costs of running a buildd, but that a buildd must also be able to pull build dependencies from incoming.debian.org. The bandwith sure is an issue: the average traffic per day on goedel is 423M. Now, I can't give you any kind of authoritative answer on whether a particular machine would be accepted as a buildd without talking to Ryan and James first, but the more of this information we have up front and the better-sounding the answers are, the easier it would be to make a decision to accept a machine as a new buildd. If bandwith, DD as local admin and computing strength are ok I guess there will be no problem. Well, at least I got no questionaire when I offered escher and later got goedel as a donation. I do have a collection of emailed alpha buildd offers that came in this spring after the Vancouver blow-up, FWIW; I'll start to go through these and see which sound like they might be good choices. (Up to this point, I've been working on trying to get a sparc buildd first, because the existing vore.debian.org buildd is *not* fast enough to keep up with unstable reliably, which means sparc needs two whole new buildds to qualify...) BTW, interesting tidbit -- according to Ryan Murray, there have actually not been *any* machine offers mailed to debian-admin this year... shrug rant Be warned: sending such mails to debian-admin may be a bit time consuming: one week time for answers is about normal (and I'd bet that it's Joey who cares); in May 2004, when the debian-mips list discussed that they needed another buildd, I offered a machine and never got any response at all. Sending a mail directly to Ryan (like: please turn on the existing buildd on escher) needs one week minimum (if you don't end up in his spam filter). When the machine is installed and root access for the admins is set you can expect three weeks until they take over the machine. No joke. /rant Yes, I'll still happily care for my two Alphas but there are clear indications that the admin team is overworked. No question that it's not their fault and that they're doing good work. But nevertheless a bit frustrating. Sorry, had to ventilate a bit... Cheers Thimo -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
On Oct 9, 2005, at 02:04, Steve Langasek wrote: * There needs to be another buildd. There have been numerous offers in the past. I have no idea what to do to actually make it happen. Well, buildds are one of the more involved bits of our ports because they represent a time committment from a number of people, and when they go wrong they go very, very wrong. So we do want to be careful that we act on the *right* hosting offer; the last thing we want is to put a lot of work into a box that's going to disappear a few months later for whatever reason, and have to start over. I've never paid much attention to what goes into the buildd system, so these may be very naive questions, but I'm curious: Why is so much attention required? Is it for stuff that can't be automated, or just hasn't been? (Aside from the really obvious, like hardware issues.) Can multiple, lower-powered machines help? I'll probably be getting my hands on another alpha system soon, a 400AU I think, but it sounds like that may not be fast enough? (I've also got spare cycles on another alpha-linux box, and if we had an Alpha equivalent to Xen, I could spare cycles from my alpha-netbsd box too.) No GS320s on the horizon for me. I'd like to help out, but don't have the biggest amount of resources to contribute, nor lots of my time on an ongoing basis, so it never sounds like it's worth getting into it. But if I it were just a matter of oh, we wedged the machine again, please hit the reset button and boot off the Buildd Live CD when you get a chance so you can rejoin the build cluster, then I'd probably pursue it Ken -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
popcon ? Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
--- Steve Langasek [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: FWIW, exceedingly unlikely ... is wishy-washy. So if you're on the list, Yes run Debian on an alpha today, Yes and haven't installed popularity-contest yet, please stand up now and be counted. :) apt-get install popularity-contest reports Package popularity-contest is not available, but is referred to by another package. Is there a special repository needed? My Alphas are still on Woody, have sources.list as follows - deb http://security.debian.org/ woody/updates main contrib non-free deb http://ftp2.de.debian.org/debian-security/ woody/updates main contrib non-free deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ woody main contrib non-free Bill __ Yahoo! Music Unlimited Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
At 03:40 AM 9/10/2005, Falk Hueffner wrote: Hi, following hppa and ia64, I've started a wiki page to start collecting info for the Alpha requalification for etch: http://wiki.debian.org/alphaEtchReleaseRecertification AFAICS, all criteria but two are given: * More developers need to certify in that they're activly developing on this architecture. * There needs to be another buildd. There have been numerous offers in the past. I have no idea what to do to actually make it happen. Please feel free to add to the wiki page, especially on these two points. It would also be nice if more people could install popularity-contest, so that we get a clearer picture on the number of users. Gee, if CPU is an issue there is an 8400 on ebay at the moment for AUD$80 ... 20 min to go :) http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemrd=1item=5815378423ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT I've got nowhere to put it (or power it), otherwise I'd snap it up ;) cheers, Rob -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Requalification of Alpha for etch
Hi, following hppa and ia64, I've started a wiki page to start collecting info for the Alpha requalification for etch: http://wiki.debian.org/alphaEtchReleaseRecertification AFAICS, all criteria but two are given: * More developers need to certify in that they're activly developing on this architecture. * There needs to be another buildd. There have been numerous offers in the past. I have no idea what to do to actually make it happen. Please feel free to add to the wiki page, especially on these two points. It would also be nice if more people could install popularity-contest, so that we get a clearer picture on the number of users. -- Falk -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
Hi, On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 07:40:15PM +0200, Falk Hueffner wrote: * More developers need to certify in that they're activly developing on this architecture. Added myself. * There needs to be another buildd. There have been numerous offers in the past. I have no idea what to do to actually make it happen. The problem, I guess, is more the hosting in a place with an Alpha-knowledgable local admin than the machines. A good example is faure and lully: the local admin doesn't know SRM and therefore faure vanished a long while ago after a new kernel had to be installed... Cheers Thimo -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
Hello, On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 07:40:15PM +0200, Falk Hueffner wrote: following hppa and ia64, I've started a wiki page to start collecting info for the Alpha requalification for etch: http://wiki.debian.org/alphaEtchReleaseRecertification Great. * More developers need to certify in that they're activly developing on this architecture. I still maintain aboot, though a) I am not an official maintainer and b) my private alpha is currently not working. I have a co-maintainer who is exmining the current bugs, and I will try to get my alpha in a working state later this year/early next year. And I guess vorlon is also (still) working on alpha. (At least he uploads new aboot-packages for me :-)) It would also be nice if more people could install popularity-contest, so that we get a clearer picture on the number of users. Take the number of user as given. In my (former) instute, we have sevral machines (UP and SMP, 164, 264) which are used as servers and computing machines. Currently the staff is 36 (not including guests). If you need a formal statements of the current admins, please tell me so I can obtain it. Thanks for taking care of the requalification. Greetings Helge -- Dr. Helge Kreutzmann, Dipl.-Phys. [EMAIL PROTECTED] gpg signed mail preferred 64bit GNU powered http://www.itp.uni-hannover.de/~kreutzm Help keep free software libre: http://www.ffii.de/ pgpalqRU1Jgqw.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
If any of the buildd's are (or were) hosted in the Boston/Cambridge/Eastern Massachustts, USA area, I would be happy to volunteer to serve as an admin for them. Debian also seems very particular about the class of machines they seek. (I also didn't know that I could promote alpha by running a package!). ...tom Thimo Neubauer wrote: Hi, On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 07:40:15PM +0200, Falk Hueffner wrote: * More developers need to certify in that they're activly developing on this architecture. Added myself. * There needs to be another buildd. There have been numerous offers in the past. I have no idea what to do to actually make it happen. The problem, I guess, is more the hosting in a place with an Alpha-knowledgable local admin than the machines. A good example is faure and lully: the local admin doesn't know SRM and therefore faure vanished a long while ago after a new kernel had to be installed... Cheers Thimo -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 07:40:15PM +0200, Falk Hueffner wrote: following hppa and ia64, I've started a wiki page to start collecting info for the Alpha requalification for etch: http://wiki.debian.org/alphaEtchReleaseRecertification Thanks, Falk, for the effort. I find it difficult to keep track of everything going on there, and appreciate this call to arms. AFAICS, all criteria but two are given: * More developers need to certify in that they're activly developing on this architecture. I've added myself to the wiki. I do actively use Alpha. Although I rarely make uploads from it these days, I do test code there, and fix arch-specific bugs when I can. (Most recently, I've worked on Exim4 and Asterisk in that regard.) It is still an important platform to me. * There needs to be another buildd. There have been numerous offers in the past. I have no idea what to do to actually make it happen. I saw on the wiki page a mention that HP sells new systems at insane prices. But the link didn't give pricing. Do you know what new systems sell for? Though we probably don't need a new system. If anybody has an Alpha, I would volunteer to install Debian on it and get it in working condition, and then ship it off to wherever it would be hosted. Do you know what the holdup is? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 09:06:53PM +0200, Thimo Neubauer wrote: * There needs to be another buildd. There have been numerous offers in the past. I have no idea what to do to actually make it happen. The problem, I guess, is more the hosting in a place with an Alpha-knowledgable local admin than the machines. A good example is faure and lully: the local admin doesn't know SRM and therefore faure vanished a long while ago after a new kernel had to be installed... I would volunteer to help out with these sorts of things. I believe SRM can work as a serial console, yes? All it really needs then is some way to hook up to that console. I'm not an SRM expert, but I figured it out well enough to convert my own Alpha from AlphaBIOS to SRM, and keep it booting ;-) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 07:40:15PM +0200, Falk Hueffner wrote: I saw on the wiki page a mention that HP sells new systems at insane prices. But the link didn't give pricing. Do you know what new systems sell for? I don't really recall, but it was way beyond being an actual option. If anybody has an Alpha, I would volunteer to install Debian on it and get it in working condition, and then ship it off to wherever it would be hosted. Do you know what the holdup is? I guess the right combination of a good machine and (like Thimo mentioned) hosting with a competent local admin nearby. -- Falk -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
On Sat, 2005-10-08 16:51:06 -0500, John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 09:06:53PM +0200, Thimo Neubauer wrote: * There needs to be another buildd. There have been numerous offers in the past. I have no idea what to do to actually make it happen. The problem, I guess, is more the hosting in a place with an Alpha-knowledgable local admin than the machines. A good example is faure and lully: the local admin doesn't know SRM and therefore faure vanished a long while ago after a new kernel had to be installed... I would volunteer to help out with these sorts of things. I believe SRM can work as a serial console, yes? All it really needs then is some way to hook up to that console. I'm not an SRM expert, but I figured it out well enough to convert my own Alpha from AlphaBIOS to SRM, and keep it booting ;-) Erm, especially with SRM, you'll use aboot, for which installing a new kernel is a task that can fully be done from within Linux... Only if the new kernel won't work for some reason, you may need to interact with aboot to load an alternate kernel. This can be done with local keyboard/monitor, or with serial console. MfG, JBG -- Jan-Benedict Glaw [EMAIL PROTECTED]. +49-172-7608481 _ O _ Eine Freie Meinung in einem Freien Kopf| Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg _ _ O für einen Freien Staat voll Freier Bürger | im Internet! | im Irak! O O O ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) ~(NEW_COPYRIGHT_LAW | DRM | TCPA)); signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
On Sun, 2005-10-09 00:00:37 +0200, Falk Hueffner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 07:40:15PM +0200, Falk Hueffner wrote: I saw on the wiki page a mention that HP sells new systems at insane prices. But the link didn't give pricing. Do you know what new systems sell for? I don't really recall, but it was way beyond being an actual option. You can buy big iron these days, but probably not desktop-sized boxes. MfG, JBG -- Jan-Benedict Glaw [EMAIL PROTECTED]. +49-172-7608481 _ O _ Eine Freie Meinung in einem Freien Kopf| Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg _ _ O für einen Freien Staat voll Freier Bürger | im Internet! | im Irak! O O O ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) ~(NEW_COPYRIGHT_LAW | DRM | TCPA)); signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
On 8 Oct 2005, at 11:00 pm, Falk Hueffner wrote: I don't really recall, but it was way beyond being an actual option. Yup - there are AlphaServers for sale still, but certainly not for prices most people can afford. I guess the right combination of a good machine and (like Thimo mentioned) hosting with a competent local admin nearby. We have both where I work (we still have a lot of Tru64 machines, and although we're steadily switching to Linux -- Debian of course, mostly -- there are a lot of Alpha machines still about), so we're perfectly used to both SRM and Debian. Most of my recent DD activity has been done with an old AlphaPC that sits under my desk. I have already obtained go-ahead from our head of IT to put one in our DMZ for Debian to use. We have a huge amount of external bandwidth (a gigabit pipe to the outside world), so that shouldn't be an issue either. All I need is someone to tell me what needs to be done, and we can provide a machine. Certainly we can make at least a DS20 available, or even an ES40 or ES45 might be possible. We even have a 32 CPU GS320 with 192 GB of memory sitting idle (it got replaced by an Altix), but I doubt I can swing that for Debian. :-) Someone tell me what we need to do, and we'll do it. Tim -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 04:49:06PM -0500, John Goerzen wrote: On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 07:40:15PM +0200, Falk Hueffner wrote: following hppa and ia64, I've started a wiki page to start collecting info for the Alpha requalification for etch: http://wiki.debian.org/alphaEtchReleaseRecertification Thanks, Falk, for the effort. I find it difficult to keep track of everything going on there, and appreciate this call to arms. Please don't cc: this thread to debian-release. Thanks, -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
Falk Hueffner wrote: * There needs to be another buildd. There have been numerous offers in the past. I have no idea what to do to actually make it happen. I have a CS20 online which is intended as a buildd, but have not hae time to configure it properly (I don't yet have experience with wanna-build). Consider this an open invitation for any DD with buildd experience who would like to setup/maintain this buildd (and/or teach me the same) to ask me for a login. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Requalification of Alpha for etch
Paul Cupis wrote: Falk Hueffner wrote: * There needs to be another buildd. There have been numerous offers in the past. I have no idea what to do to actually make it happen. I have a CS20 online which is intended as a buildd, but have not hae time to configure it properly (I don't yet have experience with wanna-build). Consider this an open invitation for any DD with buildd experience who would like to setup/maintain this buildd (and/or teach me the same) to ask me for a login. Ah, and I have another CS20 in Egham, Surrey, UK if someone can offer hosting. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
