@ilkkachu I am, but more "don't know" than "forget". I did say that "Your tool would essentially have to understand the entire logic of the script and then rewrite it from scratch." though.

Can anyone think of a reason not to create a ZFS filesystem on a machine which currently only has ext4?

I would first have to add support to the kernel.

I wonder if anything has changed since Debian 9. This looks kind of messy.

Would it make sense to post a new question for Debian 10?

Since things have hopefully improved.

@FaheemMitha the wiki suggests it’s not too bad: wiki.debian.org/ZFS

@terdon I mean the thing that you can theoretically implement any computable function with quite a stupid machine... given an infinite roll of paper and all that. I think it might be possible to implement most of that Bash stuff piecewise, without analysing it all in one go. But the words Turing tarpit also quicky come to mind and as signalled by the smiley, I was jesting. No one in their right mind would want to :D

@FaheemMitha I have a big one: no need :)

@ilkkachu I think I might try it for my next machine, so that would be as an experiment.

@ilkkachu Oh, of course no one would want to! I just don't have the theoretical CS knowledge to know if it could be possible theoretically.

@StephenKitt Sure, but a detailed recipe would be nice. @cas wrote one, so I pinged him on it. He hasn't been a chat for awhile, as far as I can tell.

@FaheemMitha isn’t the installation guide detailed enough? It lists the exact commands to use...

@StephenKitt I'd like a complete worked example. The devil is in the details...

> It looks as if there's a bug in the systemd unit file for zfs-share. It's trying to run /usr/bin/rm instead of /bin/rm.

Looks like this one got fixed last year - bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=842237

Oh, maybe in 2017.

Perhaps I should be a good boy, and ask a question if I actually have problems.

@terdon that's about as far as I can remember about the theory, too. The subject a few days back about misusing Excel, and Andras's link about implementing Game of Life in... Game of Life also came to mind about transpiling

Right, trying things out first leads to better questions, instead of trying to imagine what you might run into and asking questions about that ;-).

If anyone didn't see that Game of Life video, see starred link

Yes, I seem to be a fan of puzzles like that. Much nicer than real world problems and their fuzzy requirements :P

@StephenKitt I was going to be lazy and just ask for installation instructions for ZFS on Debian 10. :-)

@FaheemMitha “Closed. Requests for learning materials (tutorials, how-tos etc.) are off topic. The only exception is questions about where to find official documentation (e.g. POSIX specifications).” :-P

@StephenKitt Bummer.

@FaheemMitha the question you linked to is a great example: the OP tried installing ZFS, ran into problems, and asked for help.

@StephenKitt Actually, some of my most successful questions have pretty much conformed to that description. I won't say which, because someone might try to close them. :-)

Sadly, ZFS isn't in POSIX :P

Indeed, it's sad.

@ilkkachu heh! A question asking for the official Debian ZFS docs would be valid, but Faheem already knows the answer to that (which doesn’t mean it couldn’t be asked, of course).

yep :)

@StephenKitt Can you think of any reason not to experiment with ZFS on an existing Debian 10 installation? Might it all go horribly wrong?

Debian now supports building ZFS support as a module, and has for some time. So I'd hope the bugs are mostly worked out now.

Take backups. I doubt it'll break your hardware, so all you can lose is time (and suffer frustration)

@FaheemMitha what ilkkachu said. I’d experiment in a VM to get a feel for the setup and tools before running it on a system I care about.

@ilkkachu I was going to create a new filesystem, that's all.

@FaheemMitha yes, that too. Though a VM would safer if it were to crash your kernel. Then again, I'd expect ZFS probably not to do that.

@ilkkachu That too?

I mean that creating a new filesystem with no important data works too.

@ilkkachu Ah, ok.

Yes, I'd hope that building ZFS support would not crash my kernel.

ello, g' morning

> Referring to the key between Ctrl and Alt as Super also avoids references to any particular logo, which can be considered an advantage

Now that's what I call diplomatic, Mr Kitt!

:)

@StephenKitt isn't one of the reasons we still have those names the fact that they don't refer to any specific key, but can be mapped to whatever you want?

Hah yes I’m being extra-cautious there ;-).

@terdon indeed, and that also makes them somewhat less useful (see all the confusion around Meta)

Less or more? I like that I can assign whatever I want as "meta".

@terdon you can do that with any key though ;-)

I’d say less because you can’t say “Meta” and have everyone understand what you mean.

Hmm yes.

But then you'd always have the confusion with many users thinking left and right Alt are the same, while those using layouts that make heavy use of it knowing one as Alt and the other as AltGr.

But yeah, fair point, it would be simpler to have a single name.

Ah, but see, left and right modifiers are never exactly the same, they’re just mapped that way by default :-P.

Quite a few games rely on left-Shift v. right-Shift etc.

(my bronze badge count, I wonder how long that will last)

Not very. Unless you want to suspend all activity and let us plebes catch up with you!

@terdon and even then, we’d have to prevent anyone from upvoting my existing answers with fewer than ten upvotes!

(or answers on tags where I don’t have the bronze tag badge)

(...ooOO "how many users can I suspend before terdon catches on?" OOooo...)

ha ha

just before you finally emigrate to codidact, suspend everyone

(bunch of assumptions there of course)

our final insult will be hidden in your bronze badge count -- they'll never forget us!!

until they fix it, in 3-6 months

I was going to suggest waiting until Gilles gets 1666 bronze badges but he’s already past that

@StephenKitt Ha! Not exactly ethical that ;)

@terdon in keeping with a 666 badge though

I don't see anything in the code of conduct that says I can't suspend 353,664 users

how much manual work would that involve?

@JeffSchaller Kubernetes is away somewhere to the right of the second diagram

There's also xkcd.com/1205 but I'm 'off the charts'

@StephenKitt 1,768,320 clicks.

It's around 5 clicks per suspension.

wonder how many clicks this USB mouse has been tested to

@JeffSchaller Actually, automation is generally a good idea. Of course, you don't want to get carried away.

In practice automation isn't interesting enough to make it tempting to spend a lot of time on it.

Unless one is procrastinating, perhaps.

@FaheemMitha I think you have gravely misjudged your audience on that one ;)

@terdon Pardon?

I think Jeff, terdon and I are inclined to find automation endlessly interesting

There really should be a "I really need to edit this, honest" button here.

my job is to automate all the things, and automate all the things about automating all the things

I do a lot of automation too, of course. But I wouldn't describe it as "endlessly interesting".

"Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and world peace pales by comparison with the need for automation." -- with apologies to Dave Barry

@JeffSchaller That went completely over my head.

@FaheemMitha it's a very very loose association with quotes.net/quote/4920 and automation.

@FaheemMitha fixed that for you

@terdon Thank you very much.

automation is certainly the latest buzzword. I've been automating things for decades, but now it's the "solution" to "everything".

@JeffSchaller Ah, but that's AI-based automation!

all of IT is effectively automation

@terdon I'm just an automaton

@terdon That change isn't showing up here.

Much of computer usage is automation.

Every time one tells a computer to do something, it's effectively automation. For some value of automation.

@FaheemMitha Um. I seem to have edited it into the exact same version. Weird. Should work now.

@terdon Yes, fixed now. Thanks.

And you might as well remove

Since it's now redundant.

If you want to, of course.

gone

Thank you.

You're very welcome. I hate it when I have typos and can't fix them, so I feel your pain!

Hi all... while reviewing my profile i noticed that i had many "Ubuntu" tag related to my answers while i never answered an Ubuntu question... any way i reviewed/edited those QA, and only 1 out of 7 was really related to Ubuntu... the question here is, why is there an Ubuntu tag in the first place? is not askubuntu more appropriate to ask question about Ubuntu? (may be this deserve a meta question)

You're absolutely right that Ubuntu is a special case -- unix.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic says "If your question applies to Ubuntu only, or you're looking for answers that are Ubuntu-specific, you should post it on the Ask Ubuntu Stack Exchange site. If your question applies to other distros or you welcome more generic solutions, you're in the right place here."

Perhaps the asker was using Ubuntu and happened to ask here, and so tagged Ubuntu, but the problem/solution was not Ubuntu-specific?

Exact, it seems that most questions tagged Ubuntu are tagged that way just because their OP uses Ubuntu most of the time that does not impact the QA... it does not make sens to have that tag on U&L the tag itself is off-topic... just found a bunch of questions on meta on the subject lol i am having some reading :D ... not that i don't like Ubuntu... but i don't like it!!! loool (just kidding) i have an account there as well...

It's a historical mess, it is

If the question isn't Ubuntu specific, I think the tag could be removed.

@intika There is the same issue with the linux tag. There used to be a "unix" tag, but it was removed a long time ago. The "linux" tag was also removed but reinstated. It is mostly useless.

Yes indeed, the kernel one may be more appropriate if the linux tag was meant to be used to refer to the kernel... :)

The linux tag is very useful, it's just ill-used. There are lots of questions relying on e.g. the behaviour of /proc on Linux that really do need that distinction