[Novalug] Downtime for Linux Lists (dc-lug, novalug & ma-linux)

[Maxwell Spangler]

A scheduled upgrade has begun on the gwyn and calypso servers associated with 
tux.org and traffic on the novalug, dclug and ma-linux mailing lists will 
be disrupted over the next 24 hours.

You may recall that these servers suffered hard disk failures one year ago 
this day and were hastilly moved from Debian Linux to Windows XP.  Didn't know 
that?  Well, now you do.  This fact was not publicized due to the embarassing 
nature of running Linux mailing lists on Windows operating systems.  It was 
kept a secret with the expectation that it would fail, or someone would find 
out, but as it happens, it worked quite well.

Since the Windows XP setup running a commerical mailing list software worked 
so well, the powers-that-be behind these servers started looking into a long 
term solution to increase the reliability, functionality and cost of these 
servers.  After serveral months of testing, we are going to make the switch 
from Windows XP to Windows Vista today.

Because this situation is still going to be embarassing to some of you and 
antangonize some of the more ideological of you, we have come up with a 
compromise that should make everyone happy.

The new servers will run Windows Vista as their operating system, VMWare on 
top of that as a virtual machine provider and multiple copies of Linux running 
within virtual machines within VMWARE.  So while one copy of Windows Vista 
will be running on the new servers, MANY copies of Linux will be running on 
the same servers, so the percentage of Linux vs Microsoft should be at 
least 51% Linux to 49% Microsoft.  This will allow us to get a 3D GUI on the 
main screen while still running Linux for our mailing lists.  The icons are 
very pretty, almost as much as the windows decorations.

If anyone asks, we run Linux on our servers.

During the upgrade process, which usually takes about 24 hours, messages noted 
with the phrase "Un Avril imbécil" should be ignored.  These are test 
messages made to look just like real ones -- even featuring some real email 
From: addresses, so we can fully test the system.

We hope you enjoy the new *Linux* software.

Maxwell Spangler
on behalf of the tux.org team