* Originally in ELIST
* Crossposted in ECHOLIST

* Originally in ELIST
* Originally in Z2REGION25

Hello All!

My service contract with cable company Virgin Media has come to an end and the monthly fee would have gone from 35 to 77 per month and that's pounds sterling.

So I have signed up to their slowest service at 50/5 and landline at 38 pm.
I could reduce this another 10 pm if I remove the included phone calls but I think my monthly phone calls could cost more than that - have to see.

As of yesterday, the ISP has now reduced the service speed here at 50Mb down and 5Mb up.

On Sunday to try and get in before hand I run a full system wide update for all
platforms. Well all but one and it was still running when I went down for dinner and only remembered going to bed at 03:00 or so and tried to finish off.
How ever one environment failed, badly so I will have to do that one in the next day or so - assuming I remember but luckily it should be a quick one of around one hour - he says :)

I might try it tonight but, yes might forget but it is not an urgent one as it is a back up sub system to the primary but I should do it anyway.

The mainframe update went without a hitch although pre testing did indicate it would be a smooth operation how ever the update for the Windows 10 environment was as per usual very slow which had nothing to do with my ISP speed, just typical microsoft slow as in more than two hours, a lot more.

Some of this is because the VM's have to be then updated or rebuilt for each one one updated and even with SSD's it takes time to generate each one along with each one's back up.

I must consider a system upgrade of the hardware but money these days is a wee bit tight and it is hardly really that important.

Heck, one system for the Elist sub system now runs on a Raspberry Pi 3B+ !gb Ram and a 1tb HDD using Ubuntu with in theory a back up on a brand new Pi4B 8GB
Ram and SSD M.2 drive which is normally powered off. I really don't have a need
for this one so might well sell it via eBay if only to recover the costs of it at close to 170 pounds (including a Argon 40M.2 case and PSU).

Not that the money would be close to the costs of a hardware update to the primary system - not even close.

In any event, as I am coming up to 76 in June, I will be trying to pass on the Elist service (along with the Pi3B+, to another sysop who is a lot younger as time waits for no one.

The Elist service runs under Linux using mbse as the mailer/bbs system at the most basic level. It did run on my primary system but I hived it off due to my age as a practical precaution and this way some one tochould take it on by
just getting the Pi kit, adding a twin core cable if needed and connecting it via cable to a LAN and other than change the Fido network address for it and the uplink would be fully operational. Another solution could be to run the mailer/bbs on their own Linux based system as a secondary system with the only changes needed to their router to port forward the address used (24555).
Linux can easily handle both running at once as the Elist system is a low resource system.

If any one is interested, get in touch.

Vincent

--- Mageia Linux v8 X64/Mbse v1.0.8.3/GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20180707
* Origin: Air Applewood, The Linux Gateway to the UK & Eire (2:250/1)