From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 18:07:52 +0100
From: Pete Fenelon pete.fenelon@zetnet.co.uk
Subject: porting linux programs and drivers to plan9
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Message-ID: <19970417170752.R9TL_UZGrjM0J1-RJnC3AjiSJuRhCwvbpqBkOAK30J8@z>

At 10:33 17/04/97 -0600, Rich writes:
>2) Would the community like ports of (or diffs for) linux programs and
>drivers to plan9? (programs like the newest emacs, another pppclient,
>graphic c/c++ libraries, windows smb mounts, full linux ext2 mounts,
>gmake, maybe even gcc? and drivers for mad16 (OPTi) sound cards and
>cirrus logic video) [obviously some are very easy to extremely
>difficult]

Drivers are *always* useful. A full ext2fs server would be particularly
marvellous, letting people keep their data visible under a choice of systems.

As far as applications go -- the team carefully left out lurking horrors
like gcc, make and emacs -- they do not fit into the plan9 philosophy; they
are vast, monolithic, inflexible pieces of code. Yes, they're useful on
systems where there isn't an reasonable alternative, but part of the charm
of Plan9 is that it gets away from the need to run bloatware by providing
lean, intelligent, portable tools.

Plan9 is NOT Unix, and you won't enjoy it if you try to pretend that it is. 

Then again, I spend quite a lot of time making Unix look more like Plan9 --
I suppose there must be some people out there who want to do the reverse...

pete 
-- 
Pete Fenelon, 39 Broadway, Fulford, York, YO1 4JP Tel: +44 1904 670334
pete.fenelon@zetnet.co.uk There's no room for engimas in built up areas.