I keep hearing the argument that lack of atomic commits is bad.
However I've used a bunch of revision control systems over the years (rcs, visual sourcesafe, sccs, cvs, svn, git, mercurial, darcs). I've encountered a bunch of problems in that time - but never once has a non-atomic commit caused me pain.
Locks? Sure. Exponential times? Sure (darcs, I'm looking at you!) In short all kinds of issues have caused temporary, or extended problems but never once non-atomic commits.
I know, rationally, that atomic operations are the right thing to have, but I wonder why people bring it up so often. Does it really cause people pain? Or is it just a religious argument at this point?
I get annoyed with language too - and would always make the attempt to speak the local language.
But mostly as a Scottish guy I travel in Europe and people don't want to speak in their local language with me.
Last year, for example, I went to visit Vienna. I tried to speak German to people there - and almost before I'd got the first word out the people I was speaking to switched to English!
My language skills are poor, probably because I was raised with the implicit assumption that "Everybody Speaks English", but I can't say I like it, and I do try to learn when traveling. (Otherwise whats the point?)
I guess those are good reasons. But I will say that dovecot is ridiculously easy to configure, and that configuring postfix to do TLS AUTH & SMTP submission is also very simple.
I'm a little set in my ways - I'd not install software from outside the Debian repository without a very good reason. For me your reason isn't good enough, but if you're happy with it and it works for you then that's fine:)
It isn't clear from your guide why you've thrown Archiveopteryx into the mix.
Postfix can be configured to send/receive mail directly - and handle all the authentication.
Just on the basis that you've downloaded it outside the Debian package tree suggests it might get out of date in the future.
If you need it to do IMAP/POP3 handling, etc, then you might want to look at dovecot.
Also you say "postfix handles more mail"; that might or might not be true. But if you're handling such a high volume of mail that exim4 can't keep up your best bet is to look at adding a second MX machine - and as soon as you do that the fun really starts.
But there are also people who hang around and just want things to be given to them for free, who make no contributions, and will bitch and whine if they don't get their way.
Sad, but given human nature not really a surprise.
I'm not an American - so my understanding may be off.
I thought "Free Speech" meant literally that you couldn't be arrested for saying "stuff".
Specifically it doesn't mean:
You have a right to yell "fire" in a cinema.
Whatever you want to say has to be listened to by anybody.
That your words must be broadcast as far as you want them.
That people must obey your commands.
So, with that in mind. How is imposing a bandwidth cap in any way related to free speach?
Sure I could see if they didn't let you visit some, politically derived, blacklist of websites then you could argue they were suppressing some topics. But otherwise?
Hyperbole - and the more times you do that the less people pay attention. Cry Wolf, anybody?
Its more like they're saying "traffic outside our network will cost you; internal stuff is free".
In other words it is no different to the way many ISPs behave in the UK. They have mirrors of things people might want to use - so that their customers don't use more external bandwidth than they need to.
The best solution in this case it to actually disable the wildcard forwarding - and only accept messages for the actual users which should exist upon the domain.
That won't cut down spam, but will instantly remove the problem of dictionary attacks.
Pretty much any mailserver should be able handle this kind of restriction, and if not you can outsource it to people like me!
I've often seen bad harvesting software being used.
For example I'll see emails sent to addresses on my domain which aren't valid as addresses - and were actually Msg-Ids from random messages I've posted online in the past.
I guess there is a robot, or twenty, that decides "[a-z0-9]*@[a-z0-9]*" is a valid email address.
As you say though if you've got the time, patience, and ability then most of the commercial systems may be bettered for your own setup - its just a matter of deciding whether you want the hassle, or whether you want to outsource it to somebody.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't help noticing that you don't actually identify which type/model of laptop you have.
Personally I run Debian, rather than Ubuntu, on my machines and sleep/hibernation works just fine, as do my softkeys.
As for wireless, that works but required some fiddling to get setup. So I'll not pretend that was seamless.
I keep hearing the argument that lack of atomic commits is bad.
However I've used a bunch of revision control systems over the years (rcs, visual sourcesafe, sccs, cvs, svn, git, mercurial, darcs). I've encountered a bunch of problems in that time - but never once has a non-atomic commit caused me pain.
Locks? Sure. Exponential times? Sure (darcs, I'm looking at you!) In short all kinds of issues have caused temporary, or extended problems but never once non-atomic commits.
I know, rationally, that atomic operations are the right thing to have, but I wonder why people bring it up so often. Does it really cause people pain? Or is it just a religious argument at this point?
If you use Debian Sarge then you use Debian!
Although you've been missing security updates so you should upgrade it, or replace it.
I get annoyed with language too - and would always make the attempt to speak the local language.
But mostly as a Scottish guy I travel in Europe and people don't want to speak in their local language with me.
Last year, for example, I went to visit Vienna. I tried to speak German to people there - and almost before I'd got the first word out the people I was speaking to switched to English!
My language skills are poor, probably because I was raised with the implicit assumption that "Everybody Speaks English", but I can't say I like it, and I do try to learn when traveling. (Otherwise whats the point?)
That makes sense, but there is using a PC and using a PC.
My main desktop machine I leave on 24x7. I might not be logged into it, but it is used to create off-site backups of some remote servers.
So while it isn't being used by me directly, it has a job to do during the nights it is left running.
My Debian Administration website uses a GET for logout, but with a secure nonse.
I spent a while writing a guide to preventing CSRF attacks and implemented most of the suggestions.
Assume the worst and you'll rarely be disappointed ..
I guess those are good reasons. But I will say that dovecot is ridiculously easy to configure, and that configuring postfix to do TLS AUTH & SMTP submission is also very simple.
I'm a little set in my ways - I'd not install software from outside the Debian repository without a very good reason. For me your reason isn't good enough, but if you're happy with it and it works for you then that's fine :)
It isn't clear from your guide why you've thrown Archiveopteryx into the mix.
Postfix can be configured to send/receive mail directly - and handle all the authentication.
Just on the basis that you've downloaded it outside the Debian package tree suggests it might get out of date in the future.
If you need it to do IMAP/POP3 handling, etc, then you might want to look at dovecot.
Also you say "postfix handles more mail"; that might or might not be true. But if you're handling such a high volume of mail that exim4 can't keep up your best bet is to look at adding a second MX machine - and as soon as you do that the fun really starts.
ObBias: I run a mail filtering service...
There is a community, definitely.
But there are also people who hang around and just want things to be given to them for free, who make no contributions, and will bitch and whine if they don't get their way.
Sad, but given human nature not really a surprise.
Thanks!
Yes, I guess that example wasn't the best - but I've seen it used by other people (Americans I assume!) so I hoped it would work.
In that case my understanding cannot be too far off.
I've always assumed when people bring the different Amendments into arguments they're irrelevant - unless the Congress/Government is involved.
I'm not an American - so my understanding may be off.
I thought "Free Speech" meant literally that you couldn't be arrested for saying "stuff".
Specifically it doesn't mean:
So, with that in mind. How is imposing a bandwidth cap in any way related to free speach?
Sure I could see if they didn't let you visit some, politically derived, blacklist of websites then you could argue they were suppressing some topics. But otherwise?
Hyperbole - and the more times you do that the less people pay attention. Cry Wolf, anybody?
No.
Its more like they're saying "traffic outside our network will cost you; internal stuff is free".
In other words it is no different to the way many ISPs behave in the UK. They have mirrors of things people might want to use - so that their customers don't use more external bandwidth than they need to.
For example Virgin Media's Debian mirror.
I commented on this a few days ago - but I too see many many delivery attempts to email-like message IDs.
I guess that means that somebody has a compromised machine which is being crawled, or perhaps a mailing list archive online has them visible.
Highly irritating, but pretty easy to block.
ESR ?
The best solution in this case it to actually disable the wildcard forwarding - and only accept messages for the actual users which should exist upon the domain.
That won't cut down spam, but will instantly remove the problem of dictionary attacks.
Pretty much any mailserver should be able handle this kind of restriction, and if not you can outsource it to people like me!
I've often seen bad harvesting software being used.
For example I'll see emails sent to addresses on my domain which aren't valid as addresses - and were actually Msg-Ids from random messages I've posted online in the past.
I guess there is a robot, or twenty, that decides "[a-z0-9]*@[a-z0-9]*" is a valid email address.
Thankfully these are easy to block.
I think most decent competent SPAM filtering companies allow you to see a quarantine of "rejected" messages - I know that my service does.
That way if they make a mistake (and lets face it sooner or later they will) you have the chance to find it.
Still given a large enough quarantine checking through it manually becomes almost as much of a chore as doing so locally would have been.
It depends on your setup - for directly mailed SPAM you could be correct.
Me? I'm a Debian developer, so I get about 500 mails a day routed from the MX machine handling @debian.org.
If it accepts SPAM then their MX will happily retry - end result is that greylisting on my side will accomplish nothing.
My mail filtering service is currently hovering around 2.3 million mails - which is a little down from its peak.
Still these things tend to even out over time; a few days/weeks of lower-than-average SPAM totals then a few more of higher than average.
With only a couple of domains, anecdotally at that, I'd be inclined to assume nothing has changed significantly.
Pretty much.
I run the Debian Administration website, and every few weeks somebody will start attacking either me personally or the site.
If it is polite criticism, (valid or not), I'll reply.
If it degenerates into bad language I just delete the comments and temporarily ban the IP.
(I don't want to censor things, but I don't need random anti-semetic comments around either.)
Yeah he really got burned on that deal - some things are just too hot to fence..
It was always bad on multi-stage games, where you loaded up levels on demand, and had to rewind and re-load earlier levels when you'd died!
I can still remember this error message:
R Tape loading error, 0:1
Indeed those automated bounce messages are something we should have moved away from a long time ago.
(Ditto challenge-response systems; but thats a whole other subject.)
My own service gets that right at least!
As you say though if you've got the time, patience, and ability then most of the commercial systems may be bettered for your own setup - its just a matter of deciding whether you want the hassle, or whether you want to outsource it to somebody.