* plan 9 and linux
@ 1995-04-06 5:42 Greg
0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: Greg @ 1995-04-06 5:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
Rob Pike wrote:
> I may be wrong, but every other system I can think of is built for
> one system and then ported to another; with Plan 9, the system is
> carried along together for all architectures, compiled from one
> source tree, etc.
BSD 4.4 (and, more practically, NetBSD) has the same properties--a
single source tree which compiles for seven or so different platforms.
There are still pieces that need to be made more architecture-
independent (e.g. the console driver), butbut it's still one system that
runs on a variety of different architectures. I'm afraid Xwindows
won't compile for BSD 4.4 in four seconds, though.
Just a note. There may be Mach-based operating systems with this
property as well, depending on your definitions.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* plan 9 and linux
@ 1995-04-06 21:49 Charles
0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: Charles @ 1995-04-06 21:49 UTC (permalink / raw)
I've been thinking about it and I cannot recall any other system
that is shipped in one piece to run on a wide variety of platforms.
NetBSD is such a system, and it runs on a wider range of hardware than
Plan 9.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* plan 9 and linux
@ 1995-04-06 4:57 rob
0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: rob @ 1995-04-06 4:57 UTC (permalink / raw)
Forsyth missed one important difference. Plan 9 is not a PC operating
system, although it works on a PC. As shipped, Plan 9 runs on four
instruction architectures (SPARC, MIPS, 68020, 386), with machines
from many vendors (Sun, SGI, Next, Mips, AT&T, and endless PC's).
The PC is an important platform for the system, but not the only one.
I've been thinking about it and I cannot recall any other system
that is shipped in one piece to run on a wide variety of platforms.
I may be wrong, but every other system I can think of is built for
one system and then ported to another; with Plan 9, the system is
carried along together for all architectures, compiled from one source
tree, etc. It's really one system that runs on a variety of hardware,
rather than different versions with a common ancestor.
A related property is that it is configurable to run on anything from
a laptop to a network of multiprocessor servers.
So comparing it to Linux makes sense only for a narrow subset of
what the system is capable of.
For the record: in our lab version of the system, somewhat different
from what's going out, the window system compiles from C into
a ready-to-go executable in 4 seconds. I don't think Linux can do
that.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* plan 9 and linux
@ 1995-04-05 16:18 Dirk
0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: Dirk @ 1995-04-05 16:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
--PART-BOUNDARY=.19504051818.ZM12227.weser
Content-Description: Plain Text
Content-Type: text/plain ; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
X-Zm-Decoding-Hint: mimencode -q -u
Hello,
On Apr 5, 6:15am, forsyth@plan9.cs.york.ac.uk wrote:
> Subject: plan 9 and linux
> >>How is it compared to Linux?
>
> outside the kernel, linux -- reasonably enough for
> a unix/posix clone -- simply uses all the freely available software
> for Unix-like systems that anyone can be bothered to port. a lot
> of that is Big and Complicated. by contrast, although many of the
> older Unix commands are in Plan 9 at least in name,
> Plan 9's commands are freshly written. (the few things left from the a=
ncien
> r=C3=A9gime -- notably `troff' -- have at least had a facelift.)
> a lot of crufty crud has been left behind.
>
> if you want a fairly conventional X11/Unix environment on your PC, Linu=
x
> is a reasonable choice. Plan 9 has different aims.
>
>-- End of excerpt from forsyth@plan9.cs.york.ac.uk
[good statements deleted]
Yes, but how about connectivity of plan9. May i able to run it from home
with a slip/cslip/ppp dialup connection. uucp news/mailfeed? News / Mail
reader available? What's the price for a private person?
Is there a gcc? I'm using a oberon2 -> gnu c compiler, and would miss it
a lot.
Cheers,
Dirk
-- =
"It's 206 ms to Chicago, we've got a full disk of GIFs, half a meg of =
hypertext, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses."
"Click it." -- <bluesbros@bluesbros.com>
--PART-BOUNDARY=.19504051818.ZM12227.weser--
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* plan 9 and linux
@ 1995-04-05 13:56 Nigel
0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: Nigel @ 1995-04-05 13:56 UTC (permalink / raw)
> From: forsyth@plan9.cs.york.ac.uk
> Date: Wed, 5 Apr 1995 06:15:10 -0400
> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
> Subject: plan 9 and linux
> Reply-to: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
> >>How is it compared to Linux?
>
> apples and galaxies.
>
...
> if you want a fairly conventional X11/Unix environment on your PC, Linux
> is a reasonable choice. Plan 9 has different aims.
>
Arrggh. Don't remind me. Roll on the general release!
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* plan 9 and linux
@ 1995-04-05 10:15 forsyth
0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: forsyth @ 1995-04-05 10:15 UTC (permalink / raw)
>>How is it compared to Linux?
apples and galaxies.
they do different things. linux is a self-contained operating
system that can attach to a network. plan 9 really is a distributed system.
Linux now seems to attempt to track Posix closely, with all that that entails.
by contrast, although plan 9 has useful ansi/posix emulation environments --
and that's certainly convenient when importing or exporting Unix programs --
it's definitely not the most sensible way of using plan 9.
it isn't a `leaner unix'. indeed, if you approach it that way,
you will probably be disappointed.
plan 9 provides a number of components that can be put together on a network to form
one (secure, distributed) computing system; even an apparently `standalone'
plan 9 system at home can link itself smoothly to the name space --
and thus processors, devices and network interfaces -- of a bigger system.
although linux does very well -- the leanest and most effective
unix-like system on a PC -- in my experience, plan 9 easily is less demanding of hardware than
other general purpose operating systems on any given platform.
for instance, at work my terminal is a 386sx/16 with 4mbytes
with an ET4000 ISA graphics card and NE2000 card. i have a small slow
seagate IDE disc for booting & paging, but it doesn't page much.
at the moment this pathetic machine is running 30 processes
including the window system 8½, seemail, `cpu' to the cpu server
samterm (to remote sam on the CPU server), a local 8½ window for commands,
dossrv (makes DOS file systems on disc & floppy visible in the plan 9 name space),
and supporting commands (eg, kernel protocol processes, exportfs exporting
the terminal's name space to the cpu server). (by the way, i can access
the terminal's diskette device and/or DOS file system transparently
from the cpu server, just as i access the terminal's keyboard, mouse and screen.)
here is a ps:
forsyth 1 0:00 0:00 40K Wait init
bootes 2 0:00 0:00 0K Wakeme alarm
bootes 3 0:06 0:00 0K Wakeme ether0kproc
bootes 4 0:00 0:00 0K Wakeme tcpack
bootes 5 0:00 0:00 0K Wakeme tcpflow
bootes 7 0:00 0:00 0K Wakeme ilack
forsyth 8 0:00 0:00 0K Idle pager
forsyth 9 0:08 0:25 352K Read 8½
forsyth 13 0:01 0:02 48K Read cs
forsyth 17 0:00 0:00 0K Wakeme floppy
forsyth 23 0:00 0:00 704K Read dossrv
forsyth 26 0:00 0:00 40K Read arpd
forsyth 28 0:00 0:00 0K Wakeme uart0
forsyth 36 0:00 0:01 196K Read 8½
forsyth 38 0:00 0:01 196K Read 8½
forsyth 47 0:00 0:00 132K Read samterm
forsyth 49 0:00 0:00 20K Read rx
forsyth 52 0:00 0:00 124K Read samterm
forsyth 53 0:00 0:01 124K Read samterm
forsyth 54 0:00 0:00 124K Read samterm
forsyth 55 0:00 0:00 124K Read samterm
forsyth 58 0:00 0:00 20K Read rx
forsyth 59 0:00 0:00 108K Read seemail
forsyth 65 0:00 0:00 28K Wait cpu
forsyth 66 0:00 0:01 332K Read exportfs
forsyth 67 0:00 0:00 332K Rendez exportfs
forsyth 68 0:00 0:00 332K Read exportfs
forsyth 70 0:00 0:00 104K Wait rc
forsyth 75 0:00 0:00 32K Read ps
is it paging frantically?
term% cat /dev/swap
374/416 memory 92/4000 swap
no: in fact the pager is currently idle. presumably it has turfed out
most of dossrv since i'm not using it. (the memory sizes above
can't just be added up: there's a lot of shared text & data there.)
now, you definitely don't want to compile much on this thing -- for one
thing it hasn't got a floating-point unit -- and it's certainly not
as snappy as a bigger 486 at home with more memory and a reasonable graphics card.
nevertheless: try getting an X server to run on a similar configuration
with several xterms, rlogins (inadequate substitute for `cpu'), a mail monitoring
window, and samterm. it's certainly true that you'll stand the best
chance of doing it with linux, though, compared (say) to solaris/486.
although i haven't made a complete study of linux,
i'd say the system interfaces in the plan 9 cpu/terminal kernel are simpler yet more general than
those in Linux; perhaps more importantly, the plan 9 kernel was
intended to be portable, and support multiprocessors from the start.
aside: there's currently a lot of ignorant hype in the media
about the brilliance of having a Hardware Abstraction Layer in making a certain
o/s portable, but it's really no big deal. like older portable operating systems,
plan 9's portability interface is a small collection of functions and
data structures. no fuss.
outside the kernel, linux -- reasonably enough for
a unix/posix clone -- simply uses all the freely available software
for Unix-like systems that anyone can be bothered to port. a lot
of that is Big and Complicated. by contrast, although many of the
older Unix commands are in Plan 9 at least in name,
Plan 9's commands are freshly written. (the few things left from the ancien
régime -- notably `troff' -- have at least had a facelift.)
a lot of crufty crud has been left behind. after all, as andrew hume once put it:
``crud that isn't paged in is still crud''.
still, that's old stuff; worthy but dull.
the really interesting bits are the new things, including:
the protocol 9P that binds everything together
the file server, and its `dump' file system
per-process name space
union mounts
Unicode
user-level file servers
shared memory multiprocess servers, using lean (threadbare?) processes
cpu
the window system 8½
Acme (is that named after the Acme Construction Co. in the Roadrunner cartoons?)
FAST C compilers; simpler C library interface, and
every compiler is a cross compiler
simple support for multiple target architectures
the concurrent programming language Alef
acid
for the administrator: a coherent approach to describing a network,
and best of all from my point of view, it hasn't got BIND.
if you want a fairly conventional X11/Unix environment on your PC, Linux
is a reasonable choice. Plan 9 has different aims.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
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1995-04-06 5:42 plan 9 and linux Greg
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1995-04-06 21:49 Charles
1995-04-06 4:57 rob
1995-04-05 16:18 Dirk
1995-04-05 13:56 Nigel
1995-04-05 10:15 forsyth
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