VBox vm running ubuntu-22.04 host ubuntu-21.10

[Liam Proven]

On Sat, 15 Jan 2022 at 19:12, hput via ubuntu-users
<ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
>
> Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> writes:
>
> Well, you've just about shutdown all avenues of further discussion.

OK. I am sorry. I did not mean to do that.

Let me try to explain. You put so many different things together in
that question that it completely threw me. None of these things add
up, to me.

I learned about ZFS myself by trying it in a VM, sure.

But it seems to me that a lot of caveats apply to that.

I thought they were obvious, but you make it clear they are not, so I
will spell them out.

[1] If you want to learn how something complicated works, do not use
pre-release OSes for it.

If you want to learn how to do something, use a tool that is known to work.

Don't try to use alpha and betas for this.

It will be very frustrating, because it won't work right, and there's
no documentation, and if you ask for help, people won't know, because
pros don't do stuff like that.

The reason is simple: if you try to learn using unfinished prototype
tools, then there is a high chance that what you learn won't work when
the tools are finished.

For exploring OS functionality, *do not use pre-release OSes. This is
not what they are for.*

They are for testing that the OS works. That means it doesn't work
yet. If it worked, it wouldn't be a pre-release OS.

[2] If you are testing stuff out, then do not keep any important data
in such a test system.

This is because you're testing and testing means failure. Failure
means you lose your data.

Then if you're not a guru and you ask for help, then more cautious
people will ask "why were you doing that?"

As I did, and now, you're angry.

[3] When you're testing stuff, *especially* if it's with unfinished
tools, then *keep lots of backups.*

VMs make this easy. Before you make a change, take a snapshot. Every
change, every time.

Don't have enough disk space? Then you are using the wrong computer
for your testing. Get a better one.

Don't have the money/space for a bigger better computer? Then don't
test unfinished prerelease software.

[4] When testing stuff in an unsuitable environment, use the smallest
possible system. I think I used 3 x 5GB disks in RAIDZ for example.
They might have been even smaller, like 3 x 20MB or something. But I
was testing it in a remote testbed machine in the labs of an OS
developer, and the box had 64GB of RAM, 24 processors, and many
terabytes of disk. It was old and a bit slow but it had tons of room.

I can't afford kit like that at home!

To test, say, RAIDZ2 against a mirror of stripes or a stripe of
mirrors, then you only need 4 or 6 virtual disks.

9 seems overkill to me.

Secondly, you can't learn anything useful about performance from VMs.
Disk arrays belong in dedicated storage servers using dedicated
hardware.

> I am not expecting to run something commercial or really anything that
> will matter much.

Then why are you asking for help getting it back?

> If it is really so appalling to you? Of course there is the
> option of telling me I'm and idiot and stepping on down the road.

What is very surprising to me is this:

You won't learn anything useful from a not-yet-beta OS.

And yet, if you know enough to obtain it, and install it, then you
must have some technical skills.

To have those levels of skills means you should _know_ it won't teach
you anything usefyl.

And yet, you are aggressively defending your choices, which implies to
me that you don't know this.

-- 
Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven
UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053