> From: Konstantin Olchanski <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: SL6 ssh fail
...
> It looks like my remaining option is to build openssh from OpenBSD "portable" sources.
...
> - "so old" - like a grand-father's axe, most our SL6 machines hardware was upgraded 2-3 times by now, they run from SSDs on DDR3/DDR4 RAM machines.
> - exception is VME processors

I'm on Konstantin's side here - although it is a side many
light-years wide, with MANY of us spread thinly across it.

While I do not have my grandfather's axe, I still use my
great-grandfather's carpentry toolbox, which my grandfather
brought from Sweden in 1911 (I also have my grandfather's
steamship ticket, and his Swedish-to-English dictionary). 

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__wiki.keithl.com_JohanSigfridLofstrom&d=DwIBAg&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=iqT8zmlP56N56Jq9YP_a6cjE90PVa3LlHNdlKR14LBh4UY7CFKqQzSC6tQwZud2d&s=_bHbAaGb3b436-GEoRYnWCwPRLp6V7b_tiSALqhmBzY&e=  

I use those tools to build the gizmos that help me imagine
space technology evolution into the 22nd century (and read
emails from my Swedish fourth-cousins).

Science has plucked almost all of the low-hanging fruit; 
future discovery lies in subtle manipulations of vast
amounts of both new and archived measurements made by
vast amounts of hardware accumulated over many decades. 

The huge problem with archived measurements is their origin
in imperfect and evolving hardware, software, procedures,
theories, and people.  Those inputs color the data;  new
data collected with new hardware, software, etc. can be
incommensurate with old data.  This is a good reason for
keeping the old hardware/software sets alive, so you can
measure twice, with your great-grandfather's ruler and
with your laser interferometer, and cross-calibrate the
data taken both ways.

Konstantin contributes to TRIUMF, Canada's premiere 
particle accelerator.  I am amused that the photo associated
with the TRIUMF Wikipedia page shows a Tektronix oscilloscope
designed in the 1960s:

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_TRIUMF-23_media_File-3ACanadian-5FScience-5F-2D-5FTRIUMF-5Fcyclotron-5F-2D-5FFlickr-5F-2D-5FCargo-5FCult-5F-2821-29.jpg&d=DwIBAg&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=iqT8zmlP56N56Jq9YP_a6cjE90PVa3LlHNdlKR14LBh4UY7CFKqQzSC6tQwZud2d&s=VoPCz_dAeUSdH6dEptF53yurEpghrR-JZvyRjGJ0Sj0&e= 

Also a large pipe and a huge dewar labeled "HELIUM", which
will probably be all used up and dissipated to outer space
by 2160.  Data measured with instruments consuming large
amounts of helium may be non-repeatable in 2160. 
Yet somehow, data wranglers like Konstantin must "pay data
forward" so that 2160 scientists can evaluate 2023 data 
(and 1968 data, TRIUMF's founding) in an accurate context.

----

I began using Scientific Linux because I assumed that
Fermilabs would maintain its data-handling infrastructure
for decades.  I believed the RedHat booth-boys at Oscon
who told me that long term support would not be affected
by the sale to IBM. 

Oops.  

With decades of investment in my Gnome2-based creations,
I spent the last year flirting with Ubuntu-Mate - and
last week fault-isolating a borked desktop environment 
(log error: Could not acquire name on session bus)
to a flaw in /etc/X11/Xsession.d/80mate-environment,
cured(?) by adding "unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS"
before the closing "fi" in that file. 

So, after climbing out of the Scientific Linux rubble,
then beating my head against the crumbling Ubuntu wall,
my next desperate move is to debian-mate, hoping that
some flavor of mate (or other "gestureless" desktop)
will last until I (and my jittery hands) die. 
The only gesture I'm good at involves my middle finger.
 
I hope that the data and algorithms that I create in the
debian-mate environment will endure, even if the desktop
environment creators transition from mouse gestures to
hand gestures to rectal thermometer squeezes.

I'm a circuit designer, more adept with solder than shell
scripts.  My guess is that Konstantin is closer to me on
the hardware-software spectrum than he is to most of you;
he must make the instruments attached to Canada's premiere
particle accelerator produce reliable and secure data, not
animated web pages.  TRIUMF's data must be accessible and
verifiable a century from now, so future researchers can
answer the perpetual question about the past:

"What the HELL were they THINKING?"

Blovation off:  Now I must go outside with my great-
grandfather's tools, to repair a 1960s greenhouse damaged
by last week's windstorm.  Then back to a warm keyboard.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          [log in to unmask]