From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-Id: <1D63FEC6-FA66-47F5-8AE4-0DA257BB009A@gmail.com> From: Patrick Kelly To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> In-Reply-To: <13426df11003041313v7a5c423fge791017e7f2f2b49@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v936) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 16:45:50 -0500 References: <4F533D9C-AD08-4FBD-8ADE-4A7B86530380@mit.edu> <4afaa1a3d0c9691716e1ad437a1c872a@ladd.quanstro.net> <13426df11003041313v7a5c423fge791017e7f2f2b49@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Re: [9fans] gsoc2010 + plan9 Topicbox-Message-UUID: e03ce5ec-ead5-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 On Mar 4, 2010, at 4:13 PM, ron minnich wrote: > The big thing I'd like to see as a GSOC project, and which I think is > doable, is a first-class set of drivers for the beagle and/or IGEP. > > The beagle is cheap and would be a very nice terminal. > > It's close on some fronts. We really need video. USB is not there yet. > There are other problems. At the same time, Geoff has done a great job > of giving us a foundation from which we can work. Thats the thing, drivers are the most needed. Fancy programs won't do you any good if Plan 9 won't even run on your machine. > It's interesting but watching the way things are going, ARM-based > designs are really taking off. I just visited a vendor who told me > they're churning out just one type of CPU at 1M a month and they're > growing. That's great news. Personally I wish it was the MIPS, but it'll do. > I think the opportunities for doing good Plan 9 work on ARM are going > to grow quite a bit. It may well prove a better platform for the > future than PCs, which are increasingly closed and esoteric. I think a broken table would make a better platform than a PC, and it seems to be getting worse. It might be worth it to devote a little more effort into non-80x86 platforms. Windows dominates it and won't be moving any time soon, OS X runs strictly on it, and the GCC is focused almost entirely on it, Heck most everything run on it. It certainly seems like there is a slight renewed interest in RISC machines. Most everyone I know has a laptop, and with the 80x86's horrid power needs... Leaning a little towards another platform could turn out to be a good idea. > But I think the drivers would not be too hard, I've looked at (e.g.) > the U-boot video driver and think it could go into Plan 9 without too > much trouble. I don't see this as a super-hard project and it would > provide us with a nice platform. > > ron >