Re: [9fans] What operating systems are the google guys using?

["Philippe Anel" <xigh@bouyapop.org>]

Thanks for this info Russ.

Can you briefly tell us why you (Russ, Rob, Ken and Dave) no longer use
Plan9 ?
Because of missing apps or because of missing driver for your hardware ?
And do you still use venti ?

Phil;

----- Original Message -----
From: "Russ Cox" <rsc@swtch.com>
To: "Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs" <9fans@9fans.net>
Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 2:15 AM
Subject: Re: [9fans] What operating systems are the google guys using?


The standard set up for a Plan 9 aficionado here seems to
be a Mac or Linux machine running Plan 9 from User Space
to get at sam, acme, and the other tools.  Rob, Ken, Dave, and I
use Macs as our desktop machines, but we're a bit of an exception.
Most Google engineers use Linux machines, and I know of
quite a few ex-Bell Labs people who are happy to be using
sam or acme on those machines.  My own setup is two
screens.  The first is a standard Mac desktop with non-Plan 9
apps and a handful of 9terms, and the second is a full-screen
acme for getting work done.  On Linux I do the same but the
first screen is a Linux desktop running rio (formerly dhog's 8½).

More broadly, every few months I tend to get an email from
someone who is happy to have just discovered that sam is still
maintained and available for modern systems.  A lot of the time
these are people who only used sam on Unix, never on Plan 9.
The plan9port.tgz file was downloaded from 2,522 unique
IP addresses in 2009, which I suspect is many more than
Plan 9 itself.  In that sense, it's really nice to see the tools
getting a much wider exposure than they used to.

I haven't logged into a real Plan 9 system in many years,
but I use 9vx occasionally when I want to remind myself how
a real Plan 9 tool worked.  It's always nice to be back,
however briefly.

Russ