Ulrich Fuchs wrote: Keep in mind that some of the December troubles might have been avoided if the new hardware had gotten more testing before being put online, so let's not be so impatient this time around. All the Wikipedias are slow, it's not just the German one. Stan

I don't think you have to do much hardware testing. Hardware it's working, or it's not working. Some errors may shine up only if the hardware is running some weeks. Ok. If there's an error, hardware as simple as we are running right now should be replaceable within days. We need to overcome the current problems fast with a solution that isn't for eternity, but that works for now. It's a bad idea to wait for the new hardware, since *this* hardware and *setup* needs to be tested, probably software must be rewritten and so on. I do not believe the new server farm will be up and running smoothely before end of february. I've got the feeling that everyone right now is concerned with and waiting for the new hardware, and forgetting the one we have. As I said, we get complaints from contributors, we are losing contributors. Today we got a mail from the PhD assistant of a german university professor announcing he and his boss would like to write an article. What do I tell them? "Sure, we like to have it, but keep in mind to save it well on your hard disc, probably the ipload will fail. Or please, wait until end of February, probaly we have new hardware then, but probably we have not? " That's ridiculous. This guy will turn away faster than you can watch. Uli

Am Mittwoch, 14. Januar 2004 20:04 schrieb Brion Vibber: Brian, I do not "dance around" - you told me the new mainboard wasn't working, so you sent it back. Ok. But my question was, when will the replacement arrive? That's a phone call to the supplier, and probably it's pressing the supplier a bit. If he can't assure you to deliver a new mainboard within let's say a four days, go to another one. I do not know too much about the old configuration, but obviously it wasn't such high-tech stuff that has months of order lead time. As far as I can see, we had a working and well performing solution at the mid of december. Please bear with my for not reading wikitech, I've got to much to do doing the editing part. But from my point of view, all that needs to be done is to buy exact replacements for the failed hardware we had in december. And I don't think that should need that much time, given the funds we (still) have. Uli

On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 11:35:57AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote: ...and still it's you to blame. Gawd, I like end users. :-) Oh, by the way, THANKS for all the efforts and contributions you continously make to keep things running. I'm sure most of us lurkers appreciate and value your and Brion's efforts without telling it on the list everytime someone loudly complains. Peter

Ulrich Fuchs wrote: The new machine should arrive later today at Jason's house. He intends to do a burn-in on that one, including memtest86. Geoffrin continues to give errors on some memory tests, in every different configuration that Jason tests. He has 2 motherboards and lots of sticks of ram. But we are currently not 100% sure what the exact situation is, as follows: 1. As shipped, Geoffrin gave errors in test #8 of memcache86. Jason has determined that this was due to the memory being in the wrong slots as shipped. This is Penguin's fault, of course, but on the other hand, the motherboard manual contains contradictory information, so it's easy to understand the error. 2. In various configurations consistent with the correct placement of memory, Geoffrin gives sporadic errors in test #11. These are listed as "ECC" errors, which Jason believes may mean that these are o.k., i.e. errors that were caught and fixed by the ECC stuff in the RAM. Or, it may mean something else. He was researching that yesterday afternoon. 3. Therefore, it is quite possible that Geoffrin will run just fine in the current configuration. Certainly, it no longer gives errors in test #8. It is also possible that Geoffrin will *not* run just fine in the current configuration. He's doing testing, but there's no way to be certain, really certain, until we see what happens. 4. As a result, we're still planning to loan this other machine to Wikipedia as a backup for Geoffrin. We do not know what time it will arrive at Jason's house. Also, this new machine has only 1 gig of RAM, and I'm purchasing more to go into it. There's some question as to whether we should wait until Monday when that RAM arrives before Jason drives to San Diego to install all this stuff, or if he should go today. (And going today is contingent on what time the new machine comes in, anyway.) --Jimbo

http://www.brianism.org/wikipedia.htm (dated 20 January 2004!) for the background, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Brianism --Optim __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus

Peter Gervai wrote: They are covered by warranty, and so our current plan is to return the entire machine to Penguin with the insistence that they get it 100% right before they return it to us. But this will have to wait for another week or so, i.e. until our new datacenter is up and running so that Geoffrin is not needed. --Jimbo