Re: Again: (self)hosted Plan9? Was: [9fans] extending xen to allow

[Lucio De Re <lucio@proxima.alt.za>]

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I seem to have long range objectives: I believe that Plan 9 could
make a better virtualisation host than the current choice for the job
and that we ought to sell to the world that it is worth (a) adopting
the Plan 9 paradigm for hosted device drivers and (b) developing all
future physical device drivers to this paradigm.

Putting it in a different way, consider replacing GRUB with 9LOAD as
first step.  Then extend 9LOAD so that it somehow contains the correct
device drivers for the particular platform and use it to boot the next
stage which accesses device drivers Plan 9-style.  Now, if we can get
the hordes of device driver implementors to focus on this approach,
Plan 9's greatest shortcoming (and all other Open Source OSes's)
suddenly disappears.

Sure, there are efficiency considerations to take into account, as
well as the unlikelihood of persuading Lunix developers to switch
allegiances, but a concerted effort to head that way is certainly not
doomed before even starting, at least not unless I'm subconsciously
ignoring some obvious obstacle.

This idea has been bugging me ever since rminnich started making
noises about Xen and I was tempted to look at it.  It bothers me that
Xen is designed very much with Linux as its model, not just its
primary target.  My claim is that a design founded on a Plan 9
foundation would be almost guaranteed to be more successful.  That's
what I call "faith", I suppose.

++L

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From: "Steve Simon" <steve@quintile.net>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: Again: (self)hosted Plan9? Was: [9fans] extending xen to allow
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 11:21:55 +0000
Message-ID: <e1e1d3e3266ab5e656eabdae89aa3030@quintile.net>

I am keen enough to try and get some hardware documentation, and maybe
even have a go at codeing a/some drivers for plan9.

I only use hardware which plan9 is compatible with so I don't know
which way to look. At IWP9 modern, inexpensive SATA cards where
mentioned as somwhere we had a gap in our coverage.

Is this all we need? Can anyone suggest a card that fits the bill?

how about modern laptops, we have a ⅞ finished centrino driver which
needs to be finished off, but what graphics chipset is common enough
to make it worthwhile chasing the manufacturer, is nvidia still king?
Do they have weird interrupt controllers, southbridges etc which will
cause problems?

As usual I promise nothing but I will do what I can.

-Steve