Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 12:12:34 -0500 From: Bart Silverstrim <bsilver@chrononomicon.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Anthony's drive issues.Re: ssh password delay Message-ID: <b6541c7415ea807396948789d5cb50a6@chrononomicon.com> In-Reply-To: <818883554.20050322170548@wanadoo.fr> References: <20050321095647.R83831@makeworld.com> <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNIEOAFAAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com> <1907678552.20050322101315@wanadoo.fr> <1111486000.751.221.camel@lorna.circlesquared.com> <1181508865.20050322114009@wanadoo.fr> <7c2cf9b1abb85ee648b5764f9c7915f4@chrononomicon.com> <818883554.20050322170548@wanadoo.fr>
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On Mar 22, 2005, at 11:05 AM, Anthony Atkielski wrote: > Bart Silverstrim writes: > >> Instead of a five year old version of Windows? :-) > > Why should it matter? Comprehension on this matter is a little lagging. I seem to recall you said you went from Windows 2000 (it's what, 5 years old?) to a new version of FBSD, the equivalent of Windows 2003 in terms of release status in comparison between MS and the FBSD team. Okay, perfectly good hardware should keep working no matter what. Will XP install on a 486 or 386, out of curiosity? I can't get OS X to run on my 68k Mac...but it is perfectly good hardware! Something must have changed somewhere at some point... >> Because dumb terminals are just smart serial modems? > > Serial modems are largely obsolete, too. And I haven't seen too many > modems that behave like VT100 terminals. As I recall, they were dumb serial devices. Both were. Simple dumb serial terminals. Similar interfaces. As for being obsolete, I just bought a Zoom external serial modem with drivers for the Mac, latest Windows, and Linux support. Sweet! :-) Obsolete yet still available and supported. You admit that serial is obsolete and going by the wayside yet keep arguing that the code for such should be kept and will continue to work for future products,...there's a duality here that just isn't quite converging in your logic (or you need to better clarify this position)... >> Because those specs haven't been obsoleted? > > Who is using VT100s today? Is anyone interconnecting FreeBSD and > GECOS? > There's still a field in /etc/passwd records for that purpose. I'm sure there are. We have people in the local hospital clinic that use dumb terms. There's howtos for people to set up home X terminals. >> Um...if the hardware wasn't working with FreeBSD, why did you install >> it, or try getting people to support it now that it's so old that most >> people aren't running it and you want a special effort devoted to >> getting it to work? > > I had no way of knowing whether it would work without installing > FreeBSD. It ran fine with Windows NT, and I assumed that FreeBSD could > at least match that. Ah...no way of knowing, I'd argue that since you found postings from people who had the issues with that model system and you said they never had it solved, there was *a way* of knowing, technically speaking. But then most people just playing on a lark would just shrug and move on to another OS or back to their old one if it didn't work out instead of waging WWIII on a mailing list over the issue. >> No one is stopping you from doing the work yourself. > > Nobody is stopping me from building my own metropolis, either, but that > doesn't mean that it's a viable option. Technically you need a population to do that and some funding. Insult people around you and I doubt they've move into your metropolis. Point is, you can do it. Is that really that hard to understand? You can do it. You opt not to. >> They're not out to please just you. > > They don't seem to be out to please anyone, which means that they'll be > spending most of their time in the secret treehouse club, instead of > out > in the big scary world of real IT. That's odd. Must be I was invited to the treehouse and people didn't give me the handshake. I got help from the lists, I've had problems solved. The difference maybe was that I didn't demand someone dive in with a debugger to solve my problems, though...I replaced the hardware in question :-) >> When they're obligated to do so, it's a job, not a hobby. They're not >> out to take over the business world. They're scratching an itch, or >> working for a principal or philosophy...try listening to Stallman's >> speeches on what Open Source means. > > So open source is just a fad. A hobby. A) Fad != hobby. B) How is this suddenly a fad just because it's not a paid job? >> Out of curiosity...what changes? > > I persuaded them to fix some things with patches instead of a new > release, or something like that--I don't remember the specifics. Oh man...how in hell do you not remember influencing MS to make a specific change for your whims and specs and NOT REMEMBER IT? Christ, I'd print it out and frame the proof...getting a multi-billion dollar company to do what *I* wanted instead of what they wanted or the rest of their customers?? Honestly...I came on the list with a problem with Portmanager, and after a few reports the guy who made it fixed the bugs and put me into the credits list as a bug tester and I printed it out for pride in helping him out and showing that I contributed in some small way. You got MICROSOFT to do what YOU wanted, and you just "don't remember the specifics"? Are you insane?? >> And did they give you credit? > > No, but I never cared about credit. My objective was to make sure that > people didn't stop using NT because of a stupid policy decision on the > part of Microsoft. You must be a very influential person. Ellison, Wozniak, Jobs, Groves, Atkielski,.... >> Why did you replace the OS and stress out when it didn't fit your bill >> of needs? > > I'm not stressed by it, so much as I'm amazed by the attitudes I'm > encountering. There's a big gulf between projects like FreeBSD and > real-world IT, apparently. Really? Interesting lumping of groups and companies. I can't get MS to care a whit about problems I had on a Dell server. Then I had another company (Faronics, if interested) where their tech support was *hunting me down* to discuss a problem that we put on the back burner until a summer upgrade could be done. Man, want good response, buy Deep Freeze...those guys *will* bend over backwards to help you. Seemed like the other big guys bend you over backwards instead. >> Wow...take this much further and I'd suggest you find someone on the >> list that wants to really really prove you wrong you could arrange to >> have that person take the hardware and run the diagnostics for your >> and >> ship it back to you afterwards with their findings... > > I'm not going to take the hardware apart. First I want someone to tell > me what the error messages in FreeBSD mean. Contact the person in charge of that part of the code, find out if someone on the list can find that for you. Most seem to have killfiled you or started ignoring you after you insulted the list people. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm getting similar treatment by association :-O >> Oddly enough, for us the hardware solution is correct about 95% of the >> time after going through the list of things the "user didn't do" with >> the configuration. For a ploy it sure tends to be accurate. > > Given the character of the user community (if my intuition is correct), > that wouldn't surprise me, but that's not the way it works in the > larger > world of IT. Interesting. I'm beginning to wonder what your definition is. I'll start out... I am in a department of two. My boss and I have over 1000 users in seven buildings spread out over a twenty mile stretch. We are in charge of their phones, the networks, the WANs, PC troubleshooting, user training, and our web servers and mail servers. While not IBM, I think this is larger than the average small business type network...and we have demands place on us that in true "business" usually means an actual department several times our department's current size. Your turn! >> If it's usually what actually had caused the problem, you're damned >> right they're going to suggest that be checked. > > You know it's almost certainly not the problem, but it lets you shelve > the issue so that it doesn't come up on your status reports for a week > or more. No, actually we still have it in our lab if that's the issue. If we can't return it they get another system to replace it and we still have to deal with the system since it's taking up space here. Either way, for us, it's still our problem. Your turn! >> Why devote the man-hours to debugging and reconfiguring if it's a >> cable that worked loose? > > It's almost never a cable that has worked loose. Checking the cables > is > almost invariably just a way to kill time. And it's five minutes I'll never get back. <sniff>. On those occasions where it WAS the problem, it saved hours of software troubleshooting. Yay! >> See, this is part of what's supposed to be natural selection in >> business. If you treat a customer like crap, you lose customers, and >> eventually go out of business, unless you're a monopoly. > > Virtually all computer companies are doing this right now, today, and > they aren't all monopolies. So start your own. You obviously know more than we do when it comes to customer relations. It shouldn't be hard for you to make your first bilion. If you didn't already with the influence you have (How do you not remember single handedly influencing MS?? I can't get over that...) >> If what you're suggesting were true and this system works, then they >> would go away. > > It _is_ true; that's how it is done. > > They don't go away any more than FreeBSD goes away with no support at > all. Then you're saying it's not true, that's not how it works...? I am not understanding you here...that IS how it works, but they don't go away, which means it isn't how it works...no? >> Well, then do something about it. > > I'm not managing these companies. Then start one silly! If everyone sucks at this and you have the answer, you have a niche you could make a killing in. >> If the market is truly that bad and the customer is truly as competent >> as you're giving them credit for then it should be no problem at all >> for you to start a tech support company that can beat the pants off >> everyone else. > > You can't make money in honest technical support, especially as a third > party. Oh dear. Pretty cake, yet hungry. The dilemma. If it's this bad, as bad as you describe, you'd make a killing with you own tech support outsource company. You seem to lack faith in your evaluation of customer demand vs. the state of the current offerings! :-) > I have no illusions about there being wizards out there who actually > know what they are doing. If they were there, they would have spoken. > I lose nothing by ignoring the kiddies. I keep hoping, but I'm really > less and less optimistic. Of course they do. They have nothing to gain by helping you other then boosting their reputation or making themselves feel better. And if you treat people like you're an ungrateful imp, they'll probably feel little obligation to help you. They are *volunteers*. Not people trapped in a cube at a tech support call center. I've also suggested trying to contact the dev team to see if they can help you further if you narrowed this down to a general area for the problem. I've asked on one posting if someone could help get a dump of your controller code compared to a known unmodified version. I've asked if someone could help you get a trace. I have NO DOUBT that there are people on this list that can do that. I have no doubt that you've alienated several of them and they've killfiled you. Dude, you shot yourself in the foot! You don't insinuate the group of people are nitwits then ask for their help. > As I said, I want to know what the problem is. What is FreeBSD > reporting? What do all the messages mean, EXACTLY? Unless and until > someone can tell me that, I'm not going to waste my time indulging the > armchair experts with their roll-the-dice support philosophies. Okay, I can't help you because I am not the developer. I was trying to help you with something else. Hell even quoting you may have helped a little since I KNOW of some people that are blocking your address now but you are still quoted in my message, if they haven't blocked me too. I have tried a couple suggestions to help narrow down the problem or get results to compare to. You instead want to hammer on finding someone to debug an old piece of driver code. *shrug* > Who's going to pay me for the time I lose indulging them? And who's going to pay them to focus on what you want? > The fact is, they aren't any more competent than I am. All the more reason for them to tell you to do it yourself. You should stop insulting them.
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