On Saturday 03 of October 2015 01:28:39 Slávek Banko wrote: One more useful information: the second mirror of preliminary stable builds repository is available at depot-trinity.dotriver.eu: http://depot-trinity.dotriver.eu/trinity-sb -- Slávek

On Saturday 03 October 2015 00:28:39 Slávek Banko wrote: Yes, Slávek, I'm sorry. I managed to install with Tim's repositories, and, once I could see a bit, there was a comma instead of a full stop at one point in your repository in my sorces.list. I had checked and checked it, but i just couldn't see it!! :-( I was lucky that Tim's was OK. It very rarely is. It is inaccessible again this morning. This is an ongoing problem that I have with spreading the word about TDE. Tim's repository is almost normally not available for us (in England? On the South Coast? Everyone I know who tries to use TDE!), and it is hard to find anything else to use. When I asked recently I was told just to use Tim's and it would chose the best mirror. That is no use if Tim's is unavailable. I always say just to use Slávek's. Yesterday was the first time that Slávek's has appeared to be unavailable, and in fact it was. It is very reliable, but hard to find for someone happening on the website. The error message that I am currently getting (it has been alright on this particular computer for the last few days since I set it up when I wrote the other day and asked about mirrors) is under my signature. Can we at least localise this problem. It has been there ever since I have been using TDE and makes installing TDE difficult. Does it apply anywhere other than the south of England? Once we have localised it, can someone help me solve it? Perhaps we need to find a main mirror this side of the Atlantic. And meanwhile what mirror does anyone other than Mike (thanks for your advice, Mike, when I asked a week ago. But as you can see it hasn't helped) suggest for 3.5.13.2 now I can't use a nice reliable Slávek one for it? I currently can't connect to the web archive (I was going to link to my email about this of a week ago) so you won't even get this for a bit! One person, who sets computers up for "old people" and decided that Unity was too resource hungry for old computers, has abandoned TDE (which was front runner) in favour of LXDE largely because of this problem. It is really very tedious to be unable to install/update time after time while you wait for whatever gremlin is amusing himself to go away. I just said to use Slávek's repository, but he very reasonably pointed out that it doesn't say so here: I was going to link to the page on how to get TDE. It is unavailable. There is obviously a larger problem at the moment. But the update problem is ongoing. There must be a reliable mirror somewhere that can be reached from England. If not, give me a mentor who will help with advice, because I don't know where or how to start, and I'll try to find you one. And anyhow I'll start asking people how to do it. The best, of course, would be to be in Debian's repostitories, but we haven't the resources for that. :-( Perhaps we are just too small and need to find a millionnaire? Lisi Error message for update: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net/trinity/trinity-v3.5.13/debian/d…: Could not connect to ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net:80 (192.119.205.243). - connect (113: No route to host) W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net/trinity/trinity-builddeps-v3.5.1…: Unable to connect to ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net/trinity/trinity-v3.5.13/debian/d…: Unable to connect to ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net/trinity/trinity-v3.5.13/debian/d…: Unable to connect to ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net/trinity/trinity-builddeps-v3.5.1…: Unable to connect to ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net/trinity/trinity-builddeps-v3.5.1…: Unable to connect to ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net/trinity/trinity-v3.5.13/debian/d…: Unable to connect to ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net/trinity/trinity-v3.5.13/debian/d…: Unable to connect to ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net/trinity/trinity-builddeps-v3.5.1…: Unable to connect to ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net:http: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net/trinity/trinity-builddeps-v3.5.1…: Unable to connect to ppa.quickbuild.pearsoncomputing.net:http: E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead. E: Couldn't rebuild package cache

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA224 I don't think that's a fair assessment...while my uptime isn't has high as I would like it isn't really that bad. The recent outage was traced to a couple of problems, bad RAM in one machine and a defective 12V power connector in another. The latter issue resulted in one of the 12V lines literally burning out, complete with charred insulation. Please bear in mind that the TDE services are sustained almost wholly on my financial contributions, as there have been very very few donations for the past year or more. As a result uptime suffers somewhat. ;-) Tim

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA224 The actual TDE repositories are mirrored; you can select a mirror from this list and pretty much ignore the rest of the TDE services if you want to. https://trinitydesktop.org/mirrorstatus.php The only caveat is that occasionally we add / lose mirrors (after all, the mirrors are being provided to us on the good will of other people / organisations); you won't receive any notification if a mirror goes down or goes stale. Tim

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA224 High speed internet connection with stable IP or DNS name (and without any data caps), and lots of free disk space ( > 100GB). Mirrors are synchronised via rsync and accessed over HTTP, so obviously you need to be able to install the relevant software as well. Tim

On Monday 05 of October 2015 17:56:05 Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote: Here I see a problem in that it is "only" web hosting. As mentioned in a one of previous emails - we now have a vps == virtual machine fully under our control. Thanks to vpsfree.cz we got this vps as a donation. -- Slávek

if you want one more mirror I ll be happy to provide one, on a dedicated server at online.net, unlimited transit, 100 mb/s, enough diskspace available you mean rsync and a webserver ? what else could be needed ? -- Cordialement ----------------------------------- William Waisse, PGP 0x 690B4E07 http://waisse.org | http://neoskills.com | http://ww7.pe | https://careers.stackoverflow.com/neofutur "Computers are like air conditionners. They work better when you close windows." "You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something in your life." "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"

On Tue October 6 2015 05:23:45 Lisi Reisz wrote: Hi Lisi, How many TDE mirrors are needed in Germany? Belgium? Luxembourg? China, India, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, and Australia? How much does each mirror cost in terms of IPv4 addresses, global warming, person hours, and crucial Tim hours? How much load does each new mirror impose on other parts of TDE infrastructure? What is the optimum number of mirrors for TDE - now and for the next year or two? Thanks, --Mike

On Tue October 6 2015 09:06:52 Lisi Reisz wrote: Hi Lisi, My business uses the services of several data centers. This is the facility which houses one of the TDE mirrors, and also where we monitor the other TDE mirrors. https://incero.com/dallas-data-center For obvious reasons I cannot publish here the precise number and locations of the man traps and security cameras but I hope that the three generators, four power systems, four cooling systems, and five tier-one backbones meet with your approval. If not, please let me know where improvements are needed. I see in our logs the problems we had 10 months ago getting R14 out over the limited bandwidth at the server farm, I see the secondary mirrors being resynced on the 8th-9th of January of this year, and I see all mirrors generally performing well since that time. When I told you about using ping to choose a mirror I warned you that there are technical caveats. You tell us that the University of Kent has a problem - not your PC, router, fire wall, or ISP but the University of Kent. Thank you. Would you please be so good as to provide specific information such as an apt-get error log or equivalent so we can diagnose and fix the problem at the University of Kent? http://www.capitoline.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Kent-University-Data-C… Thanking you in advance, --Mike

On Tuesday 06 October 2015 17:23:15 Slávek Banko wrote: \o/ Thank you Slávek (and Tim). I'll try it straight away on at least one of my 3.5.13.2 machines. Lisi

On Tuesday 06 of October 2015 18:43:01 Lisi Reisz wrote: Oh, sorry, address does not begin mirror.cgit but mirror.git - the correct address is mirror.git.trinitydesktop.org -- Slávek

On Tuesday 06 of October 2015 19:51:54 Lisi Reisz wrote: As you correctly recognized by the wiki, the final name for new redirector is mirror.ppa.trinitydesktop.org. So you can update your apt sources to this final name. Incidentally, this name can also be used for sources like /slavek-banko/axis, although it is still true that these additional sources are not on mirror sites, so that in case of outage of the primary server will be unavailable. -- Slávek

On Tuesday 06 of October 2015 18:53:20 Lisi Reisz wrote: The gpg keys are the same. It is a redirector to the official Trinity mirrors == official packages with official Trinity gpg key. Beware - there is not my ppa for 3.5.13.x, because it simply is not on the mirrors. Of course are available official 3.5.13.2 packages. -- Slávek

Am Dienstag, 6. Oktober 2015 schrieb Neo Futur: Hi all! all-incl.com just told me that they will not be willing to "donate" 2 TB traffic per month, so there goes my cheep mirror :-( So, that mirror would be great! Nik -- Please do not email me anything that you are not comfortable also sharing with the NSA.

On Mon October 5 2015 01:32:50 Lisi Reisz wrote: The existing mirrors are good with just occasional brief outages for things like security updates. I would suggest using the mirror nearest you. https://trinitydesktop.org/mirrorstatus.php If anyone wants to add a full mirror you'll need 165GB right now without nightlies and normally at least 200GB. I operate one of the mirrors with 250GB. Expect 1-2TB per month of downloads and maybe 10% of that for uploads. The problem is the bandwidth between Tim's build farm and the primary mirror. Increasing the bandwidth would be a significant ongoing expense. Moving the build farm to the "cloud" would be a significant ongoing expense. When time permits Tim might want to move the web site to a small reliable VPS and perhaps add a DNS redirector to distribute load between the available mirrors. --Mike

On Mon October 5 2015 04:34:20 Lisi Reisz wrote: You could ping each of them and see which has the lowest ping time. Technically there are lots of caveats with that but in practice it works out pretty well. https://trinitydesktop.org/mirrorstatus.php FWIW the .de mirror appears to be in Germany, the bg1 mirror appears to be in Bulgaria, the Yosemite mirror is in the US, and the two mirrorservice.org mirrors and the ntmm mirror appear to be in the UK. --Mike

On Monday 05 October 2015 12:46:37 Mike Bird wrote: Every one rejects ping. Still, I think I'll use the one I know to be in Europe, http://depot-trinity.dotriver.eu/trinity/ . I used to use it, but stopped for some reason and switched to http://mirror.ntmm.org/trinity/ . I can't remember why. It isn't just in Europe: it is in France. It may well be my nearest mirror. The nearest point of land in France is about 60 miles away. Could it be added to the list of mirrors? I have actually been looking on Google, and both kuiper and copernicus come up as being at the University of Kent. That seems a little strange, to host the mirror twice at Kent University. I'll try those if dotriver isn't satisfactory. dotriver is in Lyon, which is further from me than Kent (485.6 miles to 117.5 miles), but I still think I'll try it first. I haven't got on well with the University of Kent mirror in the past. If it hosts everything twice, under two different names, that could explain a lot! Thanks, this has been a most instructive excercise. Lisi

On Monday 05 October 2015 15:24:35 Gerhard Zintel wrote: Thanks, Gerhard. That was a big help. It worked for everything but copernicus. So I conclude that copernicus is down or gone. Lisi

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA224 Slavek and I are working on getting this resolved ASAP. This is one of the few areas on the main site that really doesn't need to be on the same systems as the rest of the services, and as such it should be fairly trivial to get a replacement up and running. However, I want to make sure it's done right instead of fast and sloppy, so it might be a little bit before it goes live. Thank you all for your understanding, Tim

On Monday 05 October 2015 07:30:10 Felix Miata wrote: Better phrased than my question, but much the same. What can we do to help sort this out? czer.cz works brilliantly and reliably. Can we not get something similar for the rest of the repos? I had thought already of man.ac.uk and ox.ac.uk, both of whom give very good Debian mirrors. And I could ask port.ac.uk, as it is local. Anyone any suggestions as to how to go about it? Or whom else to approach? Lisi

On Monday 05 October 2015 10:16:49 Michael . wrote: Ermmm... We need someone who needs less hand-holding on this. :-( There is a whole philosophy involved in this. If we are a small niche hobbyist project, who enjoy talking to each other and our navels and using TDE ourselves, then there isn't really a problem. If we want to be accepted mainstream at some stage, and Mate and Cinnamon are both now in the Debian installer, this needs solving, and not just for mirrors. The main project page has to give usable advice. Usable every day, not just when the weather in the central United States is good. <quote> I'm still thinking that LXDE with Kthis and Kthat would probably be quite adequate for me, and would avoid these iffy repositories in Ultima Thule. And it sounded at the bbq as if that was a stumbling block for getting Ian on board as well. </quote> He installs for a lot of people. As does "Ian". He loved TDE. It was just what he was looking for. We are losing the battle. That is fine, if that is what we want. Tim, I am really grateful for what you do and have done. Without you TDE would not and could not exist. And we must clearly try to fund you better. But that is not the answer if TDE is to grow, and even survive. It cannot grow without a different, _larger_ and more reliable (as in weather and infrastructure) host. Lisi

On Tuesday 06 October 2015 10:11:16 Michael . wrote: This is what I what trying to suggest, though my one specific idea would actually be likely to refuse. I'll ask for ideas. But I'm not sure that my finding a sponsor would be welcome. My previous suggestions that I could try to do that have not been well received. So - if I were to succeed in finding a pro bono host would it just get brickbats? Would everyone prefer me to just keep quiet? Lisi

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA224 And to chime in on Lisi's offer -- no, finding a free host isn't going to help the situation. As you can see from other messages on the list most free services aren't going to be very happy sinking the thousands of dollars per year required to keep even part of the TDE services up and running, not to mention the extra maintenance overhead (i.e. time I don't have to actually work on writing TDE or pulling in a paycheck to live) incurred by decoupling services and spreading them out everywhere. Slavek and I are already working on moving a few smaller services to a European host. This should alleviate most of the end-user visible difficulties until the main datacenter can be moved. Tim

Sorry Steven you obviously don't understand how an apt repository works.I have a repo on sourceforge and only what I put in there is in there. Using apt it checks packages files, which I create with reprepro on my own machine at home, and you can only get what is listed in my repository. Sourceforge has not added anything, nor can they, to my repo and if they did it would not be signed and that should immediately ring alarm bells. On 5 October 2015 at 21:17, Steven D'Aprano &lt;steve(a)pearwood.info&gt; wrote:

On Monday 05 October 2015 05:16:49 Michael . wrote: That has its caveats, check S-F's TOS. There are many who disagree with their TOS. And their restoration performance after that last failure can only be described as sucking dead taods thru soda straws. Almost 2 weeks to get everything back, and what was restored, was restored to dated versions because they don't use amanda for backups. I do, so my restores would be to that state it was in at nominally 1:00 am each night. My bandwidth is only 10 megabaud, small town West Virginia location, and extra charges start at 300 Gb/month. And I already keep a reasonably up to date repo for a 33 yo legacy computer and whose main repo is on S-F. I have preached to move it, but my thought have been ignored. My usage, keeping 5 machines, 4 running a pinned wheezy and a lappy running some sort of xfce/ubuntu fairly up to date, was about 60Gb last month. I am on a fixed income (SS) and would not like to see the extra charges kick in, but if it could be capped at say 220Gb/month, I could donate some bandwidth if that small a pipe would be usable. I for one am pretty happy with TDE, and if Timothy had a paypal account for donations, I would feel that an annual donation is a reasonable way to help compensate Timothy, or Zack or both meet maintenance expenses. The operative word here is TANSTAAFL. And I dislike wearing the leech label, which I am being right now as far as TDE is concerned. So within reason as a single user, a fee donation request via paypal sure seems like a suitable way to help. $10/mo I could afford. I have no clue how many users there are, but if half of those pleased kicked in annually, fresh hardware money should be sitting there drawing meager interest till needed. Your calls, both of you. Speak up. Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>

On Monday 05 October 2015 12:52:42 Lisi Reisz wrote: That is ambiguous. Would make those of us, who even complain here, weep with frustration at its unreliability. Lisi

On Saturday 03 of October 2015 17:09:27 Lisi Reisz wrote: Sorry, I did not realize that you do not have in mind the Preliminary stable builds, but my 3.5.13.x repository on the PPA. Unfortunately it is not available on mirrors. However, it is very consistent with the final 3.5.13.2, which is available on the official mirrors. ...so the problem comes back to the unavailable of primary server during the weekend and discussion about vps. -- Slávek

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA224 I would like to add briefly that the main TDE servers themselves have an uptime of over 99% including downtime for upgrades, etc.; what is continually failing (and will require a physical move to correct) is the connection between the Internet and those servers. While I know many TDE users are from Europe, and therefore are used to much higher levels of service (and much higher penetration of decent service levels), the TDE project is based in the United States. Over here, high speed and high reliability Internet service is simply unavailable in many locations. Trust me when I say the poor service is impacting the profitable end of the business co-located with the TDE servers, and as such the entire datacenter is scheduled to be physically moved to a location with much better service in the next 3 - 6 months. As you can imagine, a move of this scale takes time; it has been in the planning phase for over 6 months now. Thank you for your patience and understanding! Tim

On Monday 05 October 2015 20:55:57 Mike Bird wrote: There we have it. The powers that be in TDE think that mirrors needn't be reliable. And they aren't. [snip] Security they probably have chez Tim. But reliability? I don't see how vpsfree.cz could possibly be any worse. .cz isn't in the USA so it's likely to be up more of the time. Lisi

On Monday 05 October 2015 19:59:49 Slávek Banko wrote: No, there are two issues here, whicxh I confused because I was getting so frustrated.. Your prelimuinary stable builds which I was trying to install and couldn't. That turned out to be because I had mistyped and couldn't see. Your repositiory is completely reliable. On that occasion luckily Tim's was working. But you only have a repository for r14. You no longer have one for 3.5.13 because it is no longer being worked on. So there is not a reliable source for it. Having had a very frustrating time trying to install r14 on a new install, when I finally succeeded I went to bed. But next morning I came to update my desktop - 3.5.13.2 - and couldn't. See the error message above. I am trying to proseletise TDE, but I can't when installation and updating are so horribly unreliable. I convert people, and they say how lovely it is. Start using it. Hit problems installing and updating and run away again. The over-riding problem is that only you have ever run a reliable repository ever since I have used TDE. And we keep being directed to the pearson computing site because it will direct us to the best mirror, but it doesn't. How the United States lives with its rotten infrastructure beats me. I suppose it is used to it, as we are to our overcrowded roads and ancient train system. Google doesn't attempt to rely on the States: <quote> Google data center locations. If you include data centers that are under construction, Google has 19 locations in the US where they operate data centers, 12 in Europe, one in Russia, one in South America, and three in Asia. </quote> Please, please, please can the main public facing stuff be somewhere else? Lisi

On Monday 05 October 2015 22:11:47 Timothy Pearson wrote: That is what I have always done and is where we came in. The mirror I had used for some time had become unreliable and I was looking to change. I asked on the list about mirrors and Mike said that I should use the redirector. I have now (after the recent conversation about how to chose a mirror) reset my sources.list to use a named mirror. So I was only off a named site for six days. But that is not what your site says to do, and I did not find the mirrors easy to find. So it doesn't help with converts. _And_ you get bad weather. :-( Yes, that is all valid. I was making one point only - that servers based in the United States are unreliable. Not that Google is a model to copy. No, I meant somewhere outside the United States. Though any improvement is greatly welcomed. So can they at least please be on reliable servers? And could you spoon-feed us and give us actual addresses? Thank you for everything you do, Tim. I'm sorry that I can't help more. But it is not obvious to me what I could do. Proselytising is obviously counter-productive. And I help on the list where I can, but that isn't much. Lisi

On Monday 05 October 2015 22:57:38 Mike Bird wrote: One of those is down. Permanently?? I have in the past found the University of Kent mirror rather unreliable, but I had in fact already decided to give the one that is up (kuiper) a chance. Just pinging mirrorservice.org was slower than pinging dotriver.eu. But kuiper.mirrorservice.org was noticably quicker. Kent being inconsistent or a real difference? A pity you couldn't comment earlier. And if you knew that the two Kent ones were in Kent, you could have said so, especially if you consider them capably administered - something I was specifically asking about. You have been unwilling to give a recommendation, so I had to use a pin. I like France, and its infrastructure, which is far better and more reliable than ours, so I chose France. Especially as it was suggested by Slávek and I have always found Slávek's advice extremely reliable. Apparently the pin was not successful. That was why I asked in the first place. Lisi

On Monday 05 October 2015 22:28:58 Mike Bird wrote: I don't see the relevance of that. DSL isn't very old, so it makes a difference which half and how old you are. You may have no experience at all of DSL in the UK. Besides, DSL is totally irrelevant. I answered that, then deleted it because I realised that it is completely irrelevant. If you think in terms of DSL in this context, then you have encapsulated the problem, and no wonder there are problems. It is the 21st Century now, not the 20th. Is Tim on DSL? How on earth does he manage a modern server farm on DSL???? With difficulty would seem to be the answer. DSL is slow and unreliable. We have the answer. Lisi

On Monday 05 October 2015 23:10:40 Mike Bird wrote: Of course. No-one queries that. And those of you who live in the USA are stuck with what it offers. Most of you like it. But the Internet infrastructure is very poor, and is obviously even worse than I realised. I knew that Tim had problems, and that the Internet in the USA is awful, but DSL - ouch! We have a few farmers having to manage on dial-up still, and even the government has woken up and is doing something because it causes them such problems. But they have cows not server farms. It comes from being early adopters. We anglophones are stuck in the past. I've just been looking up DS3, which I didn't know. I knew that the Internet provision in the USA was bad, but I hadn't realised how bad. I could have this: https://www.zen.co.uk/business/ Zen is my ISP. They have checked my line and said that I would actually get 78 meg. But I am getting 20 meg for £18 a month including tax, for more bandwidth than I use, so I can't justify the price hike to myself now I am more or less retired. And the UK is bad in Internet terms. (That is expensive in UK terms, because it is good in UK terms.) And I am in a rural area. As you say of the US, it is better in large urban areas. At this time of night (23:46) I can't find out what this costs: https://www.zen.co.uk/business/leased-lines-and-ipvpn/leased-lines.aspx#add… Wouldn't you rather change busines or emigrate Tim? You really are up against it. Can we not get TDE hosted pro bono by somebody good in a good country for connection? Lisi

On Monday 05 October 2015 23:20:08 Timothy Pearson wrote: Tim - I'm sorry that my disagreement with Mike has impinged on you. It had not occurred to me that you might be using DSL. It was Mike who said it, and I didn't really believe him. See the question marks? I am going to put in here at the beginning what I have said at the end: I am not attacking or criticising you, Tim. I think that what you are doing is wonderful. But I see a problem and I am trying to find a solution. No, I don't, that is unfair and untrue. I have always gone out of my way to patronise small start-up companies and avoid the big boys. I do all I can to stop other people using the big boys. We have a law here against monopolies - one of the advantages of the "liberalism" so hated by many in the US. If I like everything centralised in one spot, why on earth do I use TDE?? My ISP, Zen, was tiny when I joined it. I'm not going to desert it for growing - though I shall desert it if it starts to behave like a "big-boy". There was a very small, very good local ISP that I was recommending to clients, but it has been taken over by someone bigger and less local, so I don't know where it is going and am not currently recommending it to anyone. Yes, you are really up against it. I would hate to be in your shoes. Yes, I know. I keep saying how grateful I am. But that doesn't mean that I think that it is perfect. Again, I know. I thought that I was trying to suggest trying to help do something about it. Part of the problem is that any project which relies totally on one person is inevitably in a precarious position. That sounds terrific and was just what I was saying would be good. But can it not be all the public-facing services? When have I ever suggested it? I have only ever referred to the public-facing bits. Which is why we shouldn't be trying to access the master server. I try to do so as little as possible, partly for that reason. But Mike told me to do so, (advice he has repeated during the course of this "discussion") and the website says to use it. It shouldn't. There are sites that host projects like this pro bono, certainly the web-sites and repos etc. and public facing bits. I am willing to try to find one, but that seems to be a very unpopular suggestion. But anyway, I thought you said that you had now got a VPS available, and were transferring some, hopefully all, of the public facing services. Yes, I know. But to get more developers you need more users. And to get more users you need to be more accessible. And my suggestion that I will help try to achieve that has met with a lot of hostility (not until now from you, I must add). You cannot simultaneously change and stay the same. You can stay small, cash strapped, threatened, or you can grow - and embrace any necessary changes. How can I go on promoting it, when it is then inaccessible? However understandable it may be that it is inaccessible. I have been promoting it hard and getting somewhere, but no-one goes on using it because it is just too much trouble. But from what you say, extra people are just a nuisance anyway - something I have often wondered about. I don't think they are. It is Amazon Prime, Netfilx etc. that are clamouring for users. And it is the providers who find providing DVDs by post more trouble than persuading people to stream. I know. Which is why I have been promoting it. But it will also die and disappear if you personally get fed up; or if it doesn't become accessible. I understand your problems. But try to understand travelling for an hour or more to install or update TDE and having to go away again because it isn't accessible. Or running a class, and the pupils being unable to install after all because it is unavailable. That is what happens if people do as instructed on the website. It shouldn't take inside knowledge to be able to use TDE, if it is to grow. Reading the website should be enough. So the recommended repo or redirector needs to be up reliably. As, of course, does teh website. Which seems to mean that it needs to be hosted somewhere outside the USA. This Czeck one sounds marvellous. And possibly/probably the answer to what I am saying. I have solved it for myself for some years now by always using a mirror, which also keeps the load off the centre. But not all the mirrors are reliable. I asked for advice on which mirror people found reliable, Mike told me to use the redirector and that is where we came in... I am now safely back on a mirror, though now I have chosen one, Mike tells me that I have chosen the wrong one. I did ask for advice. Apropos of which, if it is your recommended list, copernicus still seems to be unavailable. kuiper is fine still. Perhaps Kent decided that one was enough? Anyhow, perhaps copernicus shouldn't be recommended. Yes, I know. That is why I get so frustrated. Unless we can find a way to keep TDE running it will die. It needs users to generate money and developers, or it will be a small niche product and die. Most people go with the flow. Most people use whatever the big boys shove out. Only we rebels and social oddballs (and we must be if we don't use Ubuntu Unity - or even Windows - and bow and say thank you) will use TDE at any price. I can't wean people off Unity onto something that is problematic. They just go back to Unity. Or Windows. I am not attacking or criticising you, Tim. I think that what you are doing is wonderful. But I see a problem and I am trying to find a solution. Mike is to some extent attacking me, I am obviously annoying him, and you are getting caught in the crossfire. That DSL business was obvious nonsense, and anyway it is completely irrelevant what provision is like here; or where Mike has lived. I repeat: I am not attacking or criticising you, Tim. I think that what you are doing is wonderful. But I see a problem and I am trying to find a solution. Lisi

On Tuesday 06 October 2015 00.20:08 Timothy Pearson wrote: OK, so let's face the truth: How many TDE users are we? On this list I don't see much more than a dozen. Who is ready to contribute and how much? I don't know where big projects (KDE, Gnome) get their money from, but obviously we can't have a small, non-profit project supported by Tim alone, use it for free and them rant because it's not available like a big distribution. How much do we need to keep TDE alive, and how much can we get / are we ready to give? In the Linux world most are used to get everything for free, are we different? From Tim's tone I feel that if we dont address this issue _now_ we'll no more being installing a lot of TDEs, be it fast or slowly. Another idea to ease install problems: is it not possible to create some sort of install DVD? Most of us I guess are mostly installing the same distribution over and over, so installing TDE from a DVD or USB stick would save downloading it over and over, which costs money and generate frustration. Other projects also only publish final releases. If there are no contributors, we probably must accept the idea that we can't have nightly builds and other bleeding edge releases unless some good soul offers it to us. BUt what is sure is that if we don't _do_ something and just sit there ranting we want better services for no more (of our) money we'll have to keep our current installs running as they are or change our desktops... I'd love to be able to continue installing TDE... Thierry