Hello Jeff!

Sunday September 23 2018 21:23, you wrote to me:

Hello Vince,

Ubuntu is one but CentOS may be another and no doubt there are
others. The LTS distros are supported for a five year cycle with a
upgrade facility for the next version of the LTS so should work
well BUT do not upgrade for a few months after release - let other
work the bugs out.

Right now I am either looking at staying with (Actually upgrading to
the current LTS version of Ubuntu) or installing CentOS on a spare
PC of similar hardware and testing it prior to running/restoring
BBBS onto t he machine. At the moment I use Linux Mint on the PC
that I do my daily desktop PC'ing.

Looks like I might need to find another test machine to install
CentOS-7 on. As CentOS 7 has both HD selection issues and
installation issues using a one year old Gigabyte motherboard. Sadly, Gigabyte doesn't look to have much support for Linux flavored OS's.
And I am not about to involve the BBBS machine until sufficient
testing is completed.

Are you saying that the install of Centos does NOT allow you to be selective on
where you install it by partition and/or use existing ones including updating previous install ?

Although it has been a while since I installed it I do not remember having that
as an issue - BUT it might have been installed on a freshly loaded SSD where I creating the various partition using another distro but, again other distros was already installed so some control of the centos install must have existed.

Note that the SSD was set up as a gpt set.

Needless to say I did/do have other issues with Centos :)
So I do not use it.

Vince

--- Mageia Linux v6 X64/Mbse v1.0.7.9/GoldED+/LNX 1.1.501-b20150715
* Origin: Air Applewood, The Linux Gateway to the UK & Eire (2:250/1)

Hello Jeff!

Friday September 28 2018 10:42, you wrote to me:

Yeah... Some years ago I started keeping as much as possible in
/home/<user> and keep the /home directory on a separate HD. Then just
mount the HD's during distro installation. I haven't gotten to the
point of moving BBBS over as of yet.

I have never tried bbbs as it is paid for software and as I am retired do not have funds to spend on such when there are more than enough FOC products.

Also all s/w in my system are available in source so I can pass the code through vetting s/w to check that it is safe (e.g., no back doors or passing information to other without my consent etc).

I do not often do this as most of my running apps I can control exactly what resources each has and that include external one's how ever the nature of BBS system is that they by nature communicate via the internet and I must be sure that they do exactly what I expect of them so the need force source is kind of important but one can (if needed) is run them inside a hard VM. [Limited resource access or control]

The one issue is for bbbs or for that matter any s/w is, can you select exactly
where to install it ?

If so then it should work - subject to testing of course.



Vince

--- Mageia Linux v6 X64/Mbse v1.0.7.9/GoldED+/LNX 1.1.501-b20150715
* Origin: Air Applewood, The Linux Gateway to the UK & Eire (2:250/1)

Hi Vince,

mount the HD's during distro installation. I haven't gotten to the
point of moving BBBS over as of yet.

I have never tried bbbs as it is paid for software and as I am retired do not have funds to spend on such when there are more than enough FOC products.

It's not that expensive, and you only pay for the number of nodes you want to run... I think I mentioned this before as well, when I first started using BBBS, I just ran the free trial nodes until I determined it would do
everything I needed... after that I registered 5 nodes IIRC, then eventually bumped it up to 15. It is a great system IMO, including essentially everything
you might need.

Also all s/w in my system are available in source so I can pass the code through vetting s/w to check that it is safe (e.g., no back doors or passing information to other without my consent etc).

Eh.. BBBS is safe :) But I understand what you mean there.

The one issue is for bbbs or for that matter any s/w is, can you select exactly
where to install it ?

You can install BBBS anywhere you like and as many times as you like. I usually have multiple installs here when I need to test something, etc.

Take care,
Janis

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-3
* Origin: Prism bbs (1:261/38)

Hello Vince,

I have never tried bbbs as it is paid for software and as I am retired do not have funds to spend on such when there are more than enough FOC products.

I am starting to think similarly as I have gotten on in years. I have tried most if not all of the (Then or Now) available BBS software. Both the paid for types like Wildcat/WinServer and BBBS to the other 'Free' BBS packages that would run on my selected OS platforms of DOS, Windows, Linux, OS/2.

The one issue is for bbbs or for that matter any s/w is, can you select exactly where to install it ?
If so then it should work - subject to testing of course.

I have run into both aspects of that issue with BBS software. With BBBS one can
specify the install location. For me I use /home/bbbs as the install location.
Other BBS's like Mystic need to to create the BBS install directory and it can
not preexist. Although I have found a workaround for the Linux version of Mystic.

Currently my preferred BBS software is BBBS, Mystic, and Synchronet as they are
all multi-platform packages.

Jeff

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-3
* Origin: Fidoneet: The Ouija Board - Anoka, MN -bbs.ouijabrd.ne\ (1:282/1031)

Hello Jeff!

Sunday September 30 2018 22:09, you wrote to me:

I am starting to think similarly as I have gotten on in years. I have
tried most if not all of the (Then or Now) available BBS software.
Both the paid for types like Wildcat/WinServer and BBBS to the other
'Free' BBS packages that would run on my selected OS platforms of DOS, Windows, Linux, OS/2.

Currently my preferred BBS software is BBBS, Mystic, and Synchronet as
they are all multi-platform packages.

IF you need too, try mbse and yes you can control where it is installed via configure --prefix= command.

How ever that said as you have paid the big bucks to use bbbs I guess you will stick to it :)


Vince

--- Mageia Linux v6 X64/Mbse v1.0.7.9/GoldED+/LNX 1.1.501-b20150715
* Origin: Air Applewood, The Linux Gateway to the UK & Eire (2:250/1)

Hello Vince,

Both the paid for types like Wildcat/WinServer and BBBS to the other
'Free' BBS packages that would run on my selected OS platforms of DOS,
Windows, Linux, OS/2.
Currently my preferred BBS software is BBBS, Mystic, and Synchronet as
they are all multi-platform packages.

IF you need too, try mbse and yes you can control where it is installed via configure --prefix= command.

Actually, back when I first installed Slackware MBSE was the first BBS that I installed on Linux. Since then I have installed BBBS, SBBS, and Mystic.

I think the reason that I didn't stick with MBSE longer than I did wasn't a fault of MBSE. It was at the time a lack of understanding of Linux's functionality. Everything was in odd and/or unknown places in Linux. As opposed
to Windows of the day. Hech, now I prefer Linux over Windows. :-)

How ever that said as you have paid the big bucks to use bbbs I guess you will
stick to it :)

While I probably will maintain a BBBS presence...

I try to always make sure that I have a few spare Linux PC's including a few Pi3's sitting around to try/test things on. I must confess my lack of looking at MBSE recently but will acquire the current MBSE package and investigate. :-)

Jeff

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-3
* Origin: Fidoneet: The Ouija Board - Anoka, MN -bbs.ouijabrd.ne\ (1:282/1031)

I have never tried bbbs as it is paid for software and as I am retired do not have funds to spend on such when there are more than enough FOC products.

Yeah, you know that the two node version of BBBS is available, right? The only
limitations to it that I know of are a 2 node max and a 30 minute hard time limit for users.

The one issue is for bbbs or for that matter any s/w is, can you select exactly
where to install it ?

By default, IIRC, it unzips to 'bbbs' in whatever directory you unzip it to. So
if you unzip it in /home/myhome, the directory it creates is /home/myhome/bbbs/. I am sure that with some tweaking that can be changed once the files are unpacked.

--- BBBS/2 v4.10 Toy-3
* Origin: Omicron Theta (BBBS/2) * Southaven MS USA (1:261/20)

I have never tried bbbs as it is paid for software and as I am retired do not >> have funds to spend on such when there are more than enough FOC products.

It's not that expensive, and you only pay for the number of nodes you want to run... I think I mentioned this before as well, when I first started using BBBS, I just ran the free trial nodes until I determined it would do everything I needed... after that I registered 5 nodes IIRC, then eventually
bumped it up to 15. It is a great system IMO, including essentially everythin
you might need.

I agree. I started with the 8 node version first, I believe, then upgraded to a 27-node license that I use today.

--- BBBS/2 v4.10 Toy-3
* Origin: Omicron Theta (BBBS/2) * Southaven MS USA (1:261/20)

I am starting to think similarly as I have gotten on in years. I have tried
most if not all of the (Then or Now) available BBS software. Both the paid for
types like Wildcat/WinServer and BBBS to the other 'Free' BBS packages that would run on my selected OS platforms of DOS, Windows, Linux, OS/2.

I run WINServer 7 as my main system, BBBS/2 on of of my 2 ArcaOS VMs and Telegard/2 with Internet Rex/OS2 and FastEcho/2 for my main mail system.

--- BBBS/2 v4.10 Toy-3
* Origin: Omicron Theta (BBBS/2) * Southaven MS USA (1:261/20)

Hello Robert,

The one issue is for bbbs or for that matter any s/w is, can you select
exactly
where to install it ?

By default, IIRC, it unzips to 'bbbs' in whatever directory you unzip it to. S
if you unzip it in /home/myhome, the directory it creates is
/home/myhome/bbbs/. I am sure that with some tweaking that can be changed onc
the files are unpacked.

Since I have a preference that BBBS runs out of the user directory as in /home/bbbs I installed BBBS to use and install to that directory and
created the user "bbbs" and told Linux to use the pre-existing bbbs home directory.

A number of programs default to installing to a /home/<user>/<program> while others are hard coded to install to a predetermined directory and refuse to install IF the install directory already exists.

Jeff

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-3
* Origin: Fidoneet: The Ouija Board - Anoka, MN -bbs.ouijabrd.ne\ (1:282/1031)

Since I have a preference that BBBS runs out of the user directory as in /home/bbbs I installed BBBS to use and install to that directory and
created the user "bbbs" and told Linux to use the pre-existing bbbs home directory.

Oh and this is a good preference to have. I have Mystic for Linux set up on that VM in very much the same way. I just have the mystic user having sudo privs so that the servers that require privileged ports can use those.

--- BBBS/2 v4.10 Toy-3
* Origin: Omicron Theta (BBBS/2) * Southaven MS USA (1:261/20)

Hello Robert!

Wednesday October 17 2018 18:38, you wrote to me:

I have never tried bbbs as it is paid for software and as I am
retired do not have funds to spend on such when there are more than
enough FOC products.

Yeah, you know that the two node version of BBBS is available, right?
The only limitations to it that I know of are a 2 node max and a 30
minute hard time limit for users.

The minimum service as you say is two nodes although I do not run any modems is still a paid
for function.

Even with internet based connections with mbse/web/ftp services I often can have 5 - 10
connections at the same time although rare and 2 - 4 is more likely.

Mbse has a max of two but that is to help with nodes downloading as my upload speed is only
18Mb and helps to minimise time connection times.

The Web or ftp connections is mostly robots and these are only connected for a max of 10
seconds.

So a 2 port bbbs is not practical on a cost or function basis.

How ever that said the main gain for mbse is that the sources are freely available so minir
fixes are done by the users (experienced in C) since the programmer quit the scene.

The only feature missing that I could make use of is a file description editor for the entries
that have poor comments or too many non textual comments anyway.
Here the only way around using a internal database for each function is to convert it to say
MySQL to allow better record updating. Then I could just use the code of another bbs editor to
work with mbse but my current time is spent on updating a publishing my Cobol tools and
applications on SF.



Vince

--- Mageia Linux v6 X64/Mbse v1.0.7.9/GoldED+/LNX 1.1.501-b20150715
* Origin: Air Applewood, The Linux Gateway to the UK & Eire (2:250/1)