[9fans] Novice

[9fans] Novice

[isliguezze]

Hi.

I'm novice to Plan9 OS, but I liked it when I read about it
"simpleness".
However when I downloaded the distribution, I couldn't install it on
my
HP notebook because of lack of drivers.
Couldn't their team just take OpenBSD drivers (which are open-source)
and adopt them for Plan9


Best regards, Islam I.

Re: [9fans] Novice

[Rogelio Serrano]

On 5/8/07, isliguezze@gmail.com <isliguezze@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I'm novice to Plan9 OS, but I liked it when I read about it
> "simpleness".
> However when I downloaded the distribution, I couldn't install it on
> my
> HP notebook because of lack of drivers.
> Couldn't their team just take OpenBSD drivers (which are open-source)
> and adopt them for Plan9
>

its not that simple. the kernel has a different structure. and they
use a c compiler that is a little different than gcc. i like it more
than gcc though.

doesn't the license might make you nervous?

>
> Best regards, Islam I.
>

-- 
the thing i like with my linux pc is that i can sum up my complaints in 5 items

Re: [9fans] Novice

[erik quanstrom]

for what hardware do you need drivers?

- erik

On Tue May  8 04:56:55 EDT 2007, isliguezze@gmail.com wrote:
> However when I downloaded the distribution, I couldn't install it on
> my
> HP notebook because of lack of drivers.

[9fans] Re: Novice

[isliguezze]

Thanks for the attention. I actually didn't mean it's simple, but
It is elegant, because there is small amount of code, for example
take 8 1/2 and X window systems - they both are graphical, though
Plan9 graphics are a little bit strange, it is many times smaller in
source...

Ken Thompson and Rob Pike say that UNIX(R) and all clones of it
are ancient systems, Plan9 is modern; C language is bad, though
Limbo is very good. They say that their new system is system of
the future, because everything is done through files. But now not
many people use it, unfortunately, because of weird architecture too.
So, now most users are Windows, then Linux, then some BSD, Solaris
(UNIX(R)'es). I use OpenBSD 3.9, though I have Plan9 not installed.

What can you say about it?

Re: [9fans] Re: Novice

[erik quanstrom]

On Tue May  8 08:59:23 EDT 2007, isliguezze@gmail.com wrote:
> Thanks for the attention. I actually didn't mean it's simple, but
> It is elegant, because there is small amount of code, for example
> take 8 1/2 and X window systems - they both are graphical, though
> Plan9 graphics are a little bit strange, it is many times smaller in
> source...

the current system is "rio" --- a successor to 8½.

> 
> Ken Thompson and Rob Pike say that UNIX(R) and all clones of it
> are ancient systems, Plan9 is modern; C language is bad, though
> Limbo is very good. 

(prefaced with "as i see it".)

the basic problem with unix-type operating systems is they treat the
network in a fundamentally different way than they treat the filesystem.
network resources are named differently, use special-case file-descriptors, etc.

in linux that differences goes all the way down to the slab allocator.
there is no way to hand the vfs a socket buffer.

i don't think you can say "c is good, limbo is bad".  they're different.
c is self-hosting. limbo is not.

- erik