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

[Mathieu Roy]

> 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. 

In fact, your right, there is a .cvspass file needed for anoncvs
access. One reason can explain why I wasnt aware, despite the
fact that I use anoncvs CVS since more than 2 years successfully: this
file is created automatically by the cvs software. It does work in
this way with three of the most famous distros. We can guess that's
the normal way it works.

You are the first one too report such a problem. Which CVS version do
you use?

One more time, we will not provide informations too use tools with
each of theirs release special things. If it's abnormal that this file
.cvspass is created automatically, we need to add this information. If
it normal that this .cvspass is created automatically, we will not add
this information. People that use misconfigured tools have to learn to
configure their tool or to install a distribution that configure their
tools for them.

We musnt provide informations about all potentially issues on
Savannah. On Savannah, we need to provide the normal way to do things
and a way to solve common troubles.

People expect this. They surely do not want to read 1500 lines of
documentation with 1459 lines related to bugs that only one person
had in two years.

For those so rare issues, we will answer case per case at
savannah-hackers. 


> 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.)

This problem can have lot of cause. It can depends on the AOL network,
and anything else. Normally, it does not depends on the Savannah
installation but on the DNS. 


>            - 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.

I think it would be more appropriate to write a documentation about
using CVS and Emacs.
Why limiting this documentation to savannah ? Why writing something
specific while we can write something general, that will work for any
CVS installation ?

If such a documentation exists, we can add links to it, in the
FAQ. If it does not exists, something can write it, and taking
savannah as example, for instance.

If I type C-h i, I see a CVS section. If this documentation is too bad
to understand how to use savannah, why not rewriting it?

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

That what we are trying to do :)

Anyway, note that savannah isnt really a website but a
software. Content is generated dynamically. So it's not texinfo
files. It can be managed in the way many www.gnu.org page are made. 

Regards,
Thanks for your attention,

-- 
Mathieu Roy
 
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