Howdy!

On most (all?) current Unix systems I can use `write` to communicate with
users logged in over `ssh`. However, now that Debian is removing `mesg` and `writed` from util-linux [1], I'm wondering what the officially recommended replacement is. I mean, I suppose I could always look up their phone number
and call them, but that feels so 1970s… :-D

Thanks,

Ben

[1]: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1088190

<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,times new roman,serif">Howdy!</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,times new roman,serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,times
new roman,serif">On most (all?) current Unix systems I can use `write` to communicate with users logged in over `ssh`. However, now that Debian is removing `mesg` and `writed` from util-linux [1], I&#39;m wondering what the officially recommended
replacement is. I mean, I suppose I could always look up their phone number and call them, but that feels so 1970s… :-D<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,times new roman,serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="
font-family:garamond,times new roman,serif">Thanks,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,times new roman,serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,times new roman,serif">Ben</div><div class="gmail_
default" style="font-family:garamond,times new roman,serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,times new roman,serif">  [1]: <font color="#888888"><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1088190" rel="
noreferrer" target="_blank">https://bugs.<span class="il">debian</span>.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1088190</a></font></div></div>

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* didier gaumet <[email protected]> [24-12/05=Th 10:11 +0100]:

Le 05/12/2024 � 06:52, Ben Wong a �crit :

Howdy!

On most (all?) current Unix systems I can use `write` to communicate
with users logged in over `ssh`. However, now that Debian is removing
`mesg` and `writed` from util-linux [1], I'm wondering what the
officially recommended replacement is. I mean, I suppose I could always
look up their phone number and call them, but that feels so 1970s... :-D

Thanks,

Ben

[1]: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1088190
<https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1088190>

Hello,

the bsdextrautils package implements a /usr/bin/write command

But bsdextrautils doesn't have 'wall' or 'mesg'. I've found
sleep $duration && wall Turn on radio
to be useful on a new machine that doesn't have sound working yet.

It's a bad idea to remove a standard utility just because maintainers
can't imagine why it's useful. As in this case, that is likely to be
a failure of imagination; security is irrelevant to one-line reminders
on a single machine. I've also found 'talk' useful.

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