[Tilesathome] Config to Only Generate Tile

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 02:20:57AM +0200, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> > Unfortunately, there are two barriers to debugging this further:
> >  * I'm not a professional sysadmin, and I have very little experience 
> >    in monitoring or improving disk I/O
> 
> I always thought the Brits were masters of understatement but maybe
> this project has roles reversed. Just wanted to say that you seem to be
> doing a terrific job, professional sysadmin or not ;-)

Well, thanks! I've learned a lot, mostly through experimentation, but
I'm definitely still far from the best candidate for this: I remember
this every time I watch one of the 'real' sysadmins at MetaCarta do
their stuff, and turn my performance up by an order of magnitude by
flipping some switch I didn't even know existed :)   

> > there may be improvements which could be made to the process that
> > aren't related to hardware, because it solves a hardware and social
> > problem at the same time which allows us to proceed more sanely
> > going forward.
> 
> I have a feeling there's a hint hidden in that but I don't get it. Is
> there some sort of "social design problem" with t at h (or OSM in
> general) that we should investigate?

The social problem is not in OSM: it's in the fact that I'm 3000 miles
distant from the people who *actually* maintain the server, and the
server that is 'slow' from the t at h point of view is one that is
yet-anothre-level removed: so asking for root on that box would be a
social step that I would have to justify, and it would use up some of
the social credit I have at the moment for just accepting what I'm given
;)

So, rather than ask for root on a server on which I don't really need it
which is twice-removed from the people I'm actively talking to, I'm
saving my social credit and waiting for the local disks, where the
social person I hae to talk to is... me! :)

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
MetaCarta