Sun Jan 21 15:27:01 PST 2007

libpst is a command-line tool that converts Outlook .pst files into standard mbox files, the way T&R intended. Wish I'd known about this before…

One of the outstanding feature requests is listing and extracting individual messages. Maybe I'll take a look at this.

In other news, I borked my home machine (Debian testing) by trying to extend a partition w/ReiserFS. That gave me a perfect excuse to upgrade to a bigger disk and reinstall Debian.

Next up is maybe looking at replacing my venerable copy of Slackware 9 with a Debian install, too; the ease of installing and upgrading Debian packages is just too good to pass up.

I did consider other OSs:

• FreeBSD: Even after three years, port-upgrade still scares me.

• NetBSD: meh, what's exciting about that?

• OpenBSD: Secure, yes, and God knows I'd like to use pf. But not easy to upgrade, either ports or releases.

• Dragonfly: Not yet.

• BSDs in general: I want a journalled FS.

• OpenSolaris: If I wanted to upgrade everything by hand, I'd stick with Slackware.

And yes, I realize I'm damned ignorant, and that a server should not be exciting. But I'm convinced that a big part of running a server successfully is ease of upgrading, whether security fixes or new app versions, and Debian is just wonderful.

(permalink) (comments)

Comment from: Wout Mertens Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 10:55:00 +0100

What about Solaris?

Seriously,

you've spent all that time evaluating those BSDs and you miss the one that's getting the most advanced research done on it: Solaris.

Think about it, DTrace, ZFS, Zones, all yummy things for your server enjoyment. ZFS doubly so, because it means never losing data again (for reasonable definitions of "never" ;-) ).

Note that ZFS is ported to FreeBSD: http://bsdnews.com/view_story.php3?story_id=6081

and to FUSE (which means Linux and Mac OS): http://zfs-on-fuse.blogspot.com/

Wout.

Comment from Ceri Davies
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 19:34:50 +0000

FreeBSD has journalled UFS

In -CURRENT only for now, but those people who want it so bad should be the ones testing it: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/sbin/geom/class/journal/

Wout has a point about Solaris; it kicks the ass, it has to be said, and I'm a FreeBSD committer.

Ceri

Comment from Paul Roche
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:51:22 -0800

Re: other OSs

FreeBSD! is all you need!

• portsnap, port-upgrade, freebsd-update (http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=freebsd-update&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+6.2-RELEASE) and csup in base!

port-upgrade I know has had some problems in the past, most of my issues have been due to pkgdb getting confused. freebsd-update does binary updates, even for the kernel (you are running GENERIC right?). Oh, and did you notice ZFS was ported?

Even OpenBSD has cleaned its self up a bit. After upgrade (done by manualling untaring and checking important files by hand ofcourse), pkg_add can finally re-install all your packages. Its better than before, not as good as FBSD though.

Comment from Paul Roche
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:51:42 -0800

err manualling I swear is a word…

Comment from Bert JW Regeer
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 12:57:49 -0700

FreeBSD for teh Win

Hey,

I figured i'd comment on your recent post on your blog. I feel that FreeBSD would be the way to go. I have never had any real problems with port upgrade, and with the many updates to the ports tree to have it save the configure options in /var/db/pkg it has come a long way. As for journalling, it is in 7.0-CURRENT right now, and will be in 7.0. I also love the fact that now in base we have csup, portsnap and others that allow real easy ways to update the system to the latest ports tree and do cvsup without having to install cvsup, ezm, and m3 or whatever that other language is.

Debian? Ugh, after you use apt-get for just a bit, it becomes a nuisance, and it is known to just randomly remove things because it thinks it is not required anymore. For example on my MSN TV, it removed the modutils (modprobe and friends), leaving me up shit creek without a paddle, since I could not re-enable my network card, to get the package.

FreeBSD for teh win!

Bert JW Regeer