[9fans] Re: Time for 9? :-)

[Michael Jensen <mikethe1wheelnut@gmail.com>]

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Greetings again all.

I have now attempted to install 9front.  On my dell latitude e7450.  I
followed the instructions at fqa.9front.org/fqa4.html.

I encountered the following problems:

I get as far a section 4.3.8 - prepdisk.  I follow the recommendation of
accepting the suggestion, and type w, then hit <enter>

Normally, it should accept that, and I follow it up with q.

Instead, I get:

"
error writing partition table to disk
attempting to restore partitions to previous state
cannot restore: error seeking on disk
"

It then sends me up a menu, and I get to re-specify a bunch of things.
It gets back to approximately the same place, except this time, instead of
suggesting a layout, I get:

"disk/prep: cannot open disk: file too small to be a disk"

Continuing, I keep getting that error, even if I tell it to use esp as my
9fat partition.

I have consulted one youtube tutorial where they use the gefs as the file
system instead of the default in the tutorial.  if that works, great.
Thought I should report this though.

Cheers!
Mike :-)


On Sun, Sep 21, 2025 at 6:03 PM Michael Jensen <mikethe1wheelnut@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Greetings :-)
>
> ..I am currently in a deep exploration of operating systems.
> windows->ubuntu->guix&openbsd, with many more tried en-route.  now I'm
> hearing about plan9 and oberon.  So, plan9 is the bees-knees?  People
> daydream wistfully about a world where it dominates..  So.. shall we get on
> with it?  :-)  Unfortunately, I go to the wiki for instructions on
> installing it (
> https://plan9.io/wiki/plan9/Installation_instructions/index.html), and
> find: "Beware: in the manner of wikis most everywhere, this one is
> woefully out of date.
> <https://plan9.io/wiki/plan9/Beware:_in_the_manner_of_wikis_most_everywhere,_this_one_is_woefully_out_of_date.>"
> ..this is not encouraging.  In fact, it stops me in my tracks and causes me
> to write this e-mail instead.
>
> ..I currently have three computers.  Dell Latitudes e7450 and e7440, and a
> Thinkpad T430.  I am open to buying another one if there is a particular
> one that is recommended for plan9.  I can get another
> more-or-less-realiable T430 for ~150 can.  ..I might poke around trying to
> follow the given instructions.. but my instinct says that I won't, not
> without more assurance of support.
>
> ..You may be wondering how I heard about plan9 in the first place.  Keep
> in mind, hearing about it and becoming convinced it's worth investigating,
> are two different things.  I credit, in historical order, "The Art of Unix
> Programming", Suckless, and vis (the editor).  vis are the people whose
> documentation prodded me into seriously checking it out.  (..Of course, now
> that I search specifically for plan9, I get plenty of hits..)
>
> Cheers,
> Michael :-)
>

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