Yasha Karant <[log in to unmask]> writes:
> Thanks for the comments. Is BNL still part of the HEP
> collaborations?
Very much so. Many of ideas that became DUNE originated here. We also
have a major ATLAS contingent, muon g-2 was conceived and first ran at
BNL. BNL has a long history of HEP.
> If so, would you not have access to the internal
> CERN-Fermilab EL8 "distro", with the internal "support"?
I may have missed a memo but I don't understand the use of "internal".
As far as support, I expect our lab's computing facilities to transition
to an EL8-baesd distro with the same level of support from FNAL as we
always had ie, "none". I don't say this to discount the important work
FNAL (and CERN) has done in the past to debrand RH trademark, rebuild
and distribute binaries!. But rather, the labs, or at least to my
knowledge mine, did and does not have any kind of special "service
agreement" with FNAL for things related to SL.
I expect the debrand+build+distribute work to now be done by the CentOS
community. In my understanding, that's exactly the fiscal motivation
behind ceasing the work that has been done under the banner of "SL".
> The fact that major release upgrades can be done in place is an
> attractive one for Ubuntu LTS -- this is nothing like the major
> endeavor to move from EL-N to EL-N+1 . I still will backup user files
> and any special applications (not required university downloads).
Backups are always a wise move. One day, I should try to make some
before upgrading.... :)
> One "gotcha" with Ubuntu LTS on a Dell. [...]
That all sounds rather reprehensible but unfortunately not surprising to
me.
When I've bothered to compare, when mainstream vendors sell
Linux-compatible consumer grade machines, especially laptops, they often
do so at a premium cost and with degraded hardware capabilities.
For workstations I buy from vendors that are Linux-first and
if I happen to want Windows, I have to pay for it as an add-on (no
hidden MSWindows tax, thank you very much).
For laptops, the Linux-first vendors are okay but I feel Thinkpads (not
an endorsement from this @ .gov email address) are a better bargain and
tend to be very Linux-compatible (with some edge cases). Unfortunately
there, I do have to pay the MSWindows tax even though on delivery I
promptly destroy MSWindows with a plain Ubuntu or Debian install.
> I prefer the Mozilla installs of Firefox
> and Thunderbird, not any that are ported by a distro or other third
> party. Mozilla prevents these from being updated in place by an
> enduser as far as I can tell;
Your preference is fine, but there is nothing I know about preventing
Firefox installed directly from Mozilla to update. Also, the Ubuntu
provided "firefox" package updates rather frequently. There's also the
"firefox-esr" package if you want more stability.
I have two main variants, and see frequent Firefox updates:
Ubuntu 18.04 on Thinkpad x1c with "firefox" package from Ubuntu. Today
it's at 74.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.18.04.1.
Debian "testing/sid" on Thinkpad 520 with Firefox direct from Mozilla.
I just check the version ("Help->About") and that triggered an update
from 74.0.1 to 75.0.
Looks like 75.0 just came out today.
I haven't kept track but I guess from-Mozilla version updates more
frequently than from-Ubuntu. But, both definitely update as I regularly
hit the "gotta restart firefox after update" message from long-running
browser sessions.
-Brett.
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