Subject: tracking CURRENT
To: None <netbsd-users@netbsd.org>
From: Andrew Crossley <toast@iinet.net.au>
List: netbsd-users
Date: 02/26/2000 00:50:54
Hello again,

Thankyou all for your advice.  It is a great helpi n both the technical and
conceptual issues for the manual.

FYI here is my latest printcap file, as things are printing perfectly under X
now.

#! /usr/local/bin/magicfilter
#	$NetBSD: printcap,v 1.4 1997/02/15 10:02:22 mikel Exp $
#	from: @(#)printcap	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/9/93
lp|local line printer:\
	:sh:lp=/dev/lp:sd=/var/spool/output/lpd:lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:if=/usr/local/libexec/magicfilter/bj200-filter:

Thankyou Nate, putting #! /usr/local/bin/magicfilter at the very top worked and
so did the explanation.  I will include that in the book.

As far as my kernal and library issues.  When it comes to CURRENT, I tend (in
fact, now fully) agree with Thilo.  To quote, "Newbies should not use -current
at all! :-)  That's like giving someone a race car or truck who hasn't finished
driving scool."  So true Thilo, and as a newbie and a person who is writing for
newbies, I will advise as such in my book.  I like Dirl's idea of using
snapshots if a newbie just can't help themselves and go for something newer
than RELEASE.  I will probabely advise in that direction.  I have installed a
reasonable amount of stuff using the CURRENT kernal with my RELEASE libraries. 
Can I just drop the RELEASE kernal I built back in without ramifications, or
should I uninstall the software that has gone on top of CURRENT, and re-install
it over RELEASE ?  Bear in mind that the main reason (apart from sheer
curiousity) that i went to a CURRENT kernal was to get long filenames from my
cdrom.  I understand from what Frank said that the patch in NetBSD won't be in
1.4.2.  Since my book won't be finished untill at least 1.5 do you think it
safe in my writings to just forget about the whole thing, as it will probabely
been taken care of.  The reason I think that all of this is an issue is because
more and more people will be coming over from MicroCrap, and like myself have a
reasonable (in my case large) amount of data that will come with them,
probabley with quite descriptive long filenames.  eg being a professional
Recording Engineer, I have many sound projects with directories packed with
long filenames.  As better music software becomes available for unix-likes, the
probability of bringing the whole studio system (and data with it) into unix. 
There must be many other professions like my own that are approaching this same
step.  Anyway, the point of my rave is this question.  Do you NetBSD pros think
that it advisable for myself (and not the book I am writing) to keep my CURRENT
kernal and boot into it when i transfer a whole lot of WinCrap data of cdrom,
then reboot back into RELEASE to do my normal activities ?

Thanks again for the help crew, as there is no way I could be crazy and take on
a project like this without it.

Regards,

XiT