[9fans] (the potential) new release of Plan9, i386 only?

[Digby Tarvin digbyt@acm.org]

> Greeitngs,
> 
> After a reading a real downer (it would not get me down if it was not correct :-(
> about Systems Software Research (http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/rob/utah2000.ps)
> I suddenly realised that among the items in the talk was the fact that the (potential)
> next release of plan9 would be x86 only. no more multi platform.
> 
> I have 3 SparcStations and one Macintosh. A x86 only release of Plan9 would be
> quite expensive to me, even if it was given away for nothing...
> 
> Have I misunderstood? Perhaps this was a binary only 4 floppy distro that was mentioned,
> not the real thing?

I quite agree. The PC clones may be cheap and fast, but they are
anything but elegant.

I figure that those people with enough good taste to use Plan9 in
preference to the far more prevalent Microsoft/Apple alternatives
are the same people that are likely to have good taste in hardware
as well.

I could live with a distribution that perhaps only came with Intel
binaries, but at least had the sources and cross compilers to allow
building of systems for other architectures. I have two Sparc2's
which are not fast, but they are nicer to work on and have lasted
much better than Intel machines of similar vintage.

One thing I would like to see added to the Plan9 distribution,
as far as cross platform compatibility is concerned, is PowerPC
support.

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