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

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

[Digby]

>
> What revision board and chip do you have?
>
> I ask only because chip revisions 'A' and 'B' have some
> problems. 'A' is probably better than 'B'. 'B' has data
> cache problems. We were using 'C' versions and they worked well.
> We did have problems with 'B' that drove us crazy until we
> found out that it was flawed.
>
> Board revision 'A' had problems, also. Cannot for the life
> of me recall what they were. Something to do with clock
> distribution.
>
> If you are running these revisions, that may be the cause
> of it being a little fragile.
>
> Doug

Hi,

The board has a sticker saying "30C" just under the serial number,
with 01-W3269F printed on the card next to it. I am assuming that
is the revision.

The chip has "XC821ZP50B" printed on the top, so I guess that trailing
B is the revision you are referring to.

The processor isn't socketed, so unless there are some workarounds
available, this board may not be as useful as I had hoped :-/

Was it just data cache, or were there other flaws as well?

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

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

[Tom E Arnold]

Douglas A. Gwyn wrote:
>
> Of course it's not an optimum design, but the advantage of
> being able to buy disk, memory, peripherals, and especially
> application software at the corner store is overwhelming.
>
Never mind corner store; try the dumpsters in any good-sized office
park. I have enough scavenged 486 machines to build a Beowulf cluster
and still have enough left over for playing with Plan9. I'm starting to
find 10BaseT cards, Pentiums up to 133 mHz and gig+ IDE drives. I'd have
to find some much classier dumpsters or spend money on other things than
ram to play with anything more "elegant".

--
TTom/
 My current neighborhood:
http://www.coldspringpark.org
 My next neighborhood:
http://www.geocities.com/athens/acropolis/9361

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

[Douglas]

Digby Tarvin wrote:
> Interesting statement. The difficulty of adding hardware to PCs is one
> of the things I hate about them.

The biggest problem I've had with them is the shortage of IRQs.
More than once I've had to sacrifice a useful device in order
to add another.

> The IDE interface present on most PCs has always been far less
> flexible than the SCSI interface used on most other systems, ...

So use SCSI.

The worst part of IDE is that as disks get larger, the way to
access them keeps changing (something like 5 times now).  You
would think at some point they would design a little bit more
for the future.

> I still feel that the PC is trailing in everything except
> price/performance, which is more a result of volume and market
> dominance than superior design.

Of course it's not an optimum design, but the advantage of
being able to buy disk, memory, peripherals, and especially
application software at the corner store is overwhelming.

I like the set-up I'm using: multiple OSes in one box.  (At
present: Windows 98, Windows/NT 4.0, Solaris 7, Plan 9, and
Inferno (hosted), with UNIX V7, RT-11, RSTS/E on a PDP-11
emulator for historical purposes.  If I knew of really *good*
Nintendo-64 and Apple IIGS emulators I'd be using them also.)
This way I get the advantage of the Windows apps (games!), but
with little difficulty can switch to a decent working environment.
(Since I have Solaris 7 on a SPARC at work, that's my usual choice.
"sam" is "sam".)

> Lack of driver support is also a problem for non-Microsoft operating
> systems.

Absolutely.  That is a real killer.  For example, 3D accelerated
graphics cards do not have a standard architectural interface,
not even for the plain 2D frame buffer aspect, so without an OS-
specific driver one ends up using them in plain VGA mode, ugh.

> On PCs, the resources go into developing a
> Windows driver, and having developed that the manufacturer typically
> decides that hardware documentation is not needed, and even worse,
> details are concealed as a trade secret...

I agree -- What do they care, when they're raking in bucks selling
to turn-key users?

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

[Digby]

>
> What revision board and chip do you have?
>
> I ask only because chip revisions 'A' and 'B' have some
> problems. 'A' is probably better than 'B'. 'B' has data
> cache problems. We were using 'C' versions and they worked well.
> We did have problems with 'B' that drove us crazy until we
> found out that it was flawed.
>
> Board revision 'A' had problems, also. Cannot for the life
> of me recall what they were. Something to do with clock
> distribution.
>
> If you are running these revisions, that may be the cause
> of it being a little fragile.
>
> Doug

Hi,

The board has a sticker saying "30C" just under the serial number,
with 01-W3269F printed on the card next to it. I am assuming that
is the revision.

The chip has "XC821ZP50B" printed on the top, so I guess that trailing
B is the revision you are referring to.

The processor isn't socketed, so unless there are some workarounds
available, this board may not be as useful as I had hoped :-/

Was it just data cache, or were there other flaws as well?

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

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

[Douglas]

Digby Tarvin wrote:

<snip>

> If I wanted somthing with a bit more processing power but still
> a usable architecture, I would probably go PowerPC.
>
> It looked like being in with a chance at being an
> alternate 'standard' architecture up until OS-2 ceased
> to be effective competition for Microsoft, which resulted in
> Microsoft deciding it could afford to please its Intel ally by
> discontinuing the PowerPC version of NT.

More than that, it was also the basis of an Apple clone
architecture developed by IBM and Motorola three years back.
The design was wonderful, allowing a boot to Apple (MacOS)
or any other OS. The Apple ROM was only used by MacOS, the
other systems would just run the system. Apple had some control
over trhe design, I don't know the issues, but when they
halted all the Mac clones, they also killed the open architecture
model as well. There was some initial resistance by Motorola
and IBM, with each claiming certain rights to the MacOS port.
It all died quietly. I had the hardware architecture document
in PDF. It was an open document available at both Motorola and IBM.

Doug

>

<snip>

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

[Digby]

> >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.
>
> I have been interested reacently In buying a non-*86 machine, But I
> have found it next to imposible to find a comparison between the sun
> machines and the *86 machines, ie. is a sparc5 better or worse than a
> pentium? Could you give me some guidelines?
>
I would have to dig around for some benchmarks, but I think
the conventional wisdom is that my Sparc 2's are comparable
to 66Mhz 486 machines in processing power. But they 'feel' much
better because of the better disk subsystem and architecture, and
I don't feel I need a vary fast CPU for compiling code.

I havn't looked recently, but if you need speed, you will probably
have to pay more for a Sun than an equivalent Intel PC, purely
because of the relative market sizes.

If I wanted somthing with a bit more processing power but still
a usable architecture, I would probably go PowerPC.

It looked like being in with a chance at being an
alternate 'standard' architecture up until OS-2 ceased
to be effective competition for Microsoft, which resulted in
Microsoft deciding it could afford to please its Intel ally by
discontinuing the PowerPC version of NT.

One of the things I like about Plan9 is that it makes it so
easy to manage a heterogenous environment, so at least you
don't have to be tied in to one architecture.

I would really like to hear any impressions that the Plan9
developers formed as a result of porting the system to numerous
architectures. The task must have provided an ideal opportunity
to compare the merits of the varous platforms.

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

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

[Digby]

> >>machines and the *86 machines, ie. is a sparc5 better or worse than a
> >>pentium? Could you give me some guidelines?
>
> PCs have typically made it easier to attach a wide range of gadgets to them.

Interesting statement. The difficulty of adding hardware to PCs is one
of the things I hate about them.

<soapbox mode>
The IDE interface present on most PCs has always been far less
flexible than the SCSI interface used on most other systems, with
all the nonsense about having to know the physical geometry of the
drive and the perpetual problems and workarounds required do deal
with larger disk capacities, not to mention the small number of devices
supported, only one initiator per bus, and the assumption of all devices
being disk type devices.

Then when you move on to the bus structure, ISA was a nightmare to
design for, with the continual problems of dealing with clashing
port numbers and limited interrupt structure. VME had its problems,
but they always seemed very minor compared to PCs.

EISA and PCI have helped, but PCs still seem to be more awkward
than alternate architectures which avoid the Intel kludges, and
all the improvements are only closing the gap. I still feel that
the PC is trailing in everything except price/performance, which
is more a result of volume and market dominance than superior
design.

As far as I can see, the only sense in which PCs have been easier
to add gadgets too is that their market dominance has led to
hardware vendors dedicating themselves to supporting PCs in
spite of their deficiencies, and at the expense of support for
other systems.

Lack of driver support is also a problem for non-Microsoft operating
systems. At least on other architectures, manufacturers tend to
accept the need to document their products to allow third party
drivers to be written. On PCs, the resources go into developing a
Windows driver, and having developed that the manufacturer typically
decides that hardware documentation is not needed, and even worse,
details are concealed as a trade secret...

Admittedly Apple and Sun have both produced machines that provided
little support for plug in cards. But I don't see that as any different
to the situation with notebook PCs which have similar restrictions.

</soapbox mode>

Sorry - I just couldn't let that pass :-)

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

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

[Digby]

> >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.
>
> I have been interested reacently In buying a non-*86 machine, But I
> have found it next to imposible to find a comparison between the sun
> machines and the *86 machines, ie. is a sparc5 better or worse than a
> pentium? Could you give me some guidelines?
>
I would have to dig around for some benchmarks, but I think
the conventional wisdom is that my Sparc 2's are comparable
to 66Mhz 486 machines in processing power. But they 'feel' much
better because of the better disk subsystem and architecture, and
I don't feel I need a vary fast CPU for compiling code.

I havn't looked recently, but if you need speed, you will probably
have to pay more for a Sun than an equivalent Intel PC, purely
because of the relative market sizes.

If I wanted somthing with a bit more processing power but still
a usable architecture, I would probably go PowerPC.

It looked like being in with a chance at being an
alternate 'standard' architecture up until OS-2 ceased
to be effective competition for Microsoft, which resulted in
Microsoft deciding it could afford to please its Intel ally by
discontinuing the PowerPC version of NT.

One of the things I like about Plan9 is that it makes it so
easy to manage a heterogenous environment, so at least you
don't have to be tied in to one architecture.

I would really like to hear any impressions that the Plan9
developers formed as a result of porting the system to numerous
architectures. The task must have provided an ideal opportunity
to compare the merits of the varous platforms.

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

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

[Digby]

> >>machines and the *86 machines, ie. is a sparc5 better or worse than a
> >>pentium? Could you give me some guidelines?
>
> PCs have typically made it easier to attach a wide range of gadgets to them.

Interesting statement. The difficulty of adding hardware to PCs is one
of the things I hate about them.

<soapbox mode>
The IDE interface present on most PCs has always been far less
flexible than the SCSI interface used on most other systems, with
all the nonsense about having to know the physical geometry of the
drive and the perpetual problems and workarounds required do deal
with larger disk capacities, not to mention the small number of devices
supported, only one initiator per bus, and the assumption of all devices
being disk type devices.

Then when you move on to the bus structure, ISA was a nightmare to
design for, with the continual problems of dealing with clashing
port numbers and limited interrupt structure. VME had its problems,
but they always seemed very minor compared to PCs.

EISA and PCI have helped, but PCs still seem to be more awkward
than alternate architectures which avoid the Intel kludges, and
all the improvements are only closing the gap. I still feel that
the PC is trailing in everything except price/performance, which
is more a result of volume and market dominance than superior
design.

As far as I can see, the only sense in which PCs have been easier
to add gadgets too is that their market dominance has led to
hardware vendors dedicating themselves to supporting PCs in
spite of their deficiencies, and at the expense of support for
other systems.

Lack of driver support is also a problem for non-Microsoft operating
systems. At least on other architectures, manufacturers tend to
accept the need to document their products to allow third party
drivers to be written. On PCs, the resources go into developing a
Windows driver, and having developed that the manufacturer typically
decides that hardware documentation is not needed, and even worse,
details are concealed as a trade secret...

Admittedly Apple and Sun have both produced machines that provided
little support for plug in cards. But I don't see that as any different
to the situation with notebook PCs which have similar restrictions.

</soapbox mode>

Sorry - I just couldn't let that pass :-)

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

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

[forsyth]

>>machines and the *86 machines, ie. is a sparc5 better or worse than a
>>pentium? Could you give me some guidelines?

PCs have typically made it easier to attach a wide range of gadgets to them.

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

[Bengt]

> is a sparc5 better or worse than a pentium?

Potentially answering oyur question is:
www.unixreview.com/reviews/articles/hardware/9910hard.shtml


Best Wishes, Bengt
===============================================================
Everything aforementioned should be regarded as totally private
opinions, and nothing else. bengt@softwell.se
``His great strength is that he is uncompromising. It would make
him physically ill to think of programming in C++.''

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

[Jolt-Freak]

>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.

I have been interested reacently In buying a non-*86 machine, But I
have found it next to imposible to find a comparison between the sun
machines and the *86 machines, ie. is a sparc5 better or worse than a
pentium? Could you give me some guidelines?

Jolt-Freak

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

[Bengt]

In article <200004281356.OAA06206@cthulhu.dircon.co.uk>, Digby Tarvin
<digbyt@acm.org> wrote:
....deleted
> That makes me happy too. The installation has always assumed the
> availability of an Intel PC to bootstrap the process

That is only if you follow the documentation :-)

There is a (roundabout) way to boot a SparcStation from things found
on the CD...

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

[Douglas]

What revision board and chip do you have?

I ask only because chip revisions 'A' and 'B' have some
problems. 'A' is probably better than 'B'. 'B' has data
cache problems. We were using 'C' versions and they worked well.
We did have problems with 'B' that drove us crazy until we
found out that it was flawed.

Board revision 'A' had problems, also. Cannot for the life
of me recall what they were. Something to do with clock
distribution.

If you are running these revisions, that may be the cause
of it being a little fragile.

Doug

> Would you know off hand if the work that has been done has included
> support for my little Motorola MBX board? I have gotten Linux  to
> boot on it, but it is still a little fragile.
>
> Regards,
> DigbyT
> --
> Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
> http://www.cthulhu.dircon.co.uk

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

[Digby]

> support for the powerpc has been here and there in some form for
> four or five years (i ported the compiler suite years ago, and did some more
> work on it for Plan 9 and Inferno work over the years).  if it's not in the plan 9 release,
> i'll provide it.   if it is in the release, i'll synchronise sources.
> the problem up to now has been that it's not straightforward
> to release the compiler modifications generally under the old licence.
> if you could stomach it, you have been able to get a load of
> boddles for some time from http://www.caldo.demon.co.uk/plan9/soft/power.html.
> i've made some code improvements to it since then (1998) as part of Inferno work.
> at some stage i'll synchronise sources.   it included Alef, so i was using Acme on a powerpc.
> 
> i haven't used the 603/603e Plan 9 kernel for well over a year (just lack of time);
> in multiprocessor mode, i had it going only as a cpu server because of (old) pc driver restrictions and a few other
> cache-coherency problems.

Thats great. Thanks.

It would obviously be nice if it were part of the release, and documented
in any updated release of the manuals, but I guess I am just being
lazy. So long as it is available in some form I can't complain.

Would you know off hand if the work that has been done has included
support for my little Motorola MBX board? I have gotten Linux  to
boot on it, but it is still a little fragile.

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

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

[Digby]

> support for the powerpc has been here and there in some form for
> four or five years (i ported the compiler suite years ago, and did some more
> work on it for Plan 9 and Inferno work over the years).  if it's not in the plan 9 release,
> i'll provide it.   if it is in the release, i'll synchronise sources.
> the problem up to now has been that it's not straightforward
> to release the compiler modifications generally under the old licence.
> if you could stomach it, you have been able to get a load of
> boddles for some time from http://www.caldo.demon.co.uk/plan9/soft/power.html.
> i've made some code improvements to it since then (1998) as part of Inferno work.
> at some stage i'll synchronise sources.   it included Alef, so i was using Acme on a powerpc.
> 
> i haven't used the 603/603e Plan 9 kernel for well over a year (just lack of time);
> in multiprocessor mode, i had it going only as a cpu server because of (old) pc driver restrictions and a few other
> cache-coherency problems.

Thats great. Thanks.

It would obviously be nice if it were part of the release, and documented
in any updated release of the manuals, but I guess I am just being
lazy. So long as it is available in some form I can't complain.

Would you know off hand if the work that has been done has included
support for my little Motorola MBX board? I have gotten Linux  to
boot on it, but it is still a little fragile.

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

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

[Digby]

> > From: "rob pike" <rob@plan9.bell-labs.com>
> > There will be sources for lots of architectures.  The binaries and libraries
> > packaged in the distribution will be compiled only for the 386.
> 
> If I borrow a x86 machine I should be able to compile Sparc binaries and
> install them.
> Good.

That makes me happy too. The installation has always assumed the
availability of an Intel PC to bootstrap the process, so getting
it to build the binaries as well is not too much of a hardship.
Especially as any cautious person would re-build the system from
sources after installation anyway - especially before trying to
modify anything.

And if the removal of the binaries means the addition of new
functionality to the CD, I am all for it.

Does any know what, if any, concessions purchasers of the original
distribution will get with regard to a new release? That is, is
there an upgrade price, or do we just buy again?

(I didn't catch the origin of this thread, so I appologise if this
has been asked before)

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

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

[forsyth]

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

support for the powerpc has been here and there in some form for
four or five years (i ported the compiler suite years ago, and did some more
work on it for Plan 9 and Inferno work over the years).  if it's not in the plan 9 release,
i'll provide it.   if it is in the release, i'll synchronise sources.
the problem up to now has been that it's not straightforward
to release the compiler modifications generally under the old licence.
if you could stomach it, you have been able to get a load of
boddles for some time from http://www.caldo.demon.co.uk/plan9/soft/power.html.
i've made some code improvements to it since then (1998) as part of Inferno work.
at some stage i'll synchronise sources.   it included Alef, so i was using Acme on a powerpc.

i haven't used the 603/603e Plan 9 kernel for well over a year (just lack of time);
in multiprocessor mode, i had it going only as a cpu server because of (old) pc driver restrictions and a few other
cache-coherency problems.

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

[Digby]

> 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

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

[Digby]

> > From: "rob pike" <rob@plan9.bell-labs.com>
> > There will be sources for lots of architectures.  The binaries and libraries
> > packaged in the distribution will be compiled only for the 386.
> 
> If I borrow a x86 machine I should be able to compile Sparc binaries and
> install them.
> Good.

That makes me happy too. The installation has always assumed the
availability of an Intel PC to bootstrap the process, so getting
it to build the binaries as well is not too much of a hardship.
Especially as any cautious person would re-build the system from
sources after installation anyway - especially before trying to
modify anything.

And if the removal of the binaries means the addition of new
functionality to the CD, I am all for it.

Does any know what, if any, concessions purchasers of the original
distribution will get with regard to a new release? That is, is
there an upgrade price, or do we just buy again?

(I didn't catch the origin of this thread, so I appologise if this
has been asked before)

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

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

[Digby]

> 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

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

[Bengt]

> From: "rob pike" <rob@plan9.bell-labs.com>
> There will be sources for lots of architectures.  The binaries and libraries
> packaged in the distribution will be compiled only for the 386.

If I borrow a x86 machine I should be able to compile Sparc binaries and install them.
Good.

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

[rob]

There will be sources for lots of architectures.  The binaries and libraries
packaged in the distribution will be compiled only for the 386.

-rob

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

[Bengt]

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?


Best Wishes, Bengt
===============================================================
Everything aforementioned should be regarded as totally private
opinions, and nothing else. bengt@softwell.se
``His great strength is that he is uncompromising. It would make
him physically ill to think of programming in C++.''