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000078_owner-acornet@…s.barnet.ac.uk _Fri Aug 15 16:12:41 1997.msg
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From: "Carol Carpenter" <carol@barnet.ac.uk>
Organization: Barnet College
To: acornet@lists.barnet.ac.uk
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 16:09:50 GMT +0000
Subject: Re: My Newsbase installation was working, until...
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On 13 Aug 97 at 15:47, Richard Sargeant wrote:
> Today, at 11:20:17 GMT +0000, Carol Carpenter wrote:
>
> > > I unarchived Newsbase first of all, and tested that by itself...
> >
> > What an odd thing to do.
>
> I found Acornet 0.20 already contained a NewsDir. During the startup
as did 0.19 and probably those previous.....
> process, Newsbase tries to find if one already exists, and prompts
> the
> user to create this and attempts to configure itself automatically if it
> was not just a mistake of forgetting to have it seen by the filer first.
Erm... it does ? It might do if you try to install it seperately not
using acornets configure or installer - but that's the risk you take
when trying to upgrade individual components manually.
>
> The feature I had discovered in Newsbase 0.59d is that it created a
> slightly different format !Newsdir.newsbase.startup.c00saved.users
> file (with details of the time and date of last login for each user).
>
> So if any user already has an existing NewsDir, one of the objectives
> I imagine they would have when upgrading software would be to keep
> their e-mail in their existing NewsDir, from either a stand-alone
> Newsbase installation, or a previous suite of the Acornet system.
If this is a crucial datafile and the format is changing from one
minor release to another without the app automatically taking account
of it then I have to criticise the author. But I doubt this is the
case because you were going from 0.59d to 0.59c. I wouldn't expect
backwards compatibility.
I will try out 0.59d and see what effects it has on those who might
be trying to upgrade from a 0.19 well used setup.
To be perfectly honest though - upgrading from one major release of
acornet to another is always going to be a risky thing there
are too many factors involved. You can't simply just dump a new
version over the top of the old and rerun the configure without risk
of loosing a lot. The configure was never intended to be used like
that.
Thats why acornet should only be released when quite a lot has
changed so that new users (who've never used it before) can benefit
and those who haven't been updating odd apps here and there can start
again with a new setup.
>
> In acornet_1.spk, there was a 41K compressed item (77K text file)
>
> !Acornet.!NewsDir.newsbase.debugnews.new_news.0804224338
>
> which is a temporary backup of a !Newsbase supplied welcome news batch
>
> !Acornet.Resources.!Newsbase.Support.new_news
>
> which you could have added your own material to, but would only be
> used if the first time Newsbase installation process is performed.
>
> Should the ANT transport be provided in a !Acornet distribution?
> As I see it (using !Spark) compressed, it is three times larger
> than the next largest transports (freenews and ka9q) and like the
> Termite transport, something not really relevant to !Acornet users.
>
> The directory for the !Newsbase.!AutoBoot program is missing, but
> that should be the least of your worries because I had rewritten
> this program (originally by Adam Goodfellow, IIRC) so it did not
> generate an error like it used to in the Newsbase 0.58 release.
What error ? Doesn't do it for me. The !newsbase dir is as it was
when extracted from a downloaded copy. By the way - have you
actually ever written anything that wasn't a rewrite of someone elses
code ?
>
> > I have stated several times that if you have a working updated copy
> > already I do not advise you to use this one. Unpack it to a new
> > directory, reset your station and try it out by all means.
>
> Done this now (with yesterday's parts 1-3), and managed to get it
> configured and connected on line all right.
Goodo - It's surprising how things go reasonably well when you do it
how you're sposed to.
< More feedback later.
I can't wait.
Now that's being facetious :-)
--
Carol Carpenter
Software Support @ Barnet College
(W) carol@barnet.ac.uk
(H) carol@nocturnal.demon.co.uk http://www.nocturnal.demon.co.uk/