Theo de Raadt says Pegasos Bad

[Hooligan_DCS]

@Batman

Ok...

[Warface]

Please, don't start bluetrolling again and look at the bare facts.

The bare fact is that the non-existence of Pegasos II boards is hilarious. And we have a first poster posting it, and a Batman with less than ten posts threatening "blue trolls" here...

Interestingly, I first heared about it from an OS4 betatester on IRC, long before it appeared on any Amiga news sites... Makes me wonder.

[Damion]

@Batman

The "bare facts" look pretty simple to me..."GigNIC" support for
BSD isn't yet finished, so the dude sent back the board because he
needs this feature.

Genesi should do what they need to help rectify this (if they're not
already in the process), but I don't see what the earth-shattering
problem is here...

But maybe try harder next time..?

[Batman]

Warface wrote:
The bare fact is that the non-existence of Pegasos II boards is hilarious. And we have a first poster posting it, and a Batman with less than ten posts threatening "blue trolls" here...

I'm going to feign I haven't read this innuendo. :-D

[Jope]

I'm a bit disappointed with the lack of reasons.. Why is the board broken? What board is he talking about?

[Batman]

@Jope

Read carefully that thread. :-)

And read this too:

http://www.sigmasoft.com/cgi-bin/wilma_hiliter/openbsd-misc/200402/msg01215.html :-o

[itix]

Read the reply to Theo on that mailing list, from a coder who essentially has confirmed his impressions.

The fact is that GigNIC is behind NDA. Guess you cant just walk in and download docs. Probably this is what Theo means by "the machine architecture is
more closed than the PC architecture". Will see what Genesi is going to do to cure this gap. Theo's comments are exaggerated but there is truth behind his words.

Please, don't start bluetrolling again and look at the bare facts.

FYI this has nothing to do with MorphOS.


Edit
Looks like OpenBSD support for Pegasos is over. NetBSD, anyone?

[KennyR]

Basic summary of this thread:

Pegasos is crap, sucks, Genesi are con artists, etc.

Uhm, most of that isn't true. Why so hostile?

This guy seems to be just basically rude and not very nice, and rants like this a lot, so maybe that's why. (Presents an earlier instance of when Theo was punished for his behaviour)

Stop badmouthing this guy, you Genesi troll!

He's trolling and not presenting any facts, I'm just pointing it out.

The fact you try to defend Genesi against Theo's factless trolling means you are a blue troll, so I don't need to listen. You're a troll.

That's more or less how it's going. Hell, us so-called "blue trolls" are even agreeing on many points! There's no angry protectionism or blind apologism here. Try posting criticism of the A1 and see if you'll get that.

(Apologies to Magnetic, for dragging him into this thread. ;-))

[Jope]

Batman, the thread was two articles when I posted that

1) Theo vaguely saying that the arch is more closed than pc + it doesn't work (it does for me, what's his excuse?) also he spoke a lot about the politics of the company, but I don't care about that, I care about the HW.
2) Diana saying that she didn't get 1G eth drivers -> sent it back

Now all I got from there is that "the board" is broken. Not which board, perhaps Theo has one of the early non-apriliserd April1 boards, which truly are broken to shambles, but not much info about that.

Then the second bit about 1G eth, it's true Diana can't use the board if it's missing the driver (She wants 1G eth), but that shouldn't be a valid reason for Theo to drop OBSD on the Peg 2 altogether, and call the system more closed than a PC?

Usually these open source OSes get stuff done a bit at a time, in the meanwhile the board is fully usable with 100M ethernet, if it's sufficient for the user (the VIA Rhine chip onboard).

So.. Still, from those posts I don't see the reasons why Theo came to his conclusions about the board being crap! The 1G eth thing was totally my reasoning, since Theo didn't specifically say that when he talked about it being closed.

Also, please don't categorise me as a blue troll, I don't run MorphOS and I certainly don't like Genesi that much. I just want to know why the HW that works for ME is broken to HIM. (I'm assuming Theo's still talking about the Pega1 and Diana is talking about the Pega2)

[Batman]

@jope
First, Theo is not a troll, he's the boss of the OpenBSD project. Read his website: http://www.theos.com/ :-D

Second, Theo is questioning only about Genesi's "customer care". Basically he's alerting everyone to not make his very experience with BBRV. Well, he has a somewhat flaming way of express himself, but when he talks, he talks with reason. Why don't ask him, via misc-openbsd mailing list, the same questions you asked me? I'm sure he will have some interesting answer.. ;-)

Third, OpenBSD's policy is always to support hardware makers that give full and free access to the documentation (Read: no NDA). Look backward in that mailing list for a thread about SPARC documentation for OpenBSD. :-D

[uncharted]

KennyR wrote:
Basic summary of this thread:

Pegasos is crap, sucks, Genesi are con artists, etc.

Uhm, most of that isn't true. Why so hostile?

This guy seems to be just basically rude and not very nice, and rants like this a lot, so maybe that's why. (Presents an earlier instance of when Theo was punished for his behaviour)

Stop badmouthing this guy, you Genesi troll!

He's trolling and not presenting any facts, I'm just pointing it out.

The fact you try to defend Genesi against Theo's factless trolling means you are a blue troll, so I don't need to listen. You're a troll.

That's more or less how it's going. Hell, us so-called "blue trolls" are even agreeing on many points! There's no angry protectionism or blind apologism here. Try posting criticism of the A1 and see if you'll get that.

Huh? Magnetic? I think you are talking about hooligan, but in two posts now you've referred to Magnetic.  Is there some other discussion going on about this elsewhere? I'm confused :-?

[Batman]

@kennyR

What you said is very funny, so let's laugh! :-D
 :lol:  :lol:  :-P

[KennyR]

Ah crap, you're right. It's the butterfly avatar's fault! Apologes to Magnetic, he has nothing to do with this thread. :inquisitive:

[Jope]

Batman wrote:
@jope
First, Theo is not a troll, he's the boss of the OpenBSD project. Read his website: http://www.theos.com/ :-D

I never called him a troll. I know what he's done. In my opinion, accomplishments don't give justification for being arrogant..

Second, Theo is questioning only about Genesi's "customer care". Basically he's alerting everyone to not make his very experience with BBRV. Well, he has a somewhat flaming way of express himself, but when he talks, he talks with reason.

Ok, why did he draw the HW into the discussion if he's only griping about Genesi support?

And still: even though that's his way of writing, I don't give him any props for just slagging away without really telling us why. Even though he's accomplished in the BSD arena, all that better than you attitude drops his points in my eyes..

Why don't ask him, via misc-openbsd mailing list, the same questions you asked me? I'm sure he will have some interesting answer.. ;-)

I asked in private. Let's see if it he reads it or answers.

Third, OpenBSD's policy is always to support hardware makers that give full and free access to the documentation (Read: no NDA). Look backward in that mailing list for a thread about SPARC documentation for OpenBSD. :-D

Ok, that I didn't know.

Then again, from what I've heard about Theo, he probably isn't very willing to flex to anyone else's will.

Hmm, I wonder why this subject actually gets to me - I don't even have any interest in running *BSD on my Pegasos. :-D Oh  well, I guess it's a matter of principle.. I don't just take it for granted when people slag off my choice of car either without reason. :-)

[JoannaK]

Batman wrote:

Third, OpenBSD's policy is always to support hardware makers that give full and free access to the documentation (Read: no NDA). Look backward in that mailing list for a thread about SPARC documentation for OpenBSD. :-D

Ah.. In that case this would have nothing to do with Genesi. Ok, it's Genesi's decision to use Marvell Chipset on their board, but this NDA policy is Marvell's and there is nothign Genesi can do to avoid it.

OTOH: This ethernet is on SAME chip as Ram controller and other North-bridge stuff... So if they have support (and documentation) for rest of Pegasos 2 then adding GB ethernet driver should not be any problem.

Apparently this ain't the issue here.. I do understand that communicating with Genesi can be Pain and those older boards (given free to developers) have not been up to specs... But still, it does not add up.

[magnetic]

Ok, I was going to stay out of this thread but I got dragged into it. (why was my name mentioned anyway???)

 Firstly, Theo had a Pegasos 2 for a couple of weeks. When bPlan updated the firmware there were problems with the Openbsd build (which was working fine on Peg1 and peg2 OF 1.0)  This would have been a quick matter for Theo to work around but he decided not to do so, making a stance that he wouldnt work on "closed hardware"

 One of the most exciting features of the Pegasos2 is the onboard Gige. This is much better and faster than pci gige. The unfortunate thing is that Genesi has NDAs with Marvell. ATM Genesi/bplan has the only full PPC computer in the world running with that bridge, so combined with the Marvell NDA it could be considered IP.  

 AFAIK they could not release the full documentation of the Northbridge to Theo due to a varity of legal and business decisions. This obviously was unacceptable to the OpenBSD devs, because they want everything totally "open" Its the classic argument of Closed Source vs Open Source.

 Genesi in fact was excited to work with Theo and the OpenBSD guys but could not at that time give out that information. Even though Theo is a well known coding figure, his "antics" are known to alot of people in the industry. If he had exhibited a little more patience he may have had a better relationship with Genesi. As it was they promoted OpenBSD to many industrial clients and at trade shows.

 Anyone who is running a Pegasos2 will tell you its very stable and works well. I have been running a Pegasos 2 G4 with the 2.6.4 PPC Linux kernel and Debian with KDE 3.2.1 and Gnome 2.4.2 and it hasnt crashed once. I've had uptime of over 10 days. Since moving away from Articia the Pegasos is now an industrial class piece of hardware.

 MorphOS makes strides daily and more native PPC programs are coded and/or ported all the time. The community is growing rapidly and the expectations are high. If you look into Theo's record of problems with companies, and yes even his own fellow developers you will see some scope on this. I do not know this individual but will give him the respect that he is an elite coder. However, his politics and attitude are questionable to some.

magnetic