[6933] in Release_7.7_team
Re: Debathena Lucid public release scheduled for 8/26
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jonathan Reed)
Sun Aug 29 01:57:03 2010
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From: Jonathan Reed <jdreed@MIT.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <BC42D509-465F-43B0-92AE-B9CB13D1976F@MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 01:56:55 -0400
Cc: release-team@mit.edu, claude indermitte <indermit@gmail.com>
Message-Id: <496F9D53-B19C-44DA-98DB-D24EAD510EC5@mit.edu>
To: Herbert Einstein <einstein@mit.edu>
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Hi Herbert,
cfd4.mit.edu appears to still be running Athena 9.4, and therefore will not be automatically upgraded to Debathena. If you wish, you can continue using the machine in its current state. However, I will note that it appears not to have updated since 2008 (the reason why is unclear) anyway, so you may want to investigate the cause of this failed update. (You may wish to refer to the Athena 9 Private Workstation Owner's Guide, specifically the section on updating, at http://ist.mit.edu/services/athena/private#HDR6.0). Although it is not a necessity, if you elect to continue running Athena 9, you consider upgrading to the most recent version of Athena 9 (9.4.55, released in August 2009).
Having never heard of the Simsuper package, I'm not in a position to offer specific recommendations. We found very little Athena 9.4 software which was completely unusable on Debathena. The only exception was software that had not been updated since the late 1990s and used ancient versions of the C library (libc5) and dynamic linker. In the unlikely event that your software falls into this category, it can almost certainly be rebuilt for modern operating systems if you have the source code for the package (which it sounds like you do). In general, if you have concerns about the impact of upgrading to Debathena on your custom software package, I would encourage you to obtain a second workstation on which you can install Debathena and migrate the content of cfd4.mit.edu at your convenience, while testing your software packages.
Please let me know if you have further questions.
-Jon
On Aug 27, 2010, at 5:07 PM, Herbert Einstein wrote:
> Dear Mr. Reed:
>
> I received this and your preceding e-mail but I am not sure as to what we need to do.
>
> We have Athena Workstation cfd4 (a HP computer). On this we have, amongst other things, the code Simsuper, which we use for educational purposes and which uses Athena libraries. We also continuously improve and modify the code. I am very concerned that any changes will make this code non-workable and non-updatable. So I need your honest and complete advice as to what to do.
>
> Thank you very much.
>
> Herbert Einstein
>
--
Jonathan Reed
Liaison to the Students
Information Services & Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
jdreed@mit.edu
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