cdr@brahms.amd.com (Carl Rigney) (08/26/90)
In article <1990Aug24.204636.8619@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <3ND5KOC@xds13.ferranti.com> peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >>It did a better job than C news. Really. C news is a far superior product >>once you get it installed, but it's a pain to install and there are all >>sorts of administration gotchas... > >Opinions vary on this. We've had no shortage of "went in fine, no problems" >comments, and several comments that it's much more sysadmin-friendly (!). >It may be that one's background makes a difference, with some things not >being done the way some people are used to. My opinion is that C news is a huge win over B news. I was a newsadmin under B news for years and years, and have only used C news for 5 months - I'll never go back. Yes, C news does some things differently, and the installation wasn't quite so magical as perl, but it wasn't all *that* hard and the ease of administration since has repayed the initial efforts manyfold. The improved expire alone is worth it, to say nothing of the dbz speedup and greater ease of customization. Now if you'd just number your patches so its easy to tell if I'm behind the latest rev, life would be perfect. But that's a very small flaw in a very big and useful program, and it would be churlish to whine about it. I suspect most of the problems Peter has would go away if he just got into the habit of doing everything as news, not root. Works for me! Thanks for a wonderful program, Henry (& Geoff)! Just another satisfied C news admin, Carl Rigney cdr@amd.com "Net news is the television of computing." -- Geoff Collyer
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (08/26/90)
In article <1990Aug26.074604.10583@amd.com> cdr@brahms.amd.com (Carl Rigney) writes: > I suspect most of the problems Peter has would go away if he just got into > the habit of doing everything as news, not root. Works for me! No, most of my problems would go away if I had some less exotic UNIX systems. Henry knows that, we've had enough E-mail discussions about the problems with news on old System III/286 boxes. In fact that was why I went to C news in the first place, after Henry pointed out that it ran in small model (at least it ran on the PDP-11). Still, there are things that could be done in the installation and admin scripts that would make things a lot easier. Henry sees them as coddling the user. I see them as cheap (and obvious) enhancements. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U` peter@ferranti.com
wisner@hayes.fai.alaska.edu (Bill Wisner) (08/27/90)
Complain all you want about the lack of gloss in the C news installation script. It's still a big improvement over B news installation. Oh, you all remember B news, don't you? B news, with its localize.sh file and annoying little ed script that was such a pain to get right? Yeah, that one. Count your blessings, and be sure C news gets all the credit it deserves. Bill Wisner <wisner@hayes.fai.alaska.edu> Gryphon Gang Fairbanks AK 99775 "Remember, some net.personalities are basically insane." -- Karl Lehenbauer <karl@sugar.hackercorp.com>
tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) (08/27/90)
In article <1990Aug26.203259.1954@hayes.fai.alaska.edu> wisner@hayes.fai.alaska.edu (Bill Wisner) writes: >Complain all you want about the lack of gloss in the C news >installation script. It's still a big improvement over B news >installation. Oh, you all remember B news, don't you? B news, with its >localize.sh file and annoying little ed script that was such a pain to >get right? Yeah, that one. Would somebody explain why B News installation is supposed to be so hard? What, exactly, is the problem? Localize.sh? It seems straightforward enough to me. Actually if anyone is terminally confused by localize.sh, it's easy enough to change it to operate using patch(1). Just run diffs on your Makefile and defs.h and stick the output into localize.sh as here-document input to 'patch'. For example ########################################################################## rm -f Makefile cp Makefile.dst Makefile chmod u+w Makefile patch -N Makefile <<'EOF' 11,12c11 < #V7 OSTYPE = v7 < #USG OSTYPE = usg --- > OSTYPE = usg 25,26c24,25 < SPOOLDIR = /usr/spool/news < BATCHDIR = /usr/spool/batch --- > SPOOLDIR = /u/spool/news > BATCHDIR = /u/spool/batch ... 395d351 < #VMS mv expire.exe expire EOF ########################################################################## rm -f defs.h cp defs.dist defs.h chmod u+w defs.h patch -N defs.h <<'EOF' 35c35 < #define ROOTID 10 /* uid of person allowed to cancel anything */ --- > #define ROOTID 505 /* uid of person allowed to cancel anything */ 38c38 < #define DFLTEXP 2*WEEKS /* default no. of seconds to expire in */ --- > #define DFLTEXP 10*DAYS /* default no. of seconds to expire in */ ... 103c103 < /* #define MINFREE 5000 /* minimum number of free blocks needed in spool*/ --- > #define MINFREE 5000 /* minimum number of free blocks needed in spool*/ EOF
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (08/27/90)
In article <1990Aug26.203259.1954@hayes.fai.alaska.edu> wisner@hayes.fai.alaska.edu (Bill Wisner) writes: > Oh, you all remember B news, don't you? B news, with its > localize.sh file and annoying little ed script that was such a pain to > get right? Yes, but you only had to do it once. And it was sure a lot easier to debug when you didn't have to sit through an interactive question-an-answer session every time you wanted to try a different configuration. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U` peter@ferranti.com
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (08/27/90)
In article <UYG5QR4@ggpc2.ferranti.com> peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: | No, most of my problems would go away if I had some less exotic UNIX systems. | Henry knows that, we've had enough E-mail discussions about the problems with | news on old System III/286 boxes. In fact that was why I went to C news in | the first place, after Henry pointed out that it ran in small model (at least | it ran on the PDP-11). Someone around here got 2.11.17 running on PC/ix, and that's SysIII with no other model than small. I don't know what had to change to do it, if anything, the compiler on that system seems pretty good. | | Still, there are things that could be done in the installation and admin | scripts that would make things a lot easier. Henry sees them as coddling the | user. I see them as cheap (and obvious) enhancements. Amen! B news is full of stuff which someone wrote because it made life easier *and which became part of the distribution*. I have the feeling that either no one is sharing C news tools, or they're not being incorporated in the package. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) VMS is a text-only adventure game. If you win you can use unix.
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (08/27/90)
In article <1990Aug26.203259.1954@hayes.fai.alaska.edu> wisner@hayes.fai.alaska.edu (Bill Wisner) writes: | installation. Oh, you all remember B news, don't you? B news, with its | localize.sh file and annoying little ed script that was such a pain to | get right? Yeah, that one. See my previous posting, I got things right on a lot of assorted machines, and no one has ever called me a news guru. A number of other things they have called me, but never anything nice. | | Count your blessings, and be sure C news gets all the credit it deserves. C news gets lots of credit, but it is getting some well deserved criticisms, too. It is not "better in every way" with no reason to hesitate before changing from B news. There are advantages in some areas for each, and shortcomings. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) VMS is a text-only adventure game. If you win you can use unix.
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (08/28/90)
In article <2466@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes: >... I have the >feeling that either no one is sharing C news tools, or they're not being >incorporated in the package. Although we do insist on a certain amount of quality control, we have incorporated other peoples' work at times, and will do so again in the future. Part of the reason why it's not obvious at times is that there is quite a backlog of stuff in my "to be looked at" pile; I haven't had much time to work on C News lately. -- TCP/IP: handling tomorrow's loads today |Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology OSI: handling yesterday's loads tomorrow| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) (08/30/90)
>Complain all you want about the lack of gloss in the C news >installation script. It's still a big improvement over B news >installation. Oh, you all remember B news, don't you? B news, with its >localize.sh file and annoying little ed script that was such a pain to >get right? Yeah, that one. > Cnews is great. But Bnews installation was much simpler and more straight-forward. Less guessing about what was going on, less time spent finding out. -- Richard Foulk richard@pegasus.com