[9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[Mark Carter]

I was reading the suckless.org website the other day, and they seemed
quite keen on Plan 9. I am running Linux. Is there a useful summary
document that explains where plan9port fits in with Glendix, and why
anyone should care about Plan 9 anyway (hope that doesn't come across
as rude)?

Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[Sergey Zhilkin]

Hi Mark !

Plan9 IS (and was) research os prototype.
I use it because I'm interested in ideas that was included in original
UNIX and Plan9 (inferno)

Read more documents at -
http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/1st_edition/designing_plan_9

Linux is another os, it imported ideas from Plan9 (/proc, private namespaces)


On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 1:05 PM, Mark Carter <alt.mcarter@gmail.com> wrote:
> I was reading the suckless.org website the other day, and they seemed
> quite keen on Plan 9. I am running Linux. Is there a useful summary
> document that explains where plan9port fits in with Glendix, and why
> anyone should care about Plan 9 anyway (hope that doesn't come across
> as rude)?
>
>



-- 
С наилучшими пожеланиями
Жилкин Сергей
With best regards
Zhilkin Sergey

Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[Robert Raschke]

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On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 10:05 AM, Mark Carter <alt.mcarter@gmail.com> wrote:

> I was reading the suckless.org website the other day, and they seemed
> quite keen on Plan 9. I am running Linux. Is there a useful summary
> document that explains where plan9port fits in with Glendix, and why
> anyone should care about Plan 9 anyway (hope that doesn't come across
> as rude)?
>
>
Most of the people who can answer best are currently at the Plan 9 Workshop
(http://www.iwp9.org/), so they'll doubtless chip in a wee bit later.

Plan 9 is a research OS that has had a quite amazing impact on most other
Unix type OSes. For example: UTF-8, process filesystem (generalised to "use
a filesystem as a well defined abstraction mechanism"), recursive window
systems (ie. a full windowing system inside a window, not 100% sure who did
it first, but the Plan 9 one is amazingly consistent and so easy to use it
makes others look clunky), and full historical filesystem (remember
everything you ever did using snapshots).

Plan 9 is not a polished end user OS!

Robby

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Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[Robert Raschke]

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On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 12:07 PM, Robert Raschke <rtrlists@googlemail.com>wrote:

>
> On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 10:05 AM, Mark Carter <alt.mcarter@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I was reading the suckless.org website the other day, and they seemed
>> quite keen on Plan 9. I am running Linux. Is there a useful summary
>> document that explains where plan9port fits in with Glendix, and why
>> anyone should care about Plan 9 anyway (hope that doesn't come across
>> as rude)?
>>
>>
> Most of the people who can answer best are currently at the Plan 9 Workshop
> (http://www.iwp9.org/), so they'll doubtless chip in a wee bit later.
>
> Plan 9 is a research OS that has had a quite amazing impact on most other
> Unix type OSes. For example: UTF-8, process filesystem (generalised to "use
> a filesystem as a well defined abstraction mechanism"), recursive window
> systems (ie. a full windowing system inside a window, not 100% sure who did
> it first, but the Plan 9 one is amazingly consistent and so easy to use it
> makes others look clunky), and full historical filesystem (remember
> everything you ever did using snapshots).
>
> Plan 9 is not a polished end user OS!
>
> Robby
>
>
Oh, and most of the Plan 9 tools were first made available to use outside
the Plan 9 OS through Russ Cox's plan9 in user space effort (
http://swtch.com/plan9port/). And there's the virtualisation project vx32
that includes Plan 9 as an example. Not sure how they fit into a holistic
view. They're more like pragmatic ways forward when you can't (or don't want
to) run a stand alone OS.

One of the great things in Plan 9 is the readability of the code. You can
actually dive in and see how it all works without needing an augmented
brain. Although it may require adjusting your thinking to a "let's try to
manage all this complexity a bit better" mindframe. And that can take a bit
of time and effort. But it's well worth it.

Robby

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Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[Nick LaForge]

> why anyone should care about Plan 9 anyway

Because: getting things right the first time around is much more of a
practical matter than you may at first realize.

Nick

Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[Bruce Ellis]

Very succinct, and better than I could do 'til the coffee kicks in.

You could have pointed out that the entire source tree is smaller than
the gcc manual.

But as I say - do what you like. I know people who would rather spend
$5k on an Apple PC than $200 on a slicker plan9 box. I have my FS
(venti + fossil) on a USB wristband. Take that penguin heads.

Just the semi-delirious jots from early morning brucee.

On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 4:53 AM, Nick LaForge <nicklaforge@gmail.com> wrote:
>> why anyone should care about Plan 9 anyway
>
> Because: getting things right the first time around is much more of a
> practical matter than you may at first realize.
>
> Nick

Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[ron minnich]

getting it right:

- less code in plan 9 than in most configure scripts (hard to believe but true)
- plan 9 memory management code is 1 file, linux is 55
- almost no assembly in plan 9 ; # lines  assembly is GROWING in linux
- growth of linux code size is exponential (this is part of the
getting it right issue)

it's always good to have a system that gets closer to getting it right
around, as a reminder if nothing else.

ron

Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[Karljurgen Feuerherm]

Well, I think it depends also on who one is and what one can afford to do at a point in time. And "afford" isn't necessarily only measured in dollars :)

I would much rather spend $200 on a slick Plan9 box, but I can't afford, given my current state of texpertise, to risk a government-funded project on a research O/S where support is more difficult. So an Apple it is, for the time being (for a lot less than $5000, btw...)

That's not to denigrate Plan9 by any means. I'm looking at it, like it, and hope to continue learning the ropes. But at the immediate moment, I don't really have a realistic choice, even given that the help I've got from people on this list has been fantastic. So for me, the short term solution is the Apple, and ideally, the long-term solution will be Plan9.

K

>>> On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at  9:39 AM, in message
<AANLkTinO4jAj+T6A31r+fhWHoF6Nq6G=JLQQZuOysjae@mail.gmail.com>, Bruce Ellis
<bruce.ellis@gmail.com> wrote: 
> Very succinct, and better than I could do 'til the coffee kicks in.
> 
> You could have pointed out that the entire source tree is smaller than
> the gcc manual.
> 
> But as I say - do what you like. I know people who would rather spend
> $5k on an Apple PC than $200 on a slicker plan9 box. I have my FS
> (venti + fossil) on a USB wristband. Take that penguin heads.
> 
> Just the semi-delirious jots from early morning brucee.
> 
> On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 4:53 AM, Nick LaForge <nicklaforge@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> why anyone should care about Plan 9 anyway
>>
>> Because: getting things right the first time around is much more of a
>> practical matter than you may at first realize.
>>
>> Nick

Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[Brian L. Stuart]

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> Oh, and most of the Plan 9 tools were first made
> available to use outside the Plan 9 OS through
> Russ Cox's plan9 in user space effort
> (http://swtch.com/plan9port/). And there's the
> virtualisation project vx32 that includes Plan 9
> as an example. Not sure how they fit into a
> holistic view. They're more like pragmatic
> ways forward when you can't (or don't want
> to) run a stand alone OS.

I'm probably not the best person to try to present the holistic
view, but I will anyway.  To understand where Plan 9 came
from, we first have to understand how UNIX developed.  In the
late '80s, UNIX was about 20 years old and had not aged too
gracefully.  In particular, as Sun said, the network had become
the computer, and UNIX networking was kind of bolted onto
the side of the system.  Similarly, graphical interaction had
become ubiquitous well after UNIX had originally been designed.
The way I like to describe it is that the Bell Labs guys at this
time decided to take 20 years of UNIX experience and start
over again and do it right, applying that experience.  The
result was Plan 9.

There are 5 main approaches to having the Plan 9 experience.
First, the "real" Plan 9 experience requires a network of machines
including file servers, CPU servers, and terminals.  Of course,
the original Plan 9 systems ran natively on bare hardware,
and it still happily runs on a lot of hardware.  The biggest
problem with just grabbing a bunch of random hardware
and running Plan 9 on it is the problem of drivers for random
PC hardware.  But a lot of us do run Plan 9 on bare hardware
and it's a refreshing experience after years of UNIces.  I
should also point out that Plan 9 has from the very beginning
been built around running on a variety of hardware and
today runs on everything from tiny gumstix machines to
Blue Gene/P.

The second major approach is running Plan 9 on simulators
and virtual machines.  Most of us have had varying degrees
of success running Plan 9 "networks" on instances of qemu
or vmware or xen or...  This is a pretty good way to mitigate
the hardware support issues.  It's also a nice way to set up
and test distributed things while sitting with a single laptop
in a hotel room.

If you have a real Plan 9 cpu server, but don't have a
Plan 9 terminal for accessing it, you can use the application
drawterm.  It is an interesting modification of the Plan 9
kernel running as an X11 application.  Unlike a real terminal,
it doesn't run any Plan 9 applications locally on the terminal,
but it does give you an interface to a real Plan 9 system.

Over time, many people who at one time used Plan 9 as
their main systems, were pulled away and found themselves
back on UNIX-like systems.  For a period of time, there were
several projects that implemented Plan 9 inspired tools for
UNIX and X11.  This is where P9P (aka Plan 9 from User Space)
comes in.  Russ Cox ported the bulk of the Plan 9 application
set to UNIX-based systems.  With these, you can have a user
environment that looks a lot like Plan 9, complete acme and
sam.

Later, Russ also developed the vx32 virtualization and the
implementation of Plan 9 on it.  This is 9vx which allows you
to run an instance of Plan 9 as user application.  9vx is
essentially a port of the Plan 9 kernel to the vx32 platform.
It's great as it allows you to run a "real" Plan 9 terminal as
an application on a more traditional system.  You can run it
stand-alone with the root taken from your host system, or
you can run it as a terminal that takes its root from a Plan 9
file server.

As I sit here at IWP9, I am typing this in acme in 9vx running
on FreeBSD, using the rio port in P9P for my window manager.
Because I'm away from my home network, I'm running 9vx
with the the root on my local machine.  When I'm at home, I
use 9vx booting with its root taken from a real Plan 9 file
server.  I also run it on qemu fairly often.  The bottom line
is that there are quite a variety of ways to work with Plan 9
and they are all useful in their own ways.

I've been too long-winded as it is, so I'll stop now.  Hopefully,
I haven't said anything that's too far off base.

BLS


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Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[Anssi Porttikivi]

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Why Plan 9?

Because on one of these days some big company (hint: where are the ex Bell
Labsers working with a very much Plan 9 / inferno / Limbo insipired new
programming language) adopts the Plan 9 / Inferno in a a more or less varied
incarnation. I could imagine Android having a new kernel not tied to Java
only, and supporting a rich ecosystem of distributed 9P objects...

 It is going to be big. It does not have to be Google. Someone will do it. I
hope. Wish. Dream.

In the end I can't make up my mind, about what is the single greatest idea
in the Plan 9 culture. But if pressed I suggest it is 9P and the idea, that
we really do not need protocols above the network layer, but HTTP, SMTP,
DNS, SOAP, IIOP, IMAP, IRC, SSH, SSL, TP, SNMP and hundred others can all be
replaced by "remote file access". And at the same time with file system
union directories you can also "inherit" and "augment" any of the
"services". This essentially gioves you distributed objects (with natural
persistence option). And this all can be done securely with authenticator
handles and the Factotum agent. It is safe enough to be run over the public
internet.

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Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[Aleksandar Kuktin]

On Mon, 11 Oct 2010 13:45:02 +0000, Bruce Ellis wrote:

> Very succinct, and better than I could do 'til the coffee kicks in.
>
> You could have pointed out that the entire source tree is smaller than
> the gcc manual.

WAT!?!

Ahem.. pardon my manners please, but this caught me completely of guard.

I learned of Plan 9's existence a few years back, when I was finishing my
Linux from scratch and was out looking if there is a way to get something
even better than a Linux. I've been lurking in this group for quite a
while now, hoping to maybe find some easy way to merry the two systems.

Speaking of which, is there a way to do the opposite of "Plan 9 in
userspace"? That is, a way to use Unix-specific programs and libraries on
Plan 9?

Basically, this is what has been holding me back. I would like to switch
to Plan 9, but still have all of my Linux programs and libraries
available. I also dread using any virtualizators, QEMUs, Xens and other
stuff; not because I find them hard to use, but because I don't want to
waste CPU cycles on compatibility layers.

Is there already an implemented.. POSIX compatibility layer, library, or
something? Hopefully, something that is very, very thin??
Maybe?

Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[Max E]

If I recall correctly, "Ape" is a complete POSIX implementation
including Bourne shell, C libraries, etc. I think there are also ports
of some of the GNU extended utilities as well.
On Tue, 2010-10-12 at 08:33 +0000, Aleksandar Kuktin wrote:
>
> Is there already an implemented.. POSIX compatibility layer, library, or
> something? Hopefully, something that is very, very thin??
> Maybe?
>

Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[Max E]

For any use-case I personally care about (and probably any
workstation/server use case you care about as well,) the Linux kernel
with the GNU userspace will blow anything out of the water, both in
performance and usability. If you don't recognize this you're sticking
your head in the sand. I know P9 is faster in many ways, but have you
tried comparing performance figures with, say, browser rendering times,
Doom 3, or some video transcoder? Exactly.

However, projects like Linux and P9 can and *should* coexist, because
they complement each other. The developers of research OSs get a lot
more freedom to do research advance the state of the art. In fact, I'd
say P9 has contributed at least as much to the state of open-source OS
development as Linux has. Certainly, the Linux kernel uses a lot of
techniques that could only have been incubated within a research OS.
(/proc... what a wacky idea! But a good one.)

So, there are two reasons to use (and port your software to) Plan 9.
-First of all, you get a preview of what Unix development is probably
going to look like in a few years-- increased depreciation of ASCII for
Unicode, resource shared between computers, and so on.
-Second of all, Plan 9 is just SO DAMN FUN to play with.

-Max
On Mon, 2010-10-11 at 09:05 +0000, Mark Carter wrote:
> I was reading the suckless.org website the other day, and they seemed
> quite keen on Plan 9. I am running Linux. Is there a useful summary
> document that explains where plan9port fits in with Glendix, and why
> anyone should care about Plan 9 anyway (hope that doesn't come across
> as rude)?
>

Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[yy]

2010/10/12 Max E <maxxedout@comcast.net>:
> For any use-case I personally care about (and probably any
> workstation/server use case you care about as well,) the Linux kernel
> with the GNU userspace will blow anything out of the water, both in
> performance and usability.

I don't think the GNU userspace is more usable. Compare the bash and
rc man pages and tell me which one you find easier to use. From my
point of view consistency and simplicity increase usability. Both of
these qualities are difficult to find in GNU software.. If you don't
recognize this you're sticking your head in the sand.

--
- yiyus || JGL . 4l77.com

Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[Steve Simon]

> Is there already an implemented.. POSIX compatibility layer, library, or
> something? Hopefully, something that is very, very thin??

http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/ape.pdf

this will allow you to recompile nice clean ansi posix code.
compiling gnu code may require more work as much of it is
rather tied to gcc and glib.

getting configure to work (the importability system) is a pain but
Fede has a nice script which can do much of the work for you - see the
9fans archives http://9fans.net/archive

-Steve

Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[Jacob Todd]

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There's APE, the Ansi Posix Environment.
On Oct 12, 2010 4:40 AM, "Aleksandar Kuktin" <akuktin@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Oct 2010 13:45:02 +0000, Bruce Ellis wrote:
>
>> Very succinct, and better than I could do 'til the coffee kicks in.
>>
>> You could have pointed out that the entire source tree is smaller than
>> the gcc manual.
>
> WAT!?!
>
> Ahem.. pardon my manners please, but this caught me completely of guard.
>
> I learned of Plan 9's existence a few years back, when I was finishing my
> Linux from scratch and was out looking if there is a way to get something
> even better than a Linux. I've been lurking in this group for quite a
> while now, hoping to maybe find some easy way to merry the two systems.
>
> Speaking of which, is there a way to do the opposite of "Plan 9 in
> userspace"? That is, a way to use Unix-specific programs and libraries on
> Plan 9?
>
> Basically, this is what has been holding me back. I would like to switch
> to Plan 9, but still have all of my Linux programs and libraries
> available. I also dread using any virtualizators, QEMUs, Xens and other
> stuff; not because I find them hard to use, but because I don't want to
> waste CPU cycles on compatibility layers.
>
> Is there already an implemented.. POSIX compatibility layer, library, or
> something? Hopefully, something that is very, very thin??
> Maybe?
>

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Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[Mark Carter]

On Oct 12, 9:21 am, porttik...@gmail.com (Anssi Porttikivi) wrote:

> we really do not need protocols above the network layer, but HTTP, SMTP,
> DNS, SOAP, IIOP, IMAP, IRC, SSH, SSL, TP, SNMP and hundred others can all be
> replaced by "remote file access".

This sounds pretty interesting.

You may not be aware of it, but there's a project called thimbl (I'm
not involved in it) that is using the finger daemon on Linux to
provide a Twitter-esque clone. I'm not aware of its exact workings,
but it's something along the lines that a user's ~/.plan file is used
as the Twitter post. I have plan9port set up on Slackware, and I was
wondering how one might implement this idea using Plan 9. You're
saying that my "post" will just be a file then, stored in a directory
which others can read. Are there any docs you can point me to (Noddy
learns Plan 9) which would give the basics as to how I might set such
a thing up?

Sorry that I haven't even made it to "day one" of Plan 9 yet.

Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[David Leimbach]

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On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 1:51 AM, Max E <maxxedout@comcast.net> wrote:

> If I recall correctly, "Ape" is a complete POSIX implementation
> including Bourne shell, C libraries, etc. I think there are also ports
> of some of the GNU extended utilities as well.
>

Not to mention you can get firefox to run under linuxemu if you stick with
it :-).


> On Tue, 2010-10-12 at 08:33 +0000, Aleksandar Kuktin wrote:
> >
> > Is there already an implemented.. POSIX compatibility layer, library, or
> > something? Hopefully, something that is very, very thin??
> > Maybe?
> >
>
>
>
>

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Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[Steve Simon]

the twitter example you gave is perhaps too simple, could the tweets
not just be text written to a publicly writable file. the users could connect
with 9p but as the user none son they will need no auth.

better examples of the everything is a file aproach are wikifs (a file server which
prvides virtual files for the httpd server (or any normal 9p file client)
to access and stores a database of wiki pages.
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/magic/man2html/4/wikifs

the cassic example is using a plan9 server as a gateway machine across a firewall.
This machine is dual homed and all machines inside the firewall are isolated.
when one of these machines wants to connect to somone outside the firewall they
can just import the gateway's /net.alt over the top of their own. (by tradition
the primary interface is mounted on /net and the seccondary at /net.alt)

Now any DNS lookup and  socket connection will be made using the gateway's internet
facing NIC. This is all done using the 9p protocol, no clever IP routing etc.
if the 9p connection to the hateway happens to come over an ssh session,
ppp, or pigeon, it doesn't matter, you are sharing files, and these particular
files give you access to that machines network interface.

there is also a really neat trick you can use do a similar thing with a unix
machine as the gateway - sshnet provides a /net like interface to plan9 but uses
ssh's remote port forwarding to speak to unix:
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/magic/man2html/1/ssh

-Steve

Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[David Leimbach]

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I've used that sshnet trick many many times.  I just wish it supported a
newer version of ssh :-)

On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 7:53 AM, Steve Simon <steve@quintile.net> wrote:

> the twitter example you gave is perhaps too simple, could the tweets
> not just be text written to a publicly writable file. the users could
> connect
> with 9p but as the user none son they will need no auth.
>
> better examples of the everything is a file aproach are wikifs (a file
> server which
> prvides virtual files for the httpd server (or any normal 9p file client)
> to access and stores a database of wiki pages.
> http://plan9.bell-labs.com/magic/man2html/4/wikifs
>
> the cassic example is using a plan9 server as a gateway machine across a
> firewall.
> This machine is dual homed and all machines inside the firewall are
> isolated.
> when one of these machines wants to connect to somone outside the firewall
> they
> can just import the gateway's /net.alt over the top of their own. (by
> tradition
> the primary interface is mounted on /net and the seccondary at /net.alt)
>
> Now any DNS lookup and  socket connection will be made using the gateway's
> internet
> facing NIC. This is all done using the 9p protocol, no clever IP routing
> etc.
> if the 9p connection to the hateway happens to come over an ssh session,
> ppp, or pigeon, it doesn't matter, you are sharing files, and these
> particular
> files give you access to that machines network interface.
>
> there is also a really neat trick you can use do a similar thing with a
> unix
> machine as the gateway - sshnet provides a /net like interface to plan9 but
> uses
> ssh's remote port forwarding to speak to unix:
> http://plan9.bell-labs.com/magic/man2html/1/ssh
>
> -Steve
>
>

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Re: [9fans] So, why Plan 9?

[Aleksandar Kuktin]

On Tue, 12 Oct 2010 11:27:45 +0000, Steve Simon wrote:

>> Is there already an implemented.. POSIX compatibility layer, library,
>> or something? Hopefully, something that is very, very thin??
>
> http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/ape.pdf
>
> this will allow you to recompile nice clean ansi posix code. compiling
> gnu code may require more work as much of it is rather tied to gcc and
> glib.
>
> getting configure to work (the importability system) is a pain but Fede
> has a nice script which can do much of the work for you - see the 9fans
> archives http://9fans.net/archive
>
> -Steve

Thanks guys. Looking forward to trying it.

Ofcourse, since I'm short of free time right now (ah.. the age-old
problem), I'll be playing with all this a bit later.