[9fans] Adventures of a home user

[9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Jim Habegger]

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I haven't responded yet to all the info and ideas in my earlier thread,
because I've been trying to get Plan 9 working in QEMU.

First, I tried using 9vx. I found these instructions at
http://swtch.com/9vx/ :

9vx-0.12.tar.bz2 is a binary distribution
> containing a minimal plan 9 tree and binaries for
> freebsd, linux, and os x.
>
> download, unpack, and then
>
> cd 9vx-0.12
> ./9vx.Linux -u glenda
>
> (or 9vx.FreeBSD or 9vx.OSX)
>

To my surprise, it really was as simple as that!

At least, I get the same windows that I got when I had Plan 9 installed in
its own partition. I haven't tried to actually do anything with it yet. I
did learn that I have to press buttons 1 and 3 together, instead of shift-3,
to simulate button 2. Before exploring Plan 9 in 9vx, I wanted to see if I
could get it working in QEMU in my Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex system.

That was another story.

*Challenge 1*: Framebuffer

root@Satellite:~# qemu -hda Plan9.qcow.img -cdrom plan9.iso -boot d
>
>      =======================|  DirectFB 1.0.1  |=======================
>           (c) 2001-2007  The DirectFB Organization (directfb.org)
>           (c) 2000-2004  Convergence (integrated media) GmbH
>         ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> (*) DirectFB/Core: Single Application Core. (2008-09-12 19:59)
> (!) Direct/Util: opening '/dev/fb0' and '/dev/fb/0' failed
>     --> No such file or directory
> (!) DirectFB/FBDev: Error opening framebuffer device!
> (!) DirectFB/FBDev: Use 'fbdev' option or set FRAMEBUFFER environment
> variable.
> (!) DirectFB/Core: Could not initialize 'system' core!
>     --> Initialization error!
> Could not initialize SDL - exiting
>

Winning response: VGA kernel option in the Ubuntu boot menu

*Challenge 2*: Scrambled keyboard

Winning response:

qemu -hda Plan9.qcow.img -cdrom plan9.iso -boot d -k en-us
>

*Challenge 3*: Plan 9 hanging up

Winning response: I wait a few seconds before responding to each prompt when
Plan 9 is starting up.

*Challenge 4*: Display size

My Ubuntu display is 1024x768. The default size of the Plan 9 display is
much smaller, so it wasn't using all the available space on the Ubuntu
display.

Winning response: I re-installed Plan 9, changing the dimensions at the
prompt. I haven't learned yet how to change them from within Plan 9.

*Challenge 5*: How to exit from QEMU

I haven't found anything in the man pages that works for me. I can go back
to the console and do ctrl-c, but I don't like doing that.

Current response:

qemu -hda Plan9.qcow.img -cdrom plan9.iso -boot d -k en-us -no-reboot
>

Now, when I do "fshalt -r" in Plan 9, it exits from QEMU.

*Challenge 6*: How to use kqemu.

I see this message when I run qemu:

Could not open '/dev/kqemu' - QEMU acceleration layer not activated: No such
> file or directory
>

I've done some research, but I'm still confused about whether kqemu is
included in Intrepid Ibex, and if so how to activate it. When I installed
Plan 9, it took more than an hour to format 2GB.

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Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[john]

>
> *Challenge 4*: Display size
>
> My Ubuntu display is 1024x768. The default size of the Plan 9 display is
> much smaller, so it wasn't using all the available space on the Ubuntu
> display.
>
> Winning response: I re-installed Plan 9, changing the dimensions at the
> prompt. I haven't learned yet how to change them from within Plan 9.

To change in the future, run "9fat:" and edit vgasize.  For more info
see plan9.ini(8)


John Floren

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[erik quanstrom]

> When I installed Plan 9, it took more than an hour to format 2GB.

the plan 9 ide driver will use pio unless you tell it to do otherwise.
i'm not sure if this applies to qemu, but assuming your emulated drive
is sdC0, you can turn on dma with
	echo dma on > /dev/sdC0/ctl

- erik

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[yy]

2009/4/19 Jim Habegger <jimhabegger@gmail.com>:
> ... I did learn that I have to press buttons 1 and 3 together, instead of
> shift-3, to simulate button 2.

IMO, this is a bug. The Shift+Button3 = Button2 behaviour is
documented in the man page. I sent a (one-line) patch to Russ, but it
looks like it hasn't been applied. If you are in unix and you plan to
use 9vx (with shift and a 2 buttons mouse), just change this line in
src/9vx/x11/x11-itrans.c:

232c232
<               m->buttons |= 4;
---
>               m->buttons |= s & ShiftMask ? 2 : 4;

hth,


--
- yiyus || JGL .

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Jim Habegger]

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john, eric, and yy, thanks!

9vx isn't working out very well for me so far. I'm trying to practice
everything in the documentation on the Plan 9 site, then I'll work on the
ideas that have been posted for me here. I was going to practice first in
9vx, because it's easier to switch back and forth between that and my other
windows, than between qemu and my other windows.

Adding a new user:

term% uname jim jim
> uname: '/bin/uname' file does not exist
>

That doesn't encourage me to try to use 9vx for what I'm doing right now.

I'll see if I can do any better in QEMU.

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Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[erik quanstrom]

> john, eric, and yy, thanks!
>
> 9vx isn't working out very well for me so far. I'm trying to practice
> everything in the documentation on the Plan 9 site, then I'll work on the
> ideas that have been posted for me here. I was going to practice first in
> 9vx, because it's easier to switch back and forth between that and my other
> windows, than between qemu and my other windows.
>
> Adding a new user:
>
> term% uname jim jim
> > uname: '/bin/uname' file does not exist

this isn't a criticism of 9vx.  if you're using 9vx to stand
in for plan 9, you are going to have a lot of trouble with
the differences.  it's possible to configure 9vx to be just
like plan 9, but that's not the default and it takes some
doing and some additions.

for what you're doing qemu (or whatever) makes more
sense.  you may even even wish to set that up as a
cpu server and then use drawterm as a viewer.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Anthony Sorace]

Jim Habegger wrote:

// Adding a new user:

that's not a 9vx issue; either you're misreading the documentation or
it's incorrectly written (i'm not sure which bit you're reading for
that). those commands are intended to be given to the file server,
fossil, after connecting to the console posted in /srv. You'd get
exactly the same response under qemu or on real hardware.

it's worth noting, however, that 9vx is a bit different here in that,
unlike most plan9 installations, it doesn't use fossil as its root
file system (by default). instead of taking a large array of bits and
turning it into a file system itself (as fossil does, typically using
a disk partition as that array of bits, sometimes a regular file), 9vx
uses the underlying host OS file system (via the #Z kernel device).
there's no reason to "add users" in this sense because #Z doesn't
offer connection authentication and doesn't regulate user access in
the same way.

issues around swapping out the root file server are where most of
9vx's differences come from (and, in my experience, reduced stability,
but i'm not sure how widespread that is). things like replica often
misbehave, as well. it'd be worth putting together a diff guide of
sorts.

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Jim Habegger]

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Eric and Anthony, thank you.

I'm stepping through the Plan 9 documentation at
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/documentation/index.html. As you
noticed, Anthony, I missed a step in adding a new user:

con -l /srv/fscons
>

That didn't work in 9vx either, I imagine for the reasons you explained. I'm
still way over my head here.

For now I'll use QEMU to step through the Plan 9 documentation, and later I
might use 9vx for other learning purposes. Now that I've learned to change
the display dimensions, and use ctrl-alt, it's easy to switch between QEMU
and my other windows. I've already created a new user.

I won't push my luck tonight. I'll wait until tomorrow to try network
configuration.

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Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Jim Habegger]

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I'm working through the Plan 9 documentation at
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/documentation/index.html.

I'm running Plan 9 in QEMU in Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex.

qemu plan9jim.img -k en-us -no-reboot
>

I have to wait a few seconds before responding to each prompt, to avoid
having it freeze and losing the keyboard and mouse.

*Network Configuration*

term% ip/ipconfig
>

"ether8390 dummyrr timeout; assuming nodummyrr"

- whatever that means.

term% ndb/dns -r
> term% ip/ping 192.168.0.1
> sending 32 64 byte messages 1000 ms apart to icmp!192.168.0.1!
> lost 0
> lost 1
> . . .
> lost 31
> 32 out of 32 messages lost
>

Too bad. Some of the instructions in the documentation, and some of the
ideas in the responses to my posts, depend on being connected to the network
and the Internet.

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Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[andrey mirtchovski]

cat /net/ipselftab and /net/iproute to see what address is assigned by
ipconfig. also, start ndb/cs.

the order is sometimes important, so i always do:

ndb/cs
ip/ipconfig
ndb/dns -r # see man page for that argument

cheers!

On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 11:01 PM, Jim Habegger <jimhabegger@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm working through the Plan 9 documentation at
> http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/documentation/index.html.
>
> I'm running Plan 9 in QEMU in Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex.
>
>> qemu plan9jim.img -k en-us -no-reboot
>
> I have to wait a few seconds before responding to each prompt, to avoid
> having it freeze and losing the keyboard and mouse.
>
> Network Configuration
>
>> term% ip/ipconfig
>
> "ether8390 dummyrr timeout; assuming nodummyrr"
>
> - whatever that means.
>
>> term% ndb/dns -r
>> term% ip/ping 192.168.0.1
>> sending 32 64 byte messages 1000 ms apart to icmp!192.168.0.1!
>> lost 0
>> lost 1
>> . . .
>> lost 31
>> 32 out of 32 messages lost
>
> Too bad. Some of the instructions in the documentation, and some of the
> ideas in the responses to my posts, depend on being connected to the network
> and the Internet.
>

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Federico G. Benavento]

afaik, I can't ping from qemu, so try hget http://google.com or something

On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 2:01 AM, Jim Habegger <jimhabegger@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm working through the Plan 9 documentation at
> http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/documentation/index.html.
>
> I'm running Plan 9 in QEMU in Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex.
>
>> qemu plan9jim.img -k en-us -no-reboot
>
> I have to wait a few seconds before responding to each prompt, to avoid
> having it freeze and losing the keyboard and mouse.
>
> Network Configuration
>
>> term% ip/ipconfig
>
> "ether8390 dummyrr timeout; assuming nodummyrr"
>
> - whatever that means.
>
>> term% ndb/dns -r
>> term% ip/ping 192.168.0.1
>> sending 32 64 byte messages 1000 ms apart to icmp!192.168.0.1!
>> lost 0
>> lost 1
>> . . .
>> lost 31
>> 32 out of 32 messages lost
>
> Too bad. Some of the instructions in the documentation, and some of the
> ideas in the responses to my posts, depend on being connected to the network
> and the Internet.
>



--
Federico G. Benavento

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[André Günther]

The special case is here that he runs qemu. And the good news is: In  
qemu you are always in the same simulated network by default. Which is:

your IP: 10.0.2.15
gateway: 10.0.2.2
dns: 10.0.2.3

hardcode these and you should be fine. (if you want to connect to the  
qemu machine: fiddle around with --redir)

André

On 20 Apr 2009, at 07:13, andrey mirtchovski wrote:

> cat /net/ipselftab and /net/iproute to see what address is assigned by
> ipconfig. also, start ndb/cs.
>
> the order is sometimes important, so i always do:
>
> ndb/cs
> ip/ipconfig
> ndb/dns -r # see man page for that argument
>
> cheers!
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 11:01 PM, Jim Habegger  
> <jimhabegger@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm working through the Plan 9 documentation at
>> http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/documentation/index.html.
>>
>> I'm running Plan 9 in QEMU in Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex.
>>
>>> qemu plan9jim.img -k en-us -no-reboot
>>
>> I have to wait a few seconds before responding to each prompt, to  
>> avoid
>> having it freeze and losing the keyboard and mouse.
>>
>> Network Configuration
>>
>>> term% ip/ipconfig
>>
>> "ether8390 dummyrr timeout; assuming nodummyrr"
>>
>> - whatever that means.
>>
>>> term% ndb/dns -r
>>> term% ip/ping 192.168.0.1
>>> sending 32 64 byte messages 1000 ms apart to icmp!192.168.0.1!
>>> lost 0
>>> lost 1
>>> . . .
>>> lost 31
>>> 32 out of 32 messages lost
>>
>> Too bad. Some of the instructions in the documentation, and some of  
>> the
>> ideas in the responses to my posts, depend on being connected to  
>> the network
>> and the Internet.
>>

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Jim Habegger]

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Thanks again to everyone for all the help!

I did this (thanks Andrey):

ndb/cs
> ip/ipconfig
> ndb/dns -r
>

Then I took a look at /net/ipselftab and /net/iproute.

Then I pinged the gateway (thanks André) and got a response!

Then I did (thanks Federico)

hget http://google.com
>

and got some hieroglyphs. Then I did

http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/ds/file/924897/46369
>

which is a fairly clean text file, to get something readable. It worked!

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Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Balwinder S Dheeman]

On 04/19/2009 09:09 PM, Jim Habegger wrote:
> Eric and Anthony, thank you.
>
> I'm stepping through the Plan 9 documentation at
> http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/documentation/index.html. As you
> noticed, Anthony, I missed a step in adding a new user:
>
>     con -l /srv/fscons
>
>
> That didn't work in 9vx either, I imagine for the reasons you explained.
> I'm still way over my head here.
>
> For now I'll use QEMU to step through the Plan 9 documentation, and
> later I might use 9vx for other learning purposes. Now that I've learned
> to change the display dimensions, and use ctrl-alt, it's easy to switch
> between QEMU and my other windows. I've already created a new user.
>
> I won't push my luck tonight. I'll wait until tomorrow to try network
> configuration.

IMHO, you need not switch between your Plan 9 installation under QEMU
and 9vx; Just stick to a real Plan 9 under QEMU and this I hope will
help you better learn, experiment and, or try procedures described on
the wiki and other docs.

I don't who and why one referred you to try 9vx, an abridged version
which is far away from a real or native installation of a Plan 9 under
QEMU, KVM, XEN and, or VMWare. Many a things e.g. page, gs, mail do not
work out of the box as expected under 9vx as yet.

--
Balwinder S "bdheeman" Dheeman        Registered Linux User: #229709
Anu'z Linux@HOME (Unix Shoppe)        Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India         Plan9, T2, Arch/Debian/FreeBSD/XP
Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/  Visit: http://counter.li.org/

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Jim Habegger]

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I've done as much as I can and want to do from the documentation for now.
Now I'm working on some of the responses to my posts here.

Pietro, I did

9fs sources
>

and installed fgb. I'm planning to look at that troff tutorial, the manpage
for juke, and the files in /sys/doc.

Here's what happened when I installed abaco and tried to use it:

term% contrib/install fgb/abaco
> a 386/bin/abaco 775 sys sys 1195651173
> a lib/font/bit lucidasans/passwd.6.font 664 sys sys 1138688455
> a sys/src/cmd/abaco 20000000775 sys sys 1175566971
> ...
> a sys/src/cmd/abaco/abaco.fonts 664 sys sys 1201369022
> term% man abaco
> *man: no manual page*
> term% abaco
> *abaco: can't initialize webfs: '/mnt/web/ctl' does not exist*
>

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Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Jim Habegger]

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I'm also planning to look into Inferno and the /9/grid.

Now, in Plan 9/QEMU/Ubuntu, I need to learn how to access my shared fat
partition, and how to copy and paste between the QEMU window and my other
Ubuntu windows.

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Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Jim Habegger]

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On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 11:52 AM, Jim Habegger <jimhabegger@gmail.com>wrote:

> I'm also planning to look into Inferno and the /9/grid.
>
> Now, in Plan 9/QEMU/Ubuntu, I need to learn how to access my shared fat
> partition, and how to copy and paste between the QEMU window and my other
> Ubuntu windows.
>

- and how to change to a different user without rebooting.

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Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[john]

> ... the manpage
> for juke, ...
>

Juke is really old and kind of painful to use.  Easier to just use
mp3dec on the command line, but if you must use juke I have some
scripts in my contrib (/n/sources/contrib/john/) that will make juke
easier to deal with.


> Here's what happened when I installed abaco and tried to use it:
>
> term% contrib/install fgb/abaco
>> a 386/bin/abaco 775 sys sys 1195651173
>> a lib/font/bit lucidasans/passwd.6.font 664 sys sys 1138688455
>> a sys/src/cmd/abaco 20000000775 sys sys 1175566971
>> ...
>> a sys/src/cmd/abaco/abaco.fonts 664 sys sys 1201369022
>> term% man abaco
>> *man: no manual page*
>> term% abaco
>> *abaco: can't initialize webfs: '/mnt/web/ctl' does not exist*
>>

You need to run webfs first, and possibly webcookies?  If webfs
doesn't work, run webcookies; this should be the only time you need to
do it.


John

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Jim Habegger]

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Now I have a list of commands to type every time I boot. I need to learn how
to run them automatically.

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Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Anthony Sorace]

$home/lib/profile is run on login; you can stick arbitrary commands in
there. note rio's -i option. take a look at glenda's lib/profile and
bin/rc/riostart for examples.

running "c:" has a good chance of finding and mounting a FAT
partition; see dossrv(4). note that c: and dosmnt, like many other
things in plan9, are simple shell scripts. just cat them to see what
they're doing.

you won't find a method to log in as a different user (as a "normal"
login session) without rebooting.

fgb's a person, not a thing you install. contrib packages are
organized under the name of the package's author. running
"contrib/install fgb/abaco" installs fgb's abaco package.

anthony

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Jim Habegger]

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On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 2:31 PM, Anthony Sorace <anothy@gmail.com> wrote:

> fgb's a person, not a thing you install.
>

fgb is also the name of the directory containing his system, which is what I
meant. I see now that what I installed was actually fgb/contrib.

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Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Federico G. Benavento]

>> term% abaco
>> abaco: can't initialize webfs: '/mnt/web/ctl' does not exist
>

touch $home/lib/webcookies

and add "webfs" in your profile ($home/lib/profile) before plumber and rio

--
Federico G. Benavento

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Jim Habegger]

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On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 6:42 PM, Balwinder S Dheeman <bdheeman@gmail.com>wrote:

> I don't who and why one referred you to try 9vx
>

Maybe because it's faster, and easy to install. It only took a few minutes
to download it, unpack it, and start using it. It's an easy way to get
acquainted with the Plan 9 environment, and to practice using it. Running
Plan 9 in QEMU is awkward and slow, and my processor doesn't support an
accelerator. I can see very well how 9vx might be useful for me, at some
point.

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Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Jim Habegger]

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I tried webfs and got an error message, so I ran webcookies, and then I was
able to run webfs without an error message. Then I was able to run abaco.
Now I need to learn how to use it. I thought maybe I could just type in a
URL and 2-click "Get," but nothing happened.

I'll need to learn how to access host and network resources in QEMU before
I'll be able to mount my fat partition.

I decided not to add the network and web commands to my profile, because I'm
not sure I'll be wanting to use them every time, while I'm learning to use
QEMU and Plan 9. I put the network commands in a file. Now I need to learn
how to write an executable script. For now I cat the file, then I select it
and send it. For the Web, I'll just type webfs when I need it.

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Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[erik quanstrom]

> I tried webfs and got an error message, so I ran webcookies, and then I was
> able to run webfs without an error message. Then I was able to run abaco.
> Now I need to learn how to use it. I thought maybe I could just type in a
> URL and 2-click "Get," but nothing happened.

i can verify that that works.  you do need to b2 "New" in the column header
to get an actual browser frame first.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[erik quanstrom]

>
> - and how to change to a different user without rebooting.

there are two answers to this question, depending on if you
have a cpu server or a terminal
* terminal.  don't do that.  the plan 9 model is that you really
own the hardware and the terminal is not intended to be
multi-user.  so you do need to reboot to change users.

(okay, i realize that you can start a bunch of services on a
terminal and approximate a cpu server, and if you are logged
in as an acceptable hostowner according to the auth server,
things might work out.  but that's not part of the standard
model.)

* cpu server.  the hostowner is fixed at boot.  if you have
the credentials for any user you can cpu(1) in as that user.

i'm speculating on the design of the auth system.  i wasn't
there so i could be wrong.  but in order to have a terminal
that many people could log into would require either
(a) killing off the original factotum on logout and changing
eve back to bootes or something.  and beware the 1001 places
that stash eve somewhere.
(b) the terminal running as the auth server's eve, requiring
that the auth server's key be present when the terminal boots.
since the user really owns a terminals hardware, this couldn't
be very secure unless the administator typed in the password
on every boot.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[john]

> I tried webfs and got an error message, so I ran webcookies, and then I was
> able to run webfs without an error message. Then I was able to run abaco.
> Now I need to learn how to use it. I thought maybe I could just type in a
> URL and 2-click "Get," but nothing happened.
>

You execute "New", then type the URL INCLUDING http:// in the blank
tag that comes up (below the "Del Snarf Get" commands) and either hit
enter or execute "Get".


> I'll need to learn how to access host and network resources in QEMU before
> I'll be able to mount my fat partition.

Here's a different idea: set up QEMU as a standalone CPU server (per the
instructions on the wiki) and use drawterm to connect. You can then access
host files via drawterm; they'll be in /mnt/term


> I decided not to add the network and web commands to my profile, because I'm
> not sure I'll be wanting to use them every time, while I'm learning to use
> QEMU and Plan 9. I put the network commands in a file. Now I need to learn
> how to write an executable script. For now I cat the file, then I select it
> and send it. For the Web, I'll just type webfs when I need it.

How to write an executable script? Don't you use Unix? It's the same:
1. Put #!/bin/rc at the top of your file
2. chmod +x file

You could have easily looked at something like /rc/bin/sig or whatever to
figure out the same stuff, but I guess it continues to be easier to post on
9fans than to think.


John

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[erik quanstrom]

> You could have easily looked at something like /rc/bin/sig or whatever to
> figure out the same stuff, but I guess it continues to be easier to post on
> 9fans than to think.

give the guy a break.  he seems to have made a lot of progress and its only natural
to be confused by things that would normally be pretty straightforward
when confronted by a new environment.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Jim Habegger]

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I've been posting too much for this kind of list. Sorry.

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Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Karin Willers]

Greetings!

I think, posting is quite ok! I'm in the same position, having set up
Plan 9 on a spare machine and seeing different hurdles to overcome,
that seem to be trivial for those who have mastered them, but for a
novice in Plan 9 (although I have a long background in the computing
industry ...) things are not that easy. Reading the man pages is not
always enough.

Greetings,  Karin
-----
On Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:01:50 +0800
Jim Habegger <jimhabegger@gmail.com> wrote:

> I've been posting too much for this kind of list. Sorry.

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[blstuart]

> On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 6:42 PM, Balwinder S Dheeman <bdheeman@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I don't who and why one referred you to try 9vx
>>
>
> Maybe because it's faster, and easy to install. It only took a few minutes
> to download it, unpack it, and start using it. It's an easy way to get
> acquainted with the Plan 9 environment, and to practice using it. Running
> Plan 9 in QEMU is awkward and slow, and my processor doesn't support an
> accelerator. I can see very well how 9vx might be useful for me, at some
> point.

One way it can be useful is as a replacement for drawterm.
It feels a little more like using a real plan9 terminal than
drawterm does.  That's how I use it at home.  I have a file/
auth/cpu server, and from my FreeBSD machine, I run 9vx
with the -b option.  It's asks for the protocol, the fileserver
and the auth server IP addresses and then I get the same
prompt for username and password I'd get at a real terminal.
Plus, I get the ability to run Plan9 code either locally on
my terminal or I can cpu into the cpu server.  Pretty much
as soon as I got my hands on 9vx, I stopped using drawterm
altogether.

BLS

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[blstuart]

> i'm speculating on the design of the auth system.  i wasn't
> there so i could be wrong.  but in order to have a terminal
> that many people could log into would require either
> (a) killing off the original factotum on logout and changing
> eve back to bootes or something.  and beware the 1001 places
> that stash eve somewhere.

I wasn't there either, but I do have some fuzzy
memories of running 2nd edition.  Factotum came
along later than that.  It may have been new with
4th edition.

The general impression I always got was two-fold.
>From a philosophical point of view, whoever is logged
into a terminal is the owner of the hardware.  After
all, physical access is the ultimate privilege.  So if
you just don't bother creating a logout mechanism,
then the only time the hardware doesn't have an
owner is from reset to authenticating a user.  The
practical side means that a lot gets simpler and a
number of concerns go away.  If the system reboots
between users, there's nothing of the first user left
on the terminal when the second user comes along.
I don't have to be careful to clean up all the processes,
etc left behind; rebooting does that.  The old login
trojan horses also go away. ^t^tr is grabbed by the
kernel and we reboot.  It seemed a little strange to
me at first, but the more I worked with the system,
the more logical it seemed.

BLS

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[blstuart]

> I've been posting too much for this kind of list. Sorry.

Not at all.  As long as the questions are genuine and
you're learning from it, your questions are welcome
as far as I'm concerned.  The real flamage comes when
a) someone tries to "teach their grandmother to suck
eggs" or b) a person seems to be ignorning what's
already been said.

BLS

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[john]

>> I've been posting too much for this kind of list. Sorry.
>
> Not at all.  As long as the questions are genuine and
> you're learning from it, your questions are welcome
> as far as I'm concerned.  The real flamage comes when
> a) someone tries to "teach their grandmother to suck
> eggs" or b) a person seems to be ignorning what's
> already been said.
>
> BLS

Yeah, don't let my message from earlier scare you off...  I was just
cranky at the prospect of a long day of classes ;) The point of a
mailing list isn't to see how few messages we can get in a month,
although of course it's not a blog either.

I've done more than my fair share of posting about fairly obvious
stuff--at least you've beat a lot of us by not coming in and starting
a flame war because something doesn't work exactly as it does under
Unix (or, more puzzlingly, Windows).  Maybe I should make a wiki page,
"Things that are the same as in Unix", to offset our constant
statement "Plan 9 is not Unix".




John

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Jim Habegger]

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On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 8:29 AM, <john@csplan9.rit.edu> wrote:

> Yeah, don't let my message from earlier scare you off...  I was just
> cranky at the prospect of a long day of classes ;) The point of a
> mailing list isn't to see how few messages we can get in a month,
> although of course it's not a blog either.


Thank you. I think I overdid it. I was posting too often. Most of my posting
has been in forums, and when I post in lists I forget that I might be
flooding some people's mailboxes.

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Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Jim Habegger]

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My Plan 9 training is temporarily suspended while I learn to use QEMU.

That's funny because I suspended my Slackware training to learn to use Plan
9.

Now I might suspend my QEMU training to try out some other virtualizers.
Also, I got a FreeDOS image to use for my QEMU training, so I may wander off
into FreeDOS for a while.

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Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[Eris Discordia]

To whom it may concern: had the right patches for Plan 9 to work on Virtual
PC been incorporated and a new ISO released half the complaints from
Windows users who want to give Plan 9 a try would disappear. Some potential
enterprise users might also get interested in running many Plan 9 instances
on Microsoft Virtual Server platform after seeing it run on Virtual PC (Due
to its light weight Plan 9 may be a good choice for some virtual hosting
services).

P.S. No need to remind me the originator of this thread is trying Plan 9 on
a VM in Linux. He has a working Windows installation anyway and configuring
Virtual PC for networking (or any task) is way easier than QEMU.
Performance is comparable. Plus, VPC's graphics and guest-host integration
work perfectly.

--On Thursday, April 23, 2009 5:12 PM +0800 Jim Habegger
<jimhabegger@gmail.com> wrote:

> My Plan 9 training is temporarily suspended while I learn to use QEMU.
>
> That's funny because I suspended my Slackware training to learn to use
> Plan 9.
>
> Now I might suspend my QEMU training to try out some other virtualizers.
> Also, I got a FreeDOS image to use for my QEMU training, so I may wander
> off into FreeDOS for a while.

Re: [9fans] Adventures of a home user

[maht]

> Some potential enterprise users might also get interested in running
> many Plan 9 instances on Microsoft Virtual Server platform after
> seeing it run on Virtual PC (Due to its light weight Plan 9 may be a
> good choice for some virtual hosting services).

might makes right ?