Please wait...
Fun discovery of the day ... at least for me.
cp(1), or at least the version of cp found on Linux/Linux, has a relatively new option "--reflink" to create a copy-on-write (COW) copy when used on a filesystem that supports it (such as btrfs).
This is going to be really useful for creating low-overhead clones of things without having to create subvolumes and snapshots. Right away I'm going to use this to build groups of virtual machines, because I'm sure btrfs can do "linked clones" better than VMware can.
The btrfs people and the NetApp people should get together and standardize an NFS command to do this remotely.
It looks like they're trying to make the COW-copy heuristics as close as they can to sparse file heuristics, and probably generalizing the kernel interface for it too.
Red Hat Goes Full IBM and Says Farewell to CentOS
https://www.servethehome.com/red-hat-goes-full-ibm-and-says-farewell-to-centos/
This is a big stake in the heart of Red Hat Linux. IBM clearly does not understand that enterprise Linux users *want* to use the exact same operating system in both free-unsupported and paid-supported versions. Ubuntu got it right: give away the bits for free, sell support to those who need it.
At one point, after doing the analysis of cost, and consulting with a CIO from a sister company I decided to go with an IBM XIV instead of sticking with EMC sans, which weren't scaling well, and were costing us a fortune. The XIV was far cheaper - and is actually an incredible platform for shared storage arrays.
But when the service contract came back up - I understood why it was so inexpensive for so much storage.
Mon Dec 14 2020 19:15:31 EST from Nurb432 @ UncensoredNah, they know, they just dont care.
Pay up or GTFO !
Just like with their mainframe stuff, they make sure you upgrade when they feel the platform has completed its run by sharply raising the maintenance costs. Old school mainframe hands know this by the name "the migration path."
Unfortunately for them, when workloads went virtual, changing storage vendors is just a live-migration away; you don't even need to stop the running workload to do it. We went from IBM to a mix of NetApp and EMC Clariion without any customers even knowing or caring (once we got out of the bad habit of writing vendor names and equipment models into the contracts). Of course, nowadays, "software-defined storage" is all the rage, which is just a fancy way of saying "oh, maybe we should actually use the disk drive bays in all these servers, maybe spread the data around so we don't need a giant channel and yoyobytes of cache."
I am definitely out of fashion on the latest trends in designer Enterprise Architecture fashion. :) Haven't cared since about 2014.
Tue Dec 15 2020 00:20:25 EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored"software-defined storage" is all the rage, which is just a fancy way of saying "oh, maybe we should actually use the disk drive bays in all these servers, maybe spread the data around so we don't need a giant channel and yoyobytes of cache."
IBM got it right there, but somehow can't do the same elsewhere.
"This mainframe here runs our massive enterprise application suite! It handles millions of transactions per second."
"Oh, is it written in COBOL?"
"Naah, we just whacked most of it together in Node.js"
I have found that pricing keeps the big boxes out of a lot of possible markets. Unless you *need* the transactional rates the big iron can give you, you dont want to pay the cost. Hell its one reason we are all sitting here on a 'personal computing device' now.. IBM wanted to squeeze that cash, and ended up creating the market that marginalized themselves.
*shudder*
Thu Dec 24 2020 06:54:09 EST from vegangd Subject: How To Install NMAP On Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and Other Distrosnap
Well, that is a shame. I understand why, but its still sad to see it go and i think that its premature considering its continued heavy use.
https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2021/01/14/debian_bullseye/
The system you are logged into right now is running on a 32-bit Debian VM.
I haven't gone to 64-bit because of the effort required to convert my database.
I really ought to get that done.
Ya i also understand why, but as a 'end user' it still sucks.
I have a couple of old laptops that will be dead at that point. ( i dont believe video drivers exist on netbsd ). And while i have not had them out of the closet for a long time, and dont 'need' them, i just hate when good hardware becomes unusable for not fault of its own. Have a couple of ATOM boxes in there too, unsure if they are 32 or 64. Used to use them as low power servers until i started buying those lenovo mini I5's
It had to happen at some point. For that matter, eventually 32-bit x86 has to get dropped by the kernel too. Backwards compatibility is great but it comes at the cost of complexity and the effort required to maintain it. It would be interesting to see a Linux system boot with the kernel and initrd both stored in the EFI system partition, on a legacy-free system with no BIOS or 32-bit support.
The system you are logged into right now is running on a 32-bit Debian VM.
I haven't gone to 64-bit because of the effort required to convert my database.
I really ought to get that done.
As someone who runs an Amiga with SSL that can connect via ethernet to IP based sites...
Those old retro machines won't be dead at that point. They'll become supported through unofficial methods.
In fact as they become truly retro because of lack of mainstream support - as they become more rare because people dispose and recycle their "unsupportable" hardware - they're likely to become more valuable with people who prize being able to run 32bit code native on original hardware rather than FPGA or emulation.
Especially iconic examples like Thinkpads that capture a "moment in time" experience.
Ya i also understand why, but as a 'end user' it still sucks.
I have a couple of old laptops that will be dead at that point. ( i dont believe video drivers exist on netbsd ). And while i have not had them out of the closet for a long time, and dont 'need' them, i just hate when good hardware becomes unusable for not fault of its own. Have a couple of ATOM boxes in there too, unsure if they are 32 or 64. Used to use them as low power servers until i started buying those lenovo mini I5's
It had to happen at some point. For that matter, eventually 32-bit x86 has to get dropped by the kernel too. Backwards compatibility is great but it comes at the cost of complexity and the effort required to maintain it. It would be interesting to see a Linux system boot with the kernel and initrd both stored in the EFI system partition, on a legacy-free system with no BIOS or 32-bit support.
The system you are logged into right now is running on a 32-bit Debian VM.
I haven't gone to 64-bit because of the effort required to convert my database.
I really ought to get that done.
2021-01-16 08:06 from Nurb432
Subject: Debian to drop 32bit x86
Well, that is a shame. I understand why, but its still sad to see it
go and i think that its premature considering its continued heavy
use.
https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2021/01/14/debian_bullseye/
Everybody is trying to get 32 bits offed.
Oracle'sJDK no longer supports 32 bit x86, nuff said.
I agree it sucks because there are lots of things that still require 32 bit, and a lot of people does not want to run a multiarchitecture os.
2021-01-17 07:42 from Nurb432
Subject: Re: Debian to drop 32bit x86
Ya i also understand why, but as a 'end user' it still sucks.
I have a couple of old laptops that will be dead at that point. ( i
dont believe video drivers exist on netbsd ). And while i have not
had them out of the closet for a long time, and dont 'need' them, i
just hate when good hardware becomes unusable for not fault of its
own. Have a couple of ATOM boxes in there too, unsure if they are 32
or 64. Used to use them as low power servers until i started buying
those lenovo mini I5's
Still you can get other distributions for x86 32 bit for now.
When Tails dropped 32 bit, it screwed me hard because at the time I only had access to old computers, as do some people I know.
I think dropping things that are in use in the wild because "nobody uses them" is such a first worlder thing to do. I remember when people was claiming to stop serving Linux distributions in CDs because it was time to migrate to DVD or USB images, disregarding the fact the difference in cost still matters for a whole lot of people.
Not everybody is a greedy Californian bastard with access to piles of DVDs and optic fibre.