From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2005 09:59:38 -1000 From: Tim Newsham To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@cse.psu.edu> Subject: Re: [9fans] hacking issue: memory resizing In-Reply-To: <4321A7E3.1040106@lanl.gov> Message-ID: References: <20050909145216.4691A106B2F@dexter-peak.quanstro.net> <4321A7E3.1040106@lanl.gov> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Topicbox-Message-UUID: 861e569a-ead0-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 On Fri, 9 Sep 2005, Ronald G Minnich wrote: > My impression in general is that the device stuff in Plan 9 is not terribly > dynamic -- not surprising, given the time in which the code was written. This brings up something I've been wondering about lately. Plan 9 was written for a particular environment (file server, cpu servers, many terminals). It works well there but obviously lacks some features that a more "modern" environment might desire. You hear it sometimes on this mailing list "I want to do so and so." "well, so and so doesn't really work well, remember the typical setup is a fileserver, cpu servers and terminals." So the big question here is -- what would a more modern environment be, and what could plan9 (or a system like it) do to fit in better. Plan B looks like its addressing this issue in one sense (although perhaps not in the type of environment I would typically use computers in today). I think this "hot swappable devices and services" thread is one instance of grappling with this larger issue. What are the other big problems out there and what environment do people think is reasonable? Seems like everyone has several fast machines, many of them mobile, often being disconnected from one network and attached to another (or used disconnected). Often people want a filesystem and cpu server on their portable platform. There are lots of small ultra-mobile platforms. Energy use is more a concern than it was before. Tim Newsham http://www.lava.net/~newsham/