From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Robert J. Chassell" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: how to find out methods for tramp? Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 13:24:49 +0000 (UTC) Sender: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <200206190223.g5J2NZ915936@aztec.santafe.edu> Reply-To: bob@rattlesnake.com NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1024494334 2282 127.0.0.1 (19 Jun 2002 13:45:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 13:45:34 +0000 (UTC) Cc: bob@rattlesnake.com Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1 (Debian)) id 17KfmA-0000ah-00 for ; Wed, 19 Jun 2002 15:45:34 +0200 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 17KgDN-00085f-00 for ; Wed, 19 Jun 2002 16:13:41 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 17Kflu-0006hr-00; Wed, 19 Jun 2002 09:45:19 -0400 Original-Received: from megalith.rattlesnake.com ([140.186.114.245] helo=localhost) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 17KfS7-0007TM-00 for ; Wed, 19 Jun 2002 09:24:51 -0400 Original-Received: by rattlesnake.com via sendmail from stdin id (Debian Smail3.2.0.114) Wed, 19 Jun 2002 13:24:49 +0000 (UTC) Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org In-Reply-To: <200206190223.g5J2NZ915936@aztec.santafe.edu> (message from Richard Stallman on Tue, 18 Jun 2002 20:23:35 -0600 (MDT)) Errors-To: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.9 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:4988 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:4988 Bob, did you read the Tramp manual to get help for setting this up? If not, please try that and tell us if it helps you. Yes, I did read it. As I wrote earlier, it described the methods quite well. But it did not tell me how to choose the best method efficiently; only to try each method one at a time until one worked. There are three issues here: * Possible bugs in the code. Kai asked me, and I have sent him, a trace. (One of the non-working sites is using what my successfull SSH-connection-in-an-xterm reports as a possibly `old' implementation of SSH; the other requires protocol 2 and Tramp fails with any SSH configuration that also permits protocol 1.) * Inadequately informative error messages. When Tramp fails, the error messages should tell me more as to why it fails: for example, I can successfully use Tramp to list my home directory on fp.gnu.org using the `smx' method using yesterday's CVS snapshot, started with: emacs -q --no-site-file --eval '(blink-cursor-mode 0)' However, when I try the same operation using the `sm' method, Tramp fails and tells me only that tramp-open-connection-rsh: Wrong type argument: sequencep, 60 The *debug tramp/sm fp.gnu.org* provides even less help. Neither suggests which of the other 28 or so methods I should use. * Confusing documentation. - The existing documentation, which in general I find pretty clear is, in this instance somewhat misleading. It says that `smx' ... is useful for users where the normal login shell is set up to ask them a number of questions when logging in. In this case, fencepost does not ask me for a number of questions. It asks one question, which is for my password. So if I follow this documentation, I avoid using the `smx' method. However, the `smx' method is the method that works. Perhaps the problem is that this instance of SSH negotiates a series of questions back and forth, and the `sm' method cannot handle that. As a user I have no way of knowing. After all, as I said, to me fencepost asks only one question, which is for my password; and the `sm' method is for other SSH connections to sites with `mimencode'. - Secondly, while the documentation is helpful in saying that `smx' ... is also useful for Windows users ... since fencepost is, I am pretty sure, a system that can run X, which is a windowing system, I am not 100% sure that the documentation writer actually means `also useful for users running a windowing system such as X or Berlin' Perhaps the writer means `also useful for users running the windowing system distributed by the Microsoft Corporation'. The problem here occurs because some people support the Microsoft Corporation's efforts to deny that windowing systems are a generic application invented by Englebart in the 1960s. When they refer to a windowing system, they mean only Microsoft Windows. (The Microsoft Corporation has spent a great deal of effort in trying to deny the everyday meaning of the word `Windows' in the context of computers, going so far as to obtain a trademark on the word.) When I see the word `Windows', while I presume that most likely the speaker is talking about computer windowing systems in their everyday meaning, referring to X and to SmallTalk, and Englebart's work, I have to recognize that the term is ambiguous and may refer only to the windowing system distributed and claimed by the Microsoft Corporation. The documentation would be clearer if it distinguished among any windowing system, such as X, or that produced by the Apple Corporation, or that produced by the Microsoft Corporation the windowing system produced by the Microsoft Corporation the X windowing system and so on. And, since people always shorten terms in frequent use, shorting `television' to TV (or, in the UK, to `tely'), it is reasonable sometimes to shorten specific references to Macintosh Windows, X Windows, or Microsoft Windows. -- Robert J. Chassell bob@rattlesnake.com Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com