Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Why are we updating to a bleeding edge OS version?

In install and patch process on IO-A I noticed there were 7 new patches 
in the last several days. I updated:

Downloading Packages:
(1/7): ghostscript-8.70-14.el6_3.1.x86_64.rpm                                                                                                                                                                                                       
(2/7): libexif-0.6.21-5.el6_3.x86_64.rpm                                                                                                                                                                                                            
(3/7): python-2.6.6-29.el6_3.3.x86_64.rpm                                                                                                                                                                                                           
(4/7): python-devel-2.6.6-29.el6_3.3.x86_64.rpm                                                                                                                                                                                                     
(5/7): python-libs-2.6.6-29.el6_3.3.x86_64.rpm                                                                                                                                                                                                      
(6/7): selinux-policy-3.7.19-155.el6_3.4.noarch.rpm                                                                                                                                                                                                 
(7/7): selinux-policy-targeted-3.7.19-155.el6_3.4.noarch.rpm 
 

 
As an operator I've gotten to deal with lots of failures to get data on our data collection computer the last two days because things were breaking.  I can't begin to debug half of it because one has to be root to even read the config files.  I am not a root user nor should I be with my cowboy style, I do know the main sys admin and also the two software users with root permissions doing some of the high level stuff have been nearly tearing their hair out trying to get things working for the fancy I/O cpu's with this new OS.  
If I were the boss I'd be asking why in hell we decided to switch to the very latest OS before they even had the bugs worked out?   I think that the new OS  supposedly solves some slow data transfer issues but honestly with hindsight we certainly should have lived with the slow transfers a while longer while the "new and improved" OS got its bugs worked out and we absolutely should not have got in such a rush to push through the update on the coupled I/O CPUs when it became apparent last week that it was a bear trying to make things work under the new OS.  As far as I can tell everything was working perfectly fine with the processing CPUs using the new OS and the I/Os having the old so why not abort *upgrading* the I/Os for a few weeks? 
 
Blogging this to try to take my mind off the fact that people still support the JEF and apparently give quite a bit of credence to the MarxSpewMedia.   My dad enjoys watching the History channel science fantasy bits about how earth must surely be a lab experiment of advanced aliens.  They have evidence of societies from past millenniums having some pretty advanced technologies; then those societies disappear/are replaced by groups that are pretty much functioning just at hunter/gatherer level.  I don't believe in the alien fantasy and its scary to think how many times humankind has advanced to a high level and then self destructed.   

3 comments:

Gerrick said...

When a civilization gets fat and lazy it is pushed aside by a leaner, meaner society.

This is societal evolution.

It is never pretty.

Teresa/ride4fun said...

It still sucks to be witnessing it happen to your own country and wondering if collapse can be pushed back another generation or 2 or this is going to be it.

Gerrick said...

Well, it took Rome a few hundred years to collapse completely after the western empire fell.