Re: All These New Alpha Sites(tm)

[Nils Faerber <Nils Faerber unix-ag org>]

> Hi folks,
Hello!

> 	First I would like to say that I'm thrilled to see so much
> interest swelling around Linux/AXP.  This list is one of the better/more
> coherent ones I've ever been on, and the willingness of Alpha people to
> help each other out is great.
Mostly true ... but sometimes even the listening hardcore hackers either do
not respond (which is OK because they have more important stuff to bother
about) or information is just not so well known that enough people could
give the answer.

> 	However, I'm a little concerned about the fragmentation of
> documentation and "authoritative Alpha sites" popping up here and there
> being enough to overwhelm new users.  Even the veterans will start losing
> track of what info was where.  I'm all for the idea of a central
> "top-level" Alpha site.  My opinions on how that site should be selected
That's exactly the reason why I started "my" archive.

> come down to two factors: the ability for other people to get new
> information on the site and update what's there, and, the response time and
> long-term comittment the site owner has to keeping information up-to-date
> and responding to changes in the Linux/AXP community.  The site should aim
> to be all-encompasing, in that if the information isn't right there on the
> site, a current link to it is.
Exactly my intention. I also try to collect copies of all relevant
information/docs and not only links because too often links are dead or
outdated.

> 	Once a central site/owner is determined, that person can allow
> other site owners or contributors "web-only" access (group FTP and CVS
> server are two ways that come to mind) so they can keep their respective
> sections up to date.
Right.
Currently I have the problem that I know too little about Alpha architectures
I do not personally own or have access to. I try my very best to add
information but the experience with those architectures is missing. For that
reason I am looking for maintainers for the still missing architectures.
I perosnally own a Jensen, Noname and SX164. For those three I will do it
myself, but the rest?
I am also currently starting to collect links, files, packages and all kinds
of information I think could be useful. For this reason I already occupied
nearly 200MB of discspace full with documents I am going to sort out during
the next week (they just carry those cryptic Digital names like ek-abdef-gh
and I want more explaining names).

A next point for choosing the site is connection speed and availability. The
site does not help if it is unavailable half of the time or the connection
is crawlingly slow.

And finally it should have a nice URL everyone can remember, but that's less
important.

So in short:
  I am willing to offer web and ftp space to anyone who wants to work with
the archive.
  I am willing to do the general part and support the three mentioned
architectures above (or any other if one is willing to send me the machine ;)
  We have 20MBit/sec internet connection via the German DFN at our
university so it should be fast enough.
  The current and I think easy to remember URL is
http://www.unix-ag.org/Linux-Alpha/

> Just my $0.02.
And another 0.02DM ;)

> cheers,
> -bp
CU
  nils

-- 
Nils Faerber (Linux Nils)        eMail: nils@unix-ag.org
Student of computer science      http://www.si.unix-ag.org/~nils/
Unix user group, University of Siegen, Germany

Siegen ... the arctic rain forest!
--