On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 11:38 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I've tried all of these suggestions. Fine for me but I don't need to > handhold users hands for something that should already have been > resolved. Is this your business model in Singapore....
I find that pacnet mirror is working. I couldn't replicate the problem (I just apt-get update and dist-upgrade from pacnet btw, just to check that it's still up). Btw, just to iterate something (that should be pretty obvious) slug is a user group, and not business, we are people spending a little of our own time trying to help out. So please do not take us as if we're just some other IT support guy that you pay (and therefore could trash about if something doesn't work). Before we could help, you should help yourself by giving us something more concrete than 'the mirror does not work'. Btw, I'm not talking about your Ubuntu post. I couldn't help with Ubuntu because I don't want to give wrong advice on distro I'm not familiar with. [snip] > First. I wanted to find out if their was any real support for > Debian/Ubuntu in Singapore. I don't know. I'm a student/hobbyist that have used Linux for many years. But I'm definitely not a support person. Anyone knows? > I don't fix problems for end users by giving them difficult work a > round. Remember I'm not giving them a LIVE CD and telling them to try it > out. I'm installing it correctly and correctly using Singapore as the > location. > > Would/could the LUGS people provide the correct solution? Btw, we don't handle the servers (at least most of us don't, I'm not sure whether there's anyone who handle any of the mirrors). Secondly, 'correctly' is not exactly correct. Using geographical proximity to select mirror is a heuristics. Most of the time it returns good mirror, but at others no. (For example, I lived in Indonesia before, and using Indonesian mirrors usually end up slower than using US mirrors.) You asked the list what mirrors you should use, I specifically gave you two mirrors to try and Ray and Cheng specifically supports pacnet mirror. Would you at the very least tell us which mirror did you use? Did you try pacnet at all? > > The correct solution if you really care about Linus/Debian is to get the > mirror working so that the customer/end user has the correct kind of > experience. First time. An experience that is possible with Linux and > makes it so valuable and an experience that is not possible with > Microsoft. > > Bad mirrors. I don't wonder that people in Singapore don't accept Linux. Did you notice that mirror.nus.edu.sg is NOT a primary mirror? Singapore does not have a primary debian mirror (that perhaps says a lot about the state of open source in Singapore). If you had tried any of the primary debian mirrors, I doubt you'll have the same problem. Don't get me wrong, a lot of secondary mirrors are probably faster than primary mirrors, but these mirrors are voluntary mirrors that usually do not provide very specific update timeframe/does not support all arch/etc. Btw, the reason why Singapore do not accept Linux is certainly not for the lack of mirrors. Not many people do minimal install. In fact, network install (I suppose you're doing that) is considered a bad practice in sysadmin worlds unless you control the network pathway to the mirror (i.e. within the same organization)--there is many reasons for this, primarily security. Most people will use install CD and these CDs usually work. Please do not make sweeping statements that are factually incorrect (or at least not proven). (On why Singaporeans do not accept Linux, that's a huge debate on its own, but it's decidedly OT.) > > As regards Ubuntu I provided LUGS users with routing information, by mtr > at this point what more do you need? I'm sorry that I did not answer for Ubuntu because it's out of my domain. I replied your Debian query because Debian is the distro that I have been using in ages. Maybe somebody else could help you with your Ubuntu problems. > > For Debian I ping the server and get a response. Mtr does not work. > Apt-get does not work. Both Starhub and Singnet. I suspect the server is > not up. Note: Firewall disabled. /sbin/iptables -P INPUT > ACCEPT. /sbin/iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT. /sbin/iptables -F. My computer > is right on the edge of the Internet. Great. These are the things we need. Btw, which mirrors did you try? I just ran a ping on mirror.nus.edu.sg and it's down (I think it's for upgrading purpose as I mentioned earlier, we at SoC has received several emails on possible downtime). However, ftp://mirror.pacific.net.au pings all right, mtr returns all right, apt-get runs fine. > > A prestigious job like hosting Debian or Ubuntu requires four to five > 9's of reliability for the server. Shouldn't be hard. For the Internet > provider. Three 9's? Haven't Singnet and Starhub agreed to give at least > three 9's of reliability on these services. Prestigious!? You must be getting things mixed up a little. Most Debian mirrors are voluntary with really no hard and fast rule on requirement on reliability. I'm not saying that this does not reflect badly on Debian if the mirror goes down, but Debian also could not impose that every mirrors work (in fact, a simple netselect-apt returns so many unreachable mirrors from all over the world, mainly secondary mirrors). Only the primary mirrors have very specific arrangements (like 24h update timeframe whenever the distribution is updated, etc.). You're making too much assumptions without knowing the underlying details. (I guess it makes sense to make assumptions though, I probably would be as pissed as you if I were to install Debian the first time and failed that badly--no, I did fail that badly when I first install my Debian, but that's because of my soundcard not working; then again that was over 5 years ago.) > > Finally. Remember potential students all around the region install > Ubuntu/Debian from the Internet. So far the institution providing the > mirror in Singapore looks like a good institution to avoid going to. > Linux or not. Sorry what do you mean with that? While something shares an .nus.edu.sg address, that doesn't mean it's officially supported by the institution. I'm from NUS, and I know that mirror.nus is by no means officially supported by NUS, in fact it's only supported by SoC mainly for students' usage. Right now, if I don't get my information wrong, SoC just received a couple of servers and mirror.nus.edu.sg is also parts of this upgrade cycle. That is probably why it's down. The problem is that, the rest of the mirror works! I've been doing apt-get consistently for the past months, no, years. My last apt-get was today (just to test whether the mirror really breaks). I did not find problem with pacnet. So what do you say? The server is down? Really? You said you tried the alternatives, I'm not sure you do. If you read the first reply I posted against your initial question, I give you very specifically 2 mirrors. There is a reason for giving two mirrors (or more), mirrors are, by definition, mirrors! They are there because of two things: 1) sharing of bandwidth so that server does not get overwhelmed; 2) redundancy, so that if one server is down another can still be used. My apt sources.list have 5 mirrors listed (just for the fun of it, usually 2 are more than sufficient). The second option I gave you works fine with me. Therefore, I suspect that the problem is with your network or configuration. Let me fire up a suggestion, instead of doing a minimal install with network downloads (which is prone to a lot of configuration problems and missing packages), why not use jigdo to download the first CD/DVD (just the first) from pacnet? Do a full install with the CD/DVD, and make sure the network is fine (just surf the internet). Afterwards, run apt-get. The best part is that you only need to download security updates instead of the entire packages for each computers you're installing to. Again let us know how this works out. Or if it's not acceptable, whether you have tried pacnet mirror. Finally, I'm sorry for my own harsh tone. I realized that I might have sounded a little harsh in this e-mail. That's probably because I'm as frustrated as you were with your e-mail reply (I want to help but you make it hard for me to help). I wanted to go and rephrase the e-mail but it's just too long to rephrase now. I hope you'll understand. Chris P.S. Does anyone else have problems with the mirrors? I think it might be a good idea to come up with a real up-to-date lists of preferred mirrors to use for each distribution from Singapore. I think we have one in our wiki, haven't we? _______________________________________________ Slugnet mailing list [email protected] http://wiki.lugs.org.sg/LugsMailingListFaq http://www.lugs.org.sg/mailman/listinfo/slugnet
