[WBEL-users] I'm not dead yet. :)

[John Morris]

On Thu, 2 Dec 2004, Jean Lee wrote:

> Well, could you explain something to me because I'm a bit lost with all 
> of these messages saying that WBEL will have no more updates.
> 
> Is it true ?
> Why was there a panic? It seems that it was only because you were on 
> holydays.

Well the gap in posts got to over a month.  We are deploying a new library
automation system and the schedule got pushed up a bit, then we discovered
the latest browser that we could get to run on RH6.2 was incompatible with 
it so the desktop roll out of WBEL became a "RIGHT NOW" priority.  Which 
wouldn't be a problem except everything anyone was currently doing still 
had to keep working.  Old VMware 2 installs, WordPerfect 8, etc.  The 
custom gdm hacks wouldn't port forward without a custom build of gdm to 
add a PrePreSession script before the PreSession script, etc.  In other 
words, St. Murphy was showering His blessings on the operation.

But we now have a single WBEL derived image that runs, autoupdates and
self heals on two different hardware platforms (soon to be four) adapts to
being in house (NIS + NFS mounted homes) or at a remote branch (NIS
authentication but make quota limited home directories on the fly on a
RAID1 drive) and will soon do both staff and patron labs.  Printing even
does the Right Thing and pops out by default on the closest printer.

Combine that with a new fiancee who was already getting annoyed with the
long work hours and that meant something on the 'ol process list was going
to get reniced to oblivion for a bit.

Hopefully it will be a few years before another crunch like that one.  One 
was more than sufficient. 

-- 
John M.      http://www.beau.org/~jmorris        This post is 100% M$ Free!
Geekcode 3.1:GCS C+++ UL++++$ P++ L+++ W++ w--- Y++ b++ 5+++ R tv- e* r