Re: [9fans] Ugly Q, I admit

["Russ Cox" <rsc@plan9.bell-labs.com>]

> would it be easy/hard/impossible to write a linux emulator for
> Plan9? (however I don't like to spoil plan9 with such things, I
> still have a plethora of linux prgs whose authors don't like to
> release sources... sigh. (windoze deleted 4+ yrs ago, my linux disk
> sleeps silently in my bookshelf... don't like to bring it into life
> more frequently than absolutely necessary))

Writing a program that runs the binaries but
intercepts the system calls and handles them itself
is easy.  I did this a few years ago.  The only wart
in my emulator is that Plan 9's lack of mmap makes
loading programs a little clumsier than it might be.
But I can run hello world, both statically and dynamically
linked.

The real problem is what to do at that point.
Any substantial program depends on other context,
like having an X11 server, or a cursor-addressed
terminal.  Running things like Wine require kernel
support that we just don't have.

In the end, it's not clear to me that it would be much
easier or more convenient than just running a Linux
system.

What kind of programs did you have in mind?

Russ