From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: dexen deVries To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2011 20:36:52 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.6 (Linux/3.0.0-rc4-l38+; KDE/4.5.5; x86_64; ; ) References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-15" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201107022036.52943.dexen.devries@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9 Topicbox-Message-UUID: f9314c68-ead6-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 On Saturday 02 July 2011 20:23:02 Eli Cohen wrote: > I have used gentoo extensively and plan9 for a few years now as well, and > this concept of "namespaces" for processes is a confusing but interesting > concept. linux'c `clone()' syscall (the underpinnings of fork()) actually do accept CLONE_NEWNS, CLONE_NEWNET, CLONE_VM and other flags, pretty close to p9's. there's also chroot() that moves an inch into the right direction. however, due to security reasons (the SUID bit comes to mind, but must be other ones too), all that -- and mount() and mount(MS_BIND, ...) -- are restricted to superuser only; what a shame maybe it is be possible to create a SUID-less Linux distro, based on factotum perhaps, that'd allow everybody access to those syscalls and options. > One major difference is X11. In plan9, the system handles the graphics > more directly. afaik, x11 is considered an afterthought, bolted onto POSIX systems, and thus not integrated all that well. you can take a `screenshot' of textual console with the `cat' command, FWIW. -- dexen deVries > (...) I never use more than 800Mb of RAM. I am running Linux, > a browser and a terminal. rjbond3rd in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2692529