Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[dmr]

 > AFAIK Linus went on record that he had never seen
 > code to unix -- it shows.  i remember seeing the
 > ptrace implementation in '94 and it was a shocka.

The Unix original was appalling as well.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[boyd, rounin]

> The Unix original was appalling as well.

it had its limitations, but the two co-operating processes
was by far a winner over the:

    we'll just fault the pages of the the traced proc
    in and then dive into its address space ...

yuk.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Geoff Collyer]

Right, at least in Unix processes operated on themselves, sometimes
upon request of other processes.  If Linux isn't doing that, they're
in for a world of pain (or locking, at the very least).

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Dave Lukes]

On Wed, 2004-02-18 at 04:06, Geoff Collyer wrote:
> Right, at least in Unix processes operated on themselves, sometimes
> upon request of other processes.  If Linux isn't doing that, they're
> in for a world of pain (or locking, at the very least).

Tell me about it.

We have a bunch of Linux servers here,
and every few weeks, some script pukes an irreproducible but
subtle error (e.g. bizarre number from some stats analysis).

I tear my hair out for hours wondering what's wrong,
never find out, chalk it up to gremlins and move on.

Now, maybe I've got serious brain damage,
maybe it's clever hackers (the confuseSA virus:-),
maybe it's cosmic rays,
maybe it's an incredibly obscure bug in bash/awk/...,
or maybe it's an obscure kernel bug,
but the fact is that the whole infrastructure
(hideously complicated tools bolted onto an obscenely complex OS) makes
any informal (let alone formal) verification impossible.

If I could just convince myself that _some_ part of this
mountain of manure was _not_ to blame,
then I'd be some way to tracking down the culprit,
but hacking through bash/perl/kernel is just a WOMBAT.

Cheers,
	Dave.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[ron minnich]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Dave Lukes wrote:

> We have a bunch of Linux servers here, and every few weeks, some script
> pukes an irreproducible but subtle error (e.g. bizarre number from some
> stats analysis).

well I don't see that kind of stuff here on 1000s of linux nodes. That
sort of thing can usually be tracked to marginal hardware at least in my
experience.

There are a lot of things to dislike about Linux, but at least on systems
I have run, reliability is not one of them.

ron

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[C H Forsyth]

> We have a bunch of Linux servers here, and every few weeks, some script
> pukes an irreproducible but subtle error (e.g. bizarre number from some
> stats analysis).

>>There are a lot of things to dislike about Linux, but at least on systems
>>I have run, reliability is not one of them.

as i said previously, ron apparently really is lucky!

>>well I don't see that kind of stuff here on 1000s of linux nodes. That

mainly computational?  how often are they rebooted (eg, between tasks)?
just curious.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Dave Lukes]

> well I don't see that kind of stuff here on 1000s of linux nodes. That
> sort of thing can usually be tracked to marginal hardware at least in my
> experience.

I'd love to believe that,
but modern h/w w/ECC RAM tends to militate against the idea.
It's just possible that it's a dodgy IDE disk,
but I would have thought that, given current bit densities,
the possibility of getting exactly 4 bytes on a disk visibly
corrupted would be pretty small ...

> There are a lot of things to dislike about Linux, but at least on systems
> I have run, reliability is not one of them.

Well, I suspect that the application load etc.,
may just possibly be an influence here:-).

Don't get me wrong:
I'm not knocking the reliability:
it's the overall complexity which means problems like this
are hard to isolate.

	Dave.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Dave Lukes]

> as i said previously, ron apparently really is lucky!

It does make you wonder whether belief plays a part:-).

> mainly computational?  how often are they rebooted (eg, between tasks)?
> just curious.

This may be it: _none_ of our servers are routinely rebooted.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[ron minnich]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, C H Forsyth wrote:

> >>well I don't see that kind of stuff here on 1000s of linux nodes. That
>
> mainly computational?  how often are they rebooted (eg, between tasks)?
> just curious.

computational. We count the whole system as "up" if we have more than 1000
of 1024 nodes nodes up -- this is ok on clusters, since the system is
usable even when some fraction is not there -- contrast with a Cray I used
to use that would be totally dead if one wire was flaky. Whole system
uptime is basically measured in units of quarters (3 months) and whole
system reboots generally happen due to hardware failure and the need to
power cycle everything. We lose about one node a week due to myrinet
hardware issues (usually lasers, sometimes cards). If our 1024-node
cluster were only Ethernet connected I don't think it would go down ever.

LLNL sees similar results with their MCR and other linux clusters, as does
industry. LLNL's MCR (diskful nodes) has about 4-5 nodes go out a month, I
believe usually due to disk failures. At a recent talk PNNL, with 1024
nodes with 5 disks each, said they replace 5 disks A DAY. Pink, with zero
disks, only has a node die when Myrinet goes south -- as mentioned this
seems to be about one node a week.

But note that all these failures are hardware.

The lesson is simple: pay the 20% increment over "cheap white boxes" and
get huge gains in hardware reliability, with consequent gains in uptime.
Pay 10-20x the cheap white box and you'll get ripped off, with reliability
typically LOWER for "Enterprise Class" systems (yes, there are people who
pay 20x cheap white box cost).  My friends who run big linux clusters tell
me that linux is not the component that drives failure -- it's hardware.
"Weird" errors as mentioned earlier in this thread can usually be traced
to dicey hardware -- there's a lot of that out there. SDRAM is a
particular culprit, since many vendors lie -- yes, I mean LIE -- about
what the timing on the SDRAM is.

I like Plan 9, but I think some of the Linux slamming that goes on in this
list is not justified based on measured systems.

ron

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[boyd, rounin]

> as i said previously, ron apparently really is lucky!

my theory is that ron has spent countless hours
tweaking 'em so they 'just run' for him.

i know i did, to tame ultrix.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[boyd, rounin]

> It's just possible that it's a dodgy IDE disk,
> but I would have thought that, given current bit densities,
> the possibility of getting exactly 4 bytes on a disk visibly
> corrupted would be pretty small ...

hmm, i had a storageworks raid array and we were losing
one 4Gb disk/month, but the raid caught it.  i had never
seen anything like it.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[matt]

5 a day seems a little more than expected but it depends on usage

1024 nodes x 5 drives = 5120 drives

mtbf of 5 years

5120 drives fail every 1825 days

5120 / 1825 = 2.8 per day

m

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[ron minnich]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 matt@proweb.co.uk wrote:

> 5 a day seems a little more than expected but it depends on usage

well, look up the PNNL cluster and see who sold it.

ron

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[matt]

bah, those sods get everywhere

Watching all my favourite Compaq kit get re-branded has been particularly irksome

m

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Wes Kussmaul]

At 10:08 AM 2/18/2004, you wrote:
>On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, C H Forsyth wrote:
>
> > >>well I don't see that kind of stuff here on 1000s of linux nodes. That
> >
> > mainly computational?  how often are they rebooted (eg, between tasks)?
> > just curious.
>
>The lesson is simple: pay the 20% increment over "cheap white boxes" and
>get huge gains in hardware reliability, with consequent gains in uptime.
>Pay 10-20x the cheap white box and you'll get ripped off, with reliability
>typically LOWER for "Enterprise Class" systems (yes, there are people who
>pay 20x cheap white box cost). <clip>

I find that this rule works with any remotely technology-related product,
probably other areas as well.

I know someone who paid $25,000 a month for Exodus hosting and got less
than we were getting for less than 1 per cent of that cost. The difference
is the cost of retaining human beings to hold your hand in person as the
product/service screws up. If it didn't screw up you wouldn't need the
"relationship builder," the hand-holding suit.

I don't know whether Consumer Reports is international, but those of us in
the US can check the reliability ratings of kitchen appliances. For
products priced above the midrange there is a near-perfect inverse
relationship between reliability and cost. My own kitchen is a living
laboratory for this phenomenon, having been designed by a "kitchen
consultant" to include the Sub Zero refrigerators, the Thermidor ovens, and
other total garbage costing somewhere around Ron's 20x multiple over your
basic reliable Kenmore. The reason is simple: if you're going to ship a
million of something it had better work or the warranty claims will
obliterate your earnings. But if the customer pays for it upfront, the
warranty claim becomes another opportunity to "build a relationship" with
the customer. Re fools/money/departure.

Somebody needs to write a book about this (and let PKI Press publish it.)

Note: of those involved in the management of this household, I was not the
one who retained the "kitchen consultant."

Wes

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Kenji Okamoto]

> Subtleties in the
> English language are lost in the sea of spam I was faced with when
> cleaning my mailbox.

The most surprising point to me is that 99.99% of those spam mails
are written in English, and the others are in Chinese, probably.☺
You and unfortunately me are living in a somewhere very strange part 
of this globe.

Kenji

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[David Cantrell]

matt@proweb.co.uk wrote:

> 5 a day seems a little more than expected but it depends on usage
> 1024 nodes x 5 drives = 5120 drives
> mtbf of 5 years
> 5120 drives fail every 1825 days
> 5120 / 1825 = 2.8 per day

If you're monitoring your disks' health (and you should be!) then you
get warnings well before the disk fails.  If my income depended on my
machines' reliability, I'd be replacing disks at the slightest hint that
they might possibly be considering failure.

--
David Cantrell | Reality Engineer, Ministry of Information

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands,
  hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -- H. L. Mencken

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[matt]

of course, also to take into consideration is the curve of failure

I'm sure it's not a bell curve around the average, it's probably a big spike up front with a steady slope asymptoting to zero at infinity

(presuming asymptoting is a word :)

m

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[ron minnich]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Wes Kussmaul wrote:

> I don't know whether Consumer Reports is international, but those of us
> in the US can check the reliability ratings of kitchen appliances. For
> products priced above the midrange there is a near-perfect inverse
> relationship between reliability and cost. My own kitchen is a living
> laboratory for this phenomenon, having been designed by a "kitchen
> consultant" to include the Sub Zero refrigerators, the Thermidor ovens,
> and other total garbage costing somewhere around Ron's 20x multiple over
> your basic reliable Kenmore. The reason is simple: if you're going to
> ship a million of something it had better work or the warranty claims
> will obliterate your earnings. But if the customer pays for it upfront,
> the warranty claim becomes another opportunity to "build a relationship"
> with the customer. Re fools/money/departure.
>
> Somebody needs to write a book about this (and let PKI Press publish it.)

Arno Penzias described it very simply at talks he gave ca. 1996. The cost
of quality is negative. Once you factor in negative cost of quality then
things start to make a lot of sense.

Of course, like everything else, you don't just say 'Me Ogg. Cost quality
negative. ' and assume that buying infinite quality will earn you money.
It's complicated. But quality, figured in as a negative cost, explains a
lot of things. Esp. in the computer biz.

ron

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[boyd, rounin]

> (presuming asymptoting is a word :)

asymtopic, no?

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Kenji Okamoto]

>There are a lot of things to dislike about Linux, but at least on systems
>I have run, reliability is not one of them.

Ron, are you using usb device in Linux 2.4.x?
Plan 9's usb implementation is much easier to deal with.

Kenji

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[ron minnich]

On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Kenji Okamoto wrote:

> Ron, are you using usb device in Linux 2.4.x?
> Plan 9's usb implementation is much easier to deal with.

no argument.

ron

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Micah Stetson]

> asymtopic, no?

Is that where you can never quite get to the point?

Micah

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Martin C.Atkins]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 15:03:00 +0000 Dave Lukes <davel@anvil.com> wrote:
> > as i said previously, ron apparently really is lucky!
>
> It does make you wonder whether belief plays a part:-).

The other factor in my experience is whether the user uses the system
along the lines envisaged by the designers/programmers. I suspect that
most people on this list try to use Linux (when they do) in "unusual"
ways (in comparison to most Linux users), and thus they hit problems
that most Linux users don't see.

This partly accounts for the 'unlucky' users that I've come across in
the past (I wonder if the best example is reading? :-) - you know,
users who seem to have *much* more trouble with (usually reliable)
systems than everyone else - nothing works properly for them, and such
people tend to find all systems more or less unreliable!

BTW: my experience with Linux is in line with Ron's - I guess by my
own argument, that makes me boring? :-)

Martin

--
Martin C. Atkins			martin@parvat.com
Parvat Infotech Private Limited		http://www.parvat.com{/,/martin}

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[andrey mirtchovski]

>> asymtopic, no?
>
> Is that where you can never quite get to the point?
>
> Micah

That would be the Gamma distribution.  It measures the fault rate in
things like aircraft engines, hard drives and memory.

The point you can never get to is infinity -- sooner or later the
thing will fail...

andrey

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[andrey mirtchovski]

> Maybe I needed a smiley,

No, I misread 'asymtopic' :)

I've just been on a 3-day trip through the prairies, covering 1500
kilometers in the process (avg speed 120 km/h).  Subtleties in the
English language are lost in the sea of spam I was faced with when
cleaning my mailbox.

andrey

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Micah Stetson]

> >> asymtopic, no?
> >
> > Is that where you can never quite get to the point?
 ...
> The point you can never get to is infinity -- sooner or later the
> thing will fail...

Either I'm misunderstanding you, or my joke wasn't very
clear.  The word you're talking about is asymptotic.
Boyd spelled it "asymtopic" and I was making a pun on
his misspelling.  A function approaches an asymptote,
but never quite gets there, so if our discussion is
"asymtopic", do we approach the point (the topic) but
never reach it?

Maybe I needed a smiley,

Micah

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[boyd, rounin]

> Either I'm misunderstanding you, or my joke wasn't very
> clear.  The word you're talking about is asymptotic.
> Boyd spelled it "asymtopic" and I was making a pun on
> his misspelling.

it's well known i can't spell in any language i speak or can 'read'.

btw: i got the pun.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[vic zandy]

hi ron,

here at uw, we're all real interested in your comments
about LANL cluster reliability.  in particular,

 > If our 1024-node
> cluster were only Ethernet connected I don't think it would go down ever.

which cluster are you referring to?

thanks.

vic

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[ron minnich]

On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, vic zandy wrote:

>  > If our 1024-node
> > cluster were only Ethernet connected I don't think it would go down ever.

Pink.

ron

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[boyd, rounin]

From: "ron minnich" <rminnich@lanl.gov>
> Pink.

"The band is just fantastic, that is what I really think and by the way,
which one's Pink?"

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[ron minnich]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, boyd, rounin wrote:

> From: "ron minnich" <rminnich@lanl.gov>
> > Pink.
>
> "The band is just fantastic, that is what I really think and by the way,
> which one's Pink?"
>

I sent her mail and asked her to come out and sign our machine. All I got
was a form letter.

Hmph.

ron

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Wes Kussmaul]

>
>``The Plan 9 Programming Environment''


http://www.pkipress.com might be interested in publishing _The Plan 9
Programming Environment_.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Richard Miller]

> Idris had suid bit/mechanism. In their manuals, Whitesmiths
> acknowledged and thanked WE for the use of the patent.
> Can't remember if either MINIX or Coherent had it.

MINIX does - see lines 6007-6015 of the source code published in
'Operating Systems: Design and Implementation'.

-- Richard

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[9nut]

> The issue of tainting didn't come up from our point of view
> with MINIX, nor in several other situations (e.g. Idris, or
> the Mark Williams Coherent system).  It was clearly enough an
> independent implementation of described mechanisms.
> Nevertheless Tanenbaum and Plauger were both cautious
> in providing some visible distance in their specifications.

Richard Dawkins introduced the concept of memes, which are to ideas
what genes are to physical attributes.  It is true that the genes
weren't from UNIX but the memes were.

P.S.
Idris had suid bit/mechanism. In their manuals, Whitesmiths
acknowledged and thanked WE for the use of the patent.
Can't remember if either MINIX or Coherent had it.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[dmr]

 >> Unless "minix" refers to more than one OS,
 >> Tanenbaum's work was, again, I believe, clean-room.

 > I'm not entirely sure whether that's true, where clean-room
 > means "without tainting by knowledge of the original".

 > When describing
 > the history of MINIX in his Operating Systems, he notes that
 > V6 was used in courses, but V7 could not be. ...

 > Which happens to avoid mentioning whether Tanenbaum was familiar
 > with the V6 sources. The impression I've generally had was that
 > MINIX was deliberately different, rather than by mere accident
 > through unfamiliarity with V6 internals.

The issue of tainting didn't come up from our point of view
with MINIX, nor in several other situations (e.g. Idris, or
the Mark Williams Coherent system).  It was clearly enough an
independent implementation of described mechanisms.
Nevertheless Tanenbaum and Plauger were both cautious
in providing some visible distance in their specifications.
But of course they also had reasons of their own
for specifying interfaces in a way more congenial to
their own purposes.

In the later BSDi/UCB case, USL convinced themselves
that BSDi was not only commercial (true)
but also that the 'tainting' was more a matter of 10-year
saturation and history of licensed release from UCB.  This
implied to USL that the emancipated BSD and BSDi code
must have been copied.

There's some moral argument for this case, but the other
facts (little evidence of direct copying, questionable
copyrights, existing public standards) failed to convince
the judge.

	D.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Steve Kilbane]

Dave Lukes wrote:
> Unless "minix" refers to more than one OS,
> Tanenbaum's work was, again, I believe, clean-room.

I'm not entirely sure whether that's true, where clean-room
means "without tainting by knowledge of the original".

When describing
the history of MINIX in his Operating Systems, he notes that
V6 was used in courses, but V7 could not be. He continues:

	To remedy this situation, I decided to write a new
	operating system from scratch that would be compatible
	with UNIX from the user's point of view, but completely
	different on the inside. By not using even on line of
	AT&T code, this system avoids the licensing restrictions,
	so it can be used for class or individual study.

Which happens to avoid mentioning whether Tanenbaum was familiar
with the V6 sources. The impression I've generally had was that
MINIX was deliberately different, rather than by mere accident
through unfamiliarity with V6 internals.

But then, there are enough people on this list who'd know for
a fact. :-)

steve

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Dave Lukes]

Obviously not: it shares no DNA.

It is a lookalike.

On Tue, 2004-02-17 at 15:14, Brantley Coile wrote:
> So does that make it a decendant or not?
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> From: "boyd, rounin" <boyd@insultant.net>
> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
> Subject: Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9
> Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 16:03:24 +0100
>
> Dave Lukes wrote:
> > Unless "minix" refers to more than one OS,
> > Tanenbaum's work was, again, I believe, clean-room.
>
> yup, that's how i remember it.
>

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Brantley Coile]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 40 bytes --]

So does that make it a decendant or not?

[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 2301 bytes --]

From: "boyd, rounin" <boyd@insultant.net>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 16:03:24 +0100
Message-ID: <40322D3C.5030409@insultant.net>

Dave Lukes wrote:
> Unless "minix" refers to more than one OS,
> Tanenbaum's work was, again, I believe, clean-room.

yup, that's how i remember it.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[boyd, rounin]

Dave Lukes wrote:
> Unless "minix" refers to more than one OS,
> Tanenbaum's work was, again, I believe, clean-room.

yup, that's how i remember it.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Dave Lukes]

Unless "minix" refers to more than one OS,
Tanenbaum's work was, again, I believe, clean-room.
IIRC it was somewhat V6 like (down to FS layout).

	Dave.

On Tue, 2004-02-17 at 14:33, boyd, rounin wrote:
> matt@proweb.co.uk wrote:
> > whereas V8 begat Minix begat Linux
>
> dunno about that.  there where some 10 (or so) V8
> licences given out, so there are small n people
> who would have seen it [code].
>
> AFAIK Linus went on record that he had never seen
> code to unix -- it shows.  i remember seeing the
> ptrace implementation in '94 and it was a shocka.
>

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[boyd, rounin]

matt@proweb.co.uk wrote:
> whereas V8 begat Minix begat Linux

dunno about that.  there where some 10 (or so) V8
licences given out, so there are small n people
who would have seen it [code].

AFAIK Linus went on record that he had never seen
code to unix -- it shows.  i remember seeing the
ptrace implementation in '94 and it was a shocka.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[matt]

a Unix familty tree is here :

http://www.levenez.com/unix/history.html


I can't speak for it definitiveness but one reading of it :

SCO UnixWare 7.1.3 as the true descendent of Unix via System V

the last branching at Unix V9 yields plan9

whereas V8 begat Minix begat Linux

m

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Brantley Coile]

>  Linux is a true descendant of Unix, and it does indeed smell bad.

I'm not quibbling with the statement above, but what is the definition of decendant?
Really just want a good definition of decendant.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[boyd, rounin]

>  Linux is a true descendant of Unix, and it does indeed smell bad.

and on crack.  i have to set up a criticical region in the 'top half'
of a driver.  it does not look good.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[9nut]

> I didn't actually propose calling it ``Plan 9 for Dummies'', and the
> intent was to make it easy for people to try Plan 9 and to explain
> what was interesting about it, particulary in contradistinction to
> other systems.  This seems to be necessary, since even quite a few
> smart Unix people don't understand, unassisted, why Plan 9 is more
> interesting and worthwhile.

Something in the style of "The UNIX Programming Environment"
would be very useful.  It would reintroduce people to the tool
building philosophy.  Cool networking scripts like chat posted here a
while back are great examples of doing nontrivial applications
with scripts.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Scott Schwartz]

| I didn't actually propose calling it ``Plan 9 for Dummies'', and the

``The Plan 9 Programming Environment''

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Geoff Collyer]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 371 bytes --]

I didn't actually propose calling it ``Plan 9 for Dummies'', and the
intent was to make it easy for people to try Plan 9 and to explain
what was interesting about it, particulary in contradistinction to
other systems.  This seems to be necessary, since even quite a few
smart Unix people don't understand, unassisted, why Plan 9 is more
interesting and worthwhile.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 2711 bytes --]

From: Dave Lukes <davel@anvil.com>
To: 9fans <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
Subject: Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 15:35:26 +0000
Message-ID: <1076945725.23978.208.camel@zevon>

> I proposed a `Plan 9 for dummies'

Firstly,
even _I_ do not have such a low opinion of myself that I would
demean myself by buying a book called
"Perl for Pillocks", "Threads for Thickos" or "DBMSs for Dickheads",
even were the subject matter of inordinate interest to me.

Secondly
<intellectual-snobbery>
do we really want plan9 being used by Dummies?
Look what happened to Unix.
</intellectual-snobbery>

How about "Plan9 for the Perspicacious"?

	Dave.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[9nut]

> Entropy. You get it either way. Either nobody uses Plan 9 because we're
> all too good for the unwashed masses and it dies because .... nobody uses
> it, and it dies unknown; or people start to use it and it dies because ...
> everyone uses it and it gets old and thick in the waist and dies.

I think the evolutionary path for Plan9 lies in a different direction. I can see
networks of Plan9 machines providing a variety of services. Leave the
desktop wars to others, because you can always tie desktop in via drawterm
or Inferno.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[9nut]

> So my question: what's the best way to get into it? Will any of my
> devices work (newish Dell laptop)? Any "how to get Plan9 running for
> dummies" books?

The easiest way is to run Plan9 under VMWare on your (currently)
favorite OS. You can get a VMWare eval copy for a month.  That will be
long enough to get hooked on Plan9.  Once you're hooked, you'll muddle
through any hardware problems to get a permanent Plan9 installation.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Dave Lukes]

> The third way :
Oh, no!  A Blairite on 9fans:-).

> it stays known by the small group of people who appreciate it and keep on using it

Great Minds ...

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Dave Lukes]

> Entropy. You get it either way. Either nobody uses Plan 9 because we're
> all too good for the unwashed masses and it dies because .... nobody uses
> it, and it dies unknown; or people start to use it and it dies because ...
> everyone uses it and it gets old and thick in the waist and dies.

Ummm ... look at Apple: they aren't market leaders,
but enough people like them to keep them going.

Also, look at any other field of endeavour:
there are a handful of tiny specialist car manufacturers in the UK
(TVR, Morgan, Westfield, Caterham, Marcos, Dutton ...)
whose total production volumes wouldn't even register on Ford's radar,
yet they've been going for a long time,
due to a combination of dedication and interesting products
and the  enthusiasm of their devotees.
Their products are usually _not_ renowned for their "quality",
but people will sell their children to get one.

> I'd rather see lotsa people use it.

I'd rather see lotsa *smart* people using it.

>  If I can get old and die, so should my
> OS; otherwise, life is just TOO unfair.

Naaah, you're anthropomorphising:
think of it like a Time Lord or a phoenix:
it dies and is reborn: (Multics ...:-) Unix ... Plan9 ...

	Dave.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[matt]

The third way :

it stays known by the small group of people who appreciate it and keep on using it


world domination isn't everything

m

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Dave Lukes]

> Plan 9 is tasty. But, as we have learned, not sweet.

Nor does it suffer from Aptenodytic Spongiform Encephalitis.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[ron minnich]

On Mon, 16 Feb 2004, Dave Lukes wrote:

> Secondly
> <intellectual-snobbery>
> do we really want plan9 being used by Dummies?
> Look what happened to Unix.
> </intellectual-snobbery>

Entropy. You get it either way. Either nobody uses Plan 9 because we're
all too good for the unwashed masses and it dies because .... nobody uses
it, and it dies unknown; or people start to use it and it dies because ...
everyone uses it and it gets old and thick in the waist and dies.

I'd rather see lotsa people use it. If I can get old and die, so should my
OS; otherwise, life is just TOO unfair.

ron

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[ron minnich]

On Mon, 16 Feb 2004, Joel Konkle-Parker wrote:

> I run Linux at the moment, but after finding out that Plan 9 exists,
> and that it's the "true descendent" of unix, I just have to try it
> out.

it's not really a true descendant of Unix, or it would smell bad. Linux is
a true descendant of Unix, and it does indeed smell bad.

Plan 9 is tasty. But, as we have learned, not sweet.

ron

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Jim Choate]

Hi Joel,

On Mon, 16 Feb 2004, Joel Konkle-Parker wrote:

> I run Linux at the moment, but after finding out that Plan 9 exists,
> and that it's the "true descendent" of unix, I just have to try it
> out.
>
> So my question: what's the best way to get into it? Will any of my
> devices work (newish Dell laptop)? Any "how to get Plan9 running for
> dummies" books?

I've found the Dell OptiPlex GX1's seem to work out of the box. These
surplus old machines run under $100 with small mem/hd.

To verify if a given machine works I use the boot floppy. That will at
least tell you if the video is compatible. This is the biggest issue in my
experience. What you're looking for is the graphics screen to actually
display.

The hardware compatibility list that is running around isn't a lit of use
in my experience.

 -- --

Open Forge, LLC  24/365 Onsite Support for PCs, Networks, & Game Consoles
512-695-4126 (Austin, Tx.)  help@open-forge.com  irc.open-forge.com

Hangar 18  Open Source Distributed Computing Using Plan 9 & Linux
512-451-7087  http://open-forge.org/hangar18  irc.open-forge.org

James Choate  512-451-7087  ravage@ssz.com  jchoate@open-forge.com

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Dave Lukes]

> sometimes it's Plan 9 for the Persevering

<semi-flame mutter="some people don't know how lucky they are">
Look, I spend a good proportion of my professional life
with my head jammed up the metaphorical ass of various so-called
unix-like systems (Solaris, HP-UX, linux):
I would be very happy to "suffer" the "pains" of plan9, thank you.
</semi-flame>

	Dave.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[C H Forsyth]

>>How about "Plan9 for the Perspicacious"?

sometimes it's Plan 9 for the Persevering

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Dave Lukes]

> I proposed a `Plan 9 for dummies'

Firstly,
even _I_ do not have such a low opinion of myself that I would
demean myself by buying a book called
"Perl for Pillocks", "Threads for Thickos" or "DBMSs for Dickheads",
even were the subject matter of inordinate interest to me.

Secondly
<intellectual-snobbery>
do we really want plan9 being used by Dummies?
Look what happened to Unix.
</intellectual-snobbery>

How about "Plan9 for the Perspicacious"?

	Dave.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Geoff Collyer]

I can't spare the time, at least now, unless there's some
money in it.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Fco.J.Ballesteros]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 118 bytes --]

I wouldnt wait for an editor. Just go for it and put it on the web.
I'm willing to help given I could get the time.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 1875 bytes --]

From: Geoff Collyer <geoff@collyer.net>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 02:53:18 -0800
Message-ID: <7808cbebcc455fec299fbbdbd2aa4b52@collyer.net>

I proposed a `Plan 9 for dummies' book but was told by an esteemed
publisher that there's no market for such a book.  Of course, that's a
somewhat circular argument: as long as there are no books to stimulate
interest, there won't be much interest.

Re: [9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Geoff Collyer]

I proposed a `Plan 9 for dummies' book but was told by an esteemed
publisher that there's no market for such a book.  Of course, that's a
somewhat circular argument: as long as there are no books to stimulate
interest, there won't be much interest.

[9fans] Interesting in trying out Plan 9

[Joel Konkle-Parker]

I run Linux at the moment, but after finding out that Plan 9 exists,
and that it's the "true descendent" of unix, I just have to try it
out.

So my question: what's the best way to get into it? Will any of my
devices work (newish Dell laptop)? Any "how to get Plan9 running for
dummies" books?


-- 
Joel Konkle-Parker
Webmaster  [Ballsome.com]

E-mail     [jjk3@msstate.edu]