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When you talk about doing the PTFs to 5733OPS have you found that any of
those Required an IPL?

I am still foggy on this area so I may have misstepped. When I was
initially doing 5733OPS I did SNDPTFORD and then opt 8 to apply/install
with *SERVICE specified. When I do that (and I just did it yesterday) it
doesn't actually apply the PTF. I instead need to manually install them
with APYPTF and specify *IMMDLY. Before I discovered this (because it is
different than when I was applying PTFs for other licpgms) I was operating
on DSPPTF's "IPL Action"** column which made it appear as thought an IPL
was required. There was a "Yes" in that column so I assumed an IPL was
required.

** F1 help text for that column: "Indicates whether action will be taken on
the next unattended normal IPL to apply or remove this PTF. If IPL action
is indicated, enter the option to display PTF details to determine which
action is to be performed."

​I now believe it was user ignorance for this specific scenario. The other
scenarios (i.e updating openssl) were also only resolved with IPLs, which
also might be user ignorance (me).​

[30 minutes later after Aaron does more research based on Larry's feedback]
I now see the "Other options" on GO PTF opt 8 and that opt 2 for "Apply
type" should be specified. I am now wondering if that is defaulted to a
different value on the machines where I didn't need to do a manual APYPTF.


​>You say the PTFs are ALL or Nothing. That may be true for installing a
new OPS option since you need the product but after I don't see why you
couldn't add one PTF to fix a specific issue.​

In short, I want to be able to change my PATH to include or omit a change
IBM has introduced. Today, a PTF completely replaces the existing
infrastructure, including upgrading a version of a language, and I need to
retain the previous version of the language (rollback, A/B testing, etc).
I can work around this with ibmichroot, but for those new to open source
and upgrading, well, there's a bigger risk of down time, or more expense of
maintaining entirely different IBM i instances, to achieve multiple
dev/test/prod environments.​


​>I understand that you are 'not a fan' of the pTF process. However I would
caution that we don't really want IBM to set us up that for every new
option their is Yet Another Setup Type (YAST :-) ) needed to make that tool
available.

I hear ya, but we're entering a new age of containers (at least in the open
space) and I just don't see PTFs working there, unless the containers are
completely separate IBM i instances, and separate IBM i instances are too
expensive on the time/money/hardware front (when compared to the rest of
the world, i.e. Docker).

Thanks for tempering me. I need it to be drawn back from the ledge of
frustration. IBM has given us excellent means for feedback (RFE, Advisory
councils, etc) and I need to be part of the solution (working towards
fixing, submitting feedback) instead of the problem (complaining).​


Aaron Bartell
litmis.com - Services for open source on IBM i


On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 8:30 AM, DrFranken <midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Aaron,

I do PTFs in my sleep, before my sleep, after my sleep so my point
of reference is different. I have loaded OPS a dozen times or more with
PTFs. But we are often doing this to new partitions and as part of loading
other LPPs. I have had *ZERO issue with any of them.

When you talk about doing the PTFs to 5733OPS have you found that
any of those Required an IPL? I would not expect that as they are working
with things NOT part of the O/S itself. Perusing the PTFs they all appear
to be updating/adding just a very few objects so it would seem they would
be quick and apply *IMMED.

You say the PTFs are ALL or Nothing. That may be true for
installing a new OPS option since you need the product but after I don't
see why you couldn't add one PTF to fix a specific issue. IBM may indicate
they are related/dependent of course but there is no requirement that
because they are PTFs they MUST be.

Am I missing something?

- L


- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

www.Frankeni.com
www.iDevCloud.com - Personal Development IBM i timeshare service.
www.iInTheCloud.com - Commercial IBM i Cloud Hosting.


On 7/20/2016 8:48 AM, Aaron Bartell wrote:

So I don't know what else I can offer in terms of expounding on what

hasn't been smooth.

I think what I'm now realizing, especially given your opening declaration
of not being an admin, is that we're entering the world of developers
doing
operations/administration. Up to a couple years ago it was simply not
common for a developer to be able to provision your own IBM i at a
reasonable cost. That now exists because of IBM i in the cloud. Now what
we'll also find is that systems will be administered by these same people
who aren't focused on (don't care about?) the intricacies of when/how to
apply IBM i updates, they just want it to work like it does on their
phone.

I wanted to speak to my particular situation with 5733OPS difficulties. I
did a SAVLICPGM/RSTLICPGM to get 5733OPS onto two machines. I was told
this could work but I probably missed a step. Once I installed 5733OPS
from an image catalog everything started working fine. With that said, I
am not a fan of PTFs because it's all or nothing. I need to be able to
install PTFs into a temporary location on the same machine without
disrupting existing work. I need to be able to do this without an IPL.

My hope is the IBM i Dash project** can be a breeding grounds for
dashboards that take the pain out of IBM i administration. IBM has given
us A LOT of tooling/metadata via the DB2 Services***, so now it's our turn
to make them into useful user interfaces for the community.

**https://bitbucket.org/litmis/ibmidash
***http://bit.ly/db2-for-i-services

Aaron Bartell
litmis.com - Services for open source on IBM i


On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 6:00 PM, John Yeung <gallium.arsenide@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 10:34 AM, Aaron Bartell <aaronbartell@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

The bottom line is that the Zend PHP experience on the i has been

smoother

and generally better, by typical midrange standards, than the experience
with Node.js, Python, and 5733-OPS in general.

I am not IBM, but I am wondering if you could expound on what hasn't
been
as smooth so IBM can hear.


Well, keep in mind I am not an administrator. I don't have personal
experience installing any of the things mentioned above. I was mainly
trying to take Jon's comments and your comments as both true, from
your respective viewpoints. And I've read other people's anecdotes on
these lists of their attempts to get things working. (I've only really
heard 5733-OPS stories, nothing regarding PHP for i.)

Given all that, I simply found myself more sympathetic to Jon's
position. It's not for folks from other platforms to say "hey you
midrangers, our stuff is so easy and works so awesome on our platform;
it's not fair for you to say our stuff is not easy just because it's
not easy on your platform". Well, midrangers aren't on Linux or even
Windows. They are on IBM i. And if it's not easy on IBM i, then it's
not easy for them. Period. How do we (all of us, collectively) improve
the situation?

I would think the bumpy ride for installation and setup of 5733-OPS is
already evident to you. And Kevin Adler has been not just monitoring
but actively participating in the process of getting you and others
set up. So I don't know what else I can offer in terms of expounding
on what hasn't been smooth.

I can *imagine* what a smooth installation would look like. To me, the
iSeriesPython installation is quite smooth. I mean, not as smooth as a
Windows installer, but at least the instructions given were very clear
and easy to follow, with not too many steps.

Conversely, I have always found licensed programs and PTFs and all
that jazz very arcane, unintuitive, and not easy or smooth. But that's
me. What I can say is, that kind of stuff is evidently *familiar* to
midrangers, and familiarity breeds a *sense* of ease. (I will note
that Jon said PHP for i had a *familiar* installation process, not an
easy one.) Since I don't have the required authority to install PTFs
even if I wanted to (and actually, I have wanted to!), there's no way
for me to develop the familiarity and thus ease with the typical IBM i
way of doing things. All I know is that it sounds complicated to me,
and even super-knowledgeable people like Rob can get tripped up by the
myriad PTFs involved. The situation seems to be improving (for
example, with the "grouped" PTFs, I don't remember the official
terminology), but I can't tell firsthand.

Also, I think it would be good to log RFEs so
we can vote on what we'd like to see changed.


It would be good. I don't feel I'm the one to log them. At least not
regarding installation issues.

John Y.
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