porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Magnus]

[Brandon Black]

| As far as I know (I think), Linux's ext2fs is supported by Linux,
| NetBSD, FreeBSD, and The Hurd.  So if you're running heterogeneous
| (sp?) freeware *nix's, its the next best thing to a FAT filesystem
| for sharing files between different kernels.

There's an ext2fs driver for NT as well.

-Magnus

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[miller]

> > ... `Process Sleep and Wakeup on a
> > Shared-memory Multiprocessor' 
> 
> Which paper do you mean? Any pointers would be appreciated...

	http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/doc/sleep.html

-- Richard Miller

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Eric]

>From cannings@cpsc.ucalgary.ca on Fri Apr 18 17:53:28 1997 writes:

> Eric Dorman wrote:
> > You write as though you do not allow that anyone would actually
> > want to use anything other than emacs.  This brings to mind a
> > quote:
[xx sorry attempt at dated humor deleted]
> Emacs is available on almost all platforms, even plan9. I'm sure it was
> placed there because it is common and standard (even though it may not
> be loved by all). Essentially, I'm not saying it is the best editor I'm
> just saying C-x C-s is known to everyone.
                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  I haven't used emacs for 15+ years, and nobody I know uses/knows it...  
so much for everyone... but then again, we're all physicists and engineers 
here; perhaps it's a CS sort-of thing?  8)
  I would think that if popularization where the goal, it might be more
useful to demonstrate the unusual capabilities and features (e.g networks,
acme, small size, etc) of Plan9 (and improve said features) rather than 
drag Plan9 into the 'Yet Another OS That Runs Package X' category.  Linux 
and all the miscBSD groups already serve that task well.

> rich
> cannings@cpsc.ucalgary.ca

  Above all, one should have fun!

  Sincerely,

  Eric Dorman
  edorman@ucsd.edu

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Milon]

> presotto@plan9.bell-labs.com writes:
> 
> > [a fascinating account of how the Pentium Pro's out-of-order
> > instruction execution breaks the Plan 9 sleep/wakeup code on
> > a multi-CPU system]
> 
> It appears that the slightly different version of sleep/wakeup
> given in the Volume 2 paper `Process Sleep and Wakeup on a
> Shared-memory Multiprocessor' should be immune to the effects
> of weak memory coherency, because the shared variables are
> referenced only inside a lock/unlock pair.  Is this right?

Which paper do you mean? Any pointers would be appreciated...

	Thanks in advance!
	Milon
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Milon Papezik, Technical University of Brno, Dept. of Computer Science

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[miller]

presotto@plan9.bell-labs.com writes:

> [a fascinating account of how the Pentium Pro's out-of-order
> instruction execution breaks the Plan 9 sleep/wakeup code on
> a multi-CPU system]

It appears that the slightly different version of sleep/wakeup
given in the Volume 2 paper `Process Sleep and Wakeup on a
Shared-memory Multiprocessor' should be immune to the effects
of weak memory coherency, because the shared variables are
referenced only inside a lock/unlock pair.  Is this right?

Perhaps the moral is that it's better to be conservative with
locks than to trust hardware designers to do what we expect.

-- Richard Miller

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Nigel]

Uh oh.

We've been round the emacs religious cult stuff. Now we're in danger of
Monty Python quotes.

Now I know why people were talking about MP....

>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Boyd Roberts [SMTP:boyd@france3.fr]
>Sent:	Monday, April 21, 1997 9:06 AM
>To:	9fans@cse.psu.edu
>Subject:	Re: porting linux programs and drivers to plan9
>
>    From: David Hogan <dhog@lore.plan9.cs.su.oz.au>
>
>    When I log into my Xenix system with my 110 baud teletype,
>
>110 baud teletype?  luxury!  we used to dream about 110 baud teletypes,
>when all we had was paper tape.
>
>|-------------|
>| o   . o   o |
>|     .   o o |
>| o o . o     |
>| o o .   o o |
>|     . o     |
>| o o . o o o |
>| o o .     o |
>| o   .       |
>|   o .   o   |
>| o   .       |
>| o o .   o o |
>|     . o     |
>| o o . o o o |
>|   o .     o |
>| o o . o     |
>|   o . o o   |
>| o o . o o   |
>| o   . o   o |
>| o o .   o o |
>| o   . o o   |
>|   o .       |
>|-------------|

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Boyd]

    From: David Hogan <dhog@lore.plan9.cs.su.oz.au>

    When I log into my Xenix system with my 110 baud teletype,

110 baud teletype?  luxury!  we used to dream about 110 baud teletypes,
when all we had was paper tape.

|-------------|
| o   . o   o |
|     .   o o |
| o o . o     |
| o o .   o o |
|     . o     |
| o o . o o o |
| o o .     o |
| o   .       |
|   o .   o   |
| o   .       |
| o o .   o o |
|     . o     |
| o o . o o o |
|   o .     o |
| o o . o     |
|   o . o o   |
| o o . o o   |
| o   . o   o |
| o o .   o o |
| o   . o o   |
|   o .       |
|-------------|

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[chad]

It was written by some people at a fraternity here at MIT.  I could
look them up (I was passingly familiar with one of them) if someone
really cares.  It was an early post to alt.religion.emacs...

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[presotto]

Jmk's on vacation so I'm answering for him.  The Pentium
Pro does speculative reads.  The result of these reads is
a relaxed coherence described below.  The thing most
affected was our sleep wakeup.  To paraphrase sleep and wakeup:

A sleeper does:

	p = u->p;
	lock(&p->rlock);
	r->p = u->p;		/* put myself in the rendezvous structure */
A:	if(wakeup_condition){
		r->p = 0;		/* no need to sleep */
		unlock(&p->rlock);
		return;
	} else {
		/* go to sleep */
		p->state = Wakeme;
		p->r = r;
		unlock(&p->rlock);
		sched();
	}

A waker does:

	wakeup_condition = 1;

	p = r->p;
	if(p == 0)
		return;
	lock(&p->rlock);
B:	if(r->p == p && p->r == r){
		r->p = 0;
		p->r = 0;
		ready(p);
	}
	unlock(&p->rlock);

The assumed invariant was that given any interleaving of these
two sequences, we would always have either

	wakeup_condition == 1  at point A:
or
	p == 1 at point B:

that is, either the process wouldn't sleep or the wakeup would
get it going again.

Unfortunately, on the Pro we found that, for example, the
following execution ordering on different processors could result
in both being 0 at those points:

	wakeup_condition = 1;

			p = u->p;
			lock(&p->rlock);
			r->p = p;		/* put myself in the rendezvous structure */
		A:	if(wakeup_condition){
				r->p = 0;		/* no need to sleep */
				unlock(&p->rlock);
				return;
			} else {

	p = r->p;
	if(p == 0)
		return;
	lock(&p->rlock);
B:	if(r->p == p && p->r == r){
		r->p = 0;
		p->r = 0;
		ready(p);
	}
	unlock(r);

				/* go to sleep */
				p->state = Wakeme;
				p->r = r;
				unlock(&p->rlock);
				sched();
			}

Ordering of remote writes and local reads to the same
location can no longer be trusted since the speculative
read may have happened before the write was performed.
The caches are still 'coherent' but since the value has
already been read out of the cache and is lurking in the
cpu, it doesn't necessarily match reality.  This is a case
where the caches are coherent but the processors aren't. 
An interlock instruction will force coherence at the processor
level.  That means that we had to make sure some sort of interlocked instruction
occurs after any setting of state that another cooperating process
must see.  The lock(r) following the 'wakeup_condition = 1'
was sufficient for the wakeup() side.  However, the 'r->p = u->p'
had no interlock following it, hence the screw up.

We've fixed it by putting an interlock after 'r->p = u->p'.
However, this has made us very scared.  We don't know of
other places in the kernel where this applies but that
doesn't mean there aren't any.  Ken is instrumenting the
compiler to help us check.

cheers.

------ forwarded message follows ------

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To: cse.psu.edu!9fans
Date: Sun, 20 Apr 1997 17:12:45 BST
Subject: Re: porting linux programs and drivers to plan9
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plan9.bell-labs.com!jmk wrote:

> ... we've found one problem caused by the weak memory ordering of the Pentium
> Pro

Can you be more explicit, please?

-- Richard Miller

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[David]

>Berry Kercheval said:
> >>>David Hogan said:

>  >  If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION.  THE
[etc]

> You should send that to comp.religion.emacs so we can have a fireworks show...

I think it may have originated there in fact (I did not write it).
Or perhaps it was comp.editors (hmmm, this seems more likely).
Someone forwarded me a copy a long time ago, which I have lost.
Fortunately the Web is less forgetful...

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[miller]

plan9.bell-labs.com!jmk wrote:

> ... we've found one problem caused by the weak memory ordering of the Pentium
> Pro

Can you be more explicit, please?

-- Richard Miller

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Digby]

>
>If you want microemacs on Plan 9, port it to Plan 9.
>
Ok, ok, I take your point..

For the record, I was not asking for umacs to be ported, or complaining 
that it wasn't included. I was just responding to a post by someone
else wanting to know if others would find a port useful, and then 
responding to follow ups..

As a Plan9 licensee who hasn't had much time to play with his 
system yet, I for one feel that a few transition aids would let 
me get to the interesting stuff more quickly...

I actually quite like 'ed', and wouldn't swap it for emacs or
any other non line editor if I could only have one and not the
other. One needs line editors because cursor addressing and
graphics is not always available. or practical over
very slow network conections. Trouble is, I don't have 'ed' on
OS-9 etc...

Actually, I did write an 'ed' implementation for OS-9/6809 years
ago, but in 6809 machine language (no C compilers for micros in those
days.., and I wasn't going to mess with basic...). and used it happily
for several years as an undergraduate..but having done it once it is
no longer interesting..

Regards,
DigbyT
-- 
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~cthulhu/

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[chad]

> > ED MAKES THE SUN SHINE AND THE BIRDS SING AND THE GRASS GREEN!!
> 
> and this is only a dystrophic offspring of qed!

don't laugh; my boss still uses qedx on a regular basis (mostly on
unix machines, these days, although if anyone out there still has a
running Multics system and would like some very knowledgable Multician
help, let me know...)

I, too, am curious about the disposition of Brazil.  I actually got
some funding approved for Plan 9 here at MIT (I'm part of a student
group that, thankfully, can occasionally make end-runs around the type
of thing the person from UCSD (I think) was talking about.  I ended up
waiting to see if anything came of the Brazil talk and, basically,
nothing has moved so far; all those who I think might be interested
are off playing with inferno, I guess. :-)

Is there an `official' answer?  Is there an unofficial answer from
someone who has put more effort than I am into trying to get an
official answer?

chad

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[ozan]

> ED MAKES THE SUN SHINE AND THE BIRDS SING AND THE GRASS GREEN!!

and this is only a dystrophic offspring of qed!

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Berry]

>>>David Hogan said:

 >  If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION.  THE

 > SO-CALLED "VISUAL" EDITORS HAVE BEEN PLACED HERE BY ED TO TEMPT THE

 > FAITHLESS.  DO NOT GIVE IN!!!  THE MIGHTY ED HAS SPOKEN!!!

 > 

 > ?



<bigger><bigger><bigger><bold>HA</bigger></bigger></bold><bigger>LELUJAH 
BROTHER!!!</bigger>

</bigger>

You should send that to comp.religion.emacs so we can have a fireworks show...


  --berry


Berry Kercheval :: kerch@parc.xerox.com :: Xerox Palo Alto Research Center

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[David]

> >Actually, an X version of sam is available for Unix systems.
> >Look at http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/unixsrc/sam.
> >
> You are quite correct, I did come across that. The problem is
> I can only really count on having an X terminal when I am at home.
> When I am working on a contract, I often have to make do with
> a serial terminal. I even use Microemacs in preference to Emacs,
> because that is all that is supported on OS-9 and a few other
> esoteric systems that I use. I just find it much more efficient
> to know one reasonable editor well, than a load of different
> (possibly very powerful), editors poorly.

> It is much the same argument as my wanting a C compiler on any
> system I am going to use, regardless of what new and better
> languages may be provided.. 

I guess it's about time someone posted this:


When I log into my Xenix system with my 110 baud teletype, both vi *and*
Emacs are just too damn slow.  They print useless messages like, 'C-h for
help' and '"foo" File is read only'.  So I use the editor that doesn't
waste my VALUABLE time.

Ed, man!  !man ed

ED(1)               UNIX Programmer's Manual                ED(1)

NAME
     ed - text editor

SYNOPSIS
     ed [ - ] [ -x ] [ name ]
DESCRIPTION
     Ed is the standard text editor.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Computer Scientists love ed, not just because it comes first
alphabetically, but because it's the standard.  Everyone else
loves ed because it's ED!

"Ed is the standard text editor."

And ed doesn't waste space on my Timex Sinclair.  Just look:

- - -rwxr-xr-x  1 root          24 Oct 29  1929 /bin/ed
- - -rwxr-xr-t  4 root     1310720 Jan  1  1970 /usr/ucb/vi
- - -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  5.89824e37 Oct 22  1990 /usr/bin/emacs

Of course, on the system *I* administrate, vi is symlinked to ed.
Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog
message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk quota by 100K;
and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!

"Ed is the standard text editor."

Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:

golem> ed

?
help
?
?
?
quit
?
exit
?
bye
?
hello? 
?
eat flaming death
?
^C
?
^C
?
^D
?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Note the consistent user interface and error reportage.  Ed is
generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm
the novice with verbosity.

"Ed is the standard text editor."

Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all.

ED IS THE TRUE PATH TO NIRVANA!  ED HAS BEEN THE CHOICE OF EDUCATED
AND IGNORANT ALIKE FOR CENTURIES!  ED WILL NOT CORRUPT YOUR PRECIOUS
BODILY FLUIDS!!  ED IS THE STANDARD TEXT EDITOR!  ED MAKES THE SUN
SHINE AND THE BIRDS SING AND THE GRASS GREEN!!

When I use an editor, I don't want eight extra KILOBYTES of worthless
help screens and cursor positioning code!  I just want an EDitor!!
Not a "viitor".  Not a "emacsitor".  Those aren't even WORDS!!!! ED!
ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!!

TEXT EDITOR.

When IBM, in its ever-present omnipotence, needed to base their
"edlin" on a UNIX standard, did they mimic vi?  No.  Emacs?  Surely
you jest.  They chose the most karmic editor of all.  The standard.

Ed is for those who can *remember* what they are working on.  If you
are an idiot, you should use Emacs.  If you are an Emacs, you should
not be vi.  If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION.  THE
SO-CALLED "VISUAL" EDITORS HAVE BEEN PLACED HERE BY ED TO TEMPT THE
FAITHLESS.  DO NOT GIVE IN!!!  THE MIGHTY ED HAS SPOKEN!!!

?

------------------------------

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Rich]

Eric Dorman wrote:
> You write as though you do not allow that anyone would actually
> want to use anything other than emacs.  This brings to mind a
> quote:
>  "I am white on the right side.  [puzzled looks] Lokai is black
> on the right side--all his kind are black on the right side."
> 8)

Emacs is available on almost all platforms, even plan9. I'm sure it was
placed there because it is common and standard (even though it may not
be loved by all). Essentially, I'm not saying it is the best editor I'm
just saying C-x C-s is known to everyone.

I say we can put a C-x C-c on this subject.

rich

cannings@cpsc.ucalgary.ca

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Rich]

everyone wrote:
> TRY ACME!!!!!!


thanks! I printed out the docs, install plan9 on my girlfriends computer
and got wily for my linux box. Sorry for the futile question. It was
answered on the first page of the acme docs.

rich

cannings@cpsc.uclagary.ca

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Paul]

If you want microemacs on Plan 9, port it to Plan 9.

				-Paul Borman
				 prb@bsdi.com

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Digby]

>
>Actually, an X version of sam is available for Unix systems.
>Look at http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/unixsrc/sam.
>
You are quite correct, I did come across that. The problem is
I can only really count on having an X terminal when I am at home.
When I am working on a contract, I often have to make do with
a serial terminal. I even use Microemacs in preference to Emacs,
because that is all that is supported on OS-9 and a few other
esoteric systems that I use. I just find it much more efficient
to know one reasonable editor well, than a load of different
(possibly very powerful), editors poorly.

It is much the same argument as my wanting a C compiler on any
system I am going to use, regardless of what new and better
languages may be provided.. 

Regards,
DigbyT
-- 
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~cthulhu/

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Digby]

>> 
>> My vote is for Microemacs. It may not be as good as what Plan9
>                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> has to offer, but until versions of a Plan9 editor is available for Unix,
>  ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>heh.  I was sort-of surprised when my first plan9.ini iteration
>failed and 8.5 wouldn't start (can't remember why) and I just
>mindlessly typed c:;ed /n/c:/plan9/plan9.ini and it worked :)
>
>Unfortunately I think screen editors like microemacs require cursor
>addressing stuff, which I believe is nowhere in Plan9.  It would seem
>that to get it working all of the (say) ANSI terminal ESC sequence
>parsing stuff would have to be stuck in the console driver (if you want
>it to work w/o 8.5 running).
> 
Micromacs already has a selection of output device types that
can be compiled in, of which termcap is just one. Many systems like
msdoss and MACs have special custom code, so there is no reason
(that I can think of, other than it may be non-trivial) not to
have a Plan9 type that drives the screen the same way 8.5 does.

Alternatively, a vanilla 'termcap' style implementation would
be a useful editor to use when telneting in from a non-plan9
system, or using a serial terminal. Or run it along with an
8.5 based vt100 emulator..

I don't think I would want to hack this stuff into the kernel.
Lets keep that small.

Regards,
DigbyT
-- 
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~cthulhu/

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[presotto]

Actually, an X version of sam is available for Unix systems.
Look at http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/unixsrc/sam.

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From: jewel.ucsd.edu!eld (Eric Dorman)
Message-Id: <199704181607.JAA06622@jewel.ucsd.edu>
To: cse.psu.edu!9fans
Subject: Re: porting linux programs and drivers to plan9
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> Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 09:04:57 +0100 (BST)
> From: Digby Tarvin <digbyt@acm.org>
 
> >For others who don't have endless computers kicking around, if the
> >pcdist had a free pppclient, a large documentation library, and a
> >commonly recognized editor (can we agree on microemacs?) plan 9 would
> >not be as much of a shock to new users.
> 
> My vote is for Microemacs. It may not be as good as what Plan9
                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> has to offer, but until versions of a Plan9 editor is available for Unix,
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^

heh.  I was sort-of surprised when my first plan9.ini iteration
failed and 8.5 wouldn't start (can't remember why) and I just
mindlessly typed c:;ed /n/c:/plan9/plan9.ini and it worked :)

Unfortunately I think screen editors like microemacs require cursor
addressing stuff, which I believe is nowhere in Plan9.  It would seem
that to get it working all of the (say) ANSI terminal ESC sequence
parsing stuff would have to be stuck in the console driver (if you want
it to work w/o 8.5 running).
 
> DigbyT

Sincerely,

Eric Dorman
edorman@ucsd.edu

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Eric]

> From: "Andrew Lynch" <lynch@ccigate.cci.de>

> Regarding some of the other mails (students etc.):
> I graduated at York last July, where I came to like Plan 9. Just 
> before Easter I bought myself the CD distribution for approx.
> DM 600.-. Yes, it hurt, but something like Windows NT Workstation 
> costs the same here (DM 500-600) and Plan 9 is infinitely more 
> interesting. It also runs fine on "old" hardware, such as 2nd hand 
> 386 or 486 machines. So you can probably set up a whole Plan9 network 
> with file server, cpu server etc. for less than a decent Pentium.

Exactly.. 
> Andrew.
> 

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Eric]

> Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 09:04:57 +0100 (BST)
> From: Digby Tarvin <digbyt@acm.org>
 
> >For others who don't have endless computers kicking around, if the
> >pcdist had a free pppclient, a large documentation library, and a
> >commonly recognized editor (can we agree on microemacs?) plan 9 would
> >not be as much of a shock to new users.
> 
> My vote is for Microemacs. It may not be as good as what Plan9
                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> has to offer, but until versions of a Plan9 editor is available for Unix,
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^

heh.  I was sort-of surprised when my first plan9.ini iteration
failed and 8.5 wouldn't start (can't remember why) and I just
mindlessly typed c:;ed /n/c:/plan9/plan9.ini and it worked :)

Unfortunately I think screen editors like microemacs require cursor
addressing stuff, which I believe is nowhere in Plan9.  It would seem
that to get it working all of the (say) ANSI terminal ESC sequence
parsing stuff would have to be stuck in the console driver (if you want
it to work w/o 8.5 running).
 
> DigbyT

Sincerely,

Eric Dorman
edorman@ucsd.edu

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Eric]

>From jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com Thu Apr 17 22:00:08 1997 wrote:
> [edorman wrote:]
> 	>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?
> 
> Last October I wrote in 9fans:
> 
> 	The x86 multiprocessor code runs on Pentium or Pentium Pro systems which
> 	conform to the Intel Multiprocessor Specification, there were no changes
...

Doinks!; I thought I had scanned through all the past stuff!  Sorry! =:)

> Since then we've found one problem caused by the weak memory ordering of the Pentium
> Pro, there may be others lurking, time will tell. I can't think offhand of any reason
> the same changes couldn't be made to Plan9. It took about two weeks total to have
> full SMP implemented on the x86, Plan9 is 'SMP-friendly' and was designed with this
> is mind. Compare this to Linux where, after 2 years, the first tentative steps at
> allowing multiple processors to run kernel code simultaneously are just being made.

This certainly inspires some confidence!  Thanks.
[xx]

> --jim

Regards,

Eric Dorman
edorman@ucsd.edu

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Eric]

steve@rafael.rnd.border.com on Thu Apr 17 20:14:54 1997 wrote:
 
> I saved some of them and put them on the web server at
> http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/plan9/info/licensing
thx.

Eric Dorman
edorman@ucsd.edu

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Dean]

In article <33569A1A.60B3F331@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> cannings@cpsc.ucalgary.CA (Rich Cannings) writes:

   I see many people share your views on unix software. Without digressing
   into a unix vs. plan9 spam match, if sam is to plan9 as ed is to unix
   then what would be  the emacs of plan9? (I'm sorry Mr. Pike but I can't
   believe anyone could write code in sam as fast as in emacs.)

sam is to ed 
as
acme is to emacs

Actually I think acme (and wily its Unix clone) is faster than emacs.

-Dean

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[forsyth]

>>extolling its virtues to your admin staff. Point out that forsyth's
>>FTP/Web server is running on a diskless Sun 3/60, and it wasn't too
>>long ago that his desktop machine was a 386 with - what? - 4MB? 8MB?

it hasn't been a sun 3/60 for some time (the picture is out of date)
and there are two: the plan9-specific one is an old sparc ELC that
wasn't doing much since it lost its disc, and the departmental
one is a Cyrix 686 P100+ that also acts as mail gateway.
it has a separate (firewall) file server running on a P90.
the main file server is another P90 and my cpu server is a P133.
that's at work.  i've got a different arrangement at home.

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Brandon]

On Fri, 18 Apr 1997, Digby Tarvin wrote:

> >> 
> >> Drivers are *always* useful. A full ext2fs server would be particularly
> >> marvellous, letting people keep their data visible under a choice of systems.
> >
> >You can find a ext2srv for read and write locals ext2 partitions at :
> >
> >	ftp://ftp.mime.univ-paris8.fr/usr/bl/ext2srv-0.2.tar.gz
> >
> >
> I hate to sound ignorant, but how extensive is the support for
> this file system format on other systems, I have long wished
> for a 'common' file system format that traded some performance
> for compatibility. The usual practise of using a DOS filesystem
> is a terrible compromise to have to make.
> 
> Could ext2srv be an attempt at what I want, or is it just a
> Linux compatibility tool....
> 

As far as I know (I think), Linux's ext2fs is supported by Linux, NetBSD,
FreeBSD, and The Hurd.  So if you're running heterogeneous (sp?) freeware
*nix's, its the next best thing to a FAT filesystem for sharing files
between different kernels.

Brandon

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Andrew]

> > I see many people share your views on unix software. Without digressing
> > into a unix vs. plan9 spam match, if sam is to plan9 as ed is to unix
> > then what would be  the emacs of plan9? (I'm sorry Mr. Pike but I can't
> > believe anyone could write code in sam as fast as in emacs.)
> 
> If you want something which can sing and dance and ...
> then try 'acme'.

Indeed. Also Plan 9 has an ed, so the original statement ought to 
have read:
if ed is to plan9 as ed is to unix then the emacs of plan9 is acme
;-)

Now if only I could run acme on my Sun3/60 and 3/50s... Has anyone 
considered an alef "port" for the 68020? I'm thinking it should not 
be too difficult looking at eg. the 386 and 68020 C compilers and the 
386 alef compiler.
(yeah, I know the easy way out - run acme on a 386 cpu server, but 
it's not the same ;-)

Regarding some of the other mails (students etc.):
I graduated at York last July, where I came to like Plan 9. Just 
before Easter I bought myself the CD distribution for approx.
DM 600.-. Yes, it hurt, but something like Windows NT Workstation 
costs the same here (DM 500-600) and Plan 9 is infinitely more 
interesting. It also runs fine on "old" hardware, such as 2nd hand 
386 or 486 machines. So you can probably set up a whole Plan9 network 
with file server, cpu server etc. for less than a decent Pentium.

Andrew.

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Digby]

>> 
>> Drivers are *always* useful. A full ext2fs server would be particularly
>> marvellous, letting people keep their data visible under a choice of systems.
>
>You can find a ext2srv for read and write locals ext2 partitions at :
>
>	ftp://ftp.mime.univ-paris8.fr/usr/bl/ext2srv-0.2.tar.gz
>
>
I hate to sound ignorant, but how extensive is the support for
this file system format on other systems, I have long wished
for a 'common' file system format that traded some performance
for compatibility. The usual practise of using a DOS filesystem
is a terrible compromise to have to make.

Could ext2srv be an attempt at what I want, or is it just a
Linux compatibility tool....

Regards,
DigbyT
-- 
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~cthulhu/

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Digby]

>
>For others who don't have endless computers kicking around, if the
>pcdist had a free pppclient, a large documentation library, and a
>commonly recognized editor (can we agree on microemacs?) plan 9 would
>not be as much of a shock to new users.

My vote is for Microemacs. It may not be as good as what Plan9
has to offer, but until versions of a Plan9 editor is available for Unix,
OS-9000, OS-9/68K, DOS (just for editting plan9.ini of course..),
VMS, etc....  and every other system I have to use, Microemacs seems the
best candidate for a 'Universal' editor. Vi would be an alternative I could
live with, but having to use 'ed' when using Plan9 for the first time
was a bit tiresome.

My other requirement for making Plan9 a viable replacement for my
'workhorse' system is the ability to run X clients (so I can use
Plan9 from the X-Terminal on my desk..I don't like having to sit next
to a whirring disk drive in order to get graphics) and an X server
so my Plan9 laptop can be used as for remote access of foreign
systems.

I have seen reference to a '9x' which sounds like it would fulfill my
first desire, but have not been able to locate it. Any pointers?

I have also seen an X server demonstrated on Plan9 in one of
Rob Pike's presentations some years ago. However I have not
seen any mention of this in the FAQ or archives. Anyone
know anything about this?

As far as the floppy distribution goes, I think manuals would
be a bit of an extravagence for a 'minimal' system.

Regards,
DigbyT
-- 
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~cthulhu/

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Steve_Kilbane]

Bradon wrote:
> Can anyone give an (un/semi/really)-official status of Brazil to the
> public here?
> 
> [unix admin problems]
> 
> And hardly a week goes by
> that I don't mention to someone, "It would be so much easier for us to do
> (something) correctly and efficiently on Plan 9 than unix".

Given all this, why not just use Plan 9 (as opposed to wistly gazing
out the window while wondering about Brazil :-) ) ?

> If plan 9/brazil was a commercial/debugged/workable (maybe even supported)
> platform,

Hehe. Wonder whether anyone would be interested in running third-party
support companies for Plan 9?

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Steve_Kilbane]

> I'm an undergrad, need I say more?

Just a wild guess, but I'd say that there are probably more
academic organisations using Plan 9 than commercial ones (excluding
individuals who have their own copies). So, you should consider
extolling its virtues to your admin staff. Point out that forsyth's
FTP/Web server is running on a diskless Sun 3/60, and it wasn't too
long ago that his desktop machine was a 386 with - what? - 4MB? 8MB?
So, if they've got any old h/w kicking around that doesn't have the
energy for Linux or NT (manic laugh), Plan 9 may suit them.

> For others who don't have endless computers kicking around, if the
> pcdist had a free pppclient,

Plausible, but then, this is a demonstration system. I have to admit
that the easy of networking is one of the cooler aspects of Plan 9,
so a standalone demo seems a little strange. But what would you leave
out?

> a large documentation library,

Cough. Again, what would you leave out?

> and a
> commonly recognized editor (can we agree on microemacs?)

Uh, no. "commonly recognized" is a subjective term, and in this
particular context, so's "editor". Sam is as much a part of the
demonstration as everything else.

> plan 9 would
> not be as much of a shock to new users.

Some things do come as a shock; it's like a light being turned on.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is
not worth knowing."

> My interpretation of the license says that as long as I'm a "member" of
> an organization, meaning that I'm working towards the goals of that
> organization no matter my political or geographical position, I am
> included in the license agreement.

"working towards the goals of that organization" is a pretty dodgy
definition of "member". Recycling glass bottles doesn't make me a
member of Greenpeace.

If you're employed by a company that's got a licence, you can use
it. If you're a student at a university that's got a licence, you
can use it. Just sharing a common interest in Plan 9 doesn't
cover it.

The licence terms are extremely generous - enough so that it
seems ungrateful to stretch them too far through sophistry.

steve

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Nigel]

>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.
>
>Drivers, yes. Linux ones, well....
>
>My experience of this is that there is such a fundamental (and welcome)
>difference in the nature of the Plan 9 kernel that a 'port' of a Linux driver
>can be very inefficient. Plan 9 is not Unix in drag; it's Unix with a lot of
>the mess removed, and should be kept that way.
>

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Nickolay]

> I see many people share your views on unix software. Without digressing
> into a unix vs. plan9 spam match, if sam is to plan9 as ed is to unix
> then what would be  the emacs of plan9? (I'm sorry Mr. Pike but I can't
> believe anyone could write code in sam as fast as in emacs.)

If you want something which can sing and dance and ...
then try 'acme'.

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Brandon]

> 	anna
> 	a% cd /sys/src/brazil/pc
> 	a% mk clean
> 	rm -f *.[v486x] *.root.s cfs.h fs.h init.h conf.h *.out
> 	for(i in pc pccpu pcdinar pcdisk)
> 		rm -f $i.c [9bz]$i boot$i.*
> 	a% time mk 'CONF=pccpu'>/dev/null
> 	12.27u 9.93s 23.81r 	 mk CONF=pccpu
> 	a% 
> 
> Anna is a dual 200MHz Pentium Pro (ASUS P6NP5 motherboard with 256MB EDO)
> connected to the fileserver via 100Base-TX.
> 
> --jim
> 

I hate to bug about this, as it seems *@bell-labs.com are all very
reluctant to speak up about such things, but my desires and curiousities
just keep mounting over the months.....

Can anyone give an (un/semi/really)-official status of Brazil to the
public here?  I'd really like to know if there is any hope that Brazil
will see the light of day outside Lucent.  Could there ever be a Brazil CD
release like the Plan 9 one?  Could it ever be licensed out as a
commercial, real product?  Could the code end up licensed out to Sun or
some such company, to be released by that third party as a commercial
product?

I work every day as a unix admin for a large group of C/C++ software
developers on unix.  My headeaches include making things like source code
control/ revisions/ history-tracking, etc work for them.  They also
include making different teams of people have wholly seperate environments
(including differing versions of tools like tcl/tk) for their respective
projects, all on the same machine.

I've always been a unix fan, but making all that stuff work on unix is a
major hack.  It causes me endless headaches.  And hardly a week goes by
that I don't mention to someone, "It would be so much easier for us to do
(something) correctly and efficiently on Plan 9 than unix".

If plan 9/brazil was a commercial/debugged/workable (maybe even supported)
platform, I could see at least my office, and probably many others around
the country, giving it a trial as an alternative to our hacked-up
falling-apart *nix environments.

Brandon

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[jmk]

	> 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?

Last October I wrote in 9fans:

	The x86 multiprocessor code runs on Pentium or Pentium Pro systems which
	conform to the Intel Multiprocessor Specification, there were no changes
	required for the Pentium Pro. There's about 1000 lines of code, most of it
	is concerned with parsing the configuration table created by the BIOS. A
	small number of changes were made to the base x86 code - some mmu data
	structures were made per-processor and some locks were added to some device
	drivers where uniprocessor operation had been assumed. The only change
	in the port code was changing 6 references of 'm->' to 'MACHP(m->machno)->'
	in proc.c as the nature of the x86 mmu required 'm' to be a fixed virtual
	address.

Since then we've found one problem caused by the weak memory ordering of the Pentium
Pro, there may be others lurking, time will tell. I can't think offhand of any reason
the same changes couldn't be made to Plan9. It took about two weeks total to have
full SMP implemented on the x86, Plan9 is 'SMP-friendly' and was designed with this
is mind. Compare this to Linux where, after 2 years, the first tentative steps at
allowing multiple processors to run kernel code simultaneously are just being made.

And yes, dual Pentium Pros make a respectably fast system:

	a% echo $sysname
	anna
	a% cd /sys/src/brazil/pc
	a% mk clean
	rm -f *.[v486x] *.root.s cfs.h fs.h init.h conf.h *.out
	for(i in pc pccpu pcdinar pcdisk)
		rm -f $i.c [9bz]$i boot$i.*
	a% time mk 'CONF=pccpu'>/dev/null
	12.27u 9.93s 23.81r 	 mk CONF=pccpu
	a% 

Anna is a dual 200MHz Pentium Pro (ASUS P6NP5 motherboard with 256MB EDO)
connected to the fileserver via 100Base-TX.

--jim

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Steve]

> Wasn't there some comments about the limits of the license in the 
> mailing list archives?  I can't recall if it was relevant.

I saved some of them and put them on the web server at
http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/plan9/info/licensing

As for the unix-on-plan9 and plan9-on-unix discussion, I put a vote
in for wily being one of the most useful unix programs I've ever seen.
I use it for all my software development and html editing now.

The only unix programs I've added to my plan9 systems are pgp, ssh, gzip.

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Pete]

At 03:46 PM 4/17/97 -0600, you wrote:
>
>I see many people share your views on unix software. Without digressing
>into a unix vs. plan9 spam match, if sam is to plan9 as ed is to unix
>then what would be  the emacs of plan9? (I'm sorry Mr. Pike but I can't
>believe anyone could write code in sam as fast as in emacs.)

acme.

>
>how is this for a start:
>a sam where you can define keystrokes.
> 	eg. ctrl-x-f would run ">ls", or whatever you do to put ls in a new
>file
>	or ctrl-c would run ">make"...
>	and of course working arrow keys!

it's been done (on the unix version of sam, the samx2 patches).

pete
--
Pete Fenelon, 39 Broadway, Fulford, York, YO1 4JP Tel: +44 1904 670334
pete.fenelon@zetnet.co.uk "I could tell you, but only at consultancy rates".

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Eric]

cannings@cpsc.ucalgary.ca on Thu Apr 17 14:44:34 1997 wrote:

> >  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.
> 
> It's odd, I've always hated what I considered bloatware like borland c++
> or wordperfect for windows. I've never considered Xemacs to be
> monolithic until now! So what features and ideas would be born if we
> mated the philosophies of emacs and plan9? Sorry, I will not except
> "sam" as an answer! 

You write as though you do not allow that anyone would actually
want to use anything other than emacs.  This brings to mind a
quote:
 "I am white on the right side.  [puzzled looks] Lokai is black 
on the right side--all his kind are black on the right side."

8)

And I use 'vi' on unix too :)

[xx]
> Another
> question: since emacs is not part of plan9 are you implying that you
> would code a radiological imaging system is sam?

Sure.  I'd use sam or acme depending on what I was doing.  If I
were doing driver junk I tend to use sam with a multifile setup, since
crashing and burning is the usual deal with driver stuff and I found
I didn't often need the power of acme.  If I'm writing userland 
stuff, acme works fine.  Offhand I can't recall a situation where
the editor/environment got in the way of getting stuff done.
 
> For others who don't have endless computers kicking around, if the
> pcdist had a free pppclient, a large documentation library, and a
> commonly recognized editor (can we agree on microemacs?) plan 9 would
> not be as much of a shock to new users. When I loaded up plan9 for the
> first time, I could hardly get around. Soon after I printed 40 pages of
> docs which was helpful, but it would have been better to have it online.
> I could not access the net via ppp to get anymore information. If the
> pcdist had plentiful man pages and a pppclient it would have been alot
> easier to get your feet wet with plan9.

I would think that the first thing one would do is print out the FAQ,
at any rate.  It *is* a hacker system anyway :)

> >  I wonder how the license agreement works in that case; I haven't read
> > it with an eye towards that particular arrangement.
> My interpretation of the license says that as long as I'm a "member" of
> an organization, meaning that I'm working towards the goals of that
> organization no matter my political or geographical position, I am
> included in the license agreement.

  I am, unfortunately, not in a position to make any judgements about
the terms of the license ageement, nor am I really in a position to 
negotiate with Bell Labs (Lucent?) to discover the agreements' limits.
Wasn't there some comments about the limits of the license in the 
mailing list archives?  I can't recall if it was relevant.

One thing you might consider is to get latched up with someone at
your uni doing active research in something interesting and computer-
related that may be applicable to Plan9, and see if they'll foot
the bill. 

Sometimes academic computing licensing people are accessible to
students, but if your uni is anything like UCSD, you'd have to crawl
past the sandbags, machinegun pits and minefields to get at them.  Our 
AC people act as if they were under siege.... i guess I can
see their point, however :)

> rich
> cannings@cpsc.ucalgary.ca

Sincerely,

Eric Dorman
edorman@ucsd.edu

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Eric]

forsyth@plan9.cs.york.ac.uk on Thu Apr 17 15:20:19 1997 wrote:

> >> 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 
> 
> the linux people haven't got a clue as far as MP is concerned.
> freebsd might be better; i don't know about that one.

Interesting.  They *seem* to have something that works; god
only knows what that really means though.  I have to admit if 
I had to make a choice between a linux or freebsd reference 
system i'd choose bezerklix.. it's just more internally familiar.

eld

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Eric]

cannings@cpsc.ucalgary.ca at Thu Apr 17 14:44:16 1997 says:

> how is this for a start:

sure.

> a sam where you can define keystrokes.
>  	eg. ctrl-x-f would run ">ls", or whatever you do to put ls in a new
> file
> 	or ctrl-c would run ">make"...
> 	and of course working arrow keys!

Run acme.  put 'mk' on the menubar.  click mk.

:)

I can't remember wether there's an acme in the pcdist;
I'd have to look.

I have to admit I haven't felt the loss of not having
working arrow keys.  Shouldn't be hard to fix I would
think, but I personally haven't found the need.  Clicking
on the scrollbar and clicking on the target worked fine.

It was somewhat surprising to find they didn't work
the first time around :)

> rich
> cannings@cpsc.ucalgary.ca

Regards,

Eric Dorman
edorman@ucsd.edu

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Rich]

Pete Fenelon wrote:
> 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.

I see many people share your views on unix software. Without digressing
into a unix vs. plan9 spam match, if sam is to plan9 as ed is to unix
then what would be  the emacs of plan9? (I'm sorry Mr. Pike but I can't
believe anyone could write code in sam as fast as in emacs.)

how is this for a start:
a sam where you can define keystrokes.
 	eg. ctrl-x-f would run ">ls", or whatever you do to put ls in a new
file
	or ctrl-c would run ">make"...
	and of course working arrow keys!


rich

cannings@cpsc.ucalgary.ca

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Rich]

Eric Dorman wrote:
>  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.

I'm an undergrad, need I say more? I order for me to get that kind of
capital I'd have to quit eating for a couple of months :-). I hope there
is some way I can explore plan9 and help the plan9 community without
paying for it

>  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.

It's odd, I've always hated what I considered bloatware like borland c++
or wordperfect for windows. I've never considered Xemacs to be
monolithic until now! So what features and ideas would be born if we
mated the philosophies of emacs and plan9? Sorry, I will not except
"sam" as an answer! I asked Fenelon a similar question. Another
question: since emacs is not part of plan9 are you implying that you
would code a radiological imaging system is sam?

>  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 :)

I don't have a SB16 either. I don't think it would be too difficult to
introduce more soundcards.

>  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.

For others who don't have endless computers kicking around, if the
pcdist had a free pppclient, a large documentation library, and a
commonly recognized editor (can we agree on microemacs?) plan 9 would
not be as much of a shock to new users. When I loaded up plan9 for the
first time, I could hardly get around. Soon after I printed 40 pages of
docs which was helpful, but it would have been better to have it online.
I could not access the net via ppp to get anymore information. If the
pcdist had plentiful man pages and a pppclient it would have been alot
easier to get your feet wet with plan9.

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

My interpretation of the license says that as long as I'm a "member" of
an organization, meaning that I'm working towards the goals of that
organization no matter my political or geographical position, I am
included in the license agreement.

rich

cannings@cpsc.ucalgary.ca

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Eric]

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

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[forsyth]

>> 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 

the linux people haven't got a clue as far as MP is concerned.
freebsd might be better; i don't know about that one.

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[forsyth]

>>believe anyone could write code in sam as fast as in emacs.)

this is incorrect, even allowing for the fact that writing
code fast is no substitute for thinking.

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Bodet]

On Thu, 17 Apr 1997, Pete Fenelon wrote:

> 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.

You can find a ext2srv for read and write locals ext2 partitions at :

	ftp://ftp.mime.univ-paris8.fr/usr/bl/ext2srv-0.2.tar.gz


Bodet Laurent.

E-Mail: bl@mime.univ-paris8.fr

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Pete]

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.

porting linux programs and drivers to plan9

[Rich]

I have tried to post a couple of times to this newsgroup without luck.
Here is essentially what I posted:

I loaded up the pcdist of plan 9 and was amazed. I couldn't do much
though since the pcdist was so limited. I've checked all the web sites
and FAQ's but I still have a few questions. 

1) How much activity is still out in the plan 9 community?

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]

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

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.

thanks

rich

cannings@cpsc.ucalgary.ca