Release Plan for 5.0


limetech

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 138
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Another method to determine 32/64-bit CPU:

 

lscpu | grep "op-mode"

 

Results:

root@Tower:~#lscpu | grep "op-mode"
CPU op-mode(s):       64-bit

Sorry, but that command does not exist on earlier versions of unRAID

root@Tower3:~# lscpu | grep "op-mode"

-bash: lscpu: command not found

root@Tower3:~#

 

Yeah I played with quite a few options. Many of which were just interpreting proc anyway. Its not as ugly but proc is the way to go for compatibilty always. :)

Link to comment

Interesting. I am a bit concerned with plugin support though. There are a couple of plugins I used when I first installed unraid to test which I consider essential, and a lot of these were written around version 4.7. We keep seeing posts where plugins break each time we upgrade. Is it going to become problematic in having good availability of plugins that support 4.7, 5.0, 5.1 and/or the newer 64bit kernel going forward? I hope not.

 

I think there comes a time when you have to be quite ruthless and say it is time to move on, and only support hardware/configuration XYZ. I mean, the people that are saying they are going to be left behind with non compatible 32bit hardware.... this is 2013. I would hazard a guess that the majority of people that post here and are into unraid can pluck up some money to afford a 64bit compatible board/cpu. You can buy an old system that would be suitable for less than the cost of an unraid licence I suspect. If we keep trying to support everything and make unraid so universally compatible, it will never move on. If the slow write issue is because of running more than 4gb of ram. I think 5 should be released and specified as only compatible with 4gb max of ram. Ram is cheap. Worst case is some people have to buy a couple of sticks to facilitate their needs. Anymore problems with crappy realtek nics for example should be met with a reluctance to keep supporting them and only Intel NICs supported. I say this owning a board WITH a realtek NIC.

 

I am finding it a bit disappointing to keep seeing RC after RC and then after a few posts a statement from Tom like "fixed in next RC". It feels like this will continue forever right now. :o( Additionally, Tom, you started a thread asking us our opinion on whether 5 should be released as is, and for the entire duration of the thread when I looked at the poll results, it always maintained an above 80% agreement in favour of releasing FINAL as is. Despite this, you are chosing to delay it further, but you have explained why and I think another week cannot hurt. It just feels like we say this a lot. "Just one more..."

 

 

Link to comment

Interesting. I am a bit concerned with plugin support though. There are a couple of plugins I used when I first installed unraid to test which I consider essential, and a lot of these were written around version 4.7. We keep seeing posts where plugins break each time we upgrade. Is it going to become problematic in having good availability of plugins that support 4.7, 5.0, 5.1 and/or the newer 64bit kernel going forward? I hope not.

 

I think there comes a time when you have to be quite ruthless and say it is time to move on, and only support hardware/configuration XYZ. I mean, the people that are saying they are going to be left behind with non compatible 32bit hardware.... this is 2013. I would hazard a guess that the majority of people that post here and are into unraid can pluck up some money to afford a 64bit compatible board/cpu. You can buy an old system that would be suitable for less than the cost of an unraid licence I suspect. If we keep trying to support everything and make unraid so universally compatible, it will never move on. If the slow write issue is because of running more than 4gb of ram. I think 5 should be released and specified as only compatible with 4gb max of ram. Ram is cheap. Worst case is some people have to buy a couple of sticks to facilitate their needs. Anymore problems with crappy realtek nics for example should be met with a reluctance to keep supporting them and only Intel NICs supported. I say this owning a board WITH a realtek NIC.

 

I am finding it a bit disappointing to keep seeing RC after RC and then after a few posts a statement from Tom like "fixed in next RC". It feels like this will continue forever right now. :o( Additionally, Tom, you started a thread asking us our opinion on whether 5 should be released as is, and for the entire duration of the thread when I looked at the poll results, it always maintained an above 80% agreement in favour of releasing FINAL as is. Despite this, you are chosing to delay it further, but you have explained why and I think another week cannot hurt. It just feels like we say this a lot. "Just one more..."

 

Shouldn't be any problems with plugin support. And leave Tom to do whatever he wants - he's so close to a final release, just trying to sort out one more problem. He's already pushed out a few fixes that needed to be made with RC11.

Link to comment

Interesting. I am a bit concerned with plugin support though. There are a couple of plugins I used when I first installed unraid to test which I consider essential, and a lot of these were written around version 4.7.

 

Unlikely! Plugin support didn't arrive until v5.0b11.

Link to comment

Interesting. I am a bit concerned with plugin support though. There are a couple of plugins I used when I first installed unraid to test which I consider essential, and a lot of these were written around version 4.7.

 

Unlikely! Plugin support didn't arrive until v5.0b11.

 

I think maybe we are talking about different things? I'm not talking about a plugin manager, I'm talking about the actual plugins working on different versions. You can't mean that all plugins for unraid were written for or after version 5.0b11, as that is how it reads.

Link to comment

Interesting. I am a bit concerned with plugin support though. There are a couple of plugins I used when I first installed unraid to test which I consider essential, and a lot of these were written around version 4.7.

 

Unlikely! Plugin support didn't arrive until v5.0b11.

 

I think maybe we are talking about different things? I'm not talking about a plugin manager, I'm talking about the actual plugins working on different versions. You can't mean that all plugins for unraid were written for or after version 5.0b11, as that is how it reads.

 

Perhaps different things, yes.  Unmenu implemented something call 'packages' - however, this was a third-party effort and not something which Limetech ever claimed to support.  These, and any other addons, are the responsibility of the original authors - if they fail to operate as intended on later releases of unRAID it is up to those other authors to rectify.  It is not Limetech's responsibility to maintain backward compatibility for every third-party addon which has ever been produced.

 

The plugin manager is the official LimeTech interface for adding additional functionality to an unRAID server, however, even that is still in a state of flux without a formal specification - the only guide we have is an example plugin produced by Tom.  When there is a formal specification, it will be LimeTech's responsibility to ensure that the interface is stable and performs according to that specification. Thus, plugins which are implemented according to the specification, with no dependency on such things as a specific kernel, should function correctly on future unRAID releases.

Link to comment

The plugin manager is the official LimeTech interface for adding additional functionality to an unRAID server, however, even that is still in a state of flux without a formal specification - the only guide we have is an example plugin produced by Tom. 

Correction...  The plugin manager has NOT yet been developed by lime-tech (or if it has, it has not been released, nor any formal specification) 

 

There is an "event" based script to invoke plugin actions in place in recent versions of unRAID.    It too has barely any documentation and is expected to change.  In its current state, any plugin, if poorly implemented, will prevent the array from either starting or stopping.  That, I think, needs to change.  (There are FAR too many posts of "My array will not STOP/START" when the cause is a plugin)

 

The plugin "manager" is expected to present a list of potential plugins, allow a user to choose one or more to install or un-install.  That "manager" does not exist.  Today, users must download and install their own plugins.   

 

Only one plugin was ever distributed by LimeTech.  All the other "plugin" authors have structured theirs to be similar.  Luckily, the format is basically an XML version of the unMENU .conf file format, and that has a lot more documentation.  (Tom @ LimeTech adopted much of what was learned by the user-community in building the unMENU "package" format)  Basically, unless you are only using the one plugin written by LimeTech, everything else you consider essential was contributed by third parties.

 

When unMENU was originally written there was no way to tie any add-on into the main user-interface of unRAID.  It was because of unMENU's success that unRAID changed to where plugins could be incorporated into the main-interface in the 5.X series.

 

Joe L.

 

Link to comment
Correction...  The plugin manager has NOT yet been developed by lime-tech

 

Indeed, Joe!  And thank you for the clarification/expansion!  I was taking a short-cut in explaining to jaybee why unRAID should not be expected to maintain compatibility with any existing addons.

Link to comment

[...]I think there comes a time when you have to be quite ruthless and say it is time to move on, and only support hardware/configuration XYZ. I mean, the people that are saying they are going to be left behind with non compatible 32bit hardware.... this is 2013. I would hazard a guess that the majority of people that post here and are into unraid can pluck up some money to afford a 64bit compatible board/cpu. You can buy an old system that would be suitable for less than the cost of an unraid licence I suspect. If we keep trying to support everything and make unraid so universally compatible, it will never move on. If the slow write issue is because of running more than 4gb of ram. I think 5 should be released and specified as only compatible with 4gb max of ram. Ram is cheap. Worst case is some people have to buy a couple of sticks to facilitate their needs. Anymore problems with crappy realtek nics for example should be met with a reluctance to keep supporting them and only Intel NICs supported. I say this owning a board WITH a realtek NIC.

 

I am finding it a bit disappointing to keep seeing RC after RC and then after a few posts a statement from Tom like "fixed in next RC". It feels like this will continue forever right now. [...]  It just feels like we say this a lot. "Just one more..."

 

i wholeheartedly agree with his statement. i dont want hardware compatibility fixes to stifle development so much that it hinders unRAID's viability as a lifelong storage solution for me. i'm talking about unRAID - the software product, NOT an unRAID System (the collective hardware and OS you assembled at home). software companies place constraints on end users all the time and they routinely retire support for older hardware systems.

 

personally i dont mind being "locked in" to a particular set of hardware compatibility guidelines, AS LONG AS those guidelines are well defined *before* i purchase a license.

 

if anyone wants to talk more about it, i started a separate thread here: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=25692.0

Link to comment

This may be a little off topic, but there is one thing I would like to see in 5.0 - partially selfish I admit.

 

I picked up a couple of Acer H341 NAS boxes, ment for WHS V1, 4 drives in a slick black cube.

I got them sans-drives, software, etc... imagine my surprise that with a jumper here, a video card there, some extra drives to play with..

.. they are running UnRaid very nicely.  On 3 of the 4 slots.

 

I got these to set up for a couple of friends and it's a bit frustrating that to stick in that last drive .. well, it won't have more than 4 drives in it.. ever..

So... is it worth suggesting that the Free and Plus versions become +1?

 

3 Data Drives +1 Parity and 6 Drives +1 Parity (now, if it's possible... that's the only config they would recognize... no 4 Data or 7 Data setups... 3+1 or 6+1....

 

 

Link to comment

The free version is for test... not freeloading.

 

My two 15 drive PRO servers are not 'freeloading'... amd you need to read what's on the label..

 

QUOTE "Unregistered unRAID OS provides Basic functionality."

 

Don't see the word 'testing' in there...

 

so when the PLUS version got the ability to add a cache drive, who was freeloading so they didn't have to buy a PRO license?

 

and when PRO went from 12 to 14 to 16 to 20... freeload much.

 

the concepts of 'basic' change over time.. all I'm saying.

Link to comment

The cost of unraid compared to what we spend on the rest of our systems is pretty low. I think the  current version is reasonable considering what we get out of the software

 

+1 I agree. Tell your friends to cough up for a plus license. If they want more drives for free nothing is stopping them from using something like FreeNAS.

Link to comment

yup... i purchased the Pro version... at the time, i didn't even think i'd get past 4 drives. but I needed the Active directory integration. You pay for the features that are important to you .. don't think of it as paying $70 to add just 1 drive. Think of it as protecting all 4 drives for just $70. Unraid is priced right - for a niche market. Easy enough if you know your tech. But sure zfs, and the other alternatives exist if you have the knowledge to do so.

Link to comment

The cost of unraid compared to what we spend on the rest of our systems is pretty low. I think the  current version is reasonable considering what we get out of the software

 

+1 I agree. Tell your friends to cough up for a plus license. If they want more drives for free nothing is stopping them from using something like FreeNAS.

+1

 

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

Link to comment

This may be a little off topic, but there is one thing I would like to see in 5.0 - partially selfish I admit.

 

I picked up a couple of Acer H341 NAS boxes, ment for WHS V1, 4 drives in a slick black cube.

I got them sans-drives, software, etc... imagine my surprise that with a jumper here, a video card there, some extra drives to play with..

.. they are running UnRaid very nicely.  On 3 of the 4 slots.

 

I got these to set up for a couple of friends and it's a bit frustrating that to stick in that last drive .. well, it won't have more than 4 drives in it.. ever..

So... is it worth suggesting that the Free and Plus versions become +1?

 

3 Data Drives +1 Parity and 6 Drives +1 Parity (now, if it's possible... that's the only config they would recognize... no 4 Data or 7 Data setups... 3+1 or 6+1....

 

I would get plus licenses each registered in the owners names. You can get a 2 pack if you plan to support these boxes. This will allow 4 drive and additional security features.

Link to comment

Another point I'd make is that if your friends ever upgrade to a larger case they can take the thumb drive with them and get the additional drives.

 

I seriously doubt they will. They are both disabled and I was trying to set this up so they could have a reliable music and video server. Got a couple of XBMC Android units and setting this up in their rooms. Of course that wasn't the only reason I brought it up, just to use the H341's I got ($50 each.. no drives).. it was just a THOUGHT on the evolution of the product. Wasn't about the amount of space you could use (you could set up a BASIC with 8tb in 3x4tb drives) just a thought on the product... 3 data + parity for BASIC, 6 data + parity + cache for PLUS (amazing no one called me a 'freeloader' for that) and open season in PRO.

 

Let's see -

 

"Tell your friends to cough up for a plus license. If they want more drives for free nothing is stopping them from using something like FreeNAS." I'll mention that if they have any left from their disability.

 

"don't think of it as paying $70 to add just 1 drive." - no that's exactly what it is..  actually more than the boxes cost. I have a stack of 250's/320's laying here that I was going to use.

 

really guys... it was a simple thought on maybe a little more value..  no need for the hatred, vitriol and name calling

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.