Re: [9fans] have installed plan 9 on many hosts, can't get any of them to "share".

[John Stalker <stalker@maths.tcd.ie>]

> Synopsis:
> 	do I give up trying to make a distributed plan 9 home network?
> 	Is plan 9 worth the struggle?
> 	The concepts are clearly superior, is it the implementation, is it
> the lack of coherent/correct (imho) documentation?
>
> Longer background:

...skipping...

> Where might I go for a walk thru in setting up a simple plan9
> installation, one cpu/auth/fs and one terminal?
>
> sorry for the extent of this message, frustrated and the learning
> curve seems to have infinite slope.

I tried setting up plan9 networks once or twice a long time ago,
and gave up fairly quickly, partly for the sorts of reasons you
are talking about, but mostly because I don't need a plan9 network.
A standalone system is more than sufficient for what I want.
So none of what I'm going to say below will actually help
you in any way.  But,...

As far as the quality of the available information goes, I think
you are largely correct, but the problem isn't really specific
to plan9.  The situation for BSD is similar, and for most OS's
is worse.  I have doubts about the whole "how to" genre.  For
anything at all complicated you run into at least three problems:
- Actually mistakes.  The code in Kernighan & Richie was copied
  from things that had been compiled and run.  So you knew there
  were no typos.  People who write things for the web still seem
  to think you can reliably give instructions from memory of
  things you last did several years ago.  Without proofreading.
- Version skew.  A well known problem, and the reason I'm using
  MH to send this message.  I like things that don't change, but
  just slowly become obsolete.
- Different situations.  I find I never have the exact same setup
  as the person who wrote whatever I am reading.  And I'm never
  setting out to accomplish the exact same thing.

I'm not really asking people to write better howtos.  I think
the idea is fundamentally broken.  What we really need is some
less narrative and more expository.  I'm not sure what that
would look like, or I would write one.
--
John Stalker
School of Mathematics
Trinity College Dublin
tel +353 1 896 1983
fax +353 1 896 2282