January 03, 2013
On 03.01.2013 08:40, Walter Bright wrote:
>
> The most miserable of all is Microsoft Outlook Express, which stores all
> the info in hidden directories that are down a long chain of paths
> filled with directory names that are GUID identifiers.
>
> Then, the mail files themselves are in some secret binary format.

I hate OE, it uses a single file for each mail folder, and when this file gets bigger than 2GB (easily possible for the inbox folder and a few years of email with attachments), it cannot open it anymore. So what does is do? It creates a new empty file with the same name, nuking all your emails.

And then when you buy Office to get Outlook, it cannot import emails from OE!

I easily lost a week when I had to deal with this on my mother's pc...
-- 

Marco Nembrini
January 03, 2013
On 1/2/2013 8:15 PM, Marco Nembrini wrote:
> On 03.01.2013 08:40, Walter Bright wrote:
>>
>> The most miserable of all is Microsoft Outlook Express, which stores all
>> the info in hidden directories that are down a long chain of paths
>> filled with directory names that are GUID identifiers.
>>
>> Then, the mail files themselves are in some secret binary format.
>
> I hate OE, it uses a single file for each mail folder, and when this file gets
> bigger than 2GB (easily possible for the inbox folder and a few years of email
> with attachments), it cannot open it anymore. So what does is do? It creates a
> new empty file with the same name, nuking all your emails.

Yowsa, looks like I dodged a bullet with that one.

Back in the 90's, I used to use an email program called ccremote. It encrypted the email folders. I lost a lot of email when I forgot the password :-(

January 03, 2013
On Wednesday, 2 January 2013 at 23:34:42 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 02, 2013 23:58:08 Chris Nicholson-Sauls wrote:
>> All I can say is I've never looked back since abandoning
>> Canonical linuxes. And Debian in general, really. Hooray for
>> Gentoo.
>
> Glutton for punishment are we?

Not particularly.  I've heard plenty of horror stories, but I've yet to experience them -- or rather, I've yet to experience problems on nearly the same scale as what I had with Ubuntu/Kubuntu, and have had with SUSE far in the past.  The only "flaw" I can think of is that occasionally I *forget* to run updates for a couple weeks, and then there's quite a pile of them.  But that's going to be the case with any "rolling release" distro.

Nothing at all against Arch (it might be my 2nd favorite); I'm just plenty happy where I am, with everything working just as I want it to.
January 03, 2013
On Wed, 2013-01-02 at 13:18 -0800, Walter Bright wrote: […]
> I don't store email on the server, I store it locally.

I think that this is at the heart of your mail problems. It means you rely on one and only one computer for email. I would find this unworkable: I find IMAP the only solution that works for me and my collection of laptops and workstation.

This has the dies effect of the data stored on the client being
removable because it is reconstructible.

-- 
Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder@ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel@winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder


January 03, 2013
On Wed, 2013-01-02 at 18:34 -0500, Jonathan M Davis wrote: […]
> But if I had to recommend an easy-to-use distro, I'd recommend OpenSuSE, but as with all such things, YMMV. For better or worse, Ubuntu is very popular.

I remain with Debian Unstable as it works for me, but you do sometimes have to be careful about some upgrades, it being generally a continuous deployment system. Debian Testing is really not what it claims. I used to use it but it has more problems than Unstable as a day-to-day use distribution. Fedora does look good as a Linux/GNOME system, especially compared to Ubuntu. I think Mint is now the "Debian-based but not Debian" distro of choice amongst the cogniscenti.

-- 
Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder@ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel@winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder


January 03, 2013
On Wed, 2013-01-02 at 11:30 -0800, Walter Bright wrote: […]
> Looks like I'll have to hold my nose and push the upgrade button, but after this release is settled down.
> 
> Does the latest Ubuntu work properly with SSD drives? I know 10.10 does not. I have an extra SSD drive I want to try.

No idea I'm afraid. On the other hand if an SSD does not emulate the controller API for a SATA disk, then it isn't a disk, it's a something else.

Does D have a CI suite of machines?

A CI system would have Windows, OS X, Linux, instances for 32-bit and 64-bit machines and be programmable to retain the distribution product. This would give a rolling distribution for those working at the bleeding edge, not to mention actually being a CI system.

-- 
Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder@ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel@winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder


January 03, 2013
On Wed, 2013-01-02 at 13:59 -0800, Walter Bright wrote: […]
> rhythmbox is a miserable program (at least on Ubuntu). It has a marvy feature where it randomly stops playing, and only a cold boot will bring it back. It also has random problems syncing with my music file database which is on a Windows shared folder. Getting it to recognize a just-added CD was an exercise in madness. I usually wound up deleting rhythmbox's settings file and starting over.

There was a period prior to Canonical dropping Rhythmbox and then later reinstating it as the default player, that there were some problems with Rhythmbox failing to work. It was painful. for the last couple of years though, Rhythmbox has worked entirely fine for me on Debian Unstable with none of the problems seen during that period. So Rhythmbox on Debian works fine for me, far better than any other Linux offering.  OS X offerings I have tried all, universally, fail to be at all appealing or even useful.

> I finally threw in the towel and don't use Ubuntu to play music anymore.

I threw in the towel on Ubuntu when Unity came out as the default UI.

[…]
> I'll admit my backups were less than stellar. I stupidly clicked the "upgrade Ubuntu" button first. I'll also admit to not having a whole lot of patience with the problems with it.

I have an obsessively paranoid backup regime: RAID1 data disc array on
the server which does generational backups to the backup disc.
Workstation mirrors the data disc and has it's own generational backup –
it can become the server if the server fails. Each laptop mirrors the
server data. Not only does this mean I have never lost a file even
across server crash, disc fail or computer fail, each device has exactly
the same data configuration, which gets propagated. So sync up, switch
machine.

In this context a laptop blowing up, let alone a failed upgrade of OS, is a mere mild irritant, fixed in a couple of hours

The core trick is to regularly backup /etc and dpkg --get-selections. Debian state is then recreatable very quickly.

-- 
Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder@ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel@winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder


January 03, 2013
1/3/2013 12:22 PM, Russel Winder пишет:
> On Wed, 2013-01-02 at 13:59 -0800, Walter Bright wrote:
> […]
>> rhythmbox is a miserable program (at least on Ubuntu). It has a marvy feature
>> where it randomly stops playing, and only a cold boot will bring it back. It
>> also has random problems syncing with my music file database which is on a
>> Windows shared folder. Getting it to recognize a just-added CD was an exercise
>> in madness. I usually wound up deleting rhythmbox's settings file and starting over.
>
> There was a period prior to Canonical dropping Rhythmbox and then later
> reinstating it as the default player, that there were some problems with
> Rhythmbox failing to work. It was painful. for the last couple of years
> though, Rhythmbox has worked entirely fine for me on Debian Unstable
> with none of the problems seen during that period. So Rhythmbox on
> Debian works fine for me, far better than any other Linux offering.  OS
> X offerings I have tried all, universally, fail to be at all appealing
> or even useful.
>
>> I finally threw in the towel and don't use Ubuntu to play music anymore.
>
> I threw in the towel on Ubuntu when Unity came out as the default UI.
>
Going OT but can't agree more :)



-- 
Dmitry Olshansky
January 03, 2013
On Wed, 2013-01-02 at 20:31 +0100, Jordi Sayol wrote:
[…]
> Walter, to avoid this problem you can install a "rolling" release like Linux Mint Debian Edition, based on Debian testing.
> You just need to keep it upgraded with "mintUpdate" manager (shield on panel). Read the "Update pack info" before.

Sadly Debian Testing, outside of a freeze period prior to a Stable release, has this habit of allowing Britney to delete important packages. Despite the statements put out by Debian, Debian Testing is not a viable rolling release. Debian Unstable is the only viable rolling release. Even then during a freeze it is irritating.

Has Linux Mint Debian Edition got a fix for this problem with Debian Testing?

-- 
Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder@ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel@winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder


January 03, 2013
On 1/2/2013 11:53 PM, Russel Winder wrote:
> On Wed, 2013-01-02 at 13:18 -0800, Walter Bright wrote:
> […]
>> I don't store email on the server, I store it locally.
>
> I think that this is at the heart of your mail problems. It means you
> rely on one and only one computer for email. I would find this
> unworkable: I find IMAP the only solution that works for me and my
> collection of laptops and workstation.
>
> This has the dies effect of the data stored on the client being
> removable because it is reconstructible.

I know. On the other hand, you have control over your email data.