From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <4D2F5B74.5070908@gmail.com> Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2011 12:07:16 -0800 From: John Floren User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.16) Gecko/20101227 Icedove/3.0.11 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology Topicbox-Message-UUID: 9700ffc0-ead6-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 01/13/2011 11:40 AM, Duke Normandin wrote: > On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, David Leimbach wrote: > >> On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 10:38 AM, Duke Normandin wrote: >> >>> Just read: >>> >>> http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/1/0intro >>> >>> [quote] >>> Plan 9 is a distributed computing environment assembled from separate >>> machines acting as terminals, CPU servers, and file servers.[/quote] >>> >>> Does the above imply, that ideally Plan9 should be running on a LAN? >>> Not so good as the OS on a stand-alone box? >>> -- >>> Duke >>> >>> A lot of us with just one machine to spare tend to install the system, then >> build and configure a CPU/Auth/FS server on one box, or even just a VMWare >> or other virtualization instance. > > OK! So it _is_ possible to run a "full" Plan9 OS in one partition, on > one machine? > >> With plan 9 you do not have to run your CPU, authentication and file system >> parts of your computing system all in one place > > I understand. In bygone days, Unix shops ran exactly that way. A > central file server box, with terminals 9or workstations) connected to > it. > >> From there we can log into our plan 9 server using unix programs like >> drawterm, or even 9vx, each of which are more or less ports of Plan 9 to >> other OSes with different pros and cons. > > You bet! > >> With plan 9 you do not have to run your CPU, authentication and file >> system parts of your computing system all in one place, and really, >> you can just run a terminal and play around with that to get started >> if you like. > > I don't have any extra boxes to play around with at the moment. So if > I can let one partition be Plan9 - in all it's glory - so much the > better. If you only have one computer available and have to dual-boot, you can actually do pretty good with a simple, standalone terminal (this is what gets installed by default). You can then get an account at one or two of the public Plan 9 servers and connect from your terminal. If you have a second computer available that you can devote to Plan 9 (a Pentium II with 128 MB of RAM will perform admirably), I recommend that you find the instructions on the wiki for setting up a standalone CPU server (http://www.plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Configuring_a_standalone_CPU_server/index.html) and follow them. You will end up with a Plan 9 cpu/auth/file server all on one box, to which you can then connect from a Plan 9 terminal, 9vx on Linux, or drawterm on Linux/OS X/Windows. Personally, I've run at least half a dozen Plan 9 servers over the years, always installing a full cpu/auth/file server, usually on any PC I can scrape together out of the parts bin or the loading dock. Then I just connect from my desktop using drawterm, or I use the Thinkpad with Plan 9 installed as a terminal. Good luck; Plan 9 is a very fun system. John -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJNL1tzAAoJEJ9D0dbIh7TLDcIIAJFy25HLbQaINe/1wsomA2d4 Ha8xzD/q0VTndGUI7D+qYQ/EdCr3WwEmTzZQTBho3Ykm0DEnYgLAxSyqiZz/2slP vGamc/5NQfNfiRohIDiXhnuqvBrarRaunHtjHtlBiU23irPR0twSOX6c7syogeEv /2rrSgVYnFKlfuQBE/tdiVk1maaqqveQSXCzbOKdt91B2qGTotFmgaP///1H5cYe NJk3Zj4U5w/4yVbxLYmkIv9SRQpiJMpEvdAy0sul5pYjGPhd6NnBcsepOwB12f0E Ef/lXHVK6XgXk0I8ptWZbk0Lj6Ddmb28sTS2kdnbhTa15KaMPzwhVWedx0yrdo8= =5J9Z -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----