Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: Minuous on February 02, 2007, 04:47:55 AM
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It seems clear that Aminet is dead. Availability since early January has been <10%.
The Aminet administrators have not put out an announcement to the community, it seems safe to assume that it is effectively dead from this point onwards.
Of course Aminet is a valuable resource and this is why its continued availability is vital to the Amiga community.
However there is obviously still a need for somewhere to release software to. Rather than simply complaining about the present situation, I propose to actually *do something* and set up a new Amiga PD site. I'm willing to be a webmaster of, and contributor to, such a site.
I think it is fair to say that when there is no Aminet, nor Aminet-like site, the Amiga is for all intents and purposes dead. As it has been the primary source of new Amiga software for over 10 years.
I note that MorphOS and OS4 do seem to be covered by MorphZone and OS4 Depot, however these sites are completely unsupportive of the OS3.x community and OS3.x software and thus cannot be considered to be adequate replacements for Aminet.
I propose to keep the existing readme format and directory structure. However I'm open to suggestions by others who are willing to be co-administrators of the site.
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Um, unless you are giving them money and donations to run their server, you really wouldn't have much to say. I've seen many people that complain about certain websites and services, yet haven't contributed a damn dime to the operations of such said site.
So what the site is offline. So what they haven't been able to communicate. Not everyone in the world has the infinite time that some people have to get things done.
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I use Aminet on a regular basis and it is run "almost" fine.
I think they have some hardware issues, not more than that.:roll:
Will be a disgrace if Aminet shutt they servers down. :boohoo:
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It doesn't seem to be totally down. The site does respond, files, resent upload info and a message about a server problem is available. Maybe they are just totally busy. The archives also still exist in locations like ...
ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/os/amiga/aminet/ and
ftp://ftp.plig.net/pub/aminet/
I don't know how aminet is setup but maybe it just the search engine server that's down. It seems many of the mirror sites are offline though, yet the associated ftp archives remain. Any one have an estimate to what total donations it would take to help get it back to 100%? Is it money, spare time, spare equipment, or a combination that would get things back to 100%?
Plaz
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I don't think we should be complaining about three weeks of sub-optimal aminet server access when you consider how amazing it has been for the last 15 years or whatever. It is an amazing site. I love the way that it is organized and how all-encompassing it is. I have no idea how many people are involved in running aminet, but they have to be among the most dedicated people who ever tried to promote the amiga.
Let's give them some slack here. Maybe it is a matter of money. Possibly they are tired of all the effort involved. Or maybe they are just plain busy at the moment so they haven't gotten around to getting it up a running at full capacity.
That being said, I agree that it would be nice to have a message saying what the problem is. Maybe it is something that we could all help fix (money?)
I doubt anyone could come up with a solution that would replace aminet without simply copying the entire site and changing the interface somehow.
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@Minouous
I think you are over-reacting. It's not like it's down for months and it's still accessible in degraded mode at www.aminet.net . I know that the lack of updates can become frustrating but i think it's a matter of time for the problem to be fixed.
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at least there are new uploads being added to aminet, the only difference seems to be that it´s not possible to see which OS the file is made for (and probably some other suff as well).
I also found this note in their news section from 19 dec 2006:
As a last note, it's worth noticing that in 2006, we have surpassed the amount of uploads from 2005, 2004, 2003 and even 1992, which was the year Aminet started.
nice to see, but perhaps not so strange since Aminet was down for several years... :-P
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Aminet search function has been broken for months, not weeks.
If you make a new Aminet replacement then please, please, please I beg you, make a working search function!
Our Minuous which art in Australia, hallowed be thy name. Thy users come, thy site be done in Earth as it is in cyberspace. Give us this day our daily software. And forgive us our lack (of hardware), as we forgive them that lack against us. And lead us not into BROKEN SEARCH FUNCTIONS. But deliver us from microsoft. Amen.
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I can't remember having any problems with neither Aminet nor the search function. In fact, ever.
Maybe you're using a broken mirror?
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Sometimes you can still get downloads.
But uploading has not been possible for weeks.
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Aminet is certainly not dead! Access via the main site and at least some of the mirrors is still fine.
Aminet has had problems before, but has come out just fine... No need to start sounding its death knell just yet...
- Ali
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"Replacement being set up"??
I have been downloading numerous files from Aminet the past few weeks, and never had any issues.
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Something I learned from my own website (the MST3K one) is that most people that say they want to do or are going to do something, don't. The key is to do something, then tell people about it when it's done.
I hate websites that say "under construction", because they never go to the "constructed" phase and just die on the vine. If I add a new feature to my site, I just do it and announce that it's done. Saying I'm thinking about putting up a new section doesn't help anyone and I'll just be adding to the lame on the Internet.
^^^ = announcing isn't doing.
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The purpose is to see whether there is support for doing this in the community.
Obviously if no one is going to use such a site there's no point setting it up.
I don't have the time and resources to do everything myself, but I am offering to do a share of the work. However assistance is needed, eg. with hosting.
Sorry if you were expecting something to already be running. You could offer to help, that might speed things up a bit.
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Why not email the Aminet team to see what's going on?
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(I'm one of the Aminet admins)
@Minuous:
they don't give a damn about the community. More than 3 weeks downtime of a site without explanation is, I'm sure you will agree, completely unacceptable in this day and age.
Wow, thanks a lot for that one. Crap like that makes my day, really - or maybe not.
I don't remember recieving a mail from you, Mr. Jacobs (while you did contact us about various other issues in the past, so you're indeed familiar with the e-mail medium, apparently). Next time, just drop us a mail first and use the reply to decide if it's time to insult us in public. Check your dictionary for "politeness" if you're not familiar with the concept.
Aminet is currently running in degraded mode, due to ongoing problems with our main server. Additionally, we've been suffering from flakey DNS servers, that's why some of the URLs (www.aminet.net vs. aminet.net) didn't always work. We've been down for two days (one at the beginning of January, one at the end), but certainly not "for weeks" or anything like that.
Add to that that the guy responsible for the DNS servers was on holidays, the guy hosting the server was on holidays, the server admin is extremely busy with real life things and my PPC Amiga just died (more or less) which left me without a machine capable of browsing the net and your whole "they're giving a damn" theory goes down the drain.
If you hate the fact that Aminet is somewhat out of shape right now, what do you think how we feel about it?
@ChaosLoard:
Aminet search function has been broken for months, not weeks
Aminet's search function had a bug which resulted in listing to many results. Said bug was introduced right before xmas, just a few days before the main server started to act up. It's somewhat hard to fix bugs if your remote shell dies faster than you can say "we're going to get flamed for this".
@all:
As you can see, I'm back online. I'll add a news item to the wiki right now, sorry about the inconvenience.
If anybody has problems with Aminet, please just drop us a mail or join #aminet at irc.amigaworld.net. I know one or two people are still waiting for replies, I'm going to take care of this as soon as I get access to my YAM mail folders.
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@Minuous
TBH, I think your attitude is contrary to the spirit of Aminet in so many ways, I don't rate your chances of "replacing" it.
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Feel free to make a replacement if you are that disatisified with Aminet. It hasn't stopped others before, and probably won't in the future too.
As for the problems the main server has had, I think Christoph described it ok.
For Aminet mirrors that work just fine:
- http://wiki.aminet.net/Mirrors
Currently 9 out of 10 mirrors up, and one more is coming soon.
Ok, the upload is somewhat hurting right now, as I haven't been able to move that to the "degraded" mode, but will try to fix that.
The search function of the degraded mode should work exactly like it did on the classic Aminet.
For news about aminet:
- http://wiki.aminet.net/News
For suggestions, (more) complaints and chit-chatting:
mail@aminet.net
or
irc://irc.aminet.net/aminet (AmigaworldNET #aminet)
As for personal websites that haven't been updated, I really wonder what that is all about. I run some other websites, both personal and general, and they all seem pretty alive and kicking to me: http://utilitybase.com http://polarboing.com http://amifund.net http://amigann.com http://aros-exec.org http://my.opera.com/nicolasm also working on a school project here: http://veggidi.opentheweb.org/
I'm sorry if we made your life miserable, but frankly it's hard to know about it if you don't tell it to us. (Yep, I don't have time to stay on top of all the forums on the various portals, although I do follow the dev site forums quite closely.)
On the other hand if you are just exaggerating and using the rant as an excuse to make yet another software repository, that's ok, except it shouldn't be that hard to use regular arguments ;)
If you for some reason happen to be happy with the work we do, don't hesitate in sending a donation to support@aminet.net using PayPal.
Ta-ta...
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Um.. Why not instead try to help them out with these issues? Is not like they are they are doing this for a profit these days and i find it very unfair that you compare it to tucows, which is infact a profit site.
Aminet cannot be replaced in my opinion. Without aminet the community would have been gone YEARS ago. Adding yet another competitior in this small market will not do anything good and we should instead cooperate and concentrate on keeping aminet up.
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I'm sure the majority of the community is understanding about any hiccups which may happen from time to time, as with any major website.
I for one am extremely grateful for the massive contribution Aminet makes to the preservation of the platform.
Of course, I anyone wants to start a new project in a similar vein, that would also be great. It has become apparent that many developers release their products to the public domain (e.g. on their own websites) but don't (or won't) upload them to Aminet, leaving gaps in the easy availability of software. If they were to come together on another site, it's all for the good. :-)
Cheers,
Lurkist
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@cgutjahr
No need to say that you are sorry. After all, you are doing this for free. It's sad to hear that your PPC Amiga died man :-( What was it?
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90% of the time when I go to Aminet it times out.
And uploads are NOT working even when the site comes up. Obviously this is true for others since there have not been new uploads for weeks. Again, everybody, I'm talking about UPLOADS not DOWNLOADS here!! (After all one can still download Fred Fish disks but uploads to that series are no longer possible, the same seems to apply to Aminet.) Not a day or two here and there as was claimed. And I indeed have written emails which have had no response.
Fine, I won't bother making a new site, obviously there is no support for it.
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I'm trying http://de.aminet.net/aminet/ but it doesn't work. I started to like that one as I could see the daily uploads in a nice list - it made it look more current than the old grey page I used to frequent.
How much does it cost to keep Aminet going in terms of repairs, upgrades, hosting or just plain man hours? Maybe a PayPal link like on Amiga.org would encourage a more tangible form of support!
:-D
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Minuous wrote:
> Fine, I won't bother making a new site, obviously there is no support for it.
Now, what's up with people's attitude these days? Look, nobody's stopping you from making your own Amiga related site, if you're lucky it might even grow to become quite popular. What we're saying (or at least what I'm saying) is that we probably won't ditch Aminet for it.
Wish I could do something to help Aminet, though. Besides money donations, that is - I've spent more than enough on selfish things like hardware lately. :-D
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cgutjahr wrote:
Crap like that makes my day, really - or maybe not.
I'd like to say keep up the good work with Aminet! I use it several times a week, most weeks, and would be extremely sad to see anything happen to it. I'm really appreciative of your and others' time and effort in keeping this great resource available.
- Ali
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>What we're saying (or at least what I'm saying) is that we probably won't ditch Aminet for it.
If you read my post carefully you would see that I'm suggesting a replacement, not a competitor. Ie. I'm thinking of the situation where Aminet availability remains very poor and where new uploads remain impossible.
Now many of you might be willing to use a half-dead site with no updated content. But assuredly many will not. It only adds to the perception of the Amiga as a "dead" platform if there is nowhere to release new software.
If there is nowhere for new releases, coders will not bother writing new software. If the flow of new software and updates dries up, the platform will be abandoned. It's quite simple really.
I really don't think this is controversial, I'm not sure why there is such a lack of support for at least one of these 2 options: (a) getting Aminet online again; or (b) establishing a replacement for it.
Does the community really feel comfortable with going for months at a time with no new software?
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Temporary server trouble does not institute a need for a new software respository, in my opinion. So new software will be a little late getting onto the internet - big deal. It's not like we're in a cutthroat daily competition against anyone.
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Now many of you might be willing to use a half-dead site with no updated content. But assuredly many will not. It only adds to the perception of the Amiga as a "dead" platform if there is nowhere to release new software.
Aminet is experiencing hiccups, but no way is it dead. They've revamped the search engine and made it more powerful, they've added architecture fields to search for other amiga-like OS's, they've given it a facelift, they've worked hard on bringing back ADT for FTP users.... listen to the guys reasons earlier in this thread. Half the fricken people responsible for the site were on holiday over January, and his own machine was b0rked for a short while. They're committed to the project. If you want, make your own file repository, but it will only be a knee jerk reaction to a problem that doesnt even exist.
If there is nowhere for new releases, coders will not bother writing new software. If the flow of new software and updates dries up, the platform will be abandoned. It's quite simple really.
Speak for yourself buddy. I'm a coder, and theres always at least some method of distributing my software. aminet isnt the only option.
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Aminet is a trully great resource of information to us all, the files obviously still exist, rather than loose them, or get stored away to a dusty attic, why not affiliate them to amiga.org????
Could well be a good alternative, would make the sight larger, bring in more users, possibly!?!
To make things even more interesting, it could even be done on a 1year subscription,limited access to non members for free, amiga.org full access £2, with aminet £3.
Would help fund our fav sight and help aminet at the same time!
:love: Could be a match made in heaven.
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>Speak for yourself buddy. I'm a coder, and theres always at least some method of distributing my software. aminet isnt the only option.
So where are the alternative sites then?
>To make things even more interesting, it could even be done on a 1year subscription,limited access to non members for free, amiga.org full access £2, with aminet £3.
Selling PD? No, I don't think so. The authors of the software have not written it to be sold for profit, it is expressly against the licences of the vast majority of Aminet software and therefore what you are proposing is illegal and immoral.
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Minuous wrote:
they don't give a damn about the community. More than 3 weeks downtime of a site without explanation is, I'm sure you will agree, completely unacceptable in this day and age.
cgutjahr wrote:
Wow, thanks a lot for that one. Crap like that makes my day, really - or maybe not.
I don't remember recieving a mail from you, Mr. Jacobs (while you did contact us about various other issues in the past, so you're indeed familiar with the e-mail medium, apparently). Next time, just drop us a mail first and use the reply to decide if it's time to insult us in public. Check your dictionary for "politeness" if you're not familiar with the concept.
well said, cgutjahr!
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@thread
How goes the work on restoring aminet to its full glory? I just uploaded a file. That much seems to be working at least.
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>I don't remember recieving a mail from you
As a matter of fact I emailed twice in the last month, neither has been actioned or replied.
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Everyone?
Stop arguing?
KTHX?
:-) ?
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This is the stupidest thread I've ever read, so Aminet was down for a while, it's been down before, boofrickidyhoo!
Is the concept of patience totally dead?
For the most part everyone responsible for running Aminet and adding to it's library deseve a medal, without it my Amigas would have been thrown away years ago.
These blokes do have lives outside of Aminet, Jobs, Education, Wives, Children?! ffs give them a break, if you want to start up a new software repository then great stuff! go do it, but dont justify doing it by slagging off aminet.
What right do you have to critisize a service maintained and supplied at zero cost to you?
NONE.
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I'm with mick_aka on this one.
And if there is anything we can do to help Aminet continue (long may they wish to do so!!!) then I am up for that too. How about a donations link on Aminet like on this site? (Or do they have this already and I have been totally oblivious to it?). It might help replace that PPC card for a start!
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@all:
Thanks for the kind words, everybody.
Nicomen is currently busy setting up a new main server. No ETA yet, but it should be available soonish. As jahc pointed out, we're already accepting uploads (via FTP) again, but it might take a while until we can moderate them.
As for my PPC: It's not really dead, fortunately. I guess I just forgot to sacrifice a virgin last year, that's why it needs to have some cables resoldered and the fan replaced.
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>As jahc pointed out, we're already accepting uploads (via FTP) again, but it might take a while until we can moderate them.
Hm, doesn't seem to be, I can see WookieChat in there, but no other uploads, and I get "permission denied" on the uploads. Web upload is still down too (empty "Type" field).
But at least it seems it will be back to normal soon, so on that basis I can't see a need for an alternative PD repository.
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Retromania wrote:
I'm with mick_aka on this one.
Crikey! first time for everything! :-D