From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:17:48 +0000 From: pavlovetsky@gmail.com Message-ID: <4882fd9e-9403-4a9d-942e-343e6531444e@i3g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: Subject: [9fans] Re: Building GCC Topicbox-Message-UUID: 38cd767a-ead3-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 On Jan 25, 4:32 pm, brant...@coraid.com (Brantley Coile) wrote: > > On Jan 25, 2008 7:55 AM, wrote: > >> it really does not make any sense to write web browser from the ground > >> up, if there is a workable version. > > > here we go again... > > why use Plan 9 at all if every mainstream operating system is 'workable'? > > i guess workable is not the point. > > > iru > > Plan 9 is not, and should not in my opinion, be a Linux > replacment, Unix replacement, MS Windows replacement, and > so on. If you really want Plan 9 to dominate the world > and see all your friends use it every day, invent a killer > application for it. That's the only way you can shove > existing systems of their pedestals. Making Plan 9 > exactly like Linux, or Windows, or son on, will not > cause people to leave the real Linux or Windows and use > Plan 9. Lack of a browser is not why only the select > few use Plan 9. It's a culture thing. > > If you want Linux you know where to find it. My main point was that there should be a sort of extension to the core system in form of, say, linuxemu driven applications and/or ported applications whatever their origins are. The important part is to keep the core system independent of these ports. I like the idea behind linuxemu even more, because there is nothing to port and sometimes you have just binary without access to the code. This is "applications on demand" model, when you have it the time you need it, locally. You use application, get results, write them down and go as usual, in native Plan 9 environment. Specifically to my situation, it sounds great. Instead of putting mainstream applications and Plan 9 system in different boxes and use network to get certain job done, I would like to see Plan 9 system having elegant way to run non native binaries when needed locally without integrating them into the core system. This approach can be pursued either by hardware emulation, like QEMU does, or by operating system kernel emulation, like linuxemu does, putting kernel into userspace. I agree about culture thing, as you put it, and I believe that the world would be a better place if every computer science student be given thorough course on it.