[Savannah-hackers] Re: bug in Anon CVS how to

[Robert J. Chassell]

   "Robert J. Chassell" <address@hidden> said:

   > Each CVS Introduction page contains instructions for Anonymous CVS
   > access.  But the instructions contain a bug, at least as tested with a
   > two accounts that are not mine.

   Please, give us full error message instead of telling us "it does not
   work". 

My apologies.  My mistake -- not having enough time. here is the
command and the error messages that result:

    ~/test $ cvs -d:pserver:anoncvs@@subversions.gnu.org:/cvsroot/foo
    login 
    Logging in to
    :pserver:anoncvs@@subversions.gnu.org:2401/cvsroot/foo CVS
    password:  Unknown host @subversions.gnu.org.

You said.

   I never had a .cvspass file on any account on any computer (with
   several distros, as RedHat, Debian and Mandrake). 

This worked then.  Now I continue to get a

    Unknown host @subversions.gnu.org.

so my hunch is that subversions is down.  Hmmm.....  Ah ... , I just
changed to a different ISP, a different account, and now I see the
following:

    <guest> ~ $   cvs -d:pserver:address@hidden:/cvsroot/softfree login
    Logging in to :pserver:address@hidden:2401/cvsroot/softfree
    CVS password: 

    <guest> ~ $ 

It looks to me that either this host and user can resolve subversions
or that subversions is back up.

Note that I had not remove the ~/.cvspass file on this account that I
had created earlier.  After I remove the ~/.cvspass file, this is what
happens:

    <guest> ~ $ ls -al  ~/.cvspass
    ls: /home/guest/.cvspass: No such file or directory
    <guest> ~ $ cvs -d:pserver:address@hidden:/cvsroot/softfree login
    Logging in to :pserver:address@hidden:2401/cvsroot/softfree
    CVS password: 
    cvs login: warning: failed to open /home/guest/.cvspass for reading: No 
such file or directory
    <guest> ~ $ 


So my new documentation that I sent you is right. 

But someone should also mention that sometimes subversions.gnu.org is
down or otherwise undetectable by a normal account at a normal site
(which in this case is using an AOL TimeWarner RoadRunner cable modem
connection, which may be totally irrelevant).  (I wish I personally
had the download speed that cable provides.... :-( I am on a telephone
dial up.)


           - people that come on Savannah that does know how to use the
   software does not want to spend 35 hours to understand fully each
   tool. 

Yes, it is exactly as you say:  that is why Savannah documentation
should enable a project administrator or ordinary user to learn to use
the most important CVS commands in Emacs and in a shell in a few
minutes.  That is why it is so important to tell people the main CVS
commands in both Emacs and the shell.  That is what is missing from
Savannah today.

    They want a simple command to get what they want. 

Right!  That is what I am pushing for.  Anything less will fail.  

Obviously, if someone wants to learn all about CVS, they should do so,
but the Savannah documentation should tell them what is needed to set
up a project (i.e., be aimed at project administrators who do not know
CVs) or to download via anonymous CVS (i.e., be aimed at people whose
interest is even lower than project administrators).

   Giving hundred tons of informations is like giving no informations.

Absolutely right.  On Savannah, give only the key information.  Tell
people the main commands and provide cross references to the rest of
the documentation.

-- 
    Robert J. Chassell            address@hidden  address@hidden
    Rattlesnake Enterprises       http://www.rattlesnake.com
    Free Software Foundation      http://www.gnu.org   GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8