[9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Robert Seaton]

Hello, 9fans!

I'm a GSoC student working on "Plan 9 From Gentoo", a Gentoo project
to create a liveCD that comprises of a Gentoo base-system and a Plan
9-inspired userspace, instead of the typical GNU userspace.

However, I'm new to Plan 9, and I'm wondering if veteran 9'ers have
any suggestions for novel userspace concepts intro'd by Plan 9 that
should be included/documented or that still need to be ported to Linux
from Plan 9. These ideas don't necessarily need to be unique to Plan
9, as long as they are different from the typical GNU/Linux fare.

Some of the things I have discovered so far:
* Drawing windows on the screen via rio and mouse button 2
* Mouse chording
* Sending things via plumber
* Majority of text can be edited (i.e. old commands in the shell, etc)

Thanks,
robb

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Jacob Todd]

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Private namespaces.

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Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[dexen deVries]

On Saturday 02 July 2011 18:15:17 Robert Seaton wrote:
> (...)
> Some of the things I have discovered so far:
> * Sending things via plumber
> (...)


you've made me realize i've been using plumber-like stuff before.

back on KDE 3.5, there was that `dcop' thingie that i've employed for plumbing
actions and selected text. it worked, it made my day every day back then. dcop
had both ease of use and natural introspection.


pity dcop is dead now, and dbus can't even deliver the eulogy :-(



disclaimer: i'm not a plan 9 person for any viable value of `p9 person'


--
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

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Jack Johnson]

On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 8:29 AM, dexen deVries <dexen.devries@gmail.com> wrote:
> disclaimer: i'm not a plan 9 person for any viable value of `p9 person'

I'm in the same boat, but I aspire to be in the other boat. :)

-Jack

[9fans] To p9 or not to p9? (was: novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9)

[dexen deVries]

On Saturday 02 July 2011 19:24:07 Jack Johnson wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 8:29 AM, dexen deVries <dexen.devries@gmail.com>
wrote:
> > disclaimer: i'm not a plan 9 person for any viable value of `p9 person'
>
> I'm in the same boat, but I aspire to be in the other boat. :)

i'm with you there ;-)


plan 9 seems to be where the action is those days. and i mean both the
software ecosystem, the people that push it forward, and the mindset itself.


--
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

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Eli Cohen]

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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.  maybe you could use grsec to limit the access to gentoo's "file
system" at a per-process level.  This would be somewhat similar to what
plan9 does, but you'd have to also find a good way to bind a directory
elsewhere in the tree at a per-process level, unified with what was already
there (aka, hopefully NOT like mount -o bind).  This is only the tip of the
iceberg; plan9 does this per-process filesystem namespacing to set up a good
environment for a system which adheres to the orginal unix "philosophies"
such as, everything has a "file" to represent it.  linux does this well for
data on the disk, device nodes, and whatever gets put in /proc.  it does not
do this, generally, for something like an email message.  a good plan9
program, however, is likely to do this.
as an example of the power of this concept, `% topng < /dev/screen >
screenshot.png' will use the relatively simple program topng to convert the
*file* /dev/screen into the *file* screenshot.png.
One major difference is X11.  In plan9, the system handles the graphics more
directly.  network export of windows is handled differently.  it might be
interesting to make a rio for linux which draws directly to /dev/fb0.  Or it
might be better to convert /dev/fb0 to a /dev/screen on linux, even in
userspace, and then more or less use rio for plan9.  performance might be an
issue, but plan9 people are still waiting on 3d graphics if they even care
enough to wait...

-Eli

On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 10:24 AM, Jack Johnson <knapjack@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 8:29 AM, dexen deVries <dexen.devries@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > disclaimer: i'm not a plan 9 person for any viable value of `p9 person'
>
> I'm in the same boat, but I aspire to be in the other boat. :)
>
> -Jack
>
>

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Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[dexen deVries]

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

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[simon softnet]

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Plan 9 is good because it is a system designed with such principles in mind
from the start.
I don't see any meaning in Linux "adopting" some set of plan 9
commands...vanity..

On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 8:36 PM, dexen deVries <dexen.devries@gmail.com>wrote:

> 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
>
>

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Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX)]

> I don't see any meaning in Linux "adopting" some set of plan 9
> commands...

Have you read the source code for their cat(1) ???

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[simon softnet]

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Which distro's version of "text utils" ? hehe ..
Let's not start an anti-linux flame war now ...

On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 1:31 AM, Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) <
lyndon@orthanc.ca> wrote:

> > I don't see any meaning in Linux "adopting" some set of plan 9
> > commands...
>
> Have you read the source code for their cat(1) ???
>
>
>

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Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Connor Lane Smith]

Hey,

On 2 July 2011 19:36, dexen deVries <dexen.devries@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

Yeah, clone() is afaik compatible with rfork(), so long as you have
CAP_SYS_ADMIN. Similarly mount() and bind().

> afaik, x11 is considered an afterthought, bolted onto POSIX systems, and thus
> not integrated all that well.

I think what I'd say is the most "novel userspace paradigm" in Plan 9
is its pervasive synthetic filesystems. You have FTP filesystems and
so on with FUSE now, but writing something as flexible (technically)
as Rio still requires something other than FUSE. But more importantly,
since Plan 9 *started* with those synthetic filesystems they're used
everywhere, whereas they're pretty uncommon in Linux etc. It would be
nice if web browsers used a kind of webfs, and so on.

It's unfortunate that clients for dedicated filesystems, like Rio and
Acme, need to understand the layout of the directory tree, but that's
difficult to work around. Still, FUSE has extended attributes, so you
could e.g. configure a window manager just by setting attributes on
the 'window manager filesystem' root directory.

I know bloated GNU projects are generally frowned upon, but I think
it's quite interesting that GNOME's GVFS allows, afaict, per-process
synthetic filesystems. But clearly that's extremely ugly compared to
Plan 9.

On 3 July 2011 00:31, Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX)
<lyndon@orthanc.ca> wrote:
> Have you read the source code for their cat(1) ???

You know Linux != GNU, right?

cls

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[erik quanstrom]

> I know bloated GNU projects are generally frowned upon, but I think
> it's quite interesting that GNOME's GVFS allows, afaict, per-process
> synthetic filesystems. But clearly that's extremely ugly compared to
> Plan 9.

and yet there's a key difference.  this is a private joke amongst gnome
processes.  i can give "file" references to gnome programs like http://example.com
to a gnome proc.  cat(1) won't accept the same reference.  i don't know
how the underpinings work, but i would imagine ls -l http://example.com would
result in some hilarity.  the worst bit is there's no sense of a global name space.
http:// feels all vms-ey.

- erik

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Connor Lane Smith]

On 3 July 2011 12:55, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> and yet there's a key difference.  this is a private joke amongst gnome
> processes.  i can give "file" references to gnome programs like http://example.com
> to a gnome proc.  cat(1) won't accept the same reference.

Well yes, it would only make sense in an OS which only uses GIO,
rather than standard Unix IO.

cls

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[erik quanstrom]

On Sun Jul  3 08:34:26 EDT 2011, cls@lubutu.com wrote:
> On 3 July 2011 12:55, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> > and yet there's a key difference.  this is a private joke amongst gnome
> > processes.  i can give "file" references to gnome programs like http://example.com
> > to a gnome proc.  cat(1) won't accept the same reference.
>
> Well yes, it would only make sense in an OS which only uses GIO,
> rather than standard Unix IO.

what i was trying to say is that even in that case, i think gio is a weak
model.  it goes back to the vms/dos days where the method of access
becomes part of the name.  that is, i need to know if it's accessed via
http or ftp or local to access a file.  further, i can't have a path like
/usr/quanstro/remote/http://my.other.site/some/path.  i have to attach
devices at the root.  and i'm pretty sure i can't modify what's accessable
without recompiling everything that uses the gnome vfs stuff.

in short, it's more a clumsy hack than an i/o model.

plan 9 has better answers in all three cases, despite being much older.

- erik

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Connor Lane Smith]

On 3 July 2011 13:51, erik quanstrom <quanstro@labs.coraid.com> wrote:
> what i was trying to say is that even in that case, i think gio is a weak
> model.  it goes back to the vms/dos days where the method of access
> becomes part of the name.  that is, i need to know if it's accessed via
> http or ftp or local to access a file.  further, i can't have a path like
> /usr/quanstro/remote/http://my.other.site/some/path.  i have to attach
> devices at the root.

Yeah, that's true. Still, that's not *too* different from Plan 9
binding: you have to know the protocol in order to mount a drive,
after all. I know very little about GVFS, admittedly, but it would
make sense if you *could* run the equivalent to Plan 9's bind(), so
you'd say,

% bind http://example.net/some/path ~/example

That's pretty much the same as running the appropriate fileserver and
then binding the result, only GVFS works out what daemon you need.

> and i'm pretty sure i can't modify what's accessable
> without recompiling everything that uses the gnome vfs stuff.

I think you can add more filesystems without recompiling anything,
though I don't know for sure.

I think it works quite well conceptually, though I'm really not a fan
of linking everything into DBus and so on. Still, in terms of bringing
Plan 9 to a "wider audience", GNOME might be a way. Of course, it
would be rather a lot nicer if Linux could just work out its issues
and stop relying on CAP_SYS_ADMIN, but that doesn't seem likely.

On the topic of Plan 9, I was thinking an interesting fileserver would
be one which, if you access '/uri/http:/example.net', looks up in a
table the fileserver required for 'http:', and hands the request over
automatically. That way you get the same as GVFS, only without the
DBus snafu. I don't know if anyone's already done that.

Thanks,
cls

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Iruatã Souza]

On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 8:06 AM, Connor Lane Smith <cls@lubutu.com> wrote:
> Still, FUSE has extended attributes, so you
> could e.g. configure a window manager just by setting attributes on
> the 'window manager filesystem' root directory.
>

something like extended attributes can be accomplished by layering file servers.
iru

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

> I think what I'd say is the most "novel userspace paradigm" in Plan 9
> is its pervasive synthetic filesystems. You have FTP filesystems and
> so on with FUSE now, but writing something as flexible (technically)
> as Rio still requires something other than FUSE. But more importantly,
> since Plan 9 *started* with those synthetic filesystems they're used
> everywhere, whereas they're pretty uncommon in Linux etc. It would be
> nice if web browsers used a kind of webfs, and so on.

Actually, what this discussion keep pointing out is the elegance of the
Plan9 authentication model vs. UNIX's superuser scheme.  It's the lack
of a superuser that makes the whole namespace paradigm work in the first
place.

--lyndon

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[dexen deVries]

On Sunday 03 July 2011 19:57:16 Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:
> Actually, what this discussion keep pointing out is the elegance of the
> Plan9 authentication model vs. UNIX's superuser scheme.  It's the lack
> of a superuser that makes the whole namespace paradigm work in the first
> place.


authentication is a system component by the very nature of the problem it
solves, and keeping it off-line in any way (superuser counts as off-line most
of the time) or high-latency (superuser again) is a significant problem.

in UNIX you have a (non-turing complete) program deployed by the superuser
(contents of /etc/{passwd,group}); any protocol (in the broad sense) that
makes use of authentication has to take that into account.

the current www environment also seems to shifts towards authentication based
on OpenID and similar, which i'd liken to factotum in a broad sense.

--
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

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[erik quanstrom]

On Sun Jul  3 13:58:49 EDT 2011, lyndon@orthanc.ca wrote:
> > I think what I'd say is the most "novel userspace paradigm" in Plan 9
> > is its pervasive synthetic filesystems. You have FTP filesystems and
> > so on with FUSE now, but writing something as flexible (technically)
> > as Rio still requires something other than FUSE. But more importantly,
> > since Plan 9 *started* with those synthetic filesystems they're used
> > everywhere, whereas they're pretty uncommon in Linux etc. It would be
> > nice if web browsers used a kind of webfs, and so on.
>
> Actually, what this discussion keep pointing out is the elegance of the
> Plan9 authentication model vs. UNIX's superuser scheme.  It's the lack
> of a superuser that makes the whole namespace paradigm work in the first
> place.

why do you think that the lack of a super user make per-process namespaces
work?

- erik

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

> why do you think that the lack of a super user make per-process namespaces
> work?

The fact that you own the hardware you are running on means there's no
need to provide enhanced priv's (such as root) to protect things like
mount(2).  And if you do something stupid, the only damage you can do is
to yourself.  Just look at all the hoops FUSE must jump through to keep
people from being able to bodge the entire system.

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[erik quanstrom]

> > why do you think that the lack of a super user make per-process namespaces
> > work?
> 
> The fact that you own the hardware you are running on means there's no 
> need to provide enhanced priv's (such as root) to protect things like 
> mount(2).  

that's a property of per-process namespaces, not the lack of a root user.

in this sense plan 9 has a limited root—the hostowner that owns the devices
on a machine and is trusted wrt the authentication protocol.

> And if you do something stupid, the only damage you can do is 
> to yourself.  Just look at all the hoops FUSE must jump through to keep 
> people from being able to bodge the entire system.

for some reason, the linux guys have convinced themselves that per process
namespaces can't be done without security problems.  i see no reason that
pam couldn't do plan 9 style authentication with a process running on behalf
of root with its own namespace.

they've changed everything else in unix, why hold so tightly to the clearly
unhelpful ideas?

- erik

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[andrey mirtchovski]

> they've changed everything else in unix, why hold so tightly to the clearly
> unhelpful ideas?

because it's a cult. things don't make sense in cults. i encountered
the following quote the other day, which finally convinced me. you
can't rationalize things with this sort of thinking:

"It is out of question that git is becoming the standard tool to
manage code. It is incredible how clever Linus was in inventing it."
http://www.dev-articles.com/article/Git-and-Linus-431001

oh, and there's the whole 'user-level filesystems are bad, mmmkay?!' debacle:

http://blog.gluster.com/2011/06/linus-torvalds-doesnt-understand-user-space-storage/

their ecosystem won't allow any synthetic filesystems past /sys
anytime soon, nevermind the auth bit.

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[ron minnich]

following this thread.

do something interesting.

- build a system with only plan9port binaries

- use the cap device in linux to authenticate yourself
as a user

- have init setuid to that user.

- figure out how to make linux work with no root user

Anything else is likely to be not that interesting.

ron

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[andrew zerger]

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More info for people looking from the same vantage point as me..

This document is something I am about to read.. (I wasn't sure what a cap
device in linux was, this was the most relevant google result.)

http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/research.google.com/en/us/pubs/archive/34433.pdf


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Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[andrew zerger]

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Its a pdf about plan9 authentication in linux by one Ashwin Ganti, sorry for
the double post.

On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 3:38 PM, andrew zerger <rhoyerboat@gmail.com> wrote:

> More info for people looking from the same vantage point as me..
>
> This document is something I am about to read.. (I wasn't sure what a cap
> device in linux was, this was the most relevant google result.)
>
>
> http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/research.google.com/en/us/pubs/archive/34433.pdf
>
>
> --
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>
>
>


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Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[andrey mirtchovski]

as a person who has spent the last three years exclusively in
user-level filesystems on Linux, I can safely say this -- my biggest
problem during that time has been the root user. from dealing with
programs which allow only root-level access (xen tools) to dealing
with programs who explicitly disallow root (PBS/torque) much more of
my time has been spent twiddling with permissions, sudo config scripts
and everything else involving root than actually writing the synthetic
user-level file system and getting it running.

it appears that every cluster of programs used to do anything
systems-y in Linux has a special view of uid 0 -- some revere it,
others fear it, but no two treat it the same way. only one piece of
software said "chgrp my device file to whoever you want to use it and
be free". it felt very Plan9-ey.

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Charles Forsyth]

>something like extended attributes can be accomplished by layering file servers.

or simply make a directory

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Yaroslav]

one might find http://www.glendix.org/ project interesting

2011/7/2 Robert Seaton <seatonr@dupage.edu>:
> Hello, 9fans!
> ...

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Robert Seaton]

> one might find http://www.glendix.org/ project interesting

The project actually already uses a glendix patched kernel and much of
my upcoming work will be focused on porting more of Plan 9's syscalls
to the Linux kernel so that more native Plan 9 apps can be run on
Linux. :)

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[simon softnet]

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Please, don't let plan 9 and linux be interrelated in the future in any way
...
Future plan 9 users have the opportunity to experience novel user-space
paradigms.
Why do they have to be sucked into the linux world?

Simon

On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Robert Seaton <seatonr@dupage.edu> wrote:

> > one might find http://www.glendix.org/ project interesting
>
> The project actually already uses a glendix patched kernel and much of
> my upcoming work will be focused on porting more of Plan 9's syscalls
> to the Linux kernel so that more native Plan 9 apps can be run on
> Linux. :)
>
>

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Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[David Leimbach]

I don't see why anyone combining ideas from Plan 9 into Linux hurts
Plan 9 as long as Plan 9 continues to exist.

On Saturday, July 16, 2011, simon softnet <ph.softnet@gmail.com> wrote:
> Please, don't let plan 9 and linux be interrelated in the future in any way ...Future plan 9 users have the opportunity to experience novel user-space paradigms.Why do they have to be sucked into the linux world?
>
> Simon
>
> On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Robert Seaton <seatonr@dupage.edu> wrote:
>
>> one might find http://www.glendix.org/ project interesting
>
> The project actually already uses a glendix patched kernel and much of
> my upcoming work will be focused on porting more of Plan 9's syscalls
> to the Linux kernel so that more native Plan 9 apps can be run on
> Linux. :)
>
>
>
>

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[simon softnet]

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Because it's more likely that users will settle with linux+some plan 9
features
instead of with pure plan 9

Simon

On Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 9:12 PM, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't see why anyone combining ideas from Plan 9 into Linux hurts
> Plan 9 as long as Plan 9 continues to exist.
>
> On Saturday, July 16, 2011, simon softnet <ph.softnet@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Please, don't let plan 9 and linux be interrelated in the future in any
> way ...Future plan 9 users have the opportunity to experience novel
> user-space paradigms.Why do they have to be sucked into the linux world?
> >
> > Simon
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Robert Seaton <seatonr@dupage.edu>
> wrote:
> >
> >> one might find http://www.glendix.org/ project interesting
> >
> > The project actually already uses a glendix patched kernel and much of
> > my upcoming work will be focused on porting more of Plan 9's syscalls
> > to the Linux kernel so that more native Plan 9 apps can be run on
> > Linux. :)
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>

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Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On Sat, 16 Jul 2011 21:17:14 +0200
simon softnet <ph.softnet@gmail.com> wrote:

> Because it's more likely that users will settle with linux+some plan 9
> features
> instead of with pure plan 9

Most of us have to anyway.

For now...

>
> Simon
>
> On Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 9:12 PM, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I don't see why anyone combining ideas from Plan 9 into Linux hurts
> > Plan 9 as long as Plan 9 continues to exist.
> >
> > On Saturday, July 16, 2011, simon softnet <ph.softnet@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Please, don't let plan 9 and linux be interrelated in the future in any
> > way ...Future plan 9 users have the opportunity to experience novel
> > user-space paradigms.Why do they have to be sucked into the linux world?
> > >
> > > Simon
> > >
> > > On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Robert Seaton <seatonr@dupage.edu>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >> one might find http://www.glendix.org/ project interesting
> > >
> > > The project actually already uses a glendix patched kernel and much of
> > > my upcoming work will be focused on porting more of Plan 9's syscalls
> > > to the Linux kernel so that more native Plan 9 apps can be run on
> > > Linux. :)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[simon softnet]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1589 bytes --]

If it wasn't for this cancerous web applications ordeal, I would be happy
with OpenBSD & rio,
and maybe with pure Plan 9 in the future ..

Simon

On Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 9:32 PM, Ethan Grammatikidis <eekee57@fastmail.fm>wrote:

> On Sat, 16 Jul 2011 21:17:14 +0200
> simon softnet <ph.softnet@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Because it's more likely that users will settle with linux+some plan 9
> > features
> > instead of with pure plan 9
>
> Most of us have to anyway.
>
> For now...
>
> >
> > Simon
> >
> > On Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 9:12 PM, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > I don't see why anyone combining ideas from Plan 9 into Linux hurts
> > > Plan 9 as long as Plan 9 continues to exist.
> > >
> > > On Saturday, July 16, 2011, simon softnet <ph.softnet@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > > Please, don't let plan 9 and linux be interrelated in the future in
> any
> > > way ...Future plan 9 users have the opportunity to experience novel
> > > user-space paradigms.Why do they have to be sucked into the linux
> world?
> > > >
> > > > Simon
> > > >
> > > > On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Robert Seaton <seatonr@dupage.edu>
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> one might find http://www.glendix.org/ project interesting
> > > >
> > > > The project actually already uses a glendix patched kernel and much
> of
> > > > my upcoming work will be focused on porting more of Plan 9's syscalls
> > > > to the Linux kernel so that more native Plan 9 apps can be run on
> > > > Linux. :)
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
>
>

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Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On Sat, 16 Jul 2011 23:10:24 +0200
simon softnet <ph.softnet@gmail.com> wrote:

> If it wasn't for this cancerous web applications ordeal, I would be happy
> with OpenBSD & rio,
> and maybe with pure Plan 9 in the future ..

You'd be missing the best of Plan 9. Actually, I really feel we already have Plan 9 merged into Linux and (iirc) OpenBSD exactly as far as it needs to be, in the form of the frequently but underservedly ignored 9vx. I've always thought p9p's plumber could help 9vx communicate with the host system, but never actually tried it.

>
> Simon
>
> On Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 9:32 PM, Ethan Grammatikidis <eekee57@fastmail.fm>wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 16 Jul 2011 21:17:14 +0200
> > simon softnet <ph.softnet@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Because it's more likely that users will settle with linux+some plan 9
> > > features
> > > instead of with pure plan 9
> >
> > Most of us have to anyway.
> >
> > For now...
> >
> > >
> > > Simon
> > >
> > > On Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 9:12 PM, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > I don't see why anyone combining ideas from Plan 9 into Linux hurts
> > > > Plan 9 as long as Plan 9 continues to exist.
> > > >
> > > > On Saturday, July 16, 2011, simon softnet <ph.softnet@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > > > Please, don't let plan 9 and linux be interrelated in the future in
> > any
> > > > way ...Future plan 9 users have the opportunity to experience novel
> > > > user-space paradigms.Why do they have to be sucked into the linux
> > world?
> > > > >
> > > > > Simon
> > > > >
> > > > > On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Robert Seaton <seatonr@dupage.edu>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >> one might find http://www.glendix.org/ project interesting
> > > > >
> > > > > The project actually already uses a glendix patched kernel and much
> > of
> > > > > my upcoming work will be focused on porting more of Plan 9's syscalls
> > > > > to the Linux kernel so that more native Plan 9 apps can be run on
> > > > > Linux. :)
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> >
> >

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Eugene Gorodinsky]

CLONE_NEWNS?

2011/7/2 Jacob Todd <jaketodd422@gmail.com>:
> Private namespaces.

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Charles Forsyth]

>CLONE_NEWNS?

privileged processes only

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Nicolas Bercher]

On 03/07/2011 23:08, andrey mirtchovski wrote:
>> they've changed everything else in unix, why hold so tightly to the clearly
>> >  unhelpful ideas?
> because it's a cult. things don't make sense in cults. i encountered
> the following quote the other day, which finally convinced me.

OK, maybe this is about cult, but the first paper I read about Plan 9 mentioned that Plan
9 was born because it was too much complicated to fix Unix.  So, I see Plan 9 as a fork in
the whole Unix history.  The rest of the *nix OSes are just pursuing their own ways with
"old fashioned concepts" that are hard to remove, or maybe impossible.

Nicolas


PS: Andrey, I'm currently reading your master thesis.  I feel the same pleasure reading it
as reading Linus stuff, because it is well written.  Linux is going his own way, with root
and without private namaespaces, and still, I'm happy with that.

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Eugene Gorodinsky]

That would be the only problem, yeah.

2011/7/17 Charles Forsyth <forsyth@terzarima.net>:
>>CLONE_NEWNS?
>
> privileged processes only
>
>

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Balwinder S Dheeman]

On 07/16/2011 04:23 PM, simon softnet wrote:
> Please, don't let plan 9 and linux be interrelated in the future in any
> way ...
> Future plan 9 users have the opportunity to experience novel user-space
> paradigms.
> Why do they have to be sucked into the linux world?

I think, we can govern a revolution, yet can't stop an evolution; try
finding how and, or why Coherent (operating system), Minix and then
GNU/Linux were created.

IMHO, we need to know and, or learn how to pull a mob or engage masses
into a development, launch, marketing, feedback and rectification
process life cycle of a product.

See also,
comp.os.linux.misc - Re: Choosing a distro http://bit.ly/hEq1Z

> On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Robert Seaton <seatonr@dupage.edu
> <mailto:seatonr@dupage.edu>> wrote:
>
>      > one might find http://www.glendix.org/ project interesting
>
>     The project actually already uses a glendix patched kernel and much of
>     my upcoming work will be focused on porting more of Plan 9's syscalls
>     to the Linux kernel so that more native Plan 9 apps can be run on
>     Linux. :)

--
Balwinder S "bdheeman" Dheeman
(http://werc.homelinux.net/contact/)

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[dexen deVries]

On Monday 18 of July 2011 11:04:51 Balwinder S Dheeman wrote:
> On 07/16/2011 04:23 PM, simon softnet wrote:
> > Please, don't let plan 9 and linux be interrelated in the future in any
> > way ...
> > Future plan 9 users have the opportunity to experience novel user-space
> > paradigms.
> > Why do they have to be sucked into the linux world?

+1

 
> I think, we can govern a revolution, yet can't stop an evolution; try
> finding how and, or why Coherent (operating system), Minix and then
> GNU/Linux were created.
> 
> IMHO, we need to know and, or learn how to pull a mob or engage masses
> into a development, launch, marketing, feedback and rectification
> process life cycle of a product.


noob-friendly implies hacker-unfriendly. or at least boring. no formal proof 
available, but enough of anecdotes is close to data.

IMHO linux tries to appeal to wide audience to force hardware vendors to 
release drivers or specs, and software vendors to ensure interoperability. we 
may want to be able to piggy-back plan9 kernel on linux kernel -- because 
linux has drivers for most chips out there. just have userspace go through 
plan 9 kernel all the time.

once that's done, we don't need to cater to joe public /that/ much.


-- 
dexen deVries

[[[↓][→]]]

For example, if the first thing in the file is:
   <?kzy irefvba="1.0" rapbqvat="ebg13"?>
an XML parser will recognize that the document is stored in the traditional 
ROT13 encoding.

(( Joe English, http://www.flightlab.com/~joe/sgml/faq-not.txt ))

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Charles Forsyth]

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that's certainly a restriction, but a bigger one is that name spaces
really come into their own when many, even most, resources are represented
through the name space, and it makes sense to remap the name space to change
the actual resources accessed through a name. on Linux, significant things
are accessed through special system calls and mechanisms, and not through
its name space.

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From: Eugene Gorodinsky <e.gorodinsky@gmail.com>
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
Subject: Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2011 11:32:17 +0300
Message-ID: <CAPTfE6V2EVBV-npds5y7GzB2MVVeF=ovBVso+VVyjYHL0cnFNg@mail.gmail.com>

That would be the only problem, yeah.

2011/7/17 Charles Forsyth <forsyth@terzarima.net>:
>>CLONE_NEWNS?
>
> privileged processes only
>
>

Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9

[Eugene Gorodinsky]

One could probably create several fileservers that provide access to
the syscalls through the file interface, run them while the system
still is in single user mode, then restrict access to those system
calls through the capabilities system. I haven't tried it though, so I
can't tell for sure, but, from the looks of it, it is possible.

2011/7/18 Charles Forsyth <forsyth@terzarima.net>:
> that's certainly a restriction, but a bigger one is that name spaces
> really come into their own when many, even most, resources are represented
> through the name space, and it makes sense to remap the name space to change
> the actual resources accessed through a name. on Linux, significant things
> are accessed through special system calls and mechanisms, and not through
> its name space.
>
> ---------- Пересылаемое сообщение ----------
> From: Eugene Gorodinsky <e.gorodinsky@gmail.com>
> To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
> Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2011 11:32:17 +0300
> Subject: Re: [9fans] novel userspace paradigms introduced by plan 9
> That would be the only problem, yeah.
>
> 2011/7/17 Charles Forsyth <forsyth@terzarima.net>:
>>>CLONE_NEWNS?
>>
>> privileged processes only
>>
>>
>