[9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[Daniel Soderstrom]

Can Plan 9 be installed on a x86 Mac Mini? I'd like to have a play
with Plan 9, but don't want a ugly bitsa PC taking up the space. I
should be able to do everything remotely on the Plan 9 box just using
ssh or x windows?

Finally, the possibilities of Plan 9 seem really intriging, has
anything new and different been done on Plan 9 which could only be
supported by its architecture?

Cheers,

Daniel.
Perth, Australia.

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[David Leimbach]

You'd need a way to boot it first of all.

No x86 based mac has BIOS.  It's all EFI, and without the BIOS
backward compatibility modules.

Someone put together a bunch of stuff for booting Windows XP Pro and
has an installation method, but it is far from easy or even supported
by anyone.  It would likely work for Plan 9 as well.

Best bet is to wait until Parallels put's out their new virtualization
product for Mac OS X, it will use the new Intel Virtualization
Hardware and, if the claims are all true, you'll be able to run pretty
much any OS at close to native speed on top of Mac OS X using this new
software.

http://www.parallels.com

So far, looks like the software is only 50 bucks.

There is a free demo for linux users, but I don't have the hardware in
question on anything but a Mac.

Dual booting really bites it anyway IMO.

Dave

On 4/5/06, Daniel Soderstrom <snaggs@mac.com> wrote:
> Can Plan 9 be installed on a x86 Mac Mini? I'd like to have a play
> with Plan 9, but don't want a ugly bitsa PC taking up the space. I
> should be able to do everything remotely on the Plan 9 box just using
> ssh or x windows?
>
> Finally, the possibilities of Plan 9 seem really intriging, has
> anything new and different been done on Plan 9 which could only be
> supported by its architecture?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Daniel.
> Perth, Australia.
>

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[Gabriel Diaz]

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Hello

may be this is interesting :)

http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

gabi



On 4/5/06, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> You'd need a way to boot it first of all.
>
> No x86 based mac has BIOS.  It's all EFI, and without the BIOS
> backward compatibility modules.
>
> Someone put together a bunch of stuff for booting Windows XP Pro and
> has an installation method, but it is far from easy or even supported
> by anyone.  It would likely work for Plan 9 as well.
>
> Best bet is to wait until Parallels put's out their new virtualization
> product for Mac OS X, it will use the new Intel Virtualization
> Hardware and, if the claims are all true, you'll be able to run pretty
> much any OS at close to native speed on top of Mac OS X using this new
> software.
>
> http://www.parallels.com
>
> So far, looks like the software is only 50 bucks.
>
> There is a free demo for linux users, but I don't have the hardware in
> question on anything but a Mac.
>
> Dual booting really bites it anyway IMO.
>
> Dave
>
> On 4/5/06, Daniel Soderstrom <snaggs@mac.com> wrote:
> > Can Plan 9 be installed on a x86 Mac Mini? I'd like to have a play
> > with Plan 9, but don't want a ugly bitsa PC taking up the space. I
> > should be able to do everything remotely on the Plan 9 box just using
> > ssh or x windows?
> >
> > Finally, the possibilities of Plan 9 seem really intriging, has
> > anything new and different been done on Plan 9 which could only be
> > supported by its architecture?
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Daniel.
> > Perth, Australia.
> >
>

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Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[David Leimbach]

On 4/5/06, Gabriel Diaz <gabidiaz@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello
>
> may be this is interesting :)
>
> http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/
>
> gabi
>
>

Just saw it and am now downloading.

>
>
> On 4/5/06, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:
> > You'd need a way to boot it first of all.
> >
> > No x86 based mac has BIOS.  It's all EFI, and without the BIOS
> > backward compatibility modules.
> >
> > Someone put together a bunch of stuff for booting Windows XP Pro and
> > has an installation method, but it is far from easy or even supported
> > by anyone.  It would likely work for Plan 9 as well.
> >
> > Best bet is to wait until Parallels put's out their new virtualization
> > product for Mac OS X, it will use the new Intel Virtualization
> > Hardware and, if the claims are all true, you'll be able to run pretty
> > much any OS at close to native speed on top of Mac OS X using this new
> > software.
> >
> > http://www.parallels.com
> >
> > So far, looks like the software is only 50 bucks.
> >
> > There is a free demo for linux users, but I don't have the hardware in
> > question on anything but a Mac.
> >
> > Dual booting really bites it anyway IMO.
> >
> > Dave
> >
> > On 4/5/06, Daniel Soderstrom <snaggs@mac.com> wrote:
> > > Can Plan 9 be installed on a x86 Mac Mini? I'd like to have a play
> > > with Plan 9, but don't want a ugly bitsa PC taking up the space. I
> > > should be able to do everything remotely on the Plan 9 box just using
> > > ssh or x windows?
> > >
> > > Finally, the possibilities of Plan 9 seem really intriging, has
> > > anything new and different been done on Plan 9 which could only be
> > > supported by its architecture?
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > >
> > > Daniel.
> > > Perth, Australia.
> > >
> >
>
>

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[David Leimbach]

On 4/5/06, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/5/06, Gabriel Diaz <gabidiaz@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hello
> >
> > may be this is interesting :)
> >
> > http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/
> >
> > gabi
> >
> >
>
> Just saw it and am now downloading.

Ok, well it's really geared towards windows XP SP2, and won't boot
anything else at this time.  It also requires a firmware update from
Apple.

There is a tool to help guide this installation and it wants blank CDs
and all kinds of stuff (presumably to take an XP SP2 CD and get
macintosh drivers for it onto a new CD).

Not sure how to make this work with something like Plan 9 yet.

Dave
>
> >
> >
> > On 4/5/06, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > You'd need a way to boot it first of all.
> > >
> > > No x86 based mac has BIOS.  It's all EFI, and without the BIOS
> > > backward compatibility modules.
> > >
> > > Someone put together a bunch of stuff for booting Windows XP Pro and
> > > has an installation method, but it is far from easy or even supported
> > > by anyone.  It would likely work for Plan 9 as well.
> > >
> > > Best bet is to wait until Parallels put's out their new virtualization
> > > product for Mac OS X, it will use the new Intel Virtualization
> > > Hardware and, if the claims are all true, you'll be able to run pretty
> > > much any OS at close to native speed on top of Mac OS X using this new
> > > software.
> > >
> > > http://www.parallels.com
> > >
> > > So far, looks like the software is only 50 bucks.
> > >
> > > There is a free demo for linux users, but I don't have the hardware in
> > > question on anything but a Mac.
> > >
> > > Dual booting really bites it anyway IMO.
> > >
> > > Dave
> > >
> > > On 4/5/06, Daniel Soderstrom <snaggs@mac.com> wrote:
> > > > Can Plan 9 be installed on a x86 Mac Mini? I'd like to have a play
> > > > with Plan 9, but don't want a ugly bitsa PC taking up the space. I
> > > > should be able to do everything remotely on the Plan 9 box just using
> > > > ssh or x windows?
> > > >
> > > > Finally, the possibilities of Plan 9 seem really intriging, has
> > > > anything new and different been done on Plan 9 which could only be
> > > > supported by its architecture?
> > > >
> > > > Cheers,
> > > >
> > > > Daniel.
> > > > Perth, Australia.
> > > >
> > >
> >
> >
>

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[David Leimbach]

On 4/5/06, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/5/06, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 4/5/06, Gabriel Diaz <gabidiaz@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hello
> > >
> > > may be this is interesting :)
> > >
> > > http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/
> > >
> > > gabi
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Just saw it and am now downloading.
>
> Ok, well it's really geared towards windows XP SP2, and won't boot
> anything else at this time.  It also requires a firmware update from
> Apple.
>
> There is a tool to help guide this installation and it wants blank CDs
> and all kinds of stuff (presumably to take an XP SP2 CD and get
> macintosh drivers for it onto a new CD).
>
> Not sure how to make this work with something like Plan 9 yet.
>
> Dave

Here's how far it got on a MacBookPro

http://static.flickr.com/39/123845890_c5fee01a10.jpg

Friend of mine tried it but I don't know how recent the image is...
I'll try it on my iMac this evening.

Dave


> >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 4/5/06, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > You'd need a way to boot it first of all.
> > > >
> > > > No x86 based mac has BIOS.  It's all EFI, and without the BIOS
> > > > backward compatibility modules.
> > > >
> > > > Someone put together a bunch of stuff for booting Windows XP Pro and
> > > > has an installation method, but it is far from easy or even supported
> > > > by anyone.  It would likely work for Plan 9 as well.
> > > >
> > > > Best bet is to wait until Parallels put's out their new virtualization
> > > > product for Mac OS X, it will use the new Intel Virtualization
> > > > Hardware and, if the claims are all true, you'll be able to run pretty
> > > > much any OS at close to native speed on top of Mac OS X using this new
> > > > software.
> > > >
> > > > http://www.parallels.com
> > > >
> > > > So far, looks like the software is only 50 bucks.
> > > >
> > > > There is a free demo for linux users, but I don't have the hardware in
> > > > question on anything but a Mac.
> > > >
> > > > Dual booting really bites it anyway IMO.
> > > >
> > > > Dave
> > > >
> > > > On 4/5/06, Daniel Soderstrom <snaggs@mac.com> wrote:
> > > > > Can Plan 9 be installed on a x86 Mac Mini? I'd like to have a play
> > > > > with Plan 9, but don't want a ugly bitsa PC taking up the space. I
> > > > > should be able to do everything remotely on the Plan 9 box just using
> > > > > ssh or x windows?
> > > > >
> > > > > Finally, the possibilities of Plan 9 seem really intriging, has
> > > > > anything new and different been done on Plan 9 which could only be
> > > > > supported by its architecture?
> > > > >
> > > > > Cheers,
> > > > >
> > > > > Daniel.
> > > > > Perth, Australia.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> >
>

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[Jack Johnson]

On 4/5/06, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:
> Here's how far it got on a MacBookPro
>
> http://static.flickr.com/39/123845890_c5fee01a10.jpg

Still, a great picture. :)

-Jack

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[andrey mirtchovski]

did we try this one yet:

http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/mac/

?

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[David Leimbach]

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On 4/6/06, andrey mirtchovski <mirtchovski@gmail.com> wrote:
> did we try this one yet:
>
> http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/mac/
>
> ?
>
I fought with it all day... with the VT-x hardware support it crashes
the whole parallels emulator...

However just turn that off and you still get a really very fast
emulated plan 9 system that works well.

This is only beta too, can't fullscreen yet but I think this
virtualization software will definitely be worth the 50 bucks.

Also, they are reporting @ parallels that the intel mac mini has the
VT-x hardware disabled in firmware for some reason right now.  It
could be a bug on Apple's side though.  I think people are looking
into it.

This is way faster than Q or QEmu by the way.

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Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[andrey mirtchovski]

that's good to hear! great work :)

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[David Leimbach]

On 4/6/06, andrey mirtchovski <mirtchovski@gmail.com> wrote:
> that's good to hear! great work :)
>

Yeah, it'll do 1280x1024x8bpp too in vesa mode, and very fast.

Too bad my cinema display doesn't work well in that mode and the
parallels window goes off screen :)

DMA doesn't appear to work to the disks yet... I'm going to try an
install here in a bit.

I was just booting it live first.

Dave

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[David Leimbach]

On 4/6/06, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/6/06, andrey mirtchovski <mirtchovski@gmail.com> wrote:
> > that's good to hear! great work :)
> >
>
> Yeah, it'll do 1280x1024x8bpp too in vesa mode, and very fast.
>
> Too bad my cinema display doesn't work well in that mode and the
> parallels window goes off screen :)
>
> DMA doesn't appear to work to the disks yet... I'm going to try an
> install here in a bit.
>
> I was just booting it live first.
>
> Dave
>

One REALLY irritating thing about this beta of parallels is that the
"\" key doesn't work... which means you can't use pipes!!!! :-)

it's not just plan 9 either, it's all the os'es... my freebsd vm has
the same issue, and I have to ssh to it to use pipes..

I hope the fix that fast, they say it's a known issue.

Dave

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[David Leimbach]

On 4/6/06, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/6/06, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 4/6/06, andrey mirtchovski <mirtchovski@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > that's good to hear! great work :)
> > >
> >
> > Yeah, it'll do 1280x1024x8bpp too in vesa mode, and very fast.
> >
> > Too bad my cinema display doesn't work well in that mode and the
> > parallels window goes off screen :)
> >
> > DMA doesn't appear to work to the disks yet... I'm going to try an
> > install here in a bit.
> >
> > I was just booting it live first.
> >
> > Dave
> >
>
> One REALLY irritating thing about this beta of parallels is that the
> "\" key doesn't work... which means you can't use pipes!!!! :-)
>
> it's not just plan 9 either, it's all the os'es... my freebsd vm has
> the same issue, and I have to ssh to it to use pipes..
>
> I hope the fix that fast, they say it's a known issue.
>
> Dave
>

Got it installed on a 4GB "partition" with fossil and venti.  The
venti "formatting" took very little time compared to the actual
installation of the distribution.

My mouse sucks though, needs new logitech drivers that they've not
released yet for Mac OS X Intel's and as a result I have no middle
mouse button.

That coupled with the inability to type either "\" or "|" makes this
beta hard to use.

The speed is excellent though.  I'll likely give these guys some of my money...

Dave

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[quanstro]

couldn't you use kbmap?

- erik

On Thu Apr  6 19:50:04 CDT 2006, leimy2k@gmail.com wrote:
> Got it installed on a 4GB "partition" with fossil and venti.  The
> venti "formatting" took very little time compared to the actual
> installation of the distribution.
>
> My mouse sucks though, needs new logitech drivers that they've not
> released yet for Mac OS X Intel's and as a result I have no middle
> mouse button.
>
> That coupled with the inability to type either "\" or "|" makes this
> beta hard to use.
>
> The speed is excellent though.  I'll likely give these guys some of my money...
>
> Dave

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[David Leimbach]

I might be able to... if I'd ever done it before :)  It'd be better if
the emulator just got it correct to begin with.



On 4/6/06, quanstro@quanstro.net <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> couldn't you use kbmap?
>
> - erik
>
> On Thu Apr  6 19:50:04 CDT 2006, leimy2k@gmail.com wrote:
> > Got it installed on a 4GB "partition" with fossil and venti.  The
> > venti "formatting" took very little time compared to the actual
> > installation of the distribution.
> >
> > My mouse sucks though, needs new logitech drivers that they've not
> > released yet for Mac OS X Intel's and as a result I have no middle
> > mouse button.
> >
> > That coupled with the inability to type either "\" or "|" makes this
> > beta hard to use.
> >
> > The speed is excellent though.  I'll likely give these guys some of my money...
> >
> > Dave
>

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[Harri Haataja]

On Wed, Apr 05, 2006 at 07:26:49AM -0700, David Leimbach wrote:
> You'd need a way to boot it first of all.
>
> No x86 based mac has BIOS.  It's all EFI, and without the BIOS
> backward compatibility modules.
>
> Someone put together a bunch of stuff for booting Windows XP Pro and
> has an installation method, but it is far from easy or even supported
> by anyone.  It would likely work for Plan 9 as well.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

--
The early versions of TeX had this classic, which I believe the people at
Stanford even had printed on T-shirts:
        You can't do that in horizontal mode.
		-- David Munroe

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[Ronald G Minnich]

David Leimbach wrote:
> You'd need a way to boot it first of all.
>
> No x86 based mac has BIOS.  It's all EFI, and without the BIOS
> backward compatibility modules.
>

I don't think EFI is the huge deal people are making it out to be. It's
an OS loader, in the end. A pretty awful OS loader, and an even worse
operating system (it really is an OS ...), but you could rip off the
linux efi support and away you go.

EFI support in linux looks to be one file. I think you'll be able to
boot linux native sooner or later.

BTW, people looking for projects: ACPI is badly needed.

ron

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[David Leimbach]

On 4/5/06, Ronald G Minnich <rminnich@lanl.gov> wrote:
> David Leimbach wrote:
> > You'd need a way to boot it first of all.
> >
> > No x86 based mac has BIOS.  It's all EFI, and without the BIOS
> > backward compatibility modules.
> >
>
> I don't think EFI is the huge deal people are making it out to be. It's
> an OS loader, in the end. A pretty awful OS loader, and an even worse
> operating system (it really is an OS ...), but you could rip off the
> linux efi support and away you go.
>

EFI can do away with VGA BIOSes, therefore it's good :)  (UGA being
the replacement)

Yes, it is an OS.  I've got Python and Perl for EFI laying around here
somewhere.  It gives people abilities they didn't have with BIOS
before, unless they were using something like LinuxBIOS perhaps.

> EFI support in linux looks to be one file. I think you'll be able to
> boot linux native sooner or later.
>
Yeah, but it still needs ELILO to boot is my understanding.  Last time
I dealt with this was early Itanium1 systems.  Not pretty.

> BTW, people looking for projects: ACPI is badly needed.
>

As long as it's not from FreeBSD... that hasn't worked right on any of
my machines in the last 2 major released of FreeBSD.  And the funny
thing is, the betas of freebsd *were* working.  They just like to
break it before release it seems.

I always have to turn it off.

Somehow I never have these problems with the linux implementation of ACPI.

> ron
>

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[Jack Johnson]

On 4/5/06, Daniel Soderstrom <snaggs@mac.com> wrote:
> Can Plan 9 be installed on a x86 Mac Mini? I'd like to have a play
> with Plan 9, but don't want a ugly bitsa PC taking up the space. I
> should be able to do everything remotely on the Plan 9 box just using
> ssh or x windows?

Plan 9 runs well in QEMU, and there's a friendly port to OSX that
seems to have universal binaries:

http://www.kberg.ch/q/

>From there, you can boot the ISO image directly, do a standard
installation, and have the joy of easy access to a Web browser while
you're learning how to set it up. :)

Performance on an x86 Mac should be pretty good, but I've only tried
it on PowerPC.

SSH does exist for Plan 9, but the remote X alternatives are VNC and
drawterm, as Plan 9 doesn't use X for its native display.

Best of luck,

-Jack

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[David Leimbach]

On 4/5/06, Jack Johnson <knapjack@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/5/06, Daniel Soderstrom <snaggs@mac.com> wrote:
> > Can Plan 9 be installed on a x86 Mac Mini? I'd like to have a play
> > with Plan 9, but don't want a ugly bitsa PC taking up the space. I
> > should be able to do everything remotely on the Plan 9 box just using
> > ssh or x windows?
>
> Plan 9 runs well in QEMU, and there's a friendly port to OSX that
> seems to have universal binaries:
>
> http://www.kberg.ch/q/
>
> >From there, you can boot the ISO image directly, do a standard
> installation, and have the joy of easy access to a Web browser while
> you're learning how to set it up. :)
>
> Performance on an x86 Mac should be pretty good, but I've only tried
> it on PowerPC.

I've been using this all week.  It's not too shabby, though the mouse
cursor refresh seems a bit choppy.  I'm looking forward to seeing what
Parallels comes up with and if it will run closer to native speed. 
I'm happy to shell out 50 bucks for a good hypervisor. :-)

One word of caution, don't do the venti install on a large disk
partition in an emulator that can't do DMA.  Zeroing out the disk is
painful enough on real hardware though I think Russ has improved that
or will have those improvements available soon.

>
> SSH does exist for Plan 9, but the remote X alternatives are VNC and
> drawterm, as Plan 9 doesn't use X for its native display.
>

drawterm is like, sent from heaven or something :)

> Best of luck,
>
> -Jack
>

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[erik quanstrom]

if the scan codes are the same as on a  pee cee, you can just modify
the mappings that are already there. 

i think that you won't notice the difference between the emulator
remapping keys and kbmap doing it.  the maps are scanned at boot
time and work so transparently that i can't find some changes i made
when taking kbmap for a test drive. ... where did i put that file. ☺

- erik

On Thu Apr  6 20:18:07 CDT 2006, leimy2k@gmail.com wrote:
> I might be able to... if I'd ever done it before :)  It'd be better if
> the emulator just got it correct to begin with.
> 
> 
> 
> On 4/6/06, quanstro@quanstro.net <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> > couldn't you use kbmap?
> >
> > - erik
> >
> > On Thu Apr  6 19:50:04 CDT 2006, leimy2k@gmail.com wrote:
> > > Got it installed on a 4GB "partition" with fossil and venti.  The
> > > venti "formatting" took very little time compared to the actual
> > > installation of the distribution.
> > >
> > > My mouse sucks though, needs new logitech drivers that they've not
> > > released yet for Mac OS X Intel's and as a result I have no middle
> > > mouse button.
> > >
> > > That coupled with the inability to type either "\" or "|" makes this
> > > beta hard to use.
> > >
> > > The speed is excellent though.  I'll likely give these guys some of my money...
> > >
> > > Dave
> >

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[David Leimbach]

Well I know how to cat files around so I can go to a dvorak mapping and such.

The problem is finding what the emulator thinks \ is scan code wise I guess.

Also I'm trying to see how hard it will be to support Realtek 8029(AS)
NICs in Plan 9. (that's what is being emulated by Parallels)

Dave

On 4/6/06, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> if the scan codes are the same as on a  pee cee, you can just modify
> the mappings that are already there.
>
> i think that you won't notice the difference between the emulator
> remapping keys and kbmap doing it.  the maps are scanned at boot
> time and work so transparently that i can't find some changes i made
> when taking kbmap for a test drive. ... where did i put that file. ☺
>
> - erik
>
> On Thu Apr  6 20:18:07 CDT 2006, leimy2k@gmail.com wrote:
> > I might be able to... if I'd ever done it before :)  It'd be better if
> > the emulator just got it correct to begin with.
> >
> >
> >
> > On 4/6/06, quanstro@quanstro.net <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> > > couldn't you use kbmap?
> > >
> > > - erik
> > >
> > > On Thu Apr  6 19:50:04 CDT 2006, leimy2k@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > Got it installed on a 4GB "partition" with fossil and venti.  The
> > > > venti "formatting" took very little time compared to the actual
> > > > installation of the distribution.
> > > >
> > > > My mouse sucks though, needs new logitech drivers that they've not
> > > > released yet for Mac OS X Intel's and as a result I have no middle
> > > > mouse button.
> > > >
> > > > That coupled with the inability to type either "\" or "|" makes this
> > > > beta hard to use.
> > > >
> > > > The speed is excellent though.  I'll likely give these guys some of my money...
> > > >
> > > > Dave
> > >
>

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[lucio]

> Also I'm trying to see how hard it will be to support Realtek 8029(AS)
> NICs in Plan 9. (that's what is being emulated by Parallels)

They are deemed to be absolutely awful.  I wonder what got them to
pick that particular bad brand of device.

++L

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[David Leimbach]

On 4/6/06, lucio@proxima.alt.za <lucio@proxima.alt.za> wrote:
> > Also I'm trying to see how hard it will be to support Realtek 8029(AS)
> > NICs in Plan 9. (that's what is being emulated by Parallels)
>
> They are deemed to be absolutely awful.  I wonder what got them to
> pick that particular bad brand of device.
>
> ++L

Probably because NE2000 is "easy" and supported by most every OS. 
Even the most esoteric of kernels seem to support Realtek.

It's just a bridge to the real adapter anyway, however in FreeBSD I
was getting scp stalls and other issues that I hope can be cleared up
after the beta goes release.

I was getting transfers on scp from the host to FreeBSD in the MB/sec
(2-4 I forget precisely) however, as I said, it wasn't terribly
reliable yet.

The speed at which everything executes really is quite nice though. 
Even their support of using a file for a disk partition was faster
than anything I've seen before.

Once the issues are cleaned up I've got very little reason to care
about dual booting anything anymore on my Mac it seems.

I'm starting to wonder if there is something going on in the PCI scans
that's not quite up to par as far as the NIC goes.  FreeBSD found it
readily enough though.

Dave

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[Russ Cox]

> i think that you won't notice the difference between the emulator
> remapping keys and kbmap doing it.  the maps are scanned at boot
> time and work so transparently that i can't find some changes i made
> when taking kbmap for a test drive. ... where did i put that file. ☺

I think you will notice having to learn a new key to type for |.
If you're like me, that's a very frequent character.

Russ

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[erik quanstrom]

does the emulator eat the keypress of the usual key?

On Thu Apr  6 20:31:50 CDT 2006, rsc@swtch.com wrote:
> > i think that you won't notice the difference between the emulator
> > remapping keys and kbmap doing it.  the maps are scanned at boot
> > time and work so transparently that i can't find some changes i made
> > when taking kbmap for a test drive. ... where did i put that file. ☺
> 
> I think you will notice having to learn a new key to type for |.
> If you're like me, that's a very frequent character.
> 
> Russ
> 

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[David Leimbach]

Not sure, I got engrossed with this whole lack of ethernet thing...

FreeBSD shows Realtek on 0x802910EC, which is what's in ether2000.c
but Plan 9 doesn't initialize it for some reason.

Dave

On 4/6/06, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> does the emulator eat the keypress of the usual key?
>
> On Thu Apr  6 20:31:50 CDT 2006, rsc@swtch.com wrote:
> > > i think that you won't notice the difference between the emulator
> > > remapping keys and kbmap doing it.  the maps are scanned at boot
> > > time and work so transparently that i can't find some changes i made
> > > when taking kbmap for a test drive. ... where did i put that file. ☺
> >
> > I think you will notice having to learn a new key to type for |.
> > If you're like me, that's a very frequent character.
> >
> > Russ
> >
>

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[jmk]

On Thu Apr  6 21:44:15 EDT 2006, leimy2k@gmail.com wrote:
> Not sure, I got engrossed with this whole lack of ethernet thing...
>
> FreeBSD shows Realtek on 0x802910EC, which is what's in ether2000.c
> but Plan 9 doesn't initialize it for some reason.
>
> Dave

Who can say. Make sure there's no '*noetherprobe' nor 'etherX=...'
in plan9.ini if such a thing exists in this world.

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 on Mac Mini x86?

[David Leimbach]

On 4/6/06, jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com <jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com> wrote:
> On Thu Apr  6 21:44:15 EDT 2006, leimy2k@gmail.com wrote:
> > Not sure, I got engrossed with this whole lack of ethernet thing...
> >
> > FreeBSD shows Realtek on 0x802910EC, which is what's in ether2000.c
> > but Plan 9 doesn't initialize it for some reason.
> >
> > Dave
>
> Who can say. Make sure there's no '*noetherprobe' nor 'etherX=...'
> in plan9.ini if such a thing exists in this world.
>


Found something I somehow missed in kmesg...

"i8042: 00 returned to the ea command"

I wonder if that could be related?