[9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[James A. Robinson]

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Is anyone here using Plan 9 as a terminal to connect to remote CPU / File
servers over the internet to get work done?

If I set up a small Plan 9 cluster at home, I'm thinking it'd be pretty
neat to be able to connect to the network at home over the internet.

While I have a laptop and could put 9front on it, I also really like the
thought of carrying around a little Raspberry Pi and portable
keyboard/mouse as an alternative.  Sitting here in a cheap motel room, I
realized that all the hotel rooms I've been in over the past few years have
a decent flat screen television that takes an HDMI input and has had
decent, if not amazing, WiFi to the internet.

Jim

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Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[Chris McGee]

It would be interesting to hear how this works out in practice. The bandwidth requirement is probably so low compared to typical traffic from a hotel, compared even to smart phones.

> On Sep 30, 2016, at 3:49 PM, James A. Robinson <jim.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Is anyone here using Plan 9 as a terminal to connect to remote CPU / File servers over the internet to get work done?
> 
> If I set up a small Plan 9 cluster at home, I'm thinking it'd be pretty neat to be able to connect to the network at home over the internet.
> 
> While I have a laptop and could put 9front on it, I also really like the thought of carrying around a little Raspberry Pi and portable keyboard/mouse as an alternative.  Sitting here in a cheap motel room, I realized that all the hotel rooms I've been in over the past few years have a decent flat screen television that takes an HDMI input and has had decent, if not amazing, WiFi to the internet.
> 
> Jim
> 

Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[James A. Robinson]

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Yeah, and and I wonder how the little Raspberry Pi compares to hardware
that was being used for terminals back in the late 90s.  It's certainly got
more memory and local storage available than many personal computers,
though I imagine the i/o bus is slower.

Digging around in my email I found this set of specs from my very first
workstation at my first full-time job in 1997:

Pentium 100MHz
2MB ATI Xpression Graphics
1 GB Disk (<13ms avg seek time, min. 64k cache); EIDE (not SCSI).
32 MB RAM
3com 3c509 combo ethernet card

On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 1:22 PM Chris McGee <sirnewton_01@yahoo.ca> wrote:

> It would be interesting to hear how this works out in practice. The
> bandwidth requirement is probably so low compared to typical traffic from a
> hotel, compared even to smart phones.
>

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Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[John Weaver]

It's not the bandwidth, it's the latency. I have been playing around with
this for a few weeks now. I have it working on T60 that has the kernel,
9fat and a cfs partition locally with the root on a vps 80ms away. There
are pros and cons vs drawterm to the same machine. Things that I have not
explored yet are 1) running a local build and binding $home from the vps
or using the vps as a cpu server.


--
john weaver -- jweaver@ehzed.com



On Fri, 30 Sep 2016, Chris McGee wrote:

> It would be interesting to hear how this works out in practice. The bandwidth requirement is probably so low compared to typical traffic from a hotel, compared even to smart phones.
>
>> On Sep 30, 2016, at 3:49 PM, James A. Robinson <jim.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Is anyone here using Plan 9 as a terminal to connect to remote CPU / File servers over the internet to get work done?
>>
>> If I set up a small Plan 9 cluster at home, I'm thinking it'd be pretty neat to be able to connect to the network at home over the internet.
>>
>> While I have a laptop and could put 9front on it, I also really like the thought of carrying around a little Raspberry Pi and portable keyboard/mouse as an alternative.  Sitting here in a cheap motel room, I realized that all the hotel rooms I've been in over the past few years have a decent flat screen television that takes an HDMI input and has had decent, if not amazing, WiFi to the internet.
>>
>> Jim
>>
>
>

Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[Steve Simon]

I have a Pi at work and a dual atom file/cpu/auth/etc server at home. it works well, it takes a few seconds to authenticate but is quick once you are connected.

I boot from the pi's flash so I don't really have a terminal but I keep almost nothing in the Pi.

-Steve


> On 30 Sep 2016, at 21:20, Chris McGee <sirnewton_01@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> 
> It would be interesting to hear how this works out in practice. The bandwidth requirement is probably so low compared to typical traffic from a hotel, compared even to smart phones.
> 
>> On Sep 30, 2016, at 3:49 PM, James A. Robinson <jim.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Is anyone here using Plan 9 as a terminal to connect to remote CPU / File servers over the internet to get work done?
>> 
>> If I set up a small Plan 9 cluster at home, I'm thinking it'd be pretty neat to be able to connect to the network at home over the internet.
>> 
>> While I have a laptop and could put 9front on it, I also really like the thought of carrying around a little Raspberry Pi and portable keyboard/mouse as an alternative.  Sitting here in a cheap motel room, I realized that all the hotel rooms I've been in over the past few years have a decent flat screen television that takes an HDMI input and has had decent, if not amazing, WiFi to the internet.
>> 
>> Jim
>> 
> 

Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[hiro]

since i've never been in a cheap motel room with a keyboard and usable
3-button mouse i tend to just carry my thinkpad around with me that
has a usable inbuilt mouse and keyboard in addition to a display.

Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[hiro]

> I have a Pi at work and a dual atom file/cpu/auth/etc server at home. it
> works well, it takes a few seconds to authenticate but is quick once you are
> connected.

what's etc server?
where is root, on the fs at home? or do you just cpu in or mount your
user's directory from the fs at home?
what's the latency?

Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[Erik Quanstrom]

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Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[James A. Robinson]

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I was thinking about things like this:

http://www.ohgizmo.com/2011/05/20/ohgizmo-review-verbatim-wireless-bluetooth-mobile-keyboard/

On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 3:56 PM hiro <23hiro@gmail.com> wrote:

> since i've never been in a cheap motel room with a keyboard and usable
> 3-button mouse i tend to just carry my thinkpad around with me that
> has a usable inbuilt mouse and keyboard in addition to a display.
>

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Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[hiro]

i don't see a mouse in this keyboard. the keys have non-standard size
and i'm sure it sucks to type on it. also once you add up the size of
the pi, the pi case, the cables (dvi-hdmi, mini-dvi-hdmi, dp-hdmi and
vga-hdmi adaptors) and the keyboard you're arriving at thinkpad
dimensions anyway.

I forgot the thinkpad also has an inbuilt battery. Good for mobility
and against flaky power in development countries.

On 10/1/16, James A. Robinson <jimr@highwire.org> wrote:
> I was thinking about things like this:
>
> http://www.ohgizmo.com/2011/05/20/ohgizmo-review-verbatim-wireless-bluetooth-mobile-keyboard/
>
> On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 3:56 PM hiro <23hiro@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> since i've never been in a cheap motel room with a keyboard and usable
>> 3-button mouse i tend to just carry my thinkpad around with me that
>> has a usable inbuilt mouse and keyboard in addition to a display.
>>
>

Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[James A. Robinson]

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Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

On Sat, Oct 1, 2016 at 1:06 AM, hiro <23hiro@gmail.com> wrote:

> i don't see a mouse in this keyboard. the keys have non-standard size
> and i'm sure it sucks to type on it. also once you add up the size of
> the pi, the pi case, the cables (dvi-hdmi, mini-dvi-hdmi, dp-hdmi and
> vga-hdmi adaptors) and the keyboard you're arriving at thinkpad
> dimensions anyway.
>
> I forgot the thinkpad also has an inbuilt battery. Good for mobility
> and against flaky power in development countries.
>
> On 10/1/16, James A. Robinson <jimr@highwire.org> wrote:
> > I was thinking about things like this:
> >
> > http://www.ohgizmo.com/2011/05/20/ohgizmo-review-verbatim-
> wireless-bluetooth-mobile-keyboard/
> >
> > On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 3:56 PM hiro <23hiro@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> since i've never been in a cheap motel room with a keyboard and usable
> >> 3-button mouse i tend to just carry my thinkpad around with me that
> >> has a usable inbuilt mouse and keyboard in addition to a display.
> >>
> >
>
>

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Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[Chris McGee]

> I forgot the thinkpad also has an inbuilt battery. Good for mobility
> and against flaky power in development countries.

I found some $4 voltage regulators that will convert 18v Lithium ion drill batteries to power my Pi. Could be useful for field work.

Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[James A. Robinson]

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Honestly I had been assuming one of those usb battery packs would work. :)

On Sat, Oct 1, 2016 at 4:59 AM Chris McGee <sirnewton_01@yahoo.ca> wrote:

I found some $4 voltage regulators that will convert 18v Lithium ion drill
batteries to power my Pi. Could be useful for field work.

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Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[Chris McGee]

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Sure, they would work but it's one more thing to have to charge. My drill batteries are always charged and I already own them.

> On Oct 1, 2016, at 9:40 AM, James A. Robinson <jim.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Honestly I had been assuming one of those usb battery packs would work. :)
> 
> On Sat, Oct 1, 2016 at 4:59 AM Chris McGee <sirnewton_01@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> I found some $4 voltage regulators that will convert 18v Lithium ion drill batteries to power my Pi. Could be useful for field work.

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Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[Skip Tavakkolian]

> While I have a laptop and could put 9front on it, I also really like the
> thought of carrying around a little Raspberry Pi and portable
> keyboard/mouse as an alternative. 

i've used a "lapdock" with rpi/9pi.  it is *almost* useful as a term.
i don't have a pitop (below), but it seems practical using an rpi3 with
wifi support in plan9.  for that price, you could look like the
coolest kid in the class!  🙃

https://www.adafruit.com/products/3065?gclid=CjwKEAjwvb2_BRCb_s7Yo7_ZlHASJABz6L0j9l8Qqx6JQL4s1JHg1mMV88a0fHVij61v18dg3m_4QBoCvVHw_wcB

Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[hiro]

i'm sure that touchpad will suck for chording.

Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[Richard Miller]

> i'm sure that touchpad will suck for chording.

I've tried accessing plan 9 using vnc from a touchscreen tablet,
and yes it does suck.  Rio and acme really do want a mouse.

With a multitouch screen it's possible somebody could think up
a new gesture-based plan 9 interface which would work as well
as mouse chording.

Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[James A. Robinson]

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On Sun, Oct 2, 2016 at 2:13 AM Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:
> I've tried accessing plan 9 using vnc from a touchscreen tablet,
> and yes it does suck. Rio and acme really do want a mouse.
>
> With a multitouch screen it's possible somebody could think up a
> new gesture-based plan 9 interface which would work as well as mouse
> chording.

Since I'm on a macbook with a one-button touchpad I end up using
the keyboard modifiers plus the patch submitted by djeannot24 to
plan9port (see https://codereview.appspot.com/6115053) to help get
around the lack of buttons.

Jim

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Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[Chris McGee]

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Is there any interest in putting these p9port style keyboard modifiers into p9bl or 9front?

It might be a good backup for when I don’t have a true three button mouse kicking around.

Chris

> 
> Since I'm on a macbook with a one-button touchpad I end up using
> the keyboard modifiers plus the patch submitted by djeannot24 to
> plan9port (see https://codereview.appspot.com/6115053 <https://codereview.appspot.com/6115053>) to help get
> around the lack of buttons.
> 
> Jim
> 


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Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[sl]

> Is there any interest in putting these p9port style keyboard modifiers into p9bl or 9front?

Could you explain exactly what the modifiers are and how they work?

sl

Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[Chris McGee]

I believe that it is documented somewhere on Russ Cox’s website or on plan9port.

Basically, you can hold down the ctrl or alt keys while clicking/dragging to simulate the same action with the middle or right mouse button. I think that chording is possible too by holding down both ctrl and alt at the same time. Although, I’m not sure how you would do chording with the left and middle or left and right. Maybe you can use shift in those cases.

I’m wondering if this kind of thing has been discussed before. Perhaps there are good reasons to keep the functionality out of p9bl or 9front?

Chris

> On Oct 2, 2016, at 10:28 PM, sl@9front.org wrote:
> 
> Could you explain exactly what the modifiers are and how they work?
> 
> sl
> 

Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[Alex Musolino]

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>
> Is there any interest in putting these p9port style keyboard modifiers
> into p9bl or 9front?
>

9front has Shift+RMB for emulating MMB.

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Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[sl]

> I believe that it is documented somewhere on Russ Cox’s website or on plan9port.

Sorry, I thought you were referring to the swipe gestures introduced in the
link you quoted.

sl

Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[James A. Robinson]

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As Chris indicated, the keyboard modifiers let you simulate buttons 2 or
3.  The remaining issue is the chording combinations, selecting with 1 and
then clicking 2 (cut) or 3 (paste), or having some copied text and using
2-1 to execute with args.  The patch I mentioned helps with those, letting
you sweep left and right to cut, paste, or execute with args.

>From the man page diff:

3-finger-swipe left to cut (cmd+x),
3-finger-swipe right to paste (cmd+v),
3-finger-swipe up to copy (cmd+c),
3-finger-swipe down to exec with arg (2-1 chord),
3-finger-tap to middle-click.

On Sun, Oct 2, 2016, 19:48 <sl@9front.org> wrote:

> > I believe that it is documented somewhere on Russ Cox’s website or on
> plan9port.
>
> Sorry, I thought you were referring to the swipe gestures introduced in the
> link you quoted.
>
> sl
>
>

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Re: [9fans] Terminal possibliities...

[Brian L. Stuart]

On Sat, 10/1/16, James A. Robinson <jim.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
> Honestly I had been assuming one of those usb battery packs would work. :)

They work pretty well.  One I tested with a B+ and a 3.5" LCD screen
lasted about 4 hours before it crashed.  I should time it with a 3 and
one of the DSI interface 7" LCD screens.

BLS