[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[ozan]

i think good ideas have some inertia, but not always enough; [this is a sore
point with mac people :] a few talks here and there and an article or two is
not enough to inject plan9 ideas into the mainstream. moreover, linux people
are content with their sand box [david tilbrook calls this "the tyranny of
adequacy"], and hurd has yet to work through the features of the
incompatible time sharing system, never mind p9. [heh heh]

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Scott]

Brandon Black <photon@nol.net> writes:
| In response yo this all the other responses that went like "Much too
| difficult, you must not have looked at this before", I have looked.  It
| would be very painful.  Implementing per-process namespace would only be a
| third of the work, compared to hacking the rest of the system to make it
| continue to work (like the security example).  You'd have to change the
| whole security paradigm.

Doesn't QNX have a lot of the functionality of Plan 9?  [Unlike some
people, they don't have manpages on the web so I can't check. :)] I
guess it really helps if posix is an optional subsystem.

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Brandon]

In response yo this all the other responses that went like "Much too
difficult, you must not have looked at this before", I have looked.  It
would be very painful.  Implementing per-process namespace would only be a
third of the work, compared to hacking the rest of the system to make it
continue to work (like the security example).  You'd have to change the
whole security paradigm.

However, I disagree about the effort/benefit ratio.  I see every day in
our Unix development environment where I work how much benefit we would
gain if our commercial unices had per-process inherited namespaces.  If
you develop C/C++ in a multi-platform unix environment.. and use all of
the GNu tools, and DejaGNu testing suite, and database clients, and
syb/ora-tcl, and perl, and RogueWave, and the list goes one..... And
different projects (sharing generic development boxes) want to use
different versions of all these tools, and might be compiling to different
targets.... And throw in the use of IRMS as an intelligent source code
repository that knows about your tools and generates your makefiles, and
runs your nightly builds and tests....

In this situation.. everything we do is a major hack, and it would all be
clean and perfect if we had Plan9's namespacing to work with.

Brandon

On Wed, 27 Aug 1997, Boyd Roberts wrote:

>     From: Brandon Black <photon@nol.net>
>
>     It really irks me a little that so many people want *nix ports of Plan 9's
>     window manager, or editor, etc... but nobody wants to take the really
>     great ideas.  WHy won't somebody take things like the namespacing stuff,
>     the 9P and IL protocols, the fileserver/cpuserver/terminal concepts...
>
> i would have loved to have put 9p into ultrix several years ago, but
> decided that it was just not worth the pain.  anyone who's keen on
> retrofitting cool stuff into modern unix kernels either a) hasn't seen
> one, b) doesn't understand the problem, or c) has too much time on
> their hands (cue denis leary).  maybe all three.
>
> btw:  i class that ghastly mess, known as linux, as a 'modern unix kernel'.
>       you may have the code to it, but have you actually read it?
>
> bbtw: ultrix supported nfs mounts by mortals, so i decided to implement
>       ftpfs with nfs.  it just wasn't worth the effort.  i wound up with
>       a sort of neat toy, but useless.  i spent several weeks on it, much
>       of it wasted trying to understand why nfs did what it did, trying
>       to turn it into some sort of reliable tool.  i was no stranger to
>       nfs, having ported it back in '86.  but how it actually behaved
>       was pretty sad.
>

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Steve_Kilbane]

> There's an rc port for linux yes. Well, it just run on linux. didn't
> need a port.

Actually, it's a reimplementation, not a port, and the same one
runs on various Unixes, not just Linux.

> 9wm is a clone of 8 1/2,

More correctly, it's an X window manager that presents a similar
look'n'feel to 8½'s GUI, which is only half the story of 8½ (if
that much). It doesn't provide the wondrous filesystem-based
interface that makes 8½ so cool, and it doesn't provide the window
system as a whole, which X does.

I wondered at one point what it would be like to try to kludge a
fifo-based window system onto UNIX, so that there was a process
that scribbled on the screen, serving a pipe to the window system,
which served pipes to its clients...never bothered with it, though.
Too many applications to write, and I couldn't find any believable
docs on how to use Sun's framebuffers. Didn't look that hard, mind.

I *did* bodge a pipe into 9wm (and 9term), though. You could
hide/open/resize/move windows using shell commands, and I got a fair
way along writing a virtual window manager in the es shell. Pretty
bizarre, and testing it convinced me that I didn't actually want
to use it in real life...

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Boyd]

    From: Tim Goodwin <tgoodwin@cygnus.com>

    The Unix version of rc is a reimplementation, by Byron Rakzitis, not a
    port of the Plan 9 code.  (Unlike sam, for example.)

fine piece of work too.

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Michel]

photon@nol.NET (Brandon Black) writes:

[snip]

>It really irks me a little that so many people want *nix ports of Plan 9's
>window manager, or editor, etc... but nobody wants to take the really
>great ideas.  WHy won't somebody take things like the namespacing stuff,
>the 9P and IL protocols, the fileserver/cpuserver/terminal concepts... all
>the good "internals" of Plan 9 and make an effort to bring those ideas
>into modern freeware *nix clones.  Merge it into Linux, or NetBSD, or
>HURD....   That would be a much more worthwhile effort.

Of course that would be much better then just porting the interface. Only
is it possible? Bell Labs started with a new OS, they didn't just adapt
UNIX to use these new paradigms. From what I've read about Plan9, it'd not
be easy to add these things to unix, as fundamental changes have to be
made.

michel
--
| Michel Oosterhof <m.oosterhof@thn.tn.utwente.nl>    PGP-Key:1024/09A3EA79 |
| http://cal044202.student.utwente.nl/~kirth/ - Monolith BBS: 130.89.230.12 |

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Scott]

>Brandon Black <photon@nol.net> wrote:
>It really irks me a little that so many people want *nix ports of Plan 9's
>window manager, or editor, etc... but nobody wants to take the really
>great ideas.  WHy won't somebody take things like the namespacing stuff,
>the 9P and IL protocols, the fileserver/cpuserver/terminal concepts... all
>the good "internals" of Plan 9 and make an effort to bring those ideas
>into modern freeware *nix clones.  Merge it into Linux, or NetBSD, or
>HURD....   That would be a much more worthwhile effort.

Per-process name spaces and setuid root programs see like a
ripe place for problems.  Seems like you would need to fall back to a
default system namespace for these programs, and that would probably
be irksome.  I think there would be sufficient cases where the global
namespace assumption would cause problems grafting in a per-process
name space.

Then there are things like sharable environment variables.

Sm
underlying

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Will]

Scott Schwartz (schwartz@finch.CSe.psu.EDU) wrote:
: David Hogan <dhog@ncube.com> writes:
: | Well, it used to be bidirectionally gatewayed with the 9fans list;
: | I don't think this is happening any more.  I'm cc-ing this to 9fans
: | for comment/elucidation.

: It's still gatewayed; Icarus is moderating it very strictly.  Given
: that usenet has turned into a breeding ground for spam, I like that.
: I'm much happier with the idea of just using the mailing list, in
: fact.


My local ISP clears spam out pretty thoroughly, so I rarely see
it any more in the comp.* groups.  UCE, tho', is still widespread...
so I prefer not to use mailing lists.

Will
cwr@crash.cts.com

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Bengt]

In article <5tkamp$5aa@dinkel.civ.utwente.nl>,
kirth@cal044204.student.utwente.NL (Michel Oosterhof) wrote:

...deleted

> 9wm is a clone of 8 1/2, and runs on linux too, I'm using it at the
> moment. (1.2pre version). There's also 9term, an `xterm' window that

This is only partly true (AFAIK). 9wm is an X-Windows window manager that
looks/behaves like the (builtin) window manager in 8 1/2. There has been
mentionings of actually replacing all of X, but I have not heard about any
success yet.

Finally, do not forget 9menu. Not from Plan9, but a nice helper for 9wm.

--
Best Wishes, Bengt

Email: bengtk@damek.kth.se

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Gary]

cwr@cts.COM (Will Rose) writes:

>Michel Oosterhof (kirth@cal044204.student.utwente.NL) wrote:
>: Hello, to whoever might read this.  Is anyone still running plan9?

Yes, but not as my main system.

>: Further more, is someone still working on the UNIX ports of several
>: plan9 utilities? (the rc shell, the 9wm (8 1/2) window manager, etc?

I still work on Wily, the Acme ((mostly) work-alike)).
--
http://www.cs.su.oz.au/~gary/

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Boyd]

    From: Brandon Black <photon@nol.net>

    It really irks me a little that so many people want *nix ports of Plan 9's
    window manager, or editor, etc... but nobody wants to take the really
    great ideas.  WHy won't somebody take things like the namespacing stuff,
    the 9P and IL protocols, the fileserver/cpuserver/terminal concepts...

i would have loved to have put 9p into ultrix several years ago, but
decided that it was just not worth the pain.  anyone who's keen on
retrofitting cool stuff into modern unix kernels either a) hasn't seen
one, b) doesn't understand the problem, or c) has too much time on
their hands (cue denis leary).  maybe all three.

btw:  i class that ghastly mess, known as linux, as a 'modern unix kernel'.
      you may have the code to it, but have you actually read it?

bbtw: ultrix supported nfs mounts by mortals, so i decided to implement
      ftpfs with nfs.  it just wasn't worth the effort.  i wound up with
      a sort of neat toy, but useless.  i spent several weeks on it, much
      of it wasted trying to understand why nfs did what it did, trying
      to turn it into some sort of reliable tool.  i was no stranger to
      nfs, having ported it back in '86.  but how it actually behaved
      was pretty sad.

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Steve_Kilbane]

> WHy won't somebody take things like the namespacing stuff,
> the 9P and IL protocols, the fileserver/cpuserver/terminal concepts... all
> the good "internals" of Plan 9 and make an effort to bring those ideas
> into modern freeware *nix clones.

Lots of reasons come to mind...

It's harder. Writing system-level code is almost always harder than
writing an application in the warm, fuzzy environment that the OS
provides. Especially if you've got to make a radical change to the
nature of a core system service, such as the namespace.

It's not just a question of adding a "thing" in isolation. How useful
would per-process namespaces be in Plan 9, if every single application
assumed the namespace was global? Some use, sure, but not nearly as
much.

9P and IL are ok, providing there're other machines to talk them
to, and IL in itself doesn't add any value at all apart from performance.
TCP *could* have been used, with modifications to the handlers, but IL
does the job better. Few sites would be willing to put their main filestores
onto machines with a hacked-up kernel, so that they can talk 9P when
NFS is doing the job for them.

Most compelling: someone's already done the job. There's a lot of effort
involved in shoe-horning this lot into *nix. Given the cost of the real
thing, it makes far more sense to just go out and buy it.

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Gary]

    It really irks me a little that so many people want *nix ports of Plan 9's
    window manager, or editor, etc... but nobody wants to take the really
    great ideas.  WHy won't somebody take things like the namespacing stuff,
    the 9P and IL protocols, the fileserver/cpuserver/terminal concepts... all
    the good "internals" of Plan 9 and make an effort to bring those ideas
    into modern freeware *nix clones.  Merge it into Linux, or NetBSD, or
    HURD....   That would be a much more worthwhile effort.

I'm guessing its a "bang for the buck" thing.  The effort/return
ratio seems much higher for grabbing (for example) the per-process
namespace.  Especially when there's a good chance that your submitted
changes would be rejected.

I can limp along without the internals, but life's too unpleasant
without something like acme.

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Fariborz]

At 01:41 PM 8/26/97 -0500, you wrote:
>On Mon, 25 Aug 1997, David Hogan wrote:
>
>> Michel Oosterhof wrote:
>> > cwr@cts.COM (Will Rose) writes:
>> > >Michel Oosterhof (kirth@cal044204.student.utwente.NL) wrote:
>> > >: Hello, to whoever might read this.  Is anyone still running plan9?
>> > >: Further more, is someone still working on the UNIX ports of several
>> > >: plan9 utilities? (the rc shell, the 9wm (8 1/2) window manager, etc?
>>
>> I run Plan 9 at home.  The company I work for uses Plan 9.  `<gasp!>'
>> I think we're the only one ;-)
>>
>> > >Me.  And I don't think I've seen a post in this group for the last
>> > >3-4 months - I assumed the distribution was screwed.
>>
>> Well, it used to be bidirectionally gatewayed with the 9fans list;
>> I don't think this is happening any more.  I'm cc-ing this to 9fans
>> for comment/elucidation.
>>
>> > 9wm is a clone of 8 1/2, and runs on linux too, I'm using it at the
>> > moment. (1.2pre version).
>>
>> I guess I should do another release of 9wm one of these days.  It's
>> been ``1.2pre'' for over a year now ;-)  I guess I should just say,
>> well, that _was_ 1.2, and here's 1.3.  Though, there aren't that
>> many changes that I've made -- a few bug fixes.  Might be time for
>> a ``maintenance release''.  I'm such a procrastinator...
>>
>
>It really irks me a little that so many people want *nix ports of Plan 9's
>window manager, or editor, etc... but nobody wants to take the really
>great ideas.  WHy won't somebody take things like the namespacing stuff,
>the 9P and IL protocols, the fileserver/cpuserver/terminal concepts... all
>the good "internals" of Plan 9 and make an effort to bring those ideas
>into modern freeware *nix clones.  Merge it into Linux, or NetBSD, or
>HURD....   That would be a much more worthwhile effort.
>

No one does it, perhaps for the same reasons that compelled the Labs folk to
start with a clean slate.

>Brandon
>
>

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Brandon]

On Mon, 25 Aug 1997, David Hogan wrote:

> Michel Oosterhof wrote:
> > cwr@cts.COM (Will Rose) writes:
> > >Michel Oosterhof (kirth@cal044204.student.utwente.NL) wrote:
> > >: Hello, to whoever might read this.  Is anyone still running plan9?
> > >: Further more, is someone still working on the UNIX ports of several
> > >: plan9 utilities? (the rc shell, the 9wm (8 1/2) window manager, etc?
>
> I run Plan 9 at home.  The company I work for uses Plan 9.  `<gasp!>'
> I think we're the only one ;-)
>
> > >Me.  And I don't think I've seen a post in this group for the last
> > >3-4 months - I assumed the distribution was screwed.
>
> Well, it used to be bidirectionally gatewayed with the 9fans list;
> I don't think this is happening any more.  I'm cc-ing this to 9fans
> for comment/elucidation.
>
> > 9wm is a clone of 8 1/2, and runs on linux too, I'm using it at the
> > moment. (1.2pre version).
>
> I guess I should do another release of 9wm one of these days.  It's
> been ``1.2pre'' for over a year now ;-)  I guess I should just say,
> well, that _was_ 1.2, and here's 1.3.  Though, there aren't that
> many changes that I've made -- a few bug fixes.  Might be time for
> a ``maintenance release''.  I'm such a procrastinator...
>

It really irks me a little that so many people want *nix ports of Plan 9's
window manager, or editor, etc... but nobody wants to take the really
great ideas.  WHy won't somebody take things like the namespacing stuff,
the 9P and IL protocols, the fileserver/cpuserver/terminal concepts... all
the good "internals" of Plan 9 and make an effort to bring those ideas
into modern freeware *nix clones.  Merge it into Linux, or NetBSD, or
HURD....   That would be a much more worthwhile effort.

Brandon

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Martin]

> I'm much happier with the idea of just using the mailing list, in
> fact.

Right said -- me too!

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[David]

> | Well, it used to be bidirectionally gatewayed with the 9fans list;
> | I don't think this is happening any more.  I'm cc-ing this to 9fans
> | for comment/elucidation.

> It's still gatewayed; Icarus is moderating it very strictly.  Given
> that usenet has turned into a breeding ground for spam, I like that.
> I'm much happier with the idea of just using the mailing list, in
> fact.

Ok.  It's just that I haven't seen very much 9fans mail in the newsgroup
(possibly a problem with the server I read news from).  I thought that
we might have switched to unidirectional gatewaying...

I think I prefer the list too.  I only check the newsgroup every now and
then, to see if there's anything there...

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Scott]

David Hogan <dhog@ncube.com> writes:
| Well, it used to be bidirectionally gatewayed with the 9fans list;
| I don't think this is happening any more.  I'm cc-ing this to 9fans
| for comment/elucidation.

It's still gatewayed; Icarus is moderating it very strictly.  Given
that usenet has turned into a breeding ground for spam, I like that.
I'm much happier with the idea of just using the mailing list, in
fact.

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[David]

Michel Oosterhof wrote:
> cwr@cts.COM (Will Rose) writes:
> >Michel Oosterhof (kirth@cal044204.student.utwente.NL) wrote:
> >: Hello, to whoever might read this.  Is anyone still running plan9?
> >: Further more, is someone still working on the UNIX ports of several
> >: plan9 utilities? (the rc shell, the 9wm (8 1/2) window manager, etc?

I run Plan 9 at home.  The company I work for uses Plan 9.  `<gasp!>'
I think we're the only one ;-)

> >Me.  And I don't think I've seen a post in this group for the last
> >3-4 months - I assumed the distribution was screwed.

Well, it used to be bidirectionally gatewayed with the 9fans list;
I don't think this is happening any more.  I'm cc-ing this to 9fans
for comment/elucidation.

> 9wm is a clone of 8 1/2, and runs on linux too, I'm using it at the
> moment. (1.2pre version).

I guess I should do another release of 9wm one of these days.  It's
been ``1.2pre'' for over a year now ;-)  I guess I should just say,
well, that _was_ 1.2, and here's 1.3.  Though, there aren't that
many changes that I've made -- a few bug fixes.  Might be time for
a ``maintenance release''.  I'm such a procrastinator...

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Tim]

> Hello, to whoever might read this.  Is anyone still running plan9?
> Further more, is someone still working on the UNIX ports of several
> plan9 utilities? (the rc shell, the 9wm (8 1/2) window manager, etc?

The Unix version of rc is a reimplementation, by Byron Rakzitis, not a
port of the Plan 9 code.  (Unlike sam, for example.)

I'm maintaining rc now.  The latest beta is available from the rc FTP
archive, and also from here.

    ftp://ftp.pipex.net/people/tim/rc-1.5b2.tar.gz

The rc mailing list is <rc@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu>.

Tim.

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Michel]

cwr@cts.COM (Will Rose) writes:

>Michel Oosterhof (kirth@cal044204.student.utwente.NL) wrote:
>: Hello, to whoever might read this.  Is anyone still running plan9?
>: Further more, is someone still working on the UNIX ports of several
>: plan9 utilities? (the rc shell, the 9wm (8 1/2) window manager, etc?

>Me.  And I don't think I've seen a post in this group for the last
>3-4 months - I assumed the distribution was screwed.

>I think there's an rc port in the Linux distribution, but I don't
>know about the other stuff.

There's an rc port for linux yes. Well, it just run on linux. didn't
need a port. I'm currently using it as a shell, but there are still
a few bugs. pressing ctrl-c twice while compiling something with gcc
logs me out. The 'w' or 'who' command only shows '-rc' and not the
current program you're running, etc. But rc still is a very useful \
shell, it's small, and runs extremely fast.

9wm is a clone of 8 1/2, and runs on linux too, I'm using it at the
moment. (1.2pre version). There's also 9term, an `xterm' window that
resembles the plan9 windows. Further more, 'sam' exists for unix, and
wily, a copy of acme.

michel
--
| Michel Oosterhof <m.oosterhof@thn.tn.utwente.nl>    PGP-Key:1024/09A3EA79 |

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Will]

Michel Oosterhof (kirth@cal044204.student.utwente.NL) wrote:
: Hello, to whoever might read this.  Is anyone still running plan9?
: Further more, is someone still working on the UNIX ports of several
: plan9 utilities? (the rc shell, the 9wm (8 1/2) window manager, etc?

Me.  And I don't think I've seen a post in this group for the last
3-4 months - I assumed the distribution was screwed.

I think there's an rc port in the Linux distribution, but I don't
know about the other stuff.


Will
cwr@crash.cts.com

[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[D.M.Pick]

Michel Oosterhof (kirth@cal044204.student.utwente.NL) wrote:
: Hello, to whoever might read this.  Is anyone still running plan9?
: Further more, is someone still working on the UNIX ports of several
: plan9 utilities? (the rc shell, the 9wm (8 1/2) window manager, etc?

Yes. Me.

--
	David Pick