While it was a small step for free software, it was a great one for Debian... And a big surprise for anyone who started Debian installation during this year.
This is a big victory for further psychological development of free software. Making a victory in the fight against yourself is more important than making a victory against someone else.
I think that this tune2fs is a good enough answer in my case because I am using storage systems with hardware RAID (two Siemens/SUN storages and some newer SATA-based).
But, it is true that I forgot for periodical e2fscks... I just have to realize how to find which of 12-20 disks id damaged:)
BTW, I was thinking about XFS and JFS, but I didn't check do they have some useful tool like ext[23] has: mc->undelete.
Whenever I have to install some server, I have a metaphysical question: ext3 or reiserfs?
Ext3 has a lot of advantages, including a possibility to do a fast recovery of files. While it is not needed often, at least once per year I have such demand. At the other side, undelete methods with raiserfs are very problematic.
At the other side, my servers are up usually for a year or more. This means that the most of company's employees may go on one day vacation whenever I want to reboot a machine with 4TB file system.
Any good idea to solve those two issues with one file system?
I am using testing at my servers and unstable/experimental on my desktops and laptops. Actually, in some cases, like TV servers are, I am using there unstable/experimental, too.
At my old laptop, I installed unstable in late 2004 and ran that until February this year without any significant problem except that for some time I ran Firefox 3beta until it didn't become stable enough to go into Debian unstable (and became Iceweasel):)
A week or two ago, after one of apt-get update--apt-get upgrade iterations I've got some (I suppose) Synaptic derivate: "live update". And I am now perfectly happy with a little wheel on my task bar which becomes orange when new updates are ready.
Besides that, installation of operating system may be interesting and funny at the beginning. But, after years of professional usage of different kinds of OSs, reinstallations became a very frustrating task for me. When I switched from SuSE to Debian in in the middle of 2004, I felt like I loosed a big rock from my neck: I didn't need to think about new major versions, I had always the latest stable software -- I didn't have to compile new Apache (with PHP and the rest of important modules) whenever some major feature was released...
I think that ordinary users are not *so* happy with reinstallations of the system and big upgrades (like switching from one version of Windows to another is), too. Software should be useful, not a goal per se.
So, yes, I think that in the future, software distributions will be based on upgrades: for free or for fee.
If similar is possible for, let's say, cars -- I am sure that the most of car owners would prefer silent fixes and upgrades than buying new cars and fixing and upgrading it manually.
Of course, there would be always people who prefer to do everything alone. But, I don't think that it is a majority. Or, at least, someone may prefer to play with car hardware, but not with computer (or even car) software or refrigerator.
In other words, if installing software is not your job or your passion, it is much better to spend your time in reading a book, playing WoW, having sex or whatever else, than in trying to do something which other people are doing much better for you, than you are able to do.
The most important fact about Wikipedia is that it is an encyclopedia. It may be defined as something else, and if it is so, we would be able to talk about other possibilities. Other projects may have some different goals which would allow everything to be put there (I would like to see and join such project). Also, it would make a very good source for encyclopedia Wikipedia. For example, I would like to see enough popular place (under some free license, ideally compatible with Wikipedia) where people are adding plots of movies and books...
Innovative thinking is good, but it is making life much harder if it invents without previous knowledge of invented achievements. Rules on Wikipedia suffer a lot of such inventions. Instead of making simple rules, there are, for example, about twenty-thirty rules related to notability only because of "innovative thinking". And there are situations like this one.
My rules are arbitrary, but they are showing only a way for solving the problem. They may be different... For example, I think that IMDB has enough valid procedure for adding a new movie or author, actor etc. and that Wikipedia may treat those movies, authors, actors good enough descried to make an article about them. This may be the case for other fields, too.
Also, there are limits everywhere, including Wikipedia. It is possible to extend some limits, but it is not possible to extend all limits and to extend all extended limits. Wikipedia will never be such great playground because it is not a playground anymore.
As a Wikimedian from 2003, I may say that notability on Wikipedia is a bullshit and that it is regularly used for removing content which is not according to the cultural/ideological/... values of some group of Wikipedians. It is not even so much related to admins of Wikipedia because there is a regular procedure for voting for deletion.
However, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and encyclopedia is not a place for original research. This means that there shouldn't be only an event for making article about that event. Also, there should be at least a couple of partial description of such event somewhere else to make description of the event relevant enough.
In general, if "event" fulfilled the next two rules there are no reasons for deleting it: (1) Three independent sources about event existence. (2) Three different informations about the event.
Here is the example related to software: Software may be hosted at SourceForge and described at Freshmeat. However, both of sources are not independent because both description are made by author him/herself. Software may be partially described at some site which is dedicated to type of the software. This is the first independent source. Software may be included into Debian and Ubuntu. This is the second independent source because Ubuntu usually mirrors Debian packages. And software should have one more partial description to be added into one encyclopedia.
The main problem in understanding encyclopedia is that it is not dealing with primary sources. Encyclopedia may not write an article about Orwell's 1984 based only on Orwell's book. Encyclopedia may write an article about a book only via secondary source proxy. Description of what something means in the book is not a job of encyclopedist, their job is just to retell what someone else described.
Classic encyclopedias are not following strictly this rule because they are made by academics and they are able to say that their article is "amalgam of secondary source and encyclopedic article", even it is not consistent in the spirit of encyclopedistics.
I described here an ideal. However, I am sure that there are a lot of things around. Maybe some/the most/.. of webcomics really don't have enough of relevant enough mentioning out of their sites. Also, to be honest, if descried rules would be applied to English Wikipedia, at least 1/3 of articles would be deleted because there are a lot of original research. An article about some television series episode has much more original research then encyclopedic content. Etc. etc. But, it is a much better starting position then arbitrary decisions of members of Wikipedian community.
And at the end: According to my experience, the most of objections to Wikipedia are related to lack of knowledge how to write articles. Please, RTFM first. And if you read it and you still think that you are right, please write your objection to the list. There are a lot of people who would support you if you are right.
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While it was a small step for free software, it was a great one for Debian... And a big surprise for anyone who started Debian installation during this year.
This is a big victory for further psychological development of free software. Making a victory in the fight against yourself is more important than making a victory against someone else.
I think that this tune2fs is a good enough answer in my case because I am using storage systems with hardware RAID (two Siemens/SUN storages and some newer SATA-based).
:)
But, it is true that I forgot for periodical e2fscks... I just have to realize how to find which of 12-20 disks id damaged
BTW, I was thinking about XFS and JFS, but I didn't check do they have some useful tool like ext[23] has: mc->undelete.
Whenever I have to install some server, I have a metaphysical question: ext3 or reiserfs?
Ext3 has a lot of advantages, including a possibility to do a fast recovery of files. While it is not needed often, at least once per year I have such demand. At the other side, undelete methods with raiserfs are very problematic.
At the other side, my servers are up usually for a year or more. This means that the most of company's employees may go on one day vacation whenever I want to reboot a machine with 4TB file system.
Any good idea to solve those two issues with one file system?
I am using testing at my servers and unstable/experimental on my desktops and laptops. Actually, in some cases, like TV servers are, I am using there unstable/experimental, too.
:)
At my old laptop, I installed unstable in late 2004 and ran that until February this year without any significant problem except that for some time I ran Firefox 3beta until it didn't become stable enough to go into Debian unstable (and became Iceweasel)
A week or two ago, after one of apt-get update--apt-get upgrade iterations I've got some (I suppose) Synaptic derivate: "live update". And I am now perfectly happy with a little wheel on my task bar which becomes orange when new updates are ready.
Besides that, installation of operating system may be interesting and funny at the beginning. But, after years of professional usage of different kinds of OSs, reinstallations became a very frustrating task for me. When I switched from SuSE to Debian in in the middle of 2004, I felt like I loosed a big rock from my neck: I didn't need to think about new major versions, I had always the latest stable software -- I didn't have to compile new Apache (with PHP and the rest of important modules) whenever some major feature was released...
I think that ordinary users are not *so* happy with reinstallations of the system and big upgrades (like switching from one version of Windows to another is), too. Software should be useful, not a goal per se.
So, yes, I think that in the future, software distributions will be based on upgrades: for free or for fee.
If similar is possible for, let's say, cars -- I am sure that the most of car owners would prefer silent fixes and upgrades than buying new cars and fixing and upgrading it manually.
Of course, there would be always people who prefer to do everything alone. But, I don't think that it is a majority. Or, at least, someone may prefer to play with car hardware, but not with computer (or even car) software or refrigerator.
In other words, if installing software is not your job or your passion, it is much better to spend your time in reading a book, playing WoW, having sex or whatever else, than in trying to do something which other people are doing much better for you, than you are able to do.
Come on, people, until now we came only up to USELESSDOMAIN00019.COM and FUCKYOUNSI00011.COM. We may do that better :)))
It is obvious that they wouldn't purchase if it was looked up only once, but a couple of times would be enough.
The most important fact about Wikipedia is that it is an encyclopedia. It may be defined as something else, and if it is so, we would be able to talk about other possibilities. Other projects may have some different goals which would allow everything to be put there (I would like to see and join such project). Also, it would make a very good source for encyclopedia Wikipedia. For example, I would like to see enough popular place (under some free license, ideally compatible with Wikipedia) where people are adding plots of movies and books...
Innovative thinking is good, but it is making life much harder if it invents without previous knowledge of invented achievements. Rules on Wikipedia suffer a lot of such inventions. Instead of making simple rules, there are, for example, about twenty-thirty rules related to notability only because of "innovative thinking". And there are situations like this one.
My rules are arbitrary, but they are showing only a way for solving the problem. They may be different... For example, I think that IMDB has enough valid procedure for adding a new movie or author, actor etc. and that Wikipedia may treat those movies, authors, actors good enough descried to make an article about them. This may be the case for other fields, too.
Also, there are limits everywhere, including Wikipedia. It is possible to extend some limits, but it is not possible to extend all limits and to extend all extended limits. Wikipedia will never be such great playground because it is not a playground anymore.
As a Wikimedian from 2003, I may say that notability on Wikipedia is a bullshit and that it is regularly used for removing content which is not according to the cultural/ideological/... values of some group of Wikipedians. It is not even so much related to admins of Wikipedia because there is a regular procedure for voting for deletion.
However, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and encyclopedia is not a place for original research. This means that there shouldn't be only an event for making article about that event. Also, there should be at least a couple of partial description of such event somewhere else to make description of the event relevant enough.
In general, if "event" fulfilled the next two rules there are no reasons for deleting it: (1) Three independent sources about event existence. (2) Three different informations about the event.
Here is the example related to software: Software may be hosted at SourceForge and described at Freshmeat. However, both of sources are not independent because both description are made by author him/herself. Software may be partially described at some site which is dedicated to type of the software. This is the first independent source. Software may be included into Debian and Ubuntu. This is the second independent source because Ubuntu usually mirrors Debian packages. And software should have one more partial description to be added into one encyclopedia.
The main problem in understanding encyclopedia is that it is not dealing with primary sources. Encyclopedia may not write an article about Orwell's 1984 based only on Orwell's book. Encyclopedia may write an article about a book only via secondary source proxy. Description of what something means in the book is not a job of encyclopedist, their job is just to retell what someone else described.
Classic encyclopedias are not following strictly this rule because they are made by academics and they are able to say that their article is "amalgam of secondary source and encyclopedic article", even it is not consistent in the spirit of encyclopedistics.
I described here an ideal. However, I am sure that there are a lot of things around. Maybe some/the most/.. of webcomics really don't have enough of relevant enough mentioning out of their sites. Also, to be honest, if descried rules would be applied to English Wikipedia, at least 1/3 of articles would be deleted because there are a lot of original research. An article about some television series episode has much more original research then encyclopedic content. Etc. etc. But, it is a much better starting position then arbitrary decisions of members of Wikipedian community.
And at the end: According to my experience, the most of objections to Wikipedia are related to lack of knowledge how to write articles. Please, RTFM first. And if you read it and you still think that you are right, please write your objection to the list. There are a lot of people who would support you if you are right.