porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Eric Dorman eld@jewel.ucsd.edu]

cannings@cpsc.ucalgary.ca on Thu Apr 17 09:36:42 1997 wrote:

[xxx] 
> 1) How much activity is still out in the plan 9 community?

 Seems like a patch gets released against the CDROM tree every once 
in a while.  In my own work I've used Plan9 for an ATM quality-of-
service networking project while an undergraduate (complete with network 
video with QuickCams :) ) and hope to progress to where I can incorporate
it somewhere into my current work in radiological imaging rather
than suffering under Solaris-sparc.  Unix just makes some of the things 
I want to do sooo much harder.. but Plan9 just doesn't support the video 
devices I need (1600x1200x8 grayscale on *at least two simultaneous* BIG 
21" portrait mode displays).  Grr.  Now that I've plunked down the bux 
(ouch) for a Matrox Millenium board maybe I can take a whack at it.

 I think many people get scared off by the $350 price tag for the 
CD/doc, where one can download linux or *BSD for basically free.
It's really not _that_ much money considering the effort put into
it, the generous internal distribution rights, and the really cool
technology :)   I guess as far as 'advanced technology' goes, you 
get what you pay for hehehe :)   They're nice systems, but they're
still unix. 

> 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]

 Personally I have no desire to see old warhorses like emacs
("Bugs:  Yes" :) ), gmake, gcc or anything windowsish incorporated into 
Plan9.  Writing new stuff that takes advantage of Plan9 seems more fun 
than dragging old unix cruft into the system.  The filesystem stuff
would probably be useful and interesting to someone out there, however.

 Certainly some of the compiler technology from GCC would help 8c/8l 
with respect to Pentiums and PPros, but that's a harder problem than 
simply building gcc for Plan9 (which is probably hard too, since the 
8c/8l interface is different from gcc/gas I think).  Perhaps some
Pentium MMXisims would be interesting as a complier switch, or
a graphics library that has MMXisims (along with a nonMMX equivalent
library).. that would be really useful for multimedia stuff.

 One thing I was looking at was the generalized soundcard library
(VOXware or whatever) that seems to come with the *BSD and Linux
distributions... that seems to be a real weak point in Plan9.  That
would be really cool; then I can talk to my GUSMAX board :)

 Also of real interest is the MPSpec work being done in the Linux
and FreeBSD camps.  I have a dual PPRO-150 (Tyan S1668) box I hope 
to get Plan9 to work in a multiprocessor mode... that'd be fun.  
The PPRO 150s are already pretty fast (compared to the P133s I
was using :) ) but having dual PPROs would really rock.  Dual PPRO
200s would REALLY scream (evil grin).

Q: Are Brazil (which apparently supports some Pentium multiprocessor 
boards) and Plan9 sufficiently similar that the Brazil MP stuff would 
be of use?  Is is possible to obtain some of the Brazil MP stuff?

 Improving support for other, more modern, architectures (more sparcs,
for example) would also be interesting.  I'll have to try to netboot
one of our SS5s someday.  Also PowerPCs seem to be moving along as well.

> I'd like to make the pcdist of plan9 more interesting, usefule, powerful
> and easier for unix users interssted in plan9

 Granted the pcdist is pretty limited, but incorporation of old unixish
stuff wouldn't really do Plan9 justice IMHO.  I think pcdist is supposed
to just be a taste of real Plan9.  Besides, all that stuff would make
the pcdist ALOT fatter;  right now to test a machine for Plan9ness I can
carry around 4 floppies and just slap them in, getting a working Plan9
system (with compiler and windowing) in basically no time without mucking 
with networking to load a minimal set of packages or whatnot.

> In order to do this I need the cd distribution. I'd love to buy a USED
> copy of the manuals and cd if possible. Other than that I thought maybe
> some organization who already has a copy and is interested in my work
> might include me into their licence.

 I wonder how the license agreement works in that case; I haven't read
it with an eye towards that particular arrangement.

> rich
> cannings@cpsc.ucalgary.ca

 Whew, I didn't realize how much spam I've just generated; sorry 8) ..

Regards,

Eric Dorman
University of California at San Diego, Medical School
Department of Radiology
edorman@ucsd.edu
edorman@tanya.ucsd.edu