Re: Y2K.

[James Waterhouse <james.waterhouse@mathengine.com>]

Hey Christian,
    you are doing a great job and I'm sorry that some of us newbies are not
grateful. I also had wondered how you ever make a living seeing that you (and
others like you like Michael) are answering questions all the time. As for the low
numbers of maintainers... how do I go about be coming one? (I'll find that on a
webpage so no need to answer that) I'm not really setup yet to even install debian
(still have to get hold of the MacOS... a mac connected to the internet), and my
comps are old and slow (it's a Mac IIci, I've also got a Mac LC 630, and then there
is the dead Amiga 2000HD), but I still would like to offer my services to the Linux
comunity just  to put something back for all I have taken. Well just wanted to let
you know you are appreciated and good luck on the thesis.

Thanks,
James

Christian T. Steigies wrote:

> Moin RSL,
> On Wed, Jan 05, 2000 at 08:19:21PM +0100, R.S.L. wrote:
>
> > this is the changelog.debian file for the package util-linux version
> > 2.9g-6.0.1:
> >
> > util-linux (2.9g-6.0.1) frozen unstable; urgency=high
> >
> >   * Binary only NMU to include a working hwclock for m68k
> >   * quick fix for bug #32916
> >
> >  -- Christian T. Steigies <cts@debian.org>  Fri, 05 Feb 1999 10:00:57 +0100
> >
> > util-linux (2.9g-6) frozen unstable; urgency=low
> >
> [...]
> >  -- Vincent Renardias <vincent@waw.com>  Tue, 26 Jan 1999 23:51:57 +0100
> >
> > [...]
> >
> >
> > I read all the documentation and I was surprised to read that name Christian
> > T. Steigies.
> Funny, eh? Yes, sometimes I do a little more than answering questions.
>
> > So, Christian, you are the maintainer of the last version of util-linux, which
> wrong, wrong
>
> > includes the hwclock program. You can't answer our questions about y2k
> > problem?
> > Why, there is a reason?
> I explained allready twice...
>
> > This is one of your answer:
> >
> > "...I would not want to set the date back and try it whit slink only. No idea
> > what your problems are, I cant (dont want to) test it, as I dont have that
> > problem anymore... as to what can you do, well, use your imagination, download
> > the source (util-linux) and play whit it. ... Do i have to list verry option
> > that comes to my mind?
> > Just try it..."
> >
> > I don't think that this is a good answer. A good maintainer must accept every
> > kind of problems. You can't say that you don't want to try...thank for your
> right. Report a bug then. I am NOT the maintainer...
> > help...Chris
> you do not know what happend at that time...
>
> > Where is your collaboration?
> I do not collaborate with you, I think (Im not a native speaker either) you
> mean cooperation.
>
> > Why are you a maintainer of this program if you don't want to resolve any
> > problems caused from it. I can't understand...
> > I think that you are an arrogant person, and you don't want to accept the
> > errors that your program has. I don't like your comicity too. So please be
> > more tollerant towards other people. We are beginners and not so experts as
> > you. My english is not good, sorry, but I try to understand and to talk you.
> > Please consider this message as a friendly one. I don't want to have an
> Its your lucky day, I am at home and I had enough trouble allready with
> people sending me much more stuff than I ordered, with people not paying
> there bills, with people cutting their bills without reason...
>
> I will try to explain you lots of things, I hope you will understand then.
>
> I am not the maintainer of util-linux, Vincent is the maintainer as you
> quoted in the changelog. What I did was just a binary NMU (non-maintainer
> upload) of util-linux for m68k. Why did I do that? Well, I wrote it in the
> changelog, "to include a working hwclock for m68k". You have no idea what
> the problem was at that time, do you? hwclock at that time froze my machine,
> and it seemed only my machine, nobody could explain why. What I did, was
> including a working hwclock in the util-linux package, I hacked the hwclock
> from hamm (which was probably from a package maintained also by vincent
> at that time) into the slink package. I did not compile the binary,
> I just copied the existing hamm binary into the slink package, because that
> one worked. Do you know what a "freeze" is? The machine simply stopped
> working, and that on every boot and on every shutdown, a little more
> annoying then the problem you have now, but thats not meant as an excuse for
> not fixing your problems. At that time I asked many people (the linux-m68k
> list) for help, but nobody could help, because only I had that problem at
> that time. So I had to do something myself, otherwise all of you users with
> an A1200 or A2000 with a blizzard (maybe also other) 060 accelerator would
> not have been able to run debian/slink. I think that was a very good deed of
> me, but what do I get?
>
> When I ran the "original" hwclock the machine froze and I could only do a
> hard reset. On the next boot the filesystem had to be checked, which takes
> an awful lot of time, because I have 11GB of harddisk in my system (do you
> know why I bought so many hard disks? because I wanted to help debian).
> After e2fsck, hwclock is called, but it froze the system and all started
> again. It took me two weeks to find out where the problem was, in that time,
> I did probably 20 reinstalls of debian...
> The only solution I found (we were close to the freeze for slink) was to use
> hwclock from hamm, the other debian/m68k maintainers had no objections on that,
> I hope you dont have either... I have no idea, if that version has a Y2K
> problem or not, at that time, the schedule for the next debian release was
> every 6 months or so...
>
> Ok, do you undestand now, that I am not the maintainer of util-linux?
> The second wrong is, that version is not the latest version of util-linux.
> My amiga currently runs util-linux_2.10d-4.deb. 2.9.something is the latest
> "stable" version, but not "the" latest. I am running unstable on my amiga,
> somebody has to build the packages for unstable, which will become stable
> sooner or later. Unfortunately I am one of the few people compiling packages
> for m68k. If you dont want to use packages which I compile, you can
> start deinstalling xfree and a few other ones. Check debian-devel-changes
> for upload announcements.
>
> So I am not the maintainer (I am a porter in that case), its not the latest
> and I solved a problem... got that? Oh wait, there was one "right".
>
> If you think thats arrogant, so be it. hwclock is not my program, I think
> Andries Brouwer is the author, but I dont have the source here to check that
> right now.
> I am not being comic, I am being sarcastic, I know people have problems with
> that, but thats the only way I can stand all this. I dont want to solve
> problems with fists, I prefer words for that.
> I am no expert, I only learned a lot in my two years working for debian and
> on the linux/m68k kernel. I am not a computer scientist, this is just a hobby
> for me.
>
> A hobby which costs me a lot of time and money. I am tying to finish my
> thesis, which I started 4 years ago. I think debian is partially a reason
> why I did not finish it last year. And what am I doing instead of writing
> papers? I answer (sorry) clueless newbie questions, if you think thats not
> tolerant enough, I should probably stop working for debian completely now.
> I was thinking of that allready after your (or was it the other italian with
> no real name?) last insulting mail...
>
> I considered debian as a hobby, where I could learn a lot, I learned a lot
> about people allready during my university work, spent a long time abroad
> the recent years (besides working for debian, I discussed problems with the
> others, while I was in japan, should have gone drinking tea instead...). In
> debian I learned a lot about linux, spent quite some money on an obsolete
> machine, I bought a MO drive and lots of disks, to carry debian sources
> home, an IDE controller with a large disk, to have enough space to build the
> packages (after I backported the driver for the IDE controller), a grafics
> card, so that I could use and compile X packages (after I fixed the driver
> for the card), a network card, so that I could use my amiga in my home
> network (after I backported the driver), a PC and a CD-R, so that I could
> burn debian CDs (well, I bought the PC to write my thesis...). I dont want
> to calculate how much I spent on this, mostly for debian. And what did I
> get? Oh, yeah, I sold allready 4CDs, one set cost me additional money, on
> one set I made 5DM (but lost a lot of nerves, because the guy had some
> severe trouble to get debian running, sorry, no offence ment, but that was
> a tough time for me).
>
> Today I downloaded about 100MB of source codes to compile for debian/m68k,
> no more a problem, since I moved to a new flat, so my amiga has its own room
> to make a lot of noise while I sleep, it was horrible last year. You know
> how long xfree takes to compile? I had many nights with a very bad sleep,
> because the machine is so very noisy.
>
> So all in all, I think I did quite a lot for debian/m68k and I dont think I
> deserve being insulted or accused. What did you do for debian besides
> stealing the maintainers time?
>
> Why do I waste my time on a dead machine, a dead processor? Because it was
> fun to hack on the kernel? It took me more than one year until the grafics
> board worked for me, I asked many times for help at that time, but I did not
> annoy Jes too often, he would have killed me. Now many people are using that
> code, but nobody ever thanked me for it, I only here complaints "aargh, its
> not working on my A1200 with the strange Z2 extension board, fix it!". So
> what... but now you come and insult me, steal my time, dont follow my
> advice.
>
> Do I have to say more, or do you understand something now? Debian and Linux
> are volunteer projects, nobody can force me to do anything, I dont even get
> a cent for all of my work, it only costs me time and money... and I dont
> think it improves my job possibilites, I dont really want to work in the
> computer field...
>
> Now back to your problem, Ill explain it again, for the last time. I booted
> my Amiga on jan 1st (potato of course) and hwclock did not work properly
> (different problem than yours probably). On the next reboot, it worked
> again, problem "fixed". Then I also booted slink, because at that time two
> people had reported Y2K problems (did any other debian/m68k maintainer boot
> slink to test it???). I have seen no problems with slink then, so what shall
> I do? Shall I try to create this problem by force on my machine where I know
> that it is working (more or less) well with potato? slink is fairly obsolete
> for me, I only installed slink recently again, since some debian people
> where crying for slink Y2K updates. I built them all, as fast as I could,
> had to download them from home, because the maintainer forgot to note that I
> had to recompile several other important packages first. I had to pay for
> those downloads, for slink, which I will never use again. So what...
> If you want fixes for the, in my eyes obsolete, slink distribution, try to fix
> it yourself. Or find out what to fix and how, maybe I find the time to build
> proper slink packages from this, but I can not afford the time to
> investigate this now. I HAVE TO FINISH MY THESIS!
> I gave quite detailed instructions, did you try some of them?
> Download util-linux and READ the source.
> Try playing with your clock, under AOS and under Linux, and try to track
> down that problem. "It does not work" is not a very good bug report. I can
> not reproduce it, what shall I do? I said what I would do to find the
> problem, shall I do all that myself? If you will pay me 100 Euro for every
> hour I work on this, but I think 100 Euro would be by far too little for
> that.
>
> Did you ever notice that linux/m68k is not quite the mainstream linux? The
> other day, we m68k maintainers had to stand complaints from other debian
> developers, because we did not react fast enough when they asked for
> recompiles. Now the users revolt, time to leave the ship. Do you know how
> many people are working on the m68k port, compared to the rest of the world?
> I think there are maybe 20 kernel hackers around, with maybe 5 being quite
> active. Yesterday we counted 7, maybe 8 debian/m68k maintainers, and none of
> them has sufficcient time to spend on the project. We are having three and
> two half machines, with only one of them available on the net, so it seems
> several of our "plenty" maintainers dont even have a machine to work with.
> Besides, only two of the machines are 060s, I guess David has an 040, the
> best possible for a MAC. Then there are some 030s lurking around, how many
> days for one xfree compile, James?
> So we are lacking time, more powerful machines with good network connection.
> Right now the run for the debian freeze has started, this morning 178
> packages had to be rebuilt, and not few of them were rather large ones. The
> daemons will need a few days for these, lets hope they are all bugfree, so
> that the compilation does not fail (har, found a nasty one in postgresql, but
> it pops up only when you want to install it...).
> Still, with none of us really having time to waste on this, we have not
> given up, we are building packages (do you know that m68k was the first
> "complete" debian port besides i386? And that allthough we have the slowest
> machines in the world...), we are answereing new user questions, allthough
> there are FAQs around, installation guides and books. Oh, books you say,
> they cost money. Yeah, Linux is free, but you have to pay for it, be it
> money for CDs and books, be it time to learn and understand. I would be very
> thankful, if people read the FAQs and asked only what is not explained
> there. If you dont understand the FAQ, you should not be using linux anyway.
> This is harsh, I know, but it seems you dont understand my subtle humor,
> mabye I spend too much time in front of keyboard, instead of reading good
> books, yeah, its all my fault...
>
> I lost my thread now, but I hope you can understand some of my reasoning and
> stop spitting fire on me. If you want to _use_ Linux, buy a PC, every m68k
> machines is simply much to slow for serious usage. If you want Linux on your
> m68k machine, help. Thanking the kernel hackers for their marvellous work,
> does. Insulting your favorite maintainer, does not.
> If you dont like what I said, just drop me a note and Ill quit (somebody
> explain me killfiles before, please). Otherwise, just let me work in peace.
>
> Now I didnt write a single line for my paper, again. My boss will kill me
> tomorrow morning...
> --
> Christian
>
> --
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--
James Waterhouse                  | Tel:  +1.(514)-287-1166
MathEngine Canada Inc.            | Fax:  +1.(514)-287-3360
465 McGill Street, First Floor    | http://www.mathengine.com
Montreal, Qc  H2Y 2H1 CANADA      | james.waterhouse@mathengine.com

Have you had some chicken cheese today?