I only ever really worried about this in the rare instances that I've been reduced to just one PC. Upgrade one at a time, is my motto. But, in truth, what seems to happen far more often than a machine being down and unusable, is me doing something dumb that causes some particular task to become nonfunctional. It's possible that a package upgrade can do this, too. The result is that mail just becomes unusable in the usual way, or my phones don't work, or I don't have the GUI so don't have Firefox, or my web pages are down, something like that. When these things happen the actual cause can be elusive. A recent example is that I broke my TLS authentication chain in outbound mail. Incoming was fine, but I couldn't respond to anyone except to postpone my outbound mail and then rsync that mbox up to my data center based server where I could call up the messages from the postponed mbox and send them out. Clunky, and annoying. It turned out that I had never fully established TLS authentication over IPv6. Once I figured out that was the problem, it took a few hours to get everything back on track. But figuring out that this was the problem took days. The logs weren't of any help, neither were the error messages. However, now that it's solved, I have the confidence that my mail is going out properly encrypted both from my office desktop and from my traveling laptop. Worked like a charm from Shenzhen, China the other week, for instance. Janina John G. Heim writes: > I'm no expert in this area but don't you guys worry that you are > trying to hold back the ocean with a teaspoon? You can't fight the > march of technology. If pulse is the wave of the future, I would > tend to want to get started working with it rather than tossing it > aside. > > I just started working with sonar linux last week. I put it on my > backup desktop at work. In my limited testing up to this point, it > seems to be rock solid. I plan to continue trying it on my backup > workstation at work and on my machine at home for a few more days > before converting the machine I use to earn my bread and beer. > > I can understand an attitude of saying that you need to postpone an > upgrade because the technology just isn't there yet. That's why I'm > typing this message on a machine still running debian squeeze. But > as soon as I am sure I can switch to a newer distro that works, I'm > doing it. > > On 11/30/13 22:38, Janina Sajka wrote: > >Yes, screen rocks! > > > >I do keep the gui, mainly for firefox even though it requires that I use > >a second audio device. > > > >Everything else is tty's and screen terminals. About half of my tty's > >launch subject specific screen sessions with multiple terminals. In all > >of those, I have aliases for mplayer to talk to several additional audio > >devices, or ecaplay, or aplay. All works like a charm. > > > >Janina > > > >Doug Smith writes: > >> > >> > >>I really have quit a bit to say here. I have also terminated pulse with extreme prejudice on this system. I have also terminated the entire > >>graphical user interface with the same finality. I am using debian testing without the desktop on it. > >> > >>The way it works is that, when you use the text-based installer to install the system, it uses alsa for the sound. I have speakup system wide and I > >>have a fully functioning sound system on here that performs perfectly. I can use multiple audio sources, and I have nothing to worry about because I > >>do not have to, if I do not want to, switch between consoles. Where it works well, I just use screen and there is no problem for me to play my > >>descriptive movie, program and whatever else all at once. > >> > >> > >> > >>Hope this helps. > >> > >> > >> > >> > >>-- > >>Doug Smith: Special Agent > >>S.W.A.T Spiritual Warfare and Advanced Technology > >>Forever serving our LORD and SAVIOUR, JESUS CHRIST. > >> > >>_______________________________________________ > >>Speakup mailing list > >>Speakup at linux-speakup.org > >>http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup > > > > -- > --- > John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim at math.wisc.edu > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at linux-speakup.org > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup -- Janina Sajka, Phone: +1.443.300.2200 sip:janina at asterisk.rednote.net Email: janina at rednote.net Linux Foundation Fellow Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup: http://a11y.org The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Chair, Protocols & Formats http://www.w3.org/wai/pf Indie UI http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/
