Hobbes (Files) Reoganization

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi

I still have the "itchiness" to reorganize some files in hobbes, and even also some other places like OS2site.
But I hold back, some people may not like reorganizing and renaming of the files, some other may tell me "do not bother on that", and it is also a huge task.

Also there have been no reply from the hobbes administrator on my offer to help and have a quicker access to modify file descriptions of the database and been able to move files to the corresponding directory.

And also, it is big job to try organize all the OS/2 software available. From one side I think it is good to keep all the versions of the software, but from the other side I understand that some sites (like hobbes) should only have the latest version (with the exception of drivers). Times has change and storage space is not problem for OS/2 programs like it was on the past. (like my crazy OHFOWG and the OS2World Github (7GB) )

My concern with OS/2 preservation had been growing when I saw how old software disappears from the internet (some can not be found even on the waybackmachine). I don't want to delete anything. I hopefully will like to backup the old things with the old names in different archive.org items and later focus in the working apps, latest versions and renaming and moving the files.

What do you think?

- Should I try to make my own public file repository? If I try that I will need help, I don't want more server administration with that.
- Should I keep trying to improve hobbes order in this slow way of uploading files with .txt template file?
- Should I take care that "itchiness" with some other thing and forget this thing?

Ian, (he runs the os2site), your opinion is important for me. 

I also want to do something collaborative with the help of several people since it is a big task.

Regards

[Andreas Schnellbacher]

About Hobbes: The long description is not correctly displayed in the current HTML interface. It's correct when being downloaded as file per FTP. Second, upload requires passive FTP and active FTP is not rejected. It would just create 0 B files.

The uploader decides himself which prior versions are deleted on archiving (moving it to the destination) by the 'Replaces' entry.

(I always keep main versions and for others I delete the prior ones. One reason is that I want to ensure that people always use the newest version. If something important doesn't work, I'll upload a new version as soon as possible. Another one is to keep the repository clean. The full list of official versions can be accessed on netlabs.org, where I have have more options with the web page to direct people to the latest version.)

Ian seems to keep old versions on his site (where he mirrors Hobbes plus gathers files from other sources, also those that wouldn't be available elsewhere).

I don't like the Hobbes situation either. It's just too unsafe to rely on a single server. I'm glad that Ian's server exists and am not sure if we need another mirror.

[Martin Iturbide]

I don't like the Hobbes situation either. It's just to unsafe to rely on a single server. I'm glad that Ian's server exists and am not sure if we need another mirror.

I agree on not rely on a single server. I encourage to backup everything on the Internet Archive just in case.

[Neil Waldhauer]

Martin, I would welcome an alternate archive of OS/2 programs. I think it's an interesting bit of history. A well laid out archive would be a legacy of a legacy operating system. I think you are a good person to do it because you have studied archiving OS/2 material for years.

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi

Just in case, this weekend, I will take a full backup of hobbes and put it on Archive.org just to leave it archived. I guess nobody will get mad for it.

Regards

[Mentore]

Hi

Just in case, this weekend, I will take a full backup of hobbes and put it on Archive.org just to leave it archived. I guess nobody will get mad for it.

Regards

I don't think there will be problems with this. I also second your idea of an alternate "main" repo for OS/2 software.

Mentore

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi

As a first step, I had uploaded an old Hobbes 2020-02 backup I have on Archive.org.
https://archive.org/download/hobbes-archive-2020-02

I will upload an 2021-05 backup too.

Regards

[Neil Waldhauer]

Something looks wrong with the file dates. They are all 17-May-2021

[Martin Iturbide]

Something looks wrong with the file dates. They are all 17-May-2021

Hi

Seems to be the upload date from my machine to archive.org. I think there is no way to preserve the original dates of the files when you upload a file there.

Also, yesterday night, I also uploaded a 2021-05 backup of hobbes I made with HTTPTrack.
- https://archive.org/download/hobbes-archive-2021-05/hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/

With this, I expect,  people will have access to the backup in case we decided to delete some old software versions in hobbes. I still need to think more about it and discuss it.

Regards

[Ian B Manners]

Hi Martin,

Apologies about the late reply, been busy, and will be for the next couple of weeks.

Archiving is like religion..
As long as you have the files you need I do not think there is a right, or a wrong way, and everyone has an opinion of what you are doing wrong )

I still update my hobbes mirror whenever the incoming directory file count goes down but this is not currently reflected on www.os2site.com as it
is no longer an OS/2 based server, so none of my scripts etc run. I had a look at stunnel/rsync/ftp but have not been successful in getting any combination to
work with updating www.os2site.com from my home based OS/2 server. It is on my to do list so will be looking at it again in a month or so.

My hobbes mirror also does not remove files, it's not an rsync type mirror but a plain FTP mirror of hobbes.

On www.os2site.com itself, over time I'm been creating /old directories where older versions of files are moved.
I do this as occasionally a file is uploaded to hobbes that has an incorrect "Replaces:" field, and if its not caught then that file is removed or deleted. Not a good way to maintain an archive, and its a pain to retrieve a file from an older backup, if I recognised what has happened.
Some people have requested that I not keep older versions of their software on os2site.com, in that case the older versions are moved to a non public area on the server. One person asked that all their software be removed from public view, this I did.

I have also created a http://www.os2site.com/sw/martin directory where all of your uploads are moved to, that keeps the original files intact but creates a parallel archive of your cleaned up files, doing otherwise was getting a bit messy   The /sw/martin/ directory on my home server is far more populated that the publicly available www.os2site.com version.

The main thing is that YOU are happy with what you are doing
And don't let it take over your life.

[ivan]

Hi Martin,

Looking at Hobbes incoming, it appears the first thing should be the opening of a new subsection of the archive called something like 'ancient software' that could have subsections of 'drivers', 'utilities' and so on.  My reasoning for that is someone new to OS/2 will not be deluded into thinking the old drivers will work on new hardware and conversely, someone with very old hardware would have a better hope of finding things that will work.

Your idea of creating a total backup of the OS/2 section is excelent but it should be ready to take over at a moments notice should the NMSU authorities decide to close that section down.

All of us should be very thankful that the University has kept the OS/2 section going but we shouldn't expect them to keep it up for ever.   

[Lars]

I agree with what Ivan says: outdated drivers should go into an "archived" subpart. If a driver is updated, there usually are very good reasons why that happens. An old driver archive is only valuable if there is either additional info or source code in it (which almost never happens).
Right now, I can see in Hobbes an old patch for USBMSD.ADD from Yuri Dario to make USBMSD.ADD work with an olympus digital camera (USBMSD_patch_2002-08-09.zip). But the patches only work for very old versions of USBMSD.ADD and with some likelyness, this error has been fixed with newer versions of USBMSD.ADD.
What's more, this patch set has been uploaded to OS2SITE with a different name (usbmsd13b.zip), just adding to the confusion.
A new user would likely try to desperately downgrade his version of USBMSD.ADD so the patch can be applied, and along with it, break everything else.

It's a perfect way to drive away new users.

[Ian B Manners]

Hi Lars,

But the patches only work for very old versions of USBMSD.ADD and with some likelyness, this error has been fixed with newer versions of USBMSD.ADD.

This was back in the day when Olympus had propriety USB drivers, they fixed the problem by allowing access to cameras as if they were USB drivers/keys.
That update is only required if someone is using very early model Olympus cameras from around 20 years ago.

In saying that, thanks for the info, I have moved that file to the usb/old directory on 'my' os2site.com and updated the descriptions. Hopefully that will be pushed out to the public www.os2site.com when I have replication sorted.

[Lars]

Hi Lars,

But the patches only work for very old versions of USBMSD.ADD and with some likelyness, this error has been fixed with newer versions of USBMSD.ADD.

This was back in the day when Olympus had propriety USB drivers, they fixed the problem by allowing access to cameras as if they were USB drivers/keys.
That update is only required if someone is using very early model Olympus cameras from around 20 years ago.

In saying that, thanks for the info, I have moved that file to the usb/old directory on 'my' os2site.com and updated the descriptions. Hopefully that will be pushed out to the public www.os2site.com when I have replication sorted.

Was that the problem with the incorrect signature of USBU instead of USBS in the status block?
I have a USB filter driver (it's rather the driver from EXIGEN to show the filter concept) that fixes that on the fly. Without any need to change USBMSD.ADD. That filter driver is in my USB repo. I never released it but I could.

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi

Reading the comments, I'm leaning to the idea of the two repositories.

One repository that stores everything, like new and old versions of drivers and software. Why? Because there are people that want to experiment with old hardware and old OS/2 versions, and require an specific old driver or software, that may not be supported for old OS/2 versions (or hardware).

The second repository, that may be hobbes, where we only store the latest versions and newer release of software, and possible only the software that works/runs with Warp 4.52, eCS and ArcaOS.

But this is just an early idea. I still do not get any feedback from the hobbes administrator to see if we can go forward with the idea.

TOOLS?
I'm also looking for ideas on which web script or tool may be good to create a web site like hobbes or os2site, that may be very simple. It had been hard to find something like that on the web, it seems that on these days, the internet does not want to share files...we are on the era of blogs, pictures, videos, articles, but not files

I wish there could be something simple like an ftp where you put the "xyz.zip" file with a "xyz.xml" with the info, and that web page (web script) renders the xml to show the link and the description as a web page like hobbes.
I also like how Alfresco looks for sharing files, but it is an open source "Enterprise Content Management" tool that is not easy to use.

Ian, how easy or hard to use is the script you use at OS2Site (FilePage?) ? Is it something that you created customized for your use? or it is something public?

For the moment I will continue with the drivers, and some other tools on hobbes, but it is very slowly since I don't have any special access to improve the site.

Regards