Re: [9fans] So, once I've got the OS up how do I...

Re: [9fans] So, once I've got the OS up how do I...

[rob pike]

I'm a little disturbed by these questions.  It's not that I doubt
you'll get asked them, it's that Plan 9 will lose any feature fight.
What makes the system interesting is how it does things, not how many
programs have been ported to it, how compatible it is with Linux, or
how few picoseconds it takes to do a context switch.

You can help propagate the message by talking about how the system
works.  Tell stories about how the pieces fit together, how they solve
problems by design rather than attack by overwhelming features.  It's
a hard sell but it can be done.

-rob

[9fans] Re: So, once I've got the OS up how do I...

[Jim Choate]

On Wed, 7 Feb 2001, rob pike wrote:

> I'm a little disturbed by these questions.  It's not that I doubt
> you'll get asked them, it's that Plan 9 will lose any feature fight.
> What makes the system interesting is how it does things, not how many
> programs have been ported to it, how compatible it is with Linux, or
> how few picoseconds it takes to do a context switch.

I don't intend to present it as a feature fight. I'm planning to avoid any
sort of us/them dialog/diatribe. I've started this Hangar 18 project and
we've already got like 5 people. What I'm looking to do is make a list of
projects and issues that we need to address if we want Plan 9 to succeed.

I agree that the distributed features are one of the key feature, I
believe it will enable many of the things people have wanting to do for
years. I've personally been following Plan 9 since the early 90's. The
only(!) reason I moved to Linux in 1992 is that I saw no chance of a
change in the license.

Perhaps it'd help if I explained a little more of what I'm looking to do.

I want to try and get several people here in the Austin area with
dedicated high speed connections (I use ISDN 24*365 w/ a Class C at home)
to run Plan 9 servers, both file and process. The hope is to build a
distrubuted library of materials and services that people can use. I want
to allow at least Plan 9 and Linux users to be able to participate. There
are some additional ideas for projects at,

http://einstein.ssz.com/hangar18

Your fears are not unfounded. I've been fighting a battle within the Linux
user group who are so rabid anti-anything_not_Linux that it's nearly
unbelievable. Fortunately the majority of participants are interested and
at least admit the potential of a world, and possibly a personal use, with
Plan 9 in it. The group has agreed to host our Plan 9 meetings the last
Thu. of each month.

http://austinlug.org

> You can help propagate the message by talking about how the system
> works.  Tell stories about how the pieces fit together, how they solve
> problems by design rather than attack by overwhelming features.  It's
> a hard sell but it can be done.

Better yet, we hope to show them. Right now we'll have three machines at
the meeting on Thu. the 22'nd. I'm going to give away 10 CD's and do a
install. Then the other couple of guys are going to do some networking and
demo the user interface. Then I've got to figure out what feature I need
to do each month for about the next six months.

As to applications, I agree 100%. I'm a physics geek, not a computer geek,
and I want to do things with the thing. A computer is a fancy wrench. Not sit
arounda and talk about how pretty it is...;) This was one of the reasons I
asked the host of questions. I'm trying to figure out what I need to dance
around while at the same time keeping it interesting and usefull.

    ____________________________________________________________________

           Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a
           smaller group must first understand it.

                                           "Stranger Suns"
                                           George Zebrowski

       The Armadillo Group       ,::////;::-.          James Choate
       Austin, Tx               /:'///// ``::>/|/      ravage@ssz.com
       www.ssz.com            .',  ||||    `/( e\      512-451-7087
                           -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
    --------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [9fans] So, once I've got the OS up how do I...

[Steve Kilbane]

rob wrote:
> You can help propagate the message by talking about how the system
> works.  Tell stories about how the pieces fit together, how they solve
> problems by design rather than attack by overwhelming features.

I agree. These days, when attempting to explain the appeal of Plan 9,
I compare DNS, resolver libraries and socket calls to cs, the networking
devices, and dial(). This sounds great when describing what happens on
a local machine, but things really kick off when cs and the network
devices are mounted across the network.

steve

Re: [9fans] So, once I've got the OS up how do I...

[Scott Schwartz]

| I compare DNS, resolver libraries and socket calls to cs, the networking
| devices, and dial(). This sounds great when describing what happens on
| a local machine, but things really kick off when cs and the network
| devices are mounted across the network.

Agreed.  And telco really drives the point home.

Re: [9fans] Rant (was Re: Plan9 and Ada95?)

[anothy]

// I have never used plan 9's httpd, but from the features list it seem
// very good.  Certainly can't fault it from the client's perspective.

i can't say i recomend it. apache was a reasonable example; it really
_might_ make sense to port it (i don't think so, but it might). i
certainly believe something more robust than what we've got now would be
very usefull.

// ...suggesting that Mozilla be ported to Plan 9.

this is the same discussion as apache, i think. there are features that
we want: good html rendering, good javascript support, good set of
plugins (where good in those three cases, unfortunatly, really should be
read as "what web developers expect"). this is very hard to do. but so
is porting Mozilla (i looked at it. breifly). someone interested in
exerting effort to get these features needs to decide where to spend her
effort. a cost/gain decision.

// ...it takes a large community of developers to produce (amongst the
// noise) good, solid products.

i don't think this is so, but i'm not sure it's what you intended to
say, either. elsewhere you seem to argue that it takes a large
community of developers to produce _lots_ of _different_type_ of good,
solid products. and i'd agree with that.

there is a balance to be struck between the usefulness of importing
foreign code and the danger of doing so - diluting the system's
benefits, turning it into "just another unix". as such, i'm still not
sure what i think of the GCC port. GCC is ugly and awful. but it can
give me things that i want. like helping me get rid of the one
remaining Solaris box i run, when i can build the two things we use
it for that're in c++ on Plan 9. then i can get the web developer
who writes code for those two bits to be writing code on Plan 9, and
i have a chance at migrating him to better things.

i guess i just don't see the "party line" bit. maybe it's there, but i
don't see it. i find this to be a much more open forum than most others
i've spent time in, computer-related or not.
ア

Re: [9fans] Rant (was Re: Plan9 and Ada95?)

[Lucio De Re]

On Thu, Nov 08, 2001 at 01:45:51AM -0500, anothy@cosym.net wrote:
>
> i don't think this is so, but i'm not sure it's what you intended to
> say, either. elsewhere you seem to argue that it takes a large
> community of developers to produce _lots_ of _different_type_ of good,
> solid products. and i'd agree with that.
>
That's where the _noise_ comes in.  We could wish for an elite of
really cool programmers, of the caliber we're familiar with, but
without Bell Labs' selection criteria, we have to allow natural
selection to perform the discrimination.

> i guess i just don't see the "party line" bit. maybe it's there, but i
> don't see it. i find this to be a much more open forum than most others
> i've spent time in, computer-related or not.
> ?

Well, let's see if we can agree: XML, GCC, X, C++, JAVA, Perl, off
the cuff, have all drawn criticism on this list.  None of the
criticism has addressed the social need, as you so eloquently
explain in your example, to support these entities in some fashion
or provide alternatives, even if only as opening moves towards
superior replacements.

Maybe I expect too much, but I'd like to see the type of comment
that encourages the developer to consider alternatives and eventually
produces them, even if somewhere in the quest for acceptance some
principles have to be compromised.o

For example, C++ is too unwieldy to implement efficiently, but a
few features, such as extensions to structs, operator overloading
might be worth adding to the C compiler for the benefit of compiling
existing code, on the assumption that only some C++ extensions have
really gained popularity.  Purists will frown on such suggestions,
and their opinion should be noted, but not necessarily followed.

I could get myself excommunicated from here by listing all the
heresies I have considered, the above is just a sample.  My feeling
is that one needs a place where heresies are vented in public, draw
appropriate criticism and what valid essence they have becomes part
of the core entity.  A CVS repository could be a start, but without
the participation of the Plan 9 team (which incidentally would
mirror, magnified, Linus Torvald's role in the Linux kernel) it
would soon deteriorate to bulk for the sake of publication.  Maybe
I'm just dreaming, because something along these lines ought to
develop of its own accord, but my fear is that criticism of "foreign"
products discourages such contributions.

++L

Re: [9fans] Rant (was Re: Plan9 and Ada95?)

[Christopher Nielsen]

On Thu, Nov 08, 2001 at 10:05:38AM +0200, Lucio De Re wrote:

[snip]
> A CVS repository could be a start, but without the participation of
[snip]

CVS has a lot of problems. If you're thinking of creating a
source repo, take a look at subversion:

http://subversion.tigris.org/

It's not quite ready yet, but it should be in a couple months,
and it's far superior to CVS.

As nifty as the dump fs is, there are some things it doesn't
provide that a large development team needs in the software
development process. Of course, maybe the idea is to rethink
the development process.

My thought is that something like subversion that utilizes
the ideas of plan9 would be a powerful and useful development
tool.

--
Christopher Nielsen - Metal-wielding pyro techie
cnielsen@pobox.com
"Those who are willing to trade freedom for security deserve
 neither freedom nor security." --Benjamin Franklin

cvs et al [Re: [9fans] Rant (was Re: Plan9 and Ada95?)]

[Ozan Yigit]

cnielsen@pobox.com (Christopher Nielsen) writes [in part]:

> CVS has a lot of problems. If you're thinking of creating a
> source repo, take a look at subversion:
>
> http://subversion.tigris.org/

while i'm glad that there are more efforts in proper source code
control, i don't see how subversion is useful to plan9 crowd. just
running the config reveals that it is really intended to live in the
special dormitory of linux, containing "apache portable runtime" and "neon"
http library (gnu patch?) and so on. [it also needs berkeley db which i don't
mind so much :] cvs, with all its failures, do not require this much baggage
to be useful. it is hard to tell if there is a useful core "subsubversion" in
the present blob that is actually extractable...

another notable effort, even less approachable in some ways, is bitkeeper
(by Larry McVoy). we cannot even port it around as it is not open sourced yet.
see http://www.bitkeeper.com. the documentation is online, so at least one
can check out the ideas and principles behind it.

oz
---
www.cs.yorku.ca/~oz	 | a consumer survey cannot predict the long-term benefits
york u. computer science | of design, nor can it evaluate the contributions of an
			 | experienced designer. -- paul rand

Re: [9fans] Rant (was Re: Plan9 and Ada95?)

[Thomas Bushnell, BSG]

Has anyone compared the efficiency of the code produced by GCC and the
Plan 9 compiler?

Re: [9fans] Rant (was Re: Plan9 and Ada95?)

[Matthew Hannigan]

It would be interesting to see ?c
ranked here: http://www.bagley.org/~doug/shootout/

Very interesting site.


"Thomas Bushnell, BSG" wrote:
>
> Has anyone compared the efficiency of the code produced by GCC and the
> Plan 9 compiler?

Re: [9fans] Rant (was Re: Plan9 and Ada95?)

[Steve Kilbane]

Going back slightly, anothy said:

> // ...suggesting that Mozilla be ported to Plan 9.
>
> this is the same discussion as apache, i think.

..with which I'd disagree. A server doesn't fall into the same
category as a program with a GUI (or even a UI), because its
externally-discernable behaviour is far more clearly defined;
in this case, it's defined within a domain - TCP - that Plan 9
supports.

Putting it another way, interoperating with other programs/systems
is a different class of problem from interacting with users used
to those systems.

steve

Re: [9fans] Rant (was Re: Plan9 and Ada95?)

[George Michaelson]

Apache is a bad idea because like mozilla, it carries the leaden weight
of history around inside it.

It has code inside to do threading. This is presumably irrelevant on plan9.

It has code to pre-fork children. ditto.

It has code to work around Microsoft .DLL strangeness.

It has its own shared-library runtime load code.

It has backwards compatibility code for NCSA httpd.

If you want it because it has HTTP 1.1 conformant implementation, or
an interesting model of how to represent a file directory as web, thats
surely better done discretely?

If you want a service which understands apache .htaccess formatted data,
that too is surely better written another way? I can understand wanting
to un-tar a tree of web, including .htaccess, even parse an httpd.conf
but to port the daemon..

cheers
	-George
--
George Michaelson       |  APNIC
Email: ggm@apnic.net    |  PO Box 2131 Milton QLD 4064
Phone: +61 7 3367 0490  |  Australia
  Fax: +61 7 3367 0482  |  http://www.apnic.net

Re: [9fans] Rant (was Re: Plan9 and Ada95?)

[Caffienator]

In article <24569.1005289364@apnic.net>, "George Michaelson"
<ggm@apnic.net> wrote:

> Apache is a bad idea because like mozilla, it carries the leaden weight
> of history around inside it.
>
> It has code inside to do threading. This is presumably irrelevant on
> plan9.
>
> It has code to pre-fork children. ditto.
>
> It has code to work around Microsoft .DLL strangeness.
>
> It has its own shared-library runtime load code.
>
> It has backwards compatibility code for NCSA httpd.
>
> If you want it because it has HTTP 1.1 conformant implementation, or an
> interesting model of how to represent a file directory as web, thats
> surely better done discretely?
>
> If you want a service which understands apache .htaccess formatted data,
> that too is surely better written another way? I can understand wanting
> to un-tar a tree of web, including .htaccess, even parse an httpd.conf
> but to port the daemon..
>
> cheers
> 	-George
> --
> George Michaelson       |  APNIC
> Email: ggm@apnic.net    |  PO Box 2131 Milton QLD 4064 Phone: +61 7 3367
> 0490  |  Australia
>   Fax: +61 7 3367 0482  |  http://www.apnic.net

There is the Ada Web Server, which should be trivial to get working on
Plan9 once we have an Ada compiler which will target the Plan9 platform.

You can find it at http://www.adapower.com

Implementing Java through Ada is a piece of cake as well, via JGNAT.

Laters.

Caffienator
chris@dont.spam.me

Re: [9fans] Rant (was Re: Plan9 and Ada95?)

[Boyd Roberts]

> ... like mozilla, it carries the leaden weight
> of history around inside it.

Mozilla is a horrible thing.  I've seen how it calls WinSock -- ick.

Re: [9fans] Re: So, once I've got the OS up how do I...

[Russ Cox]

Regarding Plan 9 <-> Unix as far as file systems,
Plan 9 has an NFS server that Unix systems may
use to mount Plan 9 file systems.  It works pretty
well.  We had someone working almost exclusively
over the NFS server two summers ago.

U9fs is a 9P server that Plan 9 systems may use to
mount Unix file systems.  It too works pretty well.
As I type this, I have two such file systems mounted
in my namespace.  I'm also booting a Plan 9 box
entirely over an ethernet with a FreeBSD machine
serving as both file and authentication server.
I'm using u9fs (rewritten for 9P2000 but pretty much
the same) for file service and a port of auth.srv for
authentication.  It works.

Neither is blazingly fast, but that's not the goal.
They work well for providing interoperability.

The amazing thing is how simple they are.

    1527    3657   27203 u9fs/u9fs.c
     326     792    6457 9auth/9authsrv.c

The rest is mostly supporting routines pulled in
from the Plan 9 C library, like doprint and convM2S.

That's a full file server in 1500 lines of code,
and an authentication server in 300.  The reason this
works is that 9P is so simple.  If you want to drive the
point home, put up the rot13fs below (inspired by a
French intro to Plan 9 that appeared a few years ago;
I'd credit further except not knowing French, I got
by reading only the examples).

The whole guts of the filter is right here:

	while(n=sizeof buf, getS(rd, buf, &f, &n) == nil){
		if(f.type == Ropen)
			isdir[f.fid] = f.qid.path&CHDIR;
		if((f.type == Twrite || f.type == Rread) && !isdir[f.fid])
			rot13(f.data, f.count);
		n = convS2M(&f, wbuf);
		write(wr, wbuf, n);
	}

and that's it.  9P is simple.  Compare this with the hoops
being jumped through to do encrypted file systems on Unix
by having fake NFS servers or kernel vnode-layer replacements
or what-have-you.

Russ


#include <u.h>
#include <libc.h>
#include <auth.h>
#include <fcall.h>
#include <ctype.h>

void
rot13(char *p, int n)
{
	char *ep;

	for(ep=p+n; p<ep; p++)
		if(isalpha(*p))
			if(tolower(*p) <= 'm')
				*p += 13;
			else
				*p -= 13;
}

int isdir[65536];
void
filter(int rd, int wr)
{
	char buf[MAXMSG+MAXFDATA], wbuf[MAXMSG+MAXFDATA];
	Fcall f;
	long n;

	while(n=sizeof buf, getS(rd, buf, &f, &n) == nil){
		if(f.type == Ropen)
			isdir[f.fid] = f.qid.path&CHDIR;
		if((f.type == Twrite || f.type == Rread) && !isdir[f.fid])
			rot13(f.data, f.count);
		n = convS2M(&f, wbuf);
		write(wr, wbuf, n);
	}
	postnote(PNGROUP, getpid(), "die");
}

void
main(int argc, char **argv)
{
	int sfd, p[2];

	rfork(RFNOTEG);

	if(argc != 1+2){
		fprint(2, "usage: rot13fs service-in mountpoint\n");
		exits("usage");
	}

	if((sfd = open(argv[1], ORDWR)) < 0)
		sysfatal("cannot open %s: %r\n", argv[1]);

	if(pipe(p) < 0)
		sysfatal("pipe fails: %r\n");

	switch(rfork(RFNAMEG|RFPROC|RFFDG|RFMEM)){
	case -1:
		sysfatal("rfork fails: %r\n");
	case 0:
		close(p[0]);
		switch(fork()){
		case -1:
			sysfatal("rfork fails: %r\n");
		case 0:
			filter(sfd, p[1]);
			break;
		default:
			filter(p[1], sfd);
			break;
		}
		_exits(0);
	default:
		close(p[1]);
		if(amount(p[0], argv[2], MREPL, "") < 0)
			sysfatal("mount fails: %r\n");
		exits(0);
	}
}

Re: [9fans] So, once I've got the OS up how do I...

[Russ Cox]

I answered a bunch (and left a bunch unanswered.)

	Q1.	What is the choice with respect to mail mirrors or mailing list
		software like majordomo?

There's no list software as of yet.  It wouldn't be hard to write.

	Q2.	What is the usual web server?

ip/httpd, see httpd(8)

	Q3.	Is the Plan 9 <> Linux software reliable?

I don't understand the question.

	Q4.	What IRC choices (both client and server) are available?

None.  Again, not hard to write.  An Acme IRC would be
really easy to write and really easy to use.

	Q5.	How do I play my audio CD's and what mp3 player is suggested?
		Is there any good audio sampling (and pop reduction) software?

Play audio CDs with acd (see http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~rsc/plan9.html).
Charles Forsyth has an mp3 player port, as does Bruce Ellis, I believe.
Long ago I saw a port of sox for doing more advanced stuff.
There's no audio sampling/pop reduction stuff ported currently.

	Q9.	What sorts of packages such as StarOffice are available, if
		any?

troff, tex, gs, basically what you'd expect.
I write my presentations in Postscript, but I'm an outlier.

I've been using StarOffice on Windows in lieu of Microsoft
Word (only under duress) and I'm not very happy with it.  I'd rather use Word.
I didn't think Microsoft really understood anything about UI
until I tried to use StarOffice.

	Q10.	What about Perl, Python, Rexx, Tcl/Tk, Java, or Prolog?

Perl yes.
Python yes.
Rexx no.
Tcl/Tk no.
Java yes, someone ported Kaffe a while back.
	It's pretty rough.

Prolog no.  (Someone is going to ask you about Prolog?  Really?)

	Q11.	Is there any sort of effort to move the GNU tools to the
		Plan 9 reality?

No, for the same reason there is no sort of effort to herd wild water buffalo
into major metropolitan areas.

	Q15.	What sort of RDBMS, especially multimedia, is available?

Someone mentioned something on 9fans about having
some database up and running.  A friend was interviewing
at Oracle a few weeks ago and in Oracle's boasts about the
portability of their server they said they had even brought
it up on Plan 9 recently.  I doubt this is going to be the cornerstone
of a new business plan.

	Q16.	Assuming a small group wished to do a custom distribution, how
		would they go about licensing it with Bell Labs? Would it even
		really be necessary under the current license? Would there be
		any advantages/disadvantages either way?

I don't think you need to talk to Bell Labs.
I am not a lawyer, but that's what license seems to say.

[9fans] Re: So, once I've got the OS up how do I...

[Jim Choate]

Thanks for taking the time to go over them.

On Wed, 7 Feb 2001, Russ Cox wrote:

> 	Q3.	Is the Plan 9 <> Linux software reliable?
>
> I don't understand the question.

As I understand it Plan 9 hosts an NFS server and there is a deamon that
lets Linux boxes mount the Plan 9 filesystem. Are they reliable in that
once setup they stay up for extended periods (eg several weeks)? Do they
have any significant limitations with respect to what or how things can be
mounted?

Pretty broad question admittedly.

> 	Q10.	What about Perl, Python, Rexx, Tcl/Tk, Java, or Prolog?
>
> Perl yes.
> Python yes.
> Rexx no.
> Tcl/Tk no.
> Java yes, someone ported Kaffe a while back.
> 	It's pretty rough.
>
> Prolog no.  (Someone is going to ask you about Prolog?  Really?)

I work for Tivoli in my day job and we use Prolog in the rules engine of
one of our products. Be glad I didn't ask about my favorite language,

Logo :)

> 		Plan 9 reality?
>
> No, for the same reason there is no sort of effort to herd wild water buffalo
> into major metropolitan areas.

You haven't been to Texas have you?...:)

> 	Q15.	What sort of RDBMS, especially multimedia, is available?
>
> Someone mentioned something on 9fans about having
> some database up and running.  A friend was interviewing
> at Oracle a few weeks ago and in Oracle's boasts about the
> portability of their server they said they had even brought
> it up on Plan 9 recently.  I doubt this is going to be the cornerstone
> of a new business plan.

No, not alone, but coupled with the distributed nature it has potential
impact at point-of-sale operations for example. Part of my day job is to
take various Tivoli and IBM software and fix business problems. Plan 9 has
a lot of potential. I also believe it will significantly impact problems
related to distributed and mobile computing.

    ____________________________________________________________________

           Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a
           smaller group must first understand it.

                                           "Stranger Suns"
                                           George Zebrowski

       The Armadillo Group       ,::////;::-.          James Choate
       Austin, Tx               /:'///// ``::>/|/      ravage@ssz.com
       www.ssz.com            .',  ||||    `/( e\      512-451-7087
                           -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
    --------------------------------------------------------------------