[9fans] Plan 9 or Inferno, which ot choose?

[9fans] Plan 9 or Inferno, which ot choose?

[Alexander L]

Hi again :-)

Another questions, when do we need plan 9 and Inferno? They seem like the
same thing but I feel there's a difference between them. Are there any web
sites
from bell labs which related to inferno?


--
Art is not the same thing you do with science.
However, scientific researching connects engineering, design and art
altogether.

[9fans] Re: Plan 9 or Inferno, which ot choose?

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Alexander L wrote:
> Another questions, when do we need plan 9 and Inferno? They seem like
> the same thing but I feel there's a difference between them.

There are similarities in some ways and differences in others.
The main difference is the environment intended for the systems.
Plan 9 is meant for use by humans in a full interactive development
environment, while Inferno is meant for embedded appliances.
That difference pretty much determined the difference in their
implementation.  For example, Inferno expects all applications to
be developed in a single language (Limbo) which is compiled into
a universal object code (byte code) that is then interpreted in
a variety of different devices running Inferno, while on Plan 9
each target architecture has its own native object code and an
application has to be compiled anew for each new platform.

[9fans] Re: Plan 9 or Inferno, which ot choose?

[Michael Jeffrey]

They are similar in that they both virtualise resources in the
network through the aggressive, application of a simple,
unifying protocol.  This is contrast to the approach adopted
by other technologies (for example Java/Jini) which are
linguistic by nature. A linguistic approach to distribution requires
the implementation of a program (execution environment for the
language) around the network - such programs are typically large.
In general, an approach based on distribution of protocol not
program is likely to be more profitable.

Inferno takes the ideas of Plan 9 further still and
virtualises the entire OS.  As a consequence it can run
native on bare hardware and also hosted on top of an
existing OS (Windows, Linux, Solaris, ...).

Which to choose though?  Plan 9 is a C environment for application
development, Inferno is Limbo - so that may sway you one way
or the other.  Inferno does not necessarily require the replacement
of an existing OS, which may also influence the decision.  Perhaps
use both.

A full description of Inferno can be found at www.vitanuova.com and
also details of how to obtain the source code.


Alexander L <alex-sci@freenet.co.nz> wrote in message
news:969693940.635831@news...
> Hi again :-)
>
> Another questions, when do we need plan 9 and Inferno? They seem like the
> same thing but I feel there's a difference between them. Are there any web
> sites
> from bell labs which related to inferno?
>
>
> --
> Art is not the same thing you do with science.
> However, scientific researching connects engineering, design and art
> altogether.

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 or Inferno, which ot choose?

[Anthony Sorace]

//Are there any web sites from bell labs which related to inferno?

note that Vita Nuova (http://www.vitanuova.com) are the official home
for Inferno these days. if you're looking for info on the system as
it stands, you'd probably do best to look there. the old bell-labs
sites have been converted into VN pages, and any info from the Labs
would probably be mostly historical at this point.

//when do we need plan 9 and Inferno?

in addition to the main difference pointed out by DAG, there are
othere differences (well, the first probably spawned the latter, but
they're still worth noting). Plan 9 is intended as a "general
purpose operating system for networked devices" (from VN's page). it
has memory/disk requirements along the lines of other "general
purpose" OSs (although less intensive than most). it runs (or ran)
on all sorts of server- and workstation-class hardware, like MIPS
terminals, SGI servers, Sun boxes, and so on. applications run, more
or less, the same way they do on other OSs - pre-compiled binaries
getting run by the processor. Inferno is mainly for devices, like
the mythical "networked toaster". it's much smaller, and in a normal
environment, has much lower requirements. it runs (or ran) on a few
different web phones, set-top boxes, even a PDA or two. applications
run via an interpreter, making the actual binary portable, but
somewhat slower (although much better than some other virtual
machines **cough*Java*cough*).

check out VNs site. they sell both. they can probably explain all
this much better than i can.
: anothy;