[9fans] Plan 9 on the desktop?

[9fans] Plan 9 on the desktop?

[Joel Konkle-Parker]

Can Plan 9 be used successfully on a personal desktop, as a
replacement for, say, Windows or Linux?

Or are its design goals and implementation incompatible with that sort
of use?


-- 
Joel Konkle-Parker
Webmaster  [Ballsome.com]

E-mail     [jjk3@msstate.edu]

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on the desktop?

[a]

// Can Plan 9 be used successfully on a personal desktop...

yes, but...

// as a replacement for, say, Windows or Linux?

not really, no.

you can use it as a desktop system, but you're going to have a
*very* different experience from what you'd have using, say,
Windows or Linux. *VERY* different.

its not that the design goals are incompatable, so much as the
focus of most of the community does not lend itself to working
on typical "desktop" apps. there's nothing in the design to
prevent someone from porting, say, Mozilla or gtk or whatever,
but it's a ton of work that nobody's done, and most of the
community doesn't really have a drive for.
ア

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on the desktop?

[Fco.J.Ballesteros]

> // as a replacement for, say, Windows or Linux?
> 
> not really, no.

Yes really, yes. At least, some of us do that.
Of course, you don't need to use the same OS
for all tasks all the time. For us, it's 90% Plan 9 and 10% XP|Lunix.

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on the desktop?

[Brantley Coile]

>> // as a replacement for, say, Windows or Linux?
>> 
>> not really, no.
> 
> Yes really, yes. At least, some of us do that.
> Of course, you don't need to use the same OS
> for all tasks all the time. For us, it's 90% Plan 9 and 10% XP|Lunix.

I, too, use Plan 9 like this.  I'm using drawterm on XP--all my iMac's
broke!  We use OpenBSD, FreeBSD and Linux as well.  Plan 9 is meant to
do what it was meant to do and it would be a big waste of time to
reinvent all the Mac and Windows applications.

And the user interface for the technical users would begin to suck.

 Brantley

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on the desktop?

[a]

// Yes really, yes. At least, some of us do that.

the point of my split response was that you *can* certainly use
plan9 as a desktop, but it won't "replace windows", in the same
sense that linux w/ kde or gnome or whatever can be said to. i
don't think that's a bad thing at all. i used plan9 as my only
system for years, quite happily. but i wasn't looking for a
"windows replacement" - i was looking for a good system. plan9
won't give you wysiwyg html editors, office-style prodoctivity
apps, your half-dozen IM environments, quicktime, nor quake.
none of these make it a bad system, or even really detrack from
it at all for many people. but it does, in a very substantial
way, i think, make it unsuitable as a "windows replacement".
ア

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on the desktop?

[ron minnich]

On Mon, 19 Apr 2004, Joel Konkle-Parker wrote:

> Can Plan 9 be used successfully on a personal desktop, as a
> replacement for, say, Windows or Linux?

long as you don't need anything like zyxOffice, or any x tools, or 
whatever. 

> Or are its design goals and implementation incompatible with that sort
> of use?

The big limitation is you can't participate in virus propagation. That's a 
real limiter.

ron

[9fans] Re: Plan 9 on the desktop?

[Diego Calleja]

El Mon, 19 Apr 2004 10:03:50 GMT Joel Konkle-Parker <jjk3@msstate.edu> escribió:

> Can Plan 9 be used successfully on a personal desktop, as a
> replacement for, say, Windows or Linux.
> 
> Or are its design goals and implementation incompatible with that sort
> of use?


If so, then Plan9 would suck, and it doesn't.


Bur right now, being a mor or less "research os" you can expect that
windows users are going to use it. 

The key for desktop, anyway, are the apps, not the OS itself. If you can port
gnome/kde, openoffice, mozilla, xmms, and you have drivers to listen mp3 and
watch dvds, then you're a desktop OS. But there's not a reason to port them
if you have near zero users.


Does Plan9 support linux binary emulation like open source BSDs do? If it
does it'd be even easier, since you'd benefit from all apps (including
commercial ones like databases) that are being written for linux.

RE: [9fans] Re: Plan 9 on the desktop?

[Tiit Lankots]

> Does Plan9 support linux binary emulation like open source 
> BSDs do? If it

One of the raison d'êtres of Plan 9 is the _absence_ of such things. If you want Linux, use Linux; if you want Plan 9, use Plan 9. Conceptual impurity is an evil, and not a necessary one.

P.S. The desktop metaphor is a relict. Actually, it never quite worked, but most people don't care to notice. Plan 9 is ahead of it's time by a good 30 years (sigh).
P.P.S. To quote Dijksta, "I was pleasantly surprised to find that the dictionary description of 'elegant' is 'simple and surprisingly effective'."

Re: [9fans] Re: Plan 9 on the desktop?

[Diego Calleja]

El Tue, 20 Apr 2004 08:59:26 GMT t.lankots@aprote.ee (Tiit Lankots) escribió:

> One of the raison d'êtres of Plan 9 is the _absence_ of such things. If you want Linux, use Linux; if you want Plan 9, use Plan 9. Conceptual impurity is an evil, and not a necessary one.

heh, good answer :)

> P.S. The desktop metaphor is a relict. Actually, it never quite worked, but most people don't care to notice. Plan 9 is ahead of it's time by a good 30 years (sigh).

Plan9 is not ahead of anything. It's most of the world who is 30 years behind.

Re: [9fans] Re: Plan 9 on the desktop?

[Fco.J.Ballesteros]

> Plan9 is not ahead of anything. It's most of the world who is 30 years behind.

Fortune?
Should be there, IMHO.

Re: [9fans] Re: Plan 9 on the desktop?

[Joel Salomon]

>> Plan9 is not ahead of anything. It's most of the world who is 30 years
>> behind.
>
> Fortune?
> Should be there, IMHO.

patch(1)

--Joel