Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[YAMANASHI Takeshi]

Sorry for stirring up the settled dust...

On Wed Mar  7 15:43:27 JST 2007, ron minnich wrote:
> Everybody wants everything
> to look like a linux desktop, even a cluster node. It's kind of sad.
> Clusters are stuck in a 1997 mentality.

And they still use Fortran for their job.
I sure agree that nothing is wrong about using Fortran or the mentality,
but I'm getting a bit bored to look after those systems nowadays.

So I'm really looking forward to what eric's 9p in his research
and xcpu will bring to the HPC world in the future.
-- 

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Charles Forsyth]

>From: YAMANASHI Takeshi <9.nashi@gmail.com>
>>On Wed Mar  7 15:43:27 JST 2007, ron minnich wrote:
>> Everybody wants everything
>> to look like a linux desktop, even a cluster node. It's kind of sad.
>> Clusters are stuck in a 1997 mentality.

>And they still use Fortran for their job.

	128. Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.
		-- Alan J Perlis (Epigrams on Programming)

RE: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[YAMANASHI Takeshi]

Hi,

> >From tip9ug mail list:
> 
> http://www.wakhok.ac.jp/~kida/plan9/acmewin/

Or go directly here to see a watchable example of editting with acme.
	http://www.wakhok.ac.jp/~kida/plan9/acmewin/acme01.htm
-- 

[9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[ron minnich]

opensource.motorola.com

http://www.trolltech.com/products/qtopia/greenphone

ron

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[erik quanstrom]

unfortunately the radio is a broadcom part.  broadcom
won't share specs unless you're ordering really large
quantities of parts.  

without the specs, you're locked into using their sdk,
libraries, gcc, gnu shared libraries, their linux kernel, etc.

i think by "unlimited software development" they mean
application-level software development on the kernel we give you.

- erik

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

On 2/25/07, erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com> wrote:
>
> without the specs, you're locked into using their sdk,
> libraries, gcc, gnu shared libraries, their linux kernel, etc.
>
> i think by "unlimited software development" they mean
> application-level software development on the kernel we give you.
>

While this impacts doing Plan 9 development, doesn't interfere with Inferno...

        -eric

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[erik quanstrom]

i think you're assuming a few things

1.  the amount of memory consumed by linux doesn't matter.
2.  the amount of processor consumed by linux doesn't matter.
3.  magic isn't built into shared libraries.  for example, how do you
know that the interface to the screen isn't built into the qt library
(or whatever their cannonical graphics interface is)?

running, as limbo can, in a hosted, virtual environment doesn't 
provide unlimited protection against what the host operating
system may do to you.

- erik

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Martin Neubauer]

* ron minnich (rminnich@gmail.com) wrote:
> opensource.motorola.com
> 
> http://www.trolltech.com/products/qtopia/greenphone
> 
> ron

Interesting prospects. Especially as I've lost my cell phone recently.

	Martin

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[fgergo]

FIC Neo1973
http://www.openmoko.com/press/index.html
except for the gsm module, it's all open source.

 gergo

On 2/25/07, Martin Neubauer <m.ne@gmx.net> wrote:
> * ron minnich (rminnich@gmail.com) wrote:
> > opensource.motorola.com
> >
> > http://www.trolltech.com/products/qtopia/greenphone
> >
> > ron
>
> Interesting prospects. Especially as I've lost my cell phone recently.
>
>         Martin
>
>

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[erik quanstrom]

pfft.  that's like saying the car's free --- except for the ignition key.

also, open source has various meanings.  all the submissions to the obfuscated
c contest are open source.  there is an "open source" nvidia X driver.  that sure
hasn't made it any easier to get aux/vga to play nicely with nforce builtin graphics.

;-)

- erik

On Sun Feb 25 15:22:25 EST 2007, fgergo@gmail.com wrote:
> FIC Neo1973
> http://www.openmoko.com/press/index.html
> except for the gsm module, it's all open source.
> 
>  gergo

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[fgergo]

Sure, but at the moment that's official and Sean Moss Pultz the
project manager for the Neo1973 seems to be quite enthusiastic about
the product.

www.openmoko.org
www.openmoko.com/files/OpenMoko_Amsterdam.pdf


On 2/25/07, erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com> wrote:
> pfft.  that's like saying the car's free --- except for the ignition key.
>
> also, open source has various meanings.  all the submissions to the obfuscated
> c contest are open source.  there is an "open source" nvidia X driver.  that sure
> hasn't made it any easier to get aux/vga to play nicely with nforce builtin graphics.
>
> ;-)
>
> - erik
>
> On Sun Feb 25 15:22:25 EST 2007, fgergo@gmail.com wrote:
> > FIC Neo1973
> > http://www.openmoko.com/press/index.html
> > except for the gsm module, it's all open source.
> >
> >  gergo
>

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[ron minnich]

On 2/26/07, fgergo@gmail.com <fgergo@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sure, but at the moment that's official and Sean Moss Pultz the
> project manager for the Neo1973 seems to be quite enthusiastic about
> the product.


What you need for the greenphone is qt. I don't know all the answers
here, but small mobile devices seem a good fit to plan  9 or inferno.
Actually, the mobile phones have enough memory etc. that they are as
big as a Power challenge that was described as "a big boy" in some of
the code ... remember when 32M was a lot of memory ?

[[ now all us old guys can contribute our "I used to compute with 1
bit" stories, right?]]

I prefer to go optimistic. I'm looking at Qt to see what it would take
to have it drive libdraw on linux, just out of curiosity. If Qt can
work on libdraw, I wonder if it could ever be native to Plan 9.

Hey, if we got Qt on Plan 9, we might actually have a GUI that people
don't hate right away ... then we can slowly, gradually suck them into
the system ... slowly ... gradually ... until they're running rio
without noticing ...

ron

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Richard Miller]

> [[ now all us old guys can contribute our "I used to compute with 1
> bit" stories, right?]]

Actually my first computer had 3 bits - when I was about eleven
I had one of these wonderful machines:

	http://www.oldcomputermuseum.com/digicomp_1.html

and spent many happy hours inventing "programs" for it.

-- Richard

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[ron minnich]

On 2/26/07, Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:
> > [[ now all us old guys can contribute our "I used to compute with 1
> > bit" stories, right?]]
>
> Actually my first computer had 3 bits - when I was about eleven
> I had one of these wonderful machines:

I've still got mine. It taught me hardware design ... from what I
learned from this one, I built a relay computer with two bits. I went
backwards, but oh well.

The "howto" books were very useful.

thanks

ron

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[cummij]

> I've still got mine. It taught me hardware design ... from what I
> learned from this one, I built a relay computer with two bits. I went
> backwards, but oh well.

and for those of you who don't have yours anymore, or, like me, labor
under the delusion "if i loved it, my kids will, too"

http://mindsontoys.com/kits.htm

best toy i ever had.

john

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Martin Neubauer]

* ron minnich (rminnich@gmail.com) wrote:
> I prefer to go optimistic. I'm looking at Qt to see what it would take
> to have it drive libdraw on linux, just out of curiosity. If Qt can
> work on libdraw, I wonder if it could ever be native to Plan 9.
> 
> Hey, if we got Qt on Plan 9, we might actually have a GUI that people
> don't hate right away ... then we can slowly, gradually suck them into
> the system ... slowly ... gradually ... until they're running rio
> without noticing ...
> 
> ron

One problem could be that Qt is C++ based. (Well, sort of, it uses an own
preprocessor which parses the source code and apparently hasn't been
updated to recognise some of the newer language features of the last twelve
years or so.) The reason I know this is that I have to wade through this
kind of things at work.

A Plan 9 or Inferno based phone would really be neat, though.

	Martin

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[erik quanstrom]

plan 9 is having trouble keeping the converted.  why would
adding one more layer of goo to the gnu goo stack convert
the hardened of heart?

- erik

> Hey, if we got Qt on Plan 9, we might actually have a GUI that people
> don't hate right away ... then we can slowly, gradually suck them into
> the system ... slowly ... gradually ... until they're running rio
> without noticing ...

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[ron minnich]

On 2/26/07, erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com> wrote:
> plan 9 is having trouble keeping the converted.  why would
> adding one more layer of goo to the gnu goo stack convert
> the hardened of heart?

Because the first thing that most people say when I show them rio is
'yuck'. And, in most cases, they don't stop saying 'yuck'.Acme does
not help.

Sorry, but most people hate the Plan 9 GUI. It is off-putting enough
that they are not that interested in seeing the beauty of it all.

It seems a shame to keep losing people because of one aspect of Plan
9. For me, anyway, rio is not the only piece of this system that is
important. In fact, for what i'm doing with it, rio does not matter at
all.

I realize there are many differences of opinion on this issue ...

thanks
ron

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Lluís Batlle]

In fact I don't really like rio in plan9, but it's my windowmanager in
Linux at work. The 'virtuals' are really nice. And it copes well with
'xterm'.

because, afaik, there aren't 'virtuals' in plan9's rio, is it?

2007/2/26, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com>:
> On 2/26/07, erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com> wrote:
> > plan 9 is having trouble keeping the converted.  why would
> > adding one more layer of goo to the gnu goo stack convert
> > the hardened of heart?
>
> Because the first thing that most people say when I show them rio is
> 'yuck'. And, in most cases, they don't stop saying 'yuck'.Acme does
> not help.
>
> Sorry, but most people hate the Plan 9 GUI. It is off-putting enough
> that they are not that interested in seeing the beauty of it all.
>
> It seems a shame to keep losing people because of one aspect of Plan
> 9. For me, anyway, rio is not the only piece of this system that is
> important. In fact, for what i'm doing with it, rio does not matter at
> all.
>
> I realize there are many differences of opinion on this issue ...
>
> thanks
> ron
>

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

On 2/26/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/26/07, erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com> wrote:
> > plan 9 is having trouble keeping the converted.  why would
> > adding one more layer of goo to the gnu goo stack convert
> > the hardened of heart?
>
> Because the first thing that most people say when I show them rio is
> 'yuck'. And, in most cases, they don't stop saying 'yuck'.Acme does
> not help.
>
> Sorry, but most people hate the Plan 9 GUI. It is off-putting enough
> that they are not that interested in seeing the beauty of it all.
>

Regardless, neither rio or acme will work well on a cell phone.
Probably be best off with mux.  However, I think we can all agree --
while the underlying infrastructure of the Plan 9 GUI continues to be
innovative and interesting, the GUI itself has never been a focus nor
a strength of the system.  I'm not saying we should merge Qt and Gtk
or any of the Linux variants -- I continue to think we need to focus
on our strengths rather than getting bogged down in eye candy.

           -eric

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Paul Lalonde]

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Preaching to the choir (I hope):
The fundamental issue with the GUI isn't one of prettiness.  It's one  
of naive/novice use.  Like the rest of Plan9, the GUI assumes an  
expert user.  But ever since the original Mac, the marketing message  
has been that GUIs are designed for instantaneous ease-of-use, and  
any training required is strictly application-centric instead of  
interaction-centric.  Rio, sam and acme defy this; in exchange for  
more usable screen real-estate and fewer interaction events (both of  
which are good for expert users) the ease of initial use has been  
sacrificed.  For people who drive ed, vi, and/or emacs, and had  
little experience with GUIs, the jump was easy.  Add to the system  
that you *really* have to be comfortable with the command-line to be  
productive, and I think the pool of possible users of the P9 GUI is  
pretty small.

I do a fair bit of remote interaction (code reviews, design,  
debugging) using skype and VNC.  It's interesting that the older  
folks (who grew up without GUIs) I do this with have little trouble  
taking the 1-minute "point to move the cursor, chord like this to cut- 
and-paste, click like this to execute a shell command" and being  
reasonably useful with it.  The younger, just as smart crew however,  
throw up their hands and say "whatever man, that's whacked".

It makes me sad, but I don't expect to see any innovation in GUIs  
oriented to expert users.  There's just too much resistance to change  
and too little attention payed to the load that the novice parts of  
the current interfaces incurs on user interaction.

Paul

On 26-Feb-07, at 4:03 PM, Eric Van Hensbergen wrote:

> On 2/26/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 2/26/07, erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com> wrote:
>> > plan 9 is having trouble keeping the converted.  why would
>> > adding one more layer of goo to the gnu goo stack convert
>> > the hardened of heart?
>>
>> Because the first thing that most people say when I show them rio is
>> 'yuck'. And, in most cases, they don't stop saying 'yuck'.Acme does
>> not help.
>>
>> Sorry, but most people hate the Plan 9 GUI. It is off-putting enough
>> that they are not that interested in seeing the beauty of it all.
>>
>
> Regardless, neither rio or acme will work well on a cell phone.
> Probably be best off with mux.  However, I think we can all agree --
> while the underlying infrastructure of the Plan 9 GUI continues to be
> innovative and interesting, the GUI itself has never been a focus nor
> a strength of the system.  I'm not saying we should merge Qt and Gtk
> or any of the Linux variants -- I continue to think we need to focus
> on our strengths rather than getting bogged down in eye candy.
>
>           -eric

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Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Joel C. Salomon]

On 2/26/07, Paul Lalonde <plalonde@telus.net> wrote:
> The fundamental issue with the GUI isn't one of prettiness.  It's one
> of naive/novice use.  Like the rest of Plan9, the GUI assumes an
> expert user.  But ever since the original Mac, the marketing message
> has been that GUIs are designed for instantaneous ease-of-use, and
> any training required is strictly application-centric instead of
> interaction-centric.

Depends what the GUI is an interface *to*.  As an interface to the OS,
rio works great without buttons and dialogs and menu bars.  Individual
graphical applications might have different natural interfaces.  (I've
heard nice things about the interface to inferno's debugger, for
example.)  And there's *lots* of "application-centric" to go around;
how many different things are meant by right-click, or click-and-drag,
in various applications?  Take many word processors, for example:
click-drag to select a block of text, then click-drag to move it.

If you're designing a program that needs a complicated UI, the
existence of "standard" GUI guidelines might help with the learning
curve.  Or they might get in the way of a better interface designed by
an interface expert (rarely the programmer, rob pike being the notable
exception).

--Joel

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Charles Forsyth]

>neither rio or acme will work well on a cell phone.

i think that's probably true of rio, but while i had an ipaq running
inferno, i used acme exclusively and i'm not so sure about the
unsuitability of its overall approach.  i was using it without modification
and although there were undoubtedly things that could change to make that
smoother on such a device, i thought it was much less frustrating than my
Palm Pilot (old style), in the sense that acme gave an integrated feel whereas
Palm had the usual apps approach: `the screen is an address book' (ie, mostly text),
`the screen is a diary' (ie, mostly text), `the screen is a notebook' (ie, almost entirely text),
and `the screen is a sketchpad' (ie, caught you out there).  i could have
several things of different type in acme frames--possibly an untyped user interface
is more dynamic, compared to the `one at a time' feel of the Palm.

so many user interfaces got stuck in the mould of the Xerox desktop metaphor,
and have mouldered there ever since.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Salva Peiró]

On 2/26/07, Charles Forsyth <forsyth@terzarima.net> wrote:
> >neither rio or acme will work well on a cell phone.
>
I second Charles, I've switched from palmos to inferno emu [1],
and I've accomodated Acme/Plumber to do the tasks I was doing before:
read texts, play music, view images, (more to come) ..., just by writting
some plumber rules to my $home/lib/plumbing and setting some guide files
with the most launched/common commands.
Altogether the behaviour is more homogenous, you don't need to know
each app idiosyncrasy
(buttons, menus, ..), since you can run things directly from acme, and
looking a particular man file, or source file when you need to.

And once you get used to it, doing new things results easier since all
you need to know is Acme,
my feel is that on the palmos doing things is more application
specific, i think this is similar to the idea of bootstrap [2].

[1] http://www.caerwyn.com/ipn/ (lab 67)
[2] http://www.caerwyn.com/ipn/ (lab 58)

PS: I've done a bit of propaganda, but those pointers were useful, at
least for me.
-- 
salva

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[John Floren]

On 2/26/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/26/07, erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com> wrote:
> > plan 9 is having trouble keeping the converted.  why would
> > adding one more layer of goo to the gnu goo stack convert
> > the hardened of heart?
>
> Because the first thing that most people say when I show them rio is
> 'yuck'. And, in most cases, they don't stop saying 'yuck'.Acme does
> not help.
>
> Sorry, but most people hate the Plan 9 GUI. It is off-putting enough
> that they are not that interested in seeing the beauty of it all.
>
> It seems a shame to keep losing people because of one aspect of Plan
> 9. For me, anyway, rio is not the only piece of this system that is
> important. In fact, for what i'm doing with it, rio does not matter at
> all.
>
> I realize there are many differences of opinion on this issue ...
>
> thanks
> ron
>

I'll just put in my 2 cents on the Plan 9 interface. A lot of it is
just plain brilliant--once you get used to it, the way rio handles
windows is quite nice. However, I sometimes wish for really basic
Unix-type stuff like focus-follows-mouse (very much a personal
preference, I know) and multiple desktops (no amount of hacking with
winwatch is going to replace those, for me). Acme is... acme. I love
it a lot of the time, but the lack of good, basic keyboard shortcuts
sometimes drives me insane. I'm not asking for emacs-style C-x C-c,
M-x foo-bar stuff, I'm just saying that things like ^N, ^P would be
really useful. This reminds me of the "smacme" discussion; I should go
look through that again.

Would implementing any of these changes attract/retain more users?
Probably not. That might require something more serious, like an
option that you can set to give MS-style titlebars with buttons, and a
taskbar type thing at the bottom (extended winwatch?). Of course, I do
not condone putting any such thing into Plan 9 without a guaranteed
option of turning it all off and using basic rio.


John
-- 
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Joel C. Salomon]

On 2/26/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> first thing that most people say when I show them rio is 'yuck'. And,
> in most cases, they don't stop saying 'yuck'.Acme does not help.

I tend to hear "cool!"  I guess I just chose friends that are more
impressed with simplicity and functionality than with bells, whistles,
and gongs.  ☺

--Joel

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[John Floren]

On 2/26/07, Joel C. Salomon <joelcsalomon@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/26/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> > first thing that most people say when I show them rio is 'yuck'. And,
> > in most cases, they don't stop saying 'yuck'.Acme does not help.
>
> I tend to hear "cool!"  I guess I just chose friends that are more
> impressed with simplicity and functionality than with bells, whistles,
> and gongs.  ☺
>
> --Joel
>

My friends who have seen me playing with Plan 9 have been a bit
interested--they especially seem to like the ultra-quick custom-sized
terminals.


John
-- 
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[David Leimbach]

> My friends who have seen me playing with Plan 9 have been a bit
> interested--they especially seem to like the ultra-quick custom-sized
> terminals.

sshnet seems to impress my friends quite a bit.

>
>
> John
> --
> Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
>

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[bride of excession]

On Mon, 26 Feb 2007 15:10:08 GMT
rminnich@gmail.com (ron minnich) wrote:

> On 2/26/07, erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com> wrote:
> > plan 9 is having trouble keeping the converted.  why would
> > adding one more layer of goo to the gnu goo stack convert
> > the hardened of heart?
> 
> Because the first thing that most people say when I show them rio is
> 'yuck'. And, in most cases, they don't stop saying 'yuck'.Acme does
> not help.
> 
> Sorry, but most people hate the Plan 9 GUI. It is off-putting enough
> that they are not that interested in seeing the beauty of it all.
> 
> It seems a shame to keep losing people because of one aspect of Plan
> 9. For me, anyway, rio is not the only piece of this system that is
> important. In fact, for what i'm doing with it, rio does not matter at
> all.
> 
> I realize there are many differences of opinion on this issue ...
> 
> thanks
> ron

I am so glad to see I'm not alone on this issue.
Much as I love plan9, to me Rio is just a very
cumbersome and eye gouging way to view images, 
and it is undoubtedly why plan9 remains obscure. 

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[ron minnich]

On 3/6/07, bride of excession <bride.of.excession@gmail.com> wrote:

> I am so glad to see I'm not alone on this issue.
> Much as I love plan9, to me Rio is just a very
> cumbersome and eye gouging way to view images,

yes, it is to many.

this is not just a matter of "we are so smart, we get rio, and no one
else does, so F*** 'em!". I know lots of smart peope. One look at rio
is enough to put them off their feed, and to chase them away from Plan
9. Plan 9 is not just about rio -- at least to me.

Now, I run rio, on linux and plan 9, and I like it. But, that said, if
Plan 9 has an achilles heel, rio is it. It's the first (and last)
thing many people see on Plan 9.

As for C++, it has happened on any number of machines I have worked
with, whether there is a compile on them or not, gcc/g++ are a
prerequisite for success. Like it or not. I really wish we could get
someone to wrap up the gcc port and feed the changes back into the
tree. In fact, ...., this might be a good use of some DOE money ...
hmmm ..... (gears start to whirl).

ron

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[matt]

fuck 'em!
>
>
> this is not just a matter of "we are so smart, we get rio, and no one
> else does, so F*** 'em!". I know lots of smart peope. One look at rio
> is enough to put them off their feed, and to chase them away from Plan
> 9. Plan 9 is not just about rio -- at least to me.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

On 3/6/07, matt <mattmobile@proweb.co.uk> wrote:
> fuck 'em!
> >

I think that's a great name for our next GUI....

           -eric

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[C H Forsyth]

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we could be a little less obvious and use the Father Ted variant

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From: "Eric Van Hensbergen" <ericvh@gmail.com>
To: "Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs" <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
Subject: Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 16:37:55 -0600
Message-ID: <a4e6962a0703061437q1dc90b78je977e3ffae5d7803@mail.gmail.com>

On 3/6/07, matt <mattmobile@proweb.co.uk> wrote:
> fuck 'em!
> >

I think that's a great name for our next GUI....

           -eric

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Skip Tavakkolian]

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i suggest F-Hue

On Mar 6, 2007, at 3:08 PM, C H Forsyth wrote:

> we could be a little less obvious and use the Father Ted variant
> From: "Eric Van Hensbergen" <ericvh@gmail.com>
> Date: March 6, 2007 2:37:55 PM PST
> To: "Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs" <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
> Subject: Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/ 
> or inferno
> Reply-To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
>
>
> On 3/6/07, matt <mattmobile@proweb.co.uk> wrote:
>> fuck 'em!
>> >
>
> I think that's a great name for our next GUI....
>
>           -eric
>


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Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[ron minnich]

On 3/6/07, Skip Tavakkolian <skip.tavakkolian@gmail.com> wrote:
> i suggest F-Hue

well, marketing has never been a strong point of this group, although
I do think our sense of humor has no equal :-)

ron

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[David Leimbach]

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On 3/6/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/6/07, Skip Tavakkolian <skip.tavakkolian@gmail.com> wrote:
> > i suggest F-Hue
>
> well, marketing has never been a strong point of this group, although
> I do think our sense of humor has no equal :-)
>
> ron
>

"Use Plan 9... We've raised our standards, so up yours!"


-- 
- Passage Matthew 5:37:
   But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more
than these cometh of evil.

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Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[lucio]

> fuck 'em!
>>
>>
>> this is not just a matter of "we are so smart, we get rio, and no one
>> else does, so F*** 'em!". I know lots of smart peope. One look at rio
>> is enough to put them off their feed, and to chase them away from Plan
>> 9. Plan 9 is not just about rio -- at least to me.

Matt has a point.  If we all limited ourselves to activities that are
pleasant from the very beginning, I doubt human civilisaton would have
ever occured.  From personal experience even sex requires overcoming
some discomfort before reaching ecstasy and I understand it's a lot
worse for women, nevermind such things as whisky drinking or winning a
marathon.

Why do we expect our computer usage to require no sacrifices at all?

++L

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[lucio]

> Why do we expect our computer usage to require no sacrifices at all?

Also, Ron is barking up the wrong tree (with all due respect).  Either
Plan 9 is good enough or it isn't, it is counter-productive to try to
shove it down the throat of unwilling users even when it may be
perfect for some embedded task.  The users see its value or they
don't.  They are smart or they aren't.  whichever way, they get to
choose.

Me, I have to use my web browser more than I would like to, I even
develop with the web browser as target.  And VT-220 emulation under
Plan 9 needs work I am not ready to do myself, at least not just yet.
So I use VNC as I have plenty of scrap hardware to run Mozilla and a
VT-220 emulator that matches my requirements on.  The latter would
(mostly) disappear if ACME could run like SAM in remote mode,
specially under Windows, but lack of a web browser is a show stopper.

Indicatively, I have UBUNTU Linux on my laptop, but I use an old
NetBSD machine as my VNC server, UBUNTU is too hard to configure away
from its distribution.

++L

PS: Acme Mail is another acquired taste.  On my laptop I exploit
Evolution's frilly features, but Acme Mail is a whole lot more
practical.  And specially fast, even if it may be just a subjective
impression!  So as soon as I can, I switch to Acme Mail.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[David Leimbach]

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On 3/6/07, lucio@proxima.alt.za <lucio@proxima.alt.za> wrote:
>
> > fuck 'em!
> >>
> >>
> >> this is not just a matter of "we are so smart, we get rio, and no one
> >> else does, so F*** 'em!". I know lots of smart peope. One look at rio
> >> is enough to put them off their feed, and to chase them away from Plan
> >> 9. Plan 9 is not just about rio -- at least to me.
>
> Matt has a point.  If we all limited ourselves to activities that are
> pleasant from the very beginning, I doubt human civilisaton would have
> ever occured.  From personal experience even sex requires overcoming
> some discomfort before reaching ecstasy and I understand it's a lot
> worse for women, nevermind such things as whisky drinking or winning a
> marathon.
>
> Why do we expect our computer usage to require no sacrifices at all?


I have one that seems to require a burned chicken to get it to boot, but
that's besides the point.

honestly, anyone played with omero?  I did for a few minutes and should
really try it again I think...  I'm actually thinking I might load Plan B on
my Plan 9 file/cpu/auth server and try to drawterm to it.  (It should work
right?)



++L
>
>


-- 
- Passage Matthew 5:37:
   But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more
than these cometh of evil.

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Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Vester Thacker]

On 3/7/07, lucio@proxima.alt.za <lucio@proxima.alt.za> wrote:
>
> Why do we expect our computer usage to require no sacrifices at all?

Geez, this thread is shite. We might as well be on an irc channel.
#plan9 on irc.oftc.net anyone?

<rant>
I think the issue really comes down to a lack of educational materials
and standards. What are we collectively doing about this? Not much
imo. Has anyone successfully implemented a fully operational Plan 9
system from instructions found on the wiki. I don't know of anyone. My
understanding is that it has been entirely trial and error for all
newcomers.

Considering that we do not have standardized methods to perform
general system administration tasks, nor good HOWTO documentation, it
appears to me that Rio is a very small issue. That is, if it really is
the issue at all.

Newcomers seem to be lost from the beginning. The general trend that
I've noticed is that newcomers want a single all-in-one Plan 9 server,
and once the person learns to sweep a new rc screen, the person is
generally lost from there regardless. Having X running instead of Rio
wouldn't make much difference besides some small sense of familiarity,
but without the similar utilities the user might still be disappointed
imho.

Having an admin utility akin to AIX's SMIT might be beneficial
perhaps. Or on a smaller scale, having all of us agree on a mkuser
script to be included in the distribution would be an simple step
forward to ease the adminstration burden. Example:
http://www.tip9ug.jp/who/vthacker/mkfuser [1]
</rant>

Anyway, I hope that we can move past Rio being the bane of Plan 9. I'm
quite sure Rio alone is not what limits Plan 9's popularity and usage
today.

Regards,
Vester Thacker

[1] Written by Andrey Mirtchovski iirc.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[ron minnich]

On 3/6/07, Vester Thacker <vester.thacker@gmail.com> wrote:

> Anyway, I hope that we can move past Rio being the bane of Plan 9. I'm
> quite sure Rio alone is not what limits Plan 9's popularity and usage
> today.


you're right. All those experiences I had with people when I tried to
show them Plan 9 were just my imagination. Sorry. Too many drugs
maybe.

ron

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Vester Thacker]

On 3/7/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:

> you're right. All those experiences I had with people when I tried to
> show them Plan 9 were just my imagination. Sorry. Too many drugs
> maybe.

Well, I apologize for offending you. But what ideas are you suggesting
that we migrate toward?

Transplant the MacOS X interface to Plan 9 perhaps? ;-)

Regards,
Vester

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[ron minnich]

On 3/6/07, Vester Thacker <vester.thacker@gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, I apologize for offending you. But what ideas are you suggesting
> that we migrate toward?

no, sorry, I was kind of short. No problem :-)

I actually agree with your points in many ways. I just don't know how
to get around the problem of showing this system to people. It's such
a powerful system, and it drives me crazy when the first reaction is
"I don't like that GUI". I'm talking BEFORE I've typed anything in the
little window. These are not dumb people. But they have work to do,
and they don't see that climbing the learning curve is worth it.

Then I come to this list and people say "fuck 'em". I don't know,,
seems like an unconstructive attitude to me.

There's lots of stuff missing, as I pointed out at other times, in
other notes. A lot of things that are missing are needed to get
continued $$$ to keep things going. As jmk pointed out some time ago,
plan9.bell-labs is supported in part by DOE, but at some point, if we
can't show certain things, then the money goes away. The recompete
happens this summer.

The isses of Python and gcc are not simply academic. They're part of
the DOE meal ticket.

Users matter ... I've just gone through an interesting few years of
fielding the highest performing cluster software anywhere, and having
people get upset because they can't run emacs or xterm or gdb on each
and every one of 1024 cluster nodes. The system we have starts up
2048-cpu MPI jobs in 3 seconds, and the competitors literally take
minutes (one recent system). It boots 1024 or 2048 nodes in 2-4
minutes ,and the system replacing it can take hours -- yep, hours --
to boot. This is all without a local disk, mind you. But people want
that ssh login ... and /etc/passwd ... and xterm ... and so on. it's a
conservative world in computing, nowadays. Everybody wants everything
to look like a linux desktop, even a cluster node. It's kind of sad.
Clusters are stuck in a 1997 mentality.

So, yeah, users can be frustrating, but they are your meal ticket.
Saying "fuck em" only works just so long -- as you may have noticed,
most of the Plan 9 guys are at google, running large Linux clusters
... and I believe many of them carry macos systems around now.

ron

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Bakul Shah]

> I actually agree with your points in many ways. I just don't know how
> to get around the problem of showing this system to people. It's such
> a powerful system, and it drives me crazy when the first reaction is
> "I don't like that GUI". I'm talking BEFORE I've typed anything in the
> little window. These are not dumb people. But they have work to do,
> and they don't see that climbing the learning curve is worth it.

Would it make sense to to add something like openGL to plan9?
Then may be one can write a 3D-ish wm with all sorts of
eye-candy.

Alternatively don't even show them rio.  Just bolt-on a
webserver to plan9 and access the system via a browser.  Use
javascript to provide better interactivity.  Sure it sucks
but it gets them past the initial hurdle and they just may
stick around long enough to see the beauty of plan9.

> There's lots of stuff missing, as I pointed out at other times, in
> other notes. A lot of things that are missing are needed to get
> continued $$$ to keep things going. As jmk pointed out some time ago,
> plan9.bell-labs is supported in part by DOE, but at some point, if we
> can't show certain things, then the money goes away. The recompete
> happens this summer.

When Jolitz disappeared after releasing 386bsd, a group of
volunteers maintained it with a patchkit and later formed what
became FreeBSD.  The group grew by and large because of
a) user interest in *BSD,
b) developer interest,
c) a structure that welcomed and mentored new developers,
d) new ideas were encouraged, tried out and added to the in
   official codebase if found useful or they atrophied and
   got excised.
e) a port system for packages people found useful.

Seems to me something like the FreeBSD group setup can be
very useful for adding missing bits and evolving plan 9 but
somehow a critical mass has to form.

> The isses of Python and gcc are not simply academic. They're part of
> the DOE meal ticket.

So why not add them? If necessary setup an alternative site
for such things.  Colo space is cheap.

> Users matter ... 
...
> So, yeah, users can be frustrating, but they are your meal ticket.

No disagreement from me. 

> Saying "fuck em" only works just so long -- as you may have noticed,
> most of the Plan 9 guys are at google, running large Linux clusters
> ... and I believe many of them carry macos systems around now.

I have to admit, macos is pretty easy to use and a lot of
things just work without any fiddling.  They've done a very
job of integration.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Martin Neubauer]

* ron minnich (rminnich@gmail.com) wrote:
> The isses of Python and gcc are not simply academic. They're part of
> the DOE meal ticket.

I happen to have lost what respect was left for gcc a couple of weeks ago
when I tried to compile drawterm on a 64bit linux box. Gcc barfed on a
malformed typedef in stddef.h. It might be the right thing nowadays, but a
compiler not accepting a standard header (installed in a directory not only
specific to said compiler but also to the compiler version) certainly is a
bit gross.

To be fair, the problem probably was the result of the combination of a
64bit (intel) architecture, the organisation of that specific distro, and
the installed compiler, but I'm not sure it's even an excuse. (Testing,
anyone?)

So, while having a gcc port could be helpful for getting new users, the gcc
folks should get their act together, rather then churning out ever new
optimisation switches.

	Martin

P.S. The problem with drawterm was trivially fixed by commenting out the
offending line as none of the drawterm code was using it.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[John Osborne]

fwiw, stddef.h is part of the linux kernel headers... blame linus and
not the gcc guys.

On 3/7/07, Martin Neubauer <m.ne@gmx.net> wrote:
> * ron minnich (rminnich@gmail.com) wrote:
> > The isses of Python and gcc are not simply academic. They're part of
> > the DOE meal ticket.
>
> I happen to have lost what respect was left for gcc a couple of weeks ago
> when I tried to compile drawterm on a 64bit linux box. Gcc barfed on a
> malformed typedef in stddef.h. It might be the right thing nowadays, but a
> compiler not accepting a standard header (installed in a directory not only
> specific to said compiler but also to the compiler version) certainly is a
> bit gross.
>
> To be fair, the problem probably was the result of the combination of a
> 64bit (intel) architecture, the organisation of that specific distro, and
> the installed compiler, but I'm not sure it's even an excuse. (Testing,
> anyone?)
>
> So, while having a gcc port could be helpful for getting new users, the gcc
> folks should get their act together, rather then churning out ever new
> optimisation switches.
>
>         Martin
>
> P.S. The problem with drawterm was trivially fixed by commenting out the
> offending line as none of the drawterm code was using it.
>
>


-- 
John Osborne
osborne6@ieee.org/osborne6@gmail.com/jro@freeshell.org

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Markus Sonderegger]

On 15:21 Wed 07 Mar     , John Osborne wrote:
> fwiw, stddef.h is part of the linux kernel headers... blame linus and
> not the gcc guys.

linux is as idiotic as gcc.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Martin Neubauer]

* John Osborne (osborne6@gmail.com) wrote:
> fwiw, stddef.h is part of the linux kernel headers... blame linus and
> not the gcc guys.

My bad. I assumed it belonged to gcc as it resides in
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/include/stddef.h, yuck. But it does
explain the catering for gcc 2.0.something. #ifdef hell.

	Martin

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Paweł Lasek]

On 3/7/07, Martin Neubauer <m.ne@gmx.net> wrote:
[cut]

I actually had problems compiling old drawterm code on my gentoo amd64
box. The error looked similar, yet I found the offending part to be
some kind of type mismatch which got loose because on amd64 and x86
the types involved were little different in size. setting CC='gcc32'
solved the problem and I've got nice, statically linked drawterm 32bit
binary. Which doesn't change the fact that I still cannot get Plan 9
to work on my kvm-qemu. A very old ISO couldn't create windows in rio
and the new one freezes during boot from disk. The old one works
perfectly except for rio.

And as for future roadmap... I rather see plan 9's features
incorporated into other OS'es, using libs and specially crafted
namespaces to support "legacy" apps.

-- 
Paul Lasek

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

On 3/7/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/6/07, Vester Thacker <vester.thacker@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Well, I apologize for offending you. But what ideas are you suggesting
> > that we migrate toward?
>

There are all sorts of different Plan 9's --

a) There is Plan 9 the research operating system, a small,
well-written kernel that's extremely portable, easily understood, and
fairly easy to extend and work with.  It doesn't have as many
"features" as other modern operating systems, but in a way that is how
it has maintained its simplicity and relative stability.

b) There is Plan 9 the distributed system - an elegant approach
designed from the ground up to deal with a networked world.

c) Then there's Plan 9 the terminal, a highly productive, very
lightweight, and somewhat quirky interface which is more or less like
nothing a typical user has ever seen before.  As evidenced by this
thread -- some love it, some hate it, some tolerate it, but most learn
to love it -- particularly as a development environment.  If you want
a proper terminal environment under other operating systems you can
run drawterm or plan9ports and it gets you most of the way there.
There seem to be three major classes of gripes with Plan 9 the
terminal: it doesn't support my devices (which drawterm largely
overcomes), it doesn't run (or run with) my application/editor/browser
(which can be somewhat overcome with plan9ports), its different and/or
ugly.  The different part is something many of us love, the ugly part
is something many of us don't care about -- both largely revolve
around the window manager and applications versus anything inherent in
the operating system.

d) There's also Plan 9, the tools - by which I primarily mean ken cc
-- which works well enough for the platforms they support, are
extremely quick, and were well understood (by Ken, and now by
forsyth).

In my opinion work on (a) and (b) constitutes operating systems
research -- and there's plenty to do, particularly to support
demanding customers with tens of thousands of nodes in a scalable and
efficient manner.  Plan 9 just hasn't been stressed at those levels
before.  There's nothing wrong with working on (c) or (d) -- stuff
like Plan B has shown us there's plenty of room for interesting
exploration and improvement -- but those are more about working on
applications versus working on the environment.  In other words, they
really are projects onto themselves, not Plan9 per se -- in much the
same way that gnome != linux, rio != plan9.  So if someone wants to go
out and write a new window manager (or port an existing one to Plan 9)
more power to them, and more choice to us.  However, I really don't
think this should be a primary concern.

Ron is concerned (as am I) about keeping certain funding sources happy
-- and part of that is getting people at our organizations to use Plan
9.  However, I think we should be focusing on getting them to use Plan
9 (a) and Plan 9 (b).  Any discussion of (c) (and potentially (d))
will just turn religious and its not worth having that inquisition one
way (convince them to use our interfaces) or the other (jam their
interfaces into Plan 9).

My opinion is that time would be better spent with focusing on the
core of (a) and (b) and accomodating end-users who don't like the Plan
9 interface by providing gateways into Plan  9 systems from their
(existing) desktop environments -- meaning things like plan9ports,
xcpu, v9fs, etc.  The issue of tools (d) is still complicated,
particularly with people plugging scripting languages like python into
their HPC applications -- but that's a battle that's more worth
fighting than a battle over marketing eye candy and wanting to rung
Mozilla inside Plan 9.

            -eric

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[erik quanstrom]

thanks for the well considered post.

i would add (somewhat less articulately)

(e) 9p appliances.  the cannonical example of this would be ken's
fileserver.  it doesn't run the same kernel as the cpu server.  but it
does speak 9p.  thus it is able to be a very high-reliablity, well-
featured, efficient plan 9 appliance without a large or complex codebase.
(even the slightly crunchy pc port.)

the fileserver (like 9load) has suffered due to perceived driver issues.
i've found it not to be much of an issue as i haven't had to set up
too many fileservers (because they are so good) and porting drivers
(or developing new ones) has been fairly straightforward.  i've been
able to put in 3 new drivers (including 10gbe) in the last week.

with hardware-based vm coming to x86, it should be easier to set up
a fileserver -- or other 9p-based appliances -- on their own virtual machine.

what about an appliance to manage email?

- erik

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Skip Tavakkolian]

> (e) 9p appliances.  the cannonical example of this would be ken's
> fileserver.  it doesn't run the same kernel as the cpu server.  but it
> does speak 9p.  thus it is able to be a very high-reliablity, well-
> featured, efficient plan 9 appliance without a large or complex codebase.
> (even the slightly crunchy pc port.)

drawterm and sns/rangboom to name a few more..

developing a 9p plugin for browsers would go a long way toward getting
a lot of useful appliances.  i hope to see the tireless web developer
armies developing cool new apps connected through rangboom.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[erik quanstrom]

On Wed Mar  7 13:18:26 EST 2007, 9nut@9netics.com wrote:
> > (e) 9p appliances.  the cannonical example of this would be ken's
> > fileserver.  it doesn't run the same kernel as the cpu server.  but it
> > does speak 9p.  thus it is able to be a very high-reliablity, well-
> > featured, efficient plan 9 appliance without a large or complex codebase.
> > (even the slightly crunchy pc port.)
> 
> drawterm and sns/rangboom to name a few more..

perhaps i didn't make myself clear.  i would contrast drawterm with
what i mean by "appliance".  by appliance, i would mean something
like ken's fs, which serves files via 9p.  it is unencombered by other
programs or the existance of userland at all.  another example would
be the coraid SR appliance, which serves blocks via AoE.

drawterm is an application.

the upside of an appliance is realiablity, performance and the lack of
a need to make everything work in the same space.  the downside
is that everything the appliance needs must be custom-made for the
appliance and it's a totally inflexable platform.

(ease of use should be mentioned, but i think we're still lacking in
that department.)

this level of effort and lack of flexability make sense for some things.
nobody wants their fileserver to crash.  but if a terminal or cpu server
go down, it shouldn't take more than a minute to get them going again.

- erik

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

On 3/7/07, erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com> wrote:
> thanks for the well considered post.
>
> i would add (somewhat less articulately)
>
> (e) 9p appliances....
>

That's certainly fair.  I was thinking as well that there probably
should be some extra category for "embedded" to cover scenarios like
the iPaq or Ron's open-phones.  The truth is that its really almost
its own sub-domain with aspects relating to terminals, distributed
systems, and server appliances (for example, sensor networks and motes
and what not would probably fit into the server appliance class, but a
proper phone would be more like a terminal).

            -eric

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[lucio]

> (for example, sensor networks and motes
> and what not would probably fit into the server appliance class, but a
> proper phone would be more like a terminal)

But in Plan 9 even a proper phone would be a server appliance, just
like the workstation.  That bit of the Plan 9 paradigm should be
continually emphasized.

++L

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Jack Johnson]

On 3/6/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> I actually agree with your points in many ways. I just don't know how
> to get around the problem of showing this system to people.

I have to admit, I'm a waffler (yum, waffles, but way off topic).  I
have no Plan 9 system running currently, but I managed to wade through
the wiki and successfully get a server and netbooting terminals up at
one point, and I love the system.  But my day job requires certain
tools that I neither have the time nor the skillset to reimplement on
Plan 9, and though there are workarounds it does pose a barrier to
adoption.

Now me, I think obstacles were meant to overcome.

If I were charged with trying to deploy, enforce adoption, whatever,
I'd start with the low-hanging fruit.  Something like Plan 9's DNS and
DHCP integration is just genius, even for the monkeys who have only
ever seen it done the Windows way.  I'd probably introduce them to rc
outside the Plan 9 environment so they can compare it to bash or
whatever shell they've been using and see how much easier it is, then
bring them into Plan 9 proper so they can see how much more powerful a
shell script can be when supported by the right environment, and let
them explore the environment that way, as an extension of the shell.

My running joke when I try to explain my fascination with Plan 9 to
others is that I always had questions like, "How do you do X?" and
someone would respond, "Oh, we use awk for that."  Especially for the
people who don't enjoy the perspective of history, it really can be a
paradigm shift to not need to build a network infrastructure or create
and destroy a dozen objects to get at some trivial piece of data.

That paradigm shift does haunt us with rio, as people have a heavy
expectation of how a windowing environment should behave.  One way to
fix that is to change the windowing environment, but that may not be
the right way.  I've used the VNC trick in the past, but it would be
nice to be able to resize the VNC window with the expected window
behavior, using something like a kind of rootless VNC server, just
pushing the app windows.  I've seen single applications delivered by
Citrix, RDP and now NoMachine NX.  That kind of integration, where you
could open a browser as if it were a native app (especially if it were
coming from a self-hosted xen image) could lower that barrier to entry
and help meet those expectations.

> most of the Plan 9 guys are at google, running large Linux clusters
> ... and I believe many of them carry macos systems around now.

My question is, what did they take with them?  Can we use that to
leverage bringing people back across the bridge?

-Jack

P.S.
And now we all thank Russ again for plan9ports.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[matt]

> Then I come to this list and people say "fuck 'em". I don't know,,
> seems like an unconstructive attitude to me.


The first thing you'll have to do is show those people how plan 9 is 
EXACTLY the same as their current on screen system.

Then you'll have to show them the new Acme with 3d borders, tear off 
command pallettes, online help system, C++ & Java Class browser with 
Intellisense, variable name auto completion, safe source and cvs and svn 
and git and mercurial plug-ins, colour syntax highlighting, auto-indent, 
form editor, icon editor ......... ad nauseum.

You'll need a Media Player that can play wavs, aacs, wmas, mp3s, avis, 
streaming flash movies, mpeg and 1001 other codecs.

A fully featured MSN/Yahoo/Google Voice/Skype/$IM client.

A multi paned dedicated Email client with HTML rendering
And not an accursed web browser but a Application Execution Environment 
that uses XHTML/CSS3/DOM.

Then you can show them how 9p works.

Mind, I want that media player now I come to think of it.
and HTML: I curse you.
Hands up who wants Display Troff !

m

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[bride of excession]

On Wed, 7 Mar 2007 06:43:47 GMT
rminnich@gmail.com (ron minnich) wrote:

> On 3/6/07, Vester Thacker <vester.thacker@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Well, I apologize for offending you. But what ideas are you
> > suggesting that we migrate toward?
> 
> no, sorry, I was kind of short. No problem :-)
> 
> I actually agree with your points in many ways. I just don't know how
> to get around the problem of showing this system to people. It's such
> a powerful system, and it drives me crazy when the first reaction is
> "I don't like that GUI". I'm talking BEFORE I've typed anything in the
> little window. These are not dumb people. But they have work to do,
> and they don't see that climbing the learning curve is worth it.
> 

For me it's not the learning curve, it's the fact that my eyes hurt
immediately from looking at all the brilliant white light. And then
there's that quirky toy-like mouse business... What's wrong with using
keyboard shortcuts anyway?


> Then I come to this list and people say "fuck 'em". I don't know,,
> seems like an unconstructive attitude to me.
> 
> There's lots of stuff missing, as I pointed out at other times, in
> other notes. A lot of things that are missing are needed to get
> continued $$$ to keep things going. As jmk pointed out some time ago,
> plan9.bell-labs is supported in part by DOE, but at some point, if we
> can't show certain things, then the money goes away. The recompete
> happens this summer.
> 
> The isses of Python and gcc are not simply academic. They're part of
> the DOE meal ticket.
>

Yes, gcc and python would go a long way toward making plan9 useful in
the real world (vs only the research world or only the embedded world).

I see a lot of plan9 people critical of the idea of "copying windows"
yet that funtionality is precisely what practically everyone
(including plan9 folk) needs -- the paradigm is already cast and user's
standards (of a sort) *are* for all intents and purposes writ in stone
simply because we *need* to edit those .doc files, read pdf's and watch
DVDs. For crying out loud, there is *still* no graphic web browser and
it's the year 2007! 

New paradigms don't come from casting the old ones aside, rather they
evolve from the old pardigms. But that can't happen if one is so 
"idealistic" as to find compromise unacceptable. 


> Users matter ... I've just gone through an interesting few years of
> fielding the highest performing cluster software anywhere, and having
> people get upset because they can't run emacs or xterm or gdb on each
> and every one of 1024 cluster nodes. The system we have starts up
> 2048-cpu MPI jobs in 3 seconds, and the competitors literally take
> minutes (one recent system). It boots 1024 or 2048 nodes in 2-4
> minutes ,and the system replacing it can take hours -- yep, hours --
> to boot. This is all without a local disk, mind you. But people want
> that ssh login ... and /etc/passwd ... and xterm ... and so on. it's a
> conservative world in computing, nowadays. Everybody wants everything
> to look like a linux desktop, even a cluster node. It's kind of sad.
> Clusters are stuck in a 1997 mentality.
> 
> So, yeah, users can be frustrating, but they are your meal ticket.
> Saying "fuck em" only works just so long -- as you may have noticed,
> most of the Plan 9 guys are at google, running large Linux clusters
> ... and I believe many of them carry macos systems around now.
> 
> ron


Because "waiting for the new paradigm" just doesn't work unless one has
a clear vision and plan for achieving it. Sad.

But anyway I don't mean to barge in and pitch a bitch, and I certainly
have no plans to abandon plan9 over any of this, I'm just a tad
frustrated.

:) 

b.of.e

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Bruce Ellis]

the best way to piss off a linux dude who wakes up, updates his system,
goes to work, updates everything that isn't locked down, and then sit's you
in front of a "good box" ... is to say every two minutes "how do i get rid of
this gargoyle".  was a funny day ... i showed him how the mouse didn't
work very well (only under cpu load - it went left to right fine but going up
or down was hard work - the secretary went out and bought a new mouse,
which did the same.  anyway, in the wait i got me a VNC connnection  to
club birriga and downloaded 9wm and sam, which behaved perfectly.

i sammed(?) the code heavily, and he asks "what version of emacs is that?";
guess again human.  i was polite and said "it's an old editor i like to use".

and of course ... "how do i view this bitmap? xview doesn't like it ...
should i try gimp?"  "oh, don't use gimp, you'll have to wait." and it goes
down from there.

plan9 to a developer is total unrestrained productivity.  oh shit, it doesn't
have gargoyles or good porn viewers.  sorry, write them - they easy.

brucee

On 3/7/07, Vester Thacker <vester.thacker@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/7/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > you're right. All those experiences I had with people when I tried to
> > show them Plan 9 were just my imagination. Sorry. Too many drugs
> > maybe.
>
> Well, I apologize for offending you. But what ideas are you suggesting
> that we migrate toward?
>
> Transplant the MacOS X interface to Plan 9 perhaps? ;-)
>
> Regards,
> Vester
>

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[csant]

On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 06:52:13 +0100, Vester Thacker  
<vester.thacker@gmail.com> wrote:

> Anyway, I hope that we can move past Rio being the bane of Plan 9. I'm
> quite sure Rio alone is not what limits Plan 9's popularity and usage
> today.

Right. Maybe a major issue why I personally cannot really get much further  
with Plan 9 (with all due respect to those people who did *something*  
about it already) is the lack of a modern, fully capable web browser.

/c

RE: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[cej]

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>> Anyway, I hope that we can move past Rio being the bane of Plan 9. I'm
>> quite sure Rio alone is not what limits Plan 9's popularity and usage
>> today.

>Right. Maybe a major issue why I personally cannot really get much further  
>with Plan 9 (with all due respect to those people who did *something*  
>about it already) is the lack of a modern, fully capable web browser.

>/c

Unfortunately, doing this would mean to bother with all that Java/J++/javascript/VisualBasic/FlashPlayer/blahblahblah/AndIDontKnowWhichElse crap... is it really worth it???
Or should we better focus on things we simply can do better? Just IMHO.

Flames on me, i'm not a CS, yep, and beat my English,
as usually,
thanks,

++pac.

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RE: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[C H Forsyth]

>Java/J++/javascript/VisualBasic/FlashPlayer/blahblahblah/AndIDontKnowWhichElse crap... is it really worth it???

there are interesting things to play with in there, but for a browser, just vncv to something
where it still won't work but at least you'll have someone else to blame.

for someone's school project, i tried to use some javascript from a famous place, and every browser behaved
differently with it (eg, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and IE7 was VERY different) and none of them was quite right
if you cared about (say) display and printing both working on the same browser, and producing
the same content.  i got some usable results but the experience was disconcerting, if unsurprising.

we could have used the carbon credits saved by not expelling the hot air to discuss this so often to no real point,
to provide a huge Linux Firefox and Opera server somewhere on the Internet (eg, Al Gore's house)
for use by Plan 9 people when need a fancy browser and they haven't got a server of their own nearby.

RE: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Kenneth Long]

What is the next road map step for plan9?


--- C H Forsyth <forsyth@vitanuova.com> wrote:

>
>Java/J++/javascript/VisualBasic/FlashPlayer/blahblahblah/AndIDontKnowWhichElse
> crap... is it really worth it???
> 
> there are interesting things to play with in there,
> but for a browser, just vncv to something
> where it still won't work but at least you'll have
> someone else to blame.
> 
> for someone's school project, i tried to use some
> javascript from a famous place, and every browser
> behaved
> differently with it (eg, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and
> IE7 was VERY different) and none of them was quite
> right
> if you cared about (say) display and printing both
> working on the same browser, and producing
> the same content.  i got some usable results but the
> experience was disconcerting, if unsurprising.
> 
> we could have used the carbon credits saved by not
> expelling the hot air to discuss this so often to no
> real point,
> to provide a huge Linux Firefox and Opera server
> somewhere on the Internet (eg, Al Gore's house)
> for use by Plan 9 people when need a fancy browser
> and they haven't got a server of their own nearby.
> 


hello

RE: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[C H Forsyth]

>What is the next road map step for plan9?

ROAD map? `per ardua ad astra'!

RE: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Geoffrey Avila]

On Wed, 7 Mar 2007, C H Forsyth wrote:

>> What is the next road map step for plan9?
>
> ROAD map? `per ardua ad astra'!
>
"Where we're going, we don't need roads!"

RE: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[lucio]

>>> What is the next road map step for plan9?
>>
>> ROAD map? `per ardua ad astra'!
>>
> "Where we're going, we don't need roads!"

Actually, it's more that the roads just don't look like conventional
roads.  But they are there, make no mistake, and they are better than
the convention for those that recognise them as such.

It's not as much elitism as it is the realisation that what is
commonplace is only evolutionarily more successful.  Not better or
more advanced, merely more successful in the current conditions.  Like
reptiles in the era of dinosaurs.  The mammals were there, but they
did not look successful until the temperatures plummeted.

++L

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

> Right. Maybe a major issue why I personally cannot really get much further 
> with Plan 9 (with all due respect to those people who did *something* about 
> it already) is the lack of a modern, fully capable web browser.

How *did* we get anything done in the 1970s ...

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[erik quanstrom]

beer didn't exist until the invention of the tin can.
the world was in black-and-white until 1965. 
computers didn't exist until the mid 90s when 
berners-lee invented them.

- erik

On Wed Mar  7 11:56:32 EST 2007, lyndon@orthanc.ca wrote:
> > Right. Maybe a major issue why I personally cannot really get much further 
> > with Plan 9 (with all due respect to those people who did *something* about 
> > it already) is the lack of a modern, fully capable web browser.
> 
> How *did* we get anything done in the 1970s ...

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Jack Johnson]

On 3/7/07, erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com> wrote:
> computers didn't exist until the mid 90s when
> berners-lee invented them.

When did electricity exist, versus when did electricity exist in the home?

For most people in the previous generation, your last statement might
as well be true.  No one saw the tree fall until the squirrels were on
the ground.

Anyone in a computer science program currently?  Did VMS exist?

-Jack

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[andrey mirtchovski]

> Anyone in a computer science program currently?  Did VMS exist?

for many CS programs' intents and purposes UNIX doesn't exist anymore either.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Robert Sherwood]

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Hi, sympathetic outsider reporting here:

For me personally, as a member of the volunteer focus group, the reasons
that plan 9 is such a pain are the same reasons I'm drawn to it:


   1. Plan 9 is a network OS. The downside is that a single, disconnected
   plan 9 workstation is a pain in the ass to use, and is crippled by design (I
   think). Unfortunately, very few of the kind of tinkerers who would enjoy it
   have enough spare hardware to build something that really shows off the
   strengths of the system. I think the xen port work is the best fix for this,
   since it allows me to build a network using a minimal hardware footprint (I
   haven't tried).
   2. The interfaces are baffling.  As Master Shake said, "It's too
   advanced to be compatible". Not just rio; I mean adding a user to a system,
   logging in under a different account by rebooting, mounting devices as
   filesystems, making configuration changes, everything is different. I don't
   think anything makes sense until you understand the entire system, top to
   bottom. It's a difficult investment to make. I appreciate that this is not
   your problem.

I think that I understand the picture that the forefathers had in mind when
developing the system, it's just that it's very difficult to implement an
infrastructure that shows the benefits of the plan 9 approach. And when you
finally do, It's not clear that you've got something better, because there's
nothing you can do after building it that you couldn't do before. Of course,
enthusiasts do not represent a significant source of government funding, and
are thus unlikely to have significant input to the roadmap. I'm just sayin',
is all.

Rob

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Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[C H Forsyth]

>infrastructure that shows the benefits of the plan 9 approach. And when you
>finally do, It's not clear that you've got something better, because there's
>nothing you can do after building it that you couldn't do before. Of course,

you can build resource sharing systems without spending years and years
inventing yet more peculiar protocols and interfaces, and writing
programs to implement them, to make each resource visible to others
and never quite finishing (but nevertheless changing the protocols and interfaces often)

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Geoffrey Avila]

>  2. The interfaces are baffling.  As Master Shake said, "It's too
>  advanced to be compatible". Not just rio; I mean adding a user to a system,
>  logging in under a different account by rebooting, mounting devices as
>  filesystems, making configuration changes, everything is different. I don't
>  think anything makes sense until you understand the entire system, top to
>  bottom. It's a difficult investment to make. I appreciate that this is not
>  your problem.

A nice readable softcover book, in the style of the Nemeth-Snyder-Seebass 
"Unix System Administration Handbook", but for plan9 would be a huge 
honking help; it would make the epiphany one gets from installing a 
fileserver and a terminal and reading the papers and manpages a much more 
accessible moment.


> I think that I understand the picture that the forefathers had in mind when
> developing the system, it's just that it's very difficult to implement an
> infrastructure that shows the benefits of the plan 9 approach.

True. Systems today are homogenous x86en that consume power and desk 
space-there is no usual need to have more than one in your den.


And when you
> finally do, It's not clear that you've got something better, because there's
> nothing you can do after building it that you couldn't do before.

I beg to differ. My interest is less in clusters, and more in providing a 
homogenous reliable computing environment comprising desktops and servers 
across boundaries of hardware and Unix vendor. This takes enormous amounts 
of effort, more than it should, because of assumptions about how the 
system is to be used havn't changed at the most basic level in over two 
decades. You can approximate the same functionality with 
*nix+LDAP+AFS+krb5 or Windows with AD, but the effort to support that 
approximation does not increase linearly with size.

-GBA

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

On Mar 7, 2007, at 10:41 AM, Robert Sherwood wrote:

> The interfaces are baffling.  As Master Shake said, "It's too  
> advanced to be compatible". Not just rio; I mean adding a user to a  
> system, logging in under a different account by rebooting, mounting  
> devices as filesystems, making configuration changes, everything is  
> different. I don't think anything makes sense until you understand  
> the entire system, top to bottom. It's a difficult investment to  
> make. I appreciate that this is not your problem.

But this has nothing to do with Plan 9.  It's a human-brain-firmware  
bug.  You're most comfortable with what you learn learn.

Put me in front of VMS and I start to hurl. To me, the interface is  
rebarbative.

Put a VMS user in front of a UNIX terminal and they will hurl.  To  
them, anything that lacks logicals is untenable.

How many of you enjoy the music your kids listen to?  Your parents  
listen to?  I'm confidant the number of hands that go up in this  
crowd will be significantly higher than in a same-sized sample of  
general computer users.  The Plan 9 community self-selects for a very  
open mind set.  As much of the elegance of Plan 9 derives from its  
user community as derives from the code.  Catering to the masses will  
drive away that community, ensuring the death of the code base.

--lyndon

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

On Mar 7, 2007, at 5:16 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:

> You're most comfortable with what you learn learn.

You're most comfortable with what you learn first :-P 

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[David Leimbach]

On 3/7/07, Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon@orthanc.ca> wrote:
>
> On Mar 7, 2007, at 5:16 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:
>
> > You're most comfortable with what you learn learn.
>
> You're most comfortable with what you learn first :-P
>

If that were true, I'd still be able to remember how to use "Attrib" on DOS.

Or worse, I'd be caught wanting to type in

10 call clear

from Texas Instruments BASIC for the TI-99/4a.

No I think I can get more comfortable with "better" technology.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Martin Neubauer]

Perhaps one should rephrase it as `you are most comfortable with what you've
already learned.' The main obstacle seems to be to acknowledge that your
current environment might not be the universally best. But it seems that
trend isn't really new, just increasing.

It amazes me to no end that those linux gnus continuously emphasise that one
has to spend some amount of time to grow comfortable with the command line,
keyboard navigation in window managers and editors, and whatever else their
current pet peeve may be, yet they aren't too willing to to the same about
an environment they're not accustomed themselves.

	Martin

RE: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[cej]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1203 bytes --]




>  Put me in front of VMS and I start to hurl. To me, the interface is  
>  rebarbative.
>  
>  Put a VMS user in front of a UNIX terminal and they will hurl.  To  
>  them, anything that lacks logicals is untenable.
>  
>  How many of you enjoy the music your kids listen to?  Your parents  
>  listen to?  I'm confidant the number of hands that go up in this  
>  crowd will be significantly higher than in a same-sized sample of  
>  general computer users.  The Plan 9 community self-selects for a very  
>  open mind set.  As much of the elegance of Plan 9 derives from its  
>  user community as derives from the code.  Catering to the masses will  
>  drive away that community, ensuring the death of the code base.
>  
>  --lyndon

I do agree 100%
maybe you'll flame me, bu i think plan9 is NOT for masses
(that's why some Bill's and Steve's customers begin to boil in their own sauce.. i just met some very disappointed buyers of win vista)]
however, p9 might be just fine for technicians/scientists/etc.. (like me) who want to squeeze maximum from their ol' box, and rather upset by 'bells-and-whistles' instead of being impressed,
just IMHO, as usually,

++pac


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Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Gorka Guardiola]

100 mail thread!!!. The real problems is that 9fans spend more time writing
e-mails that code!!!.

G.


-- 
- curiosity sKilled the cat

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[erik quanstrom]

speak for yourself.

- erik

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[lucio]

> When did electricity exist, versus when did electricity exist in the home?

And we do not get a great deal of choice between AC and DC even though
there are places where the one is superior to the other.

It seems to me that many here want to have their cake and eat it: they
want those features of Plan 9 that are not in Windows and/or Linux and
are not likely to surface there any time soon, but they also want
those features that have made Windows and Linux the popular choices.

Thing is, the GUI, ease of installation, etc., are "populistic"
features.  Private namespaces, a consistent file interface, a powerful
generic communication protocol, Venti, Factotum, Acme, even Rio, are
all rough diamonds, you have to be able to visualise their value for
yourself before you can figure out how to extract that value from
them.  And that is contrary to the "immediate gratification" approach
that Windows and eventually Linux have adopted as their marketing
slogan.

If you try the same with Plan 9, you'll get at the end yet another
Windows with many of the breakages that have always plagued Windows
and are beginning to plague Linux.  Good luck.

++L

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[David Leimbach]

On 3/7/07, erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com> wrote:
> beer didn't exist until the invention of the tin can.
> the world was in black-and-white until 1965.
> computers didn't exist until the mid 90s when
> berners-lee invented them.

On NeXT systems to boot.  So how did Windows get so huge? :-)

>
> - erik
>
> On Wed Mar  7 11:56:32 EST 2007, lyndon@orthanc.ca wrote:
> > > Right. Maybe a major issue why I personally cannot really get much further
> > > with Plan 9 (with all due respect to those people who did *something* about
> > > it already) is the lack of a modern, fully capable web browser.
> >
> > How *did* we get anything done in the 1970s ...
>


-- 
- Passage Matthew 5:37:
   But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever
is more than these cometh of evil.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[don bailey]

I'm really with Minnich on this one. The GUI is what *everyone*
complains about and it's always the *first* thing they complain
about. I deal with pretty intelligent people in the security
community and they can't handle Rio and don't want to.

It isn't out of ignorance or the residue of sub-intellectualism,
it's just the simple fact that mobility is the last thing people
want to relearn.

Think about it, would you rather learn how your new ten-speed
mountain bike works or would you rather relearn how to ride a
bike?

I love Rio and find it a great environment to work in, but I'm a
pretty odd cat and I tend to think in very odd ways (not necessarily
good ways). Most people want to ALT+TAB-and-friends their way into
learning a system. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

Once you can navigate around the resources you want to learn, you
can start to learn. How can you get under the hood if you can't
figure out how to pop it up?

Don "north" Bailey

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[geoff]

> How can you get under the hood if you can't figure out how to pop it up?

Umm, read the documentation?

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Jack Johnson]

On 3/7/07, geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com <geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com> wrote:
> > How can you get under the hood if you can't figure out how to pop it up?
>
> Umm, read the documentation?

Hahaha, I remember having this problem when I was first introduced to
Plan 9, trying to figure out how to read the wiki in acme without
being able to read the wiki in acme.  I probably still have those
first survival printouts of how to configure the network so I could
get to the online documentation without rebooting between experiments.
 But as others have noted, that was my failing, or my blinders, not
seeing or knowing how to (best) access the internal documentation
immediately after installation.

I remember in college I stumbled around VMS thanks to the help system.
 It was self-teaching, in that you could start with HELP and it would
give you suggestions, and you could explore the whole command
documentation tree from that starting point.  Heck, I learned how to
FTP from the VMS help system.

My first introduction to UNIX, that was my first question, "How do I
find out what commands I can use?"

"You can use 'man', just type 'man commandname' and it will tell you
what it does.  Like this."

"What if I don't know the names of any of the commands?"

"Oh."

Inferno's wm/man is great in this respect, in that it's very
newbie-friendly, and the very first thing it does is explain itself.
Of course, lookman is handy, too (especially in acme), but maybe
either a simple wm/man-like port or just changing the default Glenda
window layout to better jumpstart the newbie down the internal
documentation path might help.

What are the first four things you wanted to do back when you did your
first installation?

Mine were something like:

1 - explore (8 1/2 then / rio now, private namespaces, etc.)
2 - try to do something I was used to doing (checking email, which involved)
3 - configure the network
4 - read the online documentation (where's the browser?)

-J

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[matt]

> "How do I find out what commands I can use?"
ls /bin

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[David Leimbach]

On 3/8/07, matt <mattmobile@proweb.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > "How do I find out what commands I can use?"
> ls /bin
>
>
>
think about what you want to do and use apropos.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[erik quanstrom]

that's a unixism.  plan 9 uses "lookman".

- erik

On Thu Mar  8 10:07:36 EST 2007, leimy2k@gmail.com wrote:
> On 3/8/07, matt <mattmobile@proweb.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > "How do I find out what commands I can use?"
> > ls /bin
> >
> >
> >
> think about what you want to do and use apropos.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Charles Forsyth]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 198 bytes --]

in early unix days, someone added a short shell script `pip' to the unix system
i used. the script amounted to

	echo pipes exist!

i suppose it was intended to educate the former rsx-11 users.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 2426 bytes --]

From: erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 10:09:15 -0500
Message-ID: <f9d4710ae6acacef259c4e2383e53654@coraid.com>

that's a unixism.  plan 9 uses "lookman".

- erik

On Thu Mar  8 10:07:36 EST 2007, leimy2k@gmail.com wrote:
> On 3/8/07, matt <mattmobile@proweb.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > "How do I find out what commands I can use?"
> > ls /bin
> >
> >
> >
> think about what you want to do and use apropos.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[David Leimbach]

On 3/8/07, erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com> wrote:
> that's a unixism.  plan 9 uses "lookman".
>
> - erik
>

He was referring to a unix "war story" so it was apropos to use apropos.



> On Thu Mar  8 10:07:36 EST 2007, leimy2k@gmail.com wrote:
> > On 3/8/07, matt <mattmobile@proweb.co.uk> wrote:
> > >
> > > > "How do I find out what commands I can use?"
> > > ls /bin
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > think about what you want to do and use apropos.
>
>


-- 
- Passage Matthew 5:37:
   But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever
is more than these cometh of evil.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Anthony Sorace]

On 3/7/07, geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com wrote:
> > How can you get under the hood if you can't figure out how to pop it up?
>
> Umm, read the documentation?

8½ was brilliant for that. unless you read at least the introduction
to the system, you were getting *nowhere*. fast. i learned that my
first day with my own plan 9 terminal. it was a bit frustrating at
first, but the "it's not unix" warnings were a good psychological
preparation.

i think jack's suggestion of modifying the default glenda setup to
give the user a bit more insight into the documentation track is a
good one.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Geoffrey Avila]

On Wed, 7 Mar 2007, don bailey wrote:

> I'm really with Minnich on this one. The GUI is what *everyone*
> complains about and it's always the *first* thing they complain
> about. I deal with pretty intelligent people in the security
> community and they can't handle Rio and don't want to.
>

Yeah. I've actually heard that firsthand from some of our visualization 
people. I mean, they would also want support for hw OpenGL, which we can't 
do (yet), but apparently the Rio aesthetic was lost on them.

While I don't think it'd be worth it to port the giant GTK+/GNOME hairball 
over, I do miss the 3D-look window borders, which (to me) make it easier 
to distinguish edges for grabbing and moving purposes. If GNOME is too 
much candyfloss & tinsel, how about a 3dwm-look?

-GBA

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Boris Maryshev]

http://9fans.net/archive/1995/08/20

:)

On 8 Mar 2007, at 21:02, Geoffrey Avila wrote:

> On Wed, 7 Mar 2007, don bailey wrote:
>
>> I'm really with Minnich on this one. The GUI is what *everyone*
>> complains about and it's always the *first* thing they complain
>> about. I deal with pretty intelligent people in the security
>> community and they can't handle Rio and don't want to.
>>
>
> Yeah. I've actually heard that firsthand from some of our  
> visualization people. I mean, they would also want support for hw  
> OpenGL, which we can't do (yet), but apparently the Rio aesthetic  
> was lost on them.
>
> While I don't think it'd be worth it to port the giant GTK+/GNOME  
> hairball over, I do miss the 3D-look window borders, which (to me)  
> make it easier to distinguish edges for grabbing and moving  
> purposes. If GNOME is too much candyfloss & tinsel, how about a  
> 3dwm-look?
>
> -GBA
>

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[matt]

http://9fans.net/archive/2001/06/170

From: Lucio De Re <lucio@pro...>

Quake is to Linux what 1-2-3 was to the IBM Personal Computer.
Without it, I believe, Linux would still be as much of a curiosity as
Plan 9 is today.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[ron minnich]

On 3/8/07, matt <mattmobile@proweb.co.uk> wrote:
> http://9fans.net/archive/2001/06/170
>
> From: Lucio De Re <lucio@pro...>
>
> Quake is to Linux what 1-2-3 was to the IBM Personal Computer.
> Without it, I believe, Linux would still be as much of a curiosity as
> Plan 9 is today.

interesting perspective. A different one comes from my side. By
1993,at my job at the now-gone Supercomputing Research Center, we were
already buying PCs to evaluate Linux and FreeBSD on PCs for
clustering. I had been running 386bsd at that time almost since its
release. And folks in DOE were doing the same kind of testing.

Clusters had a long history -- almost 10 years -- by 1993; it's not
that Linux or FreeBSD did anything new or better, in fact at the time
they were considerably worse (in fact, most Linux cluster software is
not an advance over what was routinely done in 1993); but you could
fix them.

By 1993 Sun and other companies had made it impossible to get OS
source. The vendors, who owned the clustering space at the time, cut
their own throats by refusing to release source. People voted with
their feet. Sound familiar? :-)

At the same time, the supercomputing space was 0% of all PC sales, so
it's not like we mattered. Google and the banking sector have changed
that somewhat.

thanks

ron

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[lucio]

> By 1993 Sun and other companies had made it impossible to get OS
> source. The vendors, who owned the clustering space at the time, cut
> their own throats by refusing to release source. People voted with
> their feet. Sound familiar? :-)

Yes, but the tune I hear in South Africa's business community today is
not greatly concerned with Open Source, it is concerned with
continuity.  I probably saved my primary client a few million Rands
(say a million US dollars) in licence fees and hardware costs in the
nearly twenty years I have consulted for them, but they will probably
spend it all (they have alredy spent most of it, I believe) to catch
up with their peers all of whom run Windows.  Why?  Because they
believe than no matter how large the costs, it is cheaper than to
depend on my skills, that after they have effectively refused to allow
me to train anyone in their organisation to replace me or even
tobecome familiar with the software I have supplied (NetBSD and a
hundred or so shell scripts for administration, one or two C programs,
a growing base of Apache/PHP/PostgreSQL applications), a "saving" I am
not including in my estimate.  So they believe that Windows will
"liberate" them from this dependency and I have no arguments to save
them from themselves.  In fact, any arguments I have would seem to be
in the opposite direction.

I could have run at least some of their needs on Plan 9: just Fossil
and Venti would have provided them with a backup facility that much
more closely matches their operation.  But they are not willing to pay
the cost of research nor the risk of failure, so they have to do
without.  Thing is, they would not understand the difference and
therefore would still want to migrate to what they like to call
"industry standard".

Apropos of Plan 9, the matter is that my client, like most "users",
are terrified of being different.  They believe in the comfort of
"convention".  Plan 9 isn't for them, not yet, possibly not ever.  But
some people buy Ferraris even though there are very few mechanics that
can look after them.  They know that what they want doesn't come
cheaply and are willing to pay for it.  I would far rather Plan 9
presented itself as the Ferrari of operating systems (after all, it's
the F40 that has a piece of steel cord in a nylon pipe to open the
door from the inside, isn't it?) than that it aimed itself at my
client's staff whose ignorance concerning computing is frightening.
Let them have Windows, if that's what they want.  And if Linux
(specially UBUNTU) is capable of filling the middle-class slot,
magnificent, too.  But to see where computing could be, you have to
look at the operating systems that didn't become mundane: Plan 9
first, QNX, BeOS, no doubt some others.

++L

PS: The Ferrari analogy is new to me.  But I think its aptness is
real.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Harri Haataja]

On Fri, Mar 09, 2007 at 06:46:01AM +0200, lucio@proxima.alt.za wrote:
> (after all, it's
> the F40 that has a piece of steel cord in a nylon pipe to open the
> door from the inside, isn't it?)

If you look at it, I guess you could call the whole F40 a piece of
steel cord in a nylon pipe :)

> PS: The Ferrari analogy is new to me.  But I think its aptness is
> real.

It's lovely. Especially with the F40.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[lucio]

> From: Lucio De Re <lucio@pro...>
> 
> Quake is to Linux what 1-2-3 was to the IBM Personal Computer.
> Without it, I believe, Linux would still be as much of a curiosity as
> Plan 9 is today.

Did I really say that? :-)

++L

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Dave Eckhardt]

> I'm really with Minnich on this one. The GUI is what *everyone*
> complains about and it's always the *first* thing they complain
> about.  I deal with pretty intelligent people in the security
> community and they can't handle Rio and don't want to.

In response, a serious, non-flame, question:  what's the realistic
alternative?  It would be possible, if arduous, to replace rio with
a clone of, say, fvwm.  But what about fluxbox and icewm and sawfish
and windowmaker and enlightenment?  Is "the problem" really rio per
se, or is the problem that for each person rio isn't the thing they
already use?

I guess my question translates into "Is there *one* X window manager
which, if cloned for Plan 9, would solve the 'rio problem'?".

Dave Eckhardt

P.S. And I guess the follow-on question is "Would that window manager
be sufficient, or are bash and turning vt into xterm necessary too?".

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[lejatorn]

Honestly, I happen to boot plan9 from times to times, when I find enough
time to play with it and try to get to know it, and so far rio has not
been the major  problem for me. After all, once a term is opened, I
don't really have much more to ask from the window managing system when
it comes to getting to know the system underneath.

I'm more slowed down by:
-obviously the fact that it's quite a different system from unix,
-the fact I find the documentation unreadable in a term so I have to
read the docs in a browser on my other comp, 
-the lack of completion with tab (I know it can be done with another
key, but it's hard to break the tab habit), 
-and last but not least, getting used to edit with sam or acme 
(which of course means using the mouse) while I'm working all day with
vim without ever using the mouse.

At least now rio is starting with a dvorak keymap, otherwise it would
have been a no go :)

Cheers,
Mathieu.

On Mon, Mar 12, 2007 at 04:45:44AM -0400, Dave Eckhardt wrote:
> > I'm really with Minnich on this one. The GUI is what *everyone*
> > complains about and it's always the *first* thing they complain
> > about.  I deal with pretty intelligent people in the security
> > community and they can't handle Rio and don't want to.
> 
> In response, a serious, non-flame, question:  what's the realistic
> alternative?  It would be possible, if arduous, to replace rio with
> a clone of, say, fvwm.  But what about fluxbox and icewm and sawfish
> and windowmaker and enlightenment?  Is "the problem" really rio per
> se, or is the problem that for each person rio isn't the thing they
> already use?
> 
> I guess my question translates into "Is there *one* X window manager
> which, if cloned for Plan 9, would solve the 'rio problem'?".
> 
> Dave Eckhardt
> 
> P.S. And I guess the follow-on question is "Would that window manager
> be sufficient, or are bash and turning vt into xterm necessary too?".

-- 
GPG key on subkeys.pgp.net:

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Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Skip Tavakkolian]

> -the fact I find the documentation unreadable in a term so I have to
> read the docs in a browser on my other comp, 

man -P man

> -obviously the fact that it's quite a different system from unix,
> -the lack of completion with tab (I know it can be done with another
> key, but it's hard to break the tab habit), 
> -and last but not least, getting used to edit with sam or acme 
> (which of course means using the mouse) while I'm working all day with
> vim without ever using the mouse.

these all say the same thing: the environment is different than what
you're used to.  it is well worth the time to learn the new
environment.  i suspect the cost will be less than learning Vista's
quirks.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[lejatorn]

On Mon, Mar 12, 2007 at 08:55:42AM -0800, Skip Tavakkolian wrote:
> > -the fact I find the documentation unreadable in a term so I have to
> > read the docs in a browser on my other comp, 
> 
> man -P man
> 
> > -obviously the fact that it's quite a different system from unix,
> > -the lack of completion with tab (I know it can be done with another
> > key, but it's hard to break the tab habit), 
> > -and last but not least, getting used to edit with sam or acme 
> > (which of course means using the mouse) while I'm working all day with
> > vim without ever using the mouse.
> 
> these all say the same thing: the environment is different than what
> you're used to.  it is well worth the time to learn the new
> environment.

Sure, that's why I'm far from having given up, I'm just going really
slowly. And the problem with that is I forget almost everything I
learned between two plan9 "sessions" since I don't have time to play
with it often enough. But I figured if I started using acme from the
plan9port at work, that at least would be acquired. :).

>  i suspect the cost will be less than learning Vista's
> quirks.

*gasp* 
Fortunately I have enough freedom at work so that I don't have to use
microsoft "products".

Cheers,
Mathieu.

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Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[David Leimbach]

On 3/12/07, lejatorn@gmail.com <lejatorn@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 12, 2007 at 08:55:42AM -0800, Skip Tavakkolian wrote:
> > > -the fact I find the documentation unreadable in a term so I have to
> > > read the docs in a browser on my other comp,
> >
> > man -P man
> >
> > > -obviously the fact that it's quite a different system from unix,
> > > -the lack of completion with tab (I know it can be done with another
> > > key, but it's hard to break the tab habit),
> > > -and last but not least, getting used to edit with sam or acme
> > > (which of course means using the mouse) while I'm working all day with
> > > vim without ever using the mouse.
> >
> > these all say the same thing: the environment is different than what
> > you're used to.  it is well worth the time to learn the new
> > environment.
>
> Sure, that's why I'm far from having given up, I'm just going really
> slowly. And the problem with that is I forget almost everything I
> learned between two plan9 "sessions" since I don't have time to play
> with it often enough. But I figured if I started using acme from the
> plan9port at work, that at least would be acquired. :).
>

I actually keep notebooks of things that I learn when I'm trying new
OSes.  I have one for FreeBSD too, as I was really used to the linux
way of doing things when I went to that OS.

I think that the wiki is meant to be a sort of "shared notebook" for
the community to contribute and update.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Harri Haataja]

On Mon, Mar 12, 2007 at 04:45:44AM -0400, Dave Eckhardt wrote:
> In response, a serious, non-flame, question:  what's the realistic
> alternative?  It would be possible, if arduous, to replace rio with
> a clone of, say, fvwm.  But what about fluxbox and icewm and sawfish
> and windowmaker and enlightenment?  Is "the problem" really rio per
> se, or is the problem that for each person rio isn't the thing they
> already use?
> 
> I guess my question translates into "Is there *one* X window manager
> which, if cloned for Plan 9, would solve the 'rio problem'?".

I doubt that. I think that what is missing is the freedom in choosing
your workflow. Even if it's training wheels until you get used to
the system and can drop the cruft and stick to plain rio.

OTOH I think that the reason more gui's and wm's keep popping up
is that they're all broken. People switch when something that
seems to be a better iteration comes along or when they have no
choice or energy to make it.

I think that there's two kinds of software: The clear-cut cases,
where you can work on the flawless small sharp tool to do the
exact one thing and the vague messy stuff where you can't see
what perfection is and instead just make a little less incomplete
or broken thing and see how that works.

UI is stuck in the latter. I won't repeat the argument that frames
should be managed by a program with a policy and not by the user
with a pointing device[0]. Others have their own demands. Rio isn't
an unsurpassable wall for me, so maybe I'm not the one to give an
answer. It's just tedious and I don't believe in it. I'll need
some time and energy to adjust. Thanks to tip9ug and Inferno, I
should have the means to start.

I'm also happy with the small sharp tool -type documentation, but
there should be some good book or introductory material for the
system (there's at least that one book, url posted to 9fans earlier).
That's the way you can find out what tools you can use and what
you can (typically) do with them. That or rummaging around a lot
(lookman, ls...).

Still; AHS, ASS.


[0] Oops.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[erik quanstrom]

On Tue Mar 13 08:55:29 EST 2007, harriha@mail.student.oulu.fi wrote:
> OTOH I think that the reason more gui's and wm's keep popping up
> is that they're all broken. People switch when something that
> seems to be a better iteration comes along or when they have no
> choice or energy to make it.

like miniskirts, window managers are a fad that pops up every
decade or so.

- erik

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Jack Johnson]

On 3/13/07, Harri Haataja <harriha@mail.student.oulu.fi> wrote:
> UI is stuck in the latter. I won't repeat the argument that frames
> should be managed by a program with a policy and not by the user

Couldn't you use awk for that? ;)

-J

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Noah Evans]

I think the root of the bias against rio is that it isn't "pretty". I
was joking when I talked about gradients and rounded corners, but I'm
willing to bet that if rio did have cute windows, anti-aliased fonts
and little whirry 3d doo dads that a lot of the complaints about it
would disappear.

I was serious about screencasts though. If there were actual,
watchable examples of the way acme worked and tools gurus did things
then I think people would start to "get" plan 9 more.

Noah

On 3/12/07, Dave Eckhardt <davide+p9@cs.cmu.edu> wrote:
> > I'm really with Minnich on this one. The GUI is what *everyone*
> > complains about and it's always the *first* thing they complain
> > about.  I deal with pretty intelligent people in the security
> > community and they can't handle Rio and don't want to.
>
> In response, a serious, non-flame, question:  what's the realistic
> alternative?  It would be possible, if arduous, to replace rio with
> a clone of, say, fvwm.  But what about fluxbox and icewm and sawfish
> and windowmaker and enlightenment?  Is "the problem" really rio per
> se, or is the problem that for each person rio isn't the thing they
> already use?
>
> I guess my question translates into "Is there *one* X window manager
> which, if cloned for Plan 9, would solve the 'rio problem'?".
>
> Dave Eckhardt
>
> P.S. And I guess the follow-on question is "Would that window manager
> be sufficient, or are bash and turning vt into xterm necessary too?".
>

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[lucio]

> I think the root of the bias against rio is that it isn't "pretty". I
> was joking when I talked about gradients and rounded corners, but I'm
> willing to bet that if rio did have cute windows, anti-aliased fonts
> and little whirry 3d doo dads that a lot of the complaints about it
> would disappear.

But that is all computing time that could be better spent elsewhere.
Who actually wants their machine to run no faster than a 4.7MHz IBM
PC-Clone, albeit a very snazzy looking one?

++L

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Noah Evans]

Lots of people. That's the problem.

I'm not advocating doo-dads, I'm just saying that's fundamentally
where I think a lot of the resistance to Plan 9 is coming from. A
large percentage of the OS hobbyists are vain. They would rather have
something like gnome or kde than something like rio because it looks
"cool."

 Noah

On 3/14/07, lucio@proxima.alt.za <lucio@proxima.alt.za> wrote:
> > I think the root of the bias against rio is that it isn't "pretty". I
> > was joking when I talked about gradients and rounded corners, but I'm
> > willing to bet that if rio did have cute windows, anti-aliased fonts
> > and little whirry 3d doo dads that a lot of the complaints about it
> > would disappear.
>
> But that is all computing time that could be better spent elsewhere.
> Who actually wants their machine to run no faster than a 4.7MHz IBM
> PC-Clone, albeit a very snazzy looking one?
>
> ++L
>
>

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[lucio]

> I'm not advocating doo-dads, I'm just saying that's fundamentally
> where I think a lot of the resistance to Plan 9 is coming from. A
> large percentage of the OS hobbyists are vain. They would rather have
> something like gnome or kde than something like rio because it looks
> "cool."
> 
>  Noah
> 
> On 3/14/07, lucio@proxima.alt.za <lucio@proxima.alt.za> wrote:
>> > I think the root of the bias against rio is that it isn't "pretty". I
>> > was joking when I talked about gradients and rounded corners, but I'm
>> > willing to bet that if rio did have cute windows, anti-aliased fonts
>> > and little whirry 3d doo dads that a lot of the complaints about it
>> > would disappear.
>>
>> But that is all computing time that could be better spent elsewhere.
>> Who actually wants their machine to run no faster than a 4.7MHz IBM
>> PC-Clone, albeit a very snazzy looking one?
>>
> Lots of people. That's the problem.
> 
So what?  I didn't ask "how many?", I asked "who?".  We do not run
Plan 9 development as a democracy, it is a meritocracy where program
code gets you Noddy points.  So is Linux, actually, and the real and
significant difference is that Linux was there to fill a gap before
Plan 9, so the expectant mediocracy took it on as their own.  In a lot
of ways, I'm glad Plan 9 didn't suffer that fate and I'm even more
glad that the mediocracy is too busy shining the chrome on Linux to
come and interfere with the engineering in Plan 9.

++L

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Devon H. O'Dell]

> > Lots of people. That's the problem.
> >
> So what?  I didn't ask "how many?", I asked "who?".  We do not run

I like pretty pictures and eye candy. That's why I bought a Mac. If
Plan 9 is what ran on a Mac, I wouldn't have bought one.

--dho

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[lucio]

> I like pretty pictures and eye candy. That's why I bought a Mac. If
> Plan 9 is what ran on a Mac, I wouldn't have bought one.

Nobody denies you the right to enjoy what you consider a pleasant
computing experience.  But why must Plan 9 come into it at all?  You
seem to have what you want in OS/X or whatever runs on your Mac.  End
of story.

++L

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Devon H. O'Dell]

2007/3/15, lucio@proxima.alt.za <lucio@proxima.alt.za>:
> > I like pretty pictures and eye candy. That's why I bought a Mac. If
> > Plan 9 is what ran on a Mac, I wouldn't have bought one.
>
> Nobody denies you the right to enjoy what you consider a pleasant
> computing experience.  But why must Plan 9 come into it at all?  You
> seem to have what you want in OS/X or whatever runs on your Mac.  End
> of story.

I don't know, and I never said anybody denied me anything. You asked
who [in the Plan 9 community] cares, I answered. I do.

I'd probably use Plan 9 more if rio was prettier and more like what I
use. Point blank. Yes, I'm fully aware that the sources are available
for me to make it so. I don't have time. I do have ability.

I gave a snide response because your rant on ``So what?'' seemed snide
to me. And I do care. So, there you go.

> ++L

--dho

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[lucio]

> I don't know, and I never said anybody denied me anything. You asked
> who [in the Plan 9 community] cares, I answered. I do.

Fair enough.  But the second question remains: where does Plan 9 fit
in?  Plan 9 started life with minimalist aspirations and grew up in a
world that has embraced computing paradigms that seem in conflict with
these aspirations.  There seems to me that there are two options: 

1.  Considerable resources are applied to produce or port a minimum
set of applications (Gnome, FireFox, Evolution, OpenOffice, the Gimp,
say) to Plan 9, thus competing on a better level with Linux and, to a
much smaller extent, with Windows, or

2.  The available resources continue to be applied to problems closer
to the Plan 9 concept space (Abaco, Omero, GSoC projects, etc.).

As I see little merit in making another Windows of Plan 9, even via
the Linux route, I prefer the second option.  Also, I don't understand
the benefits of the first option: when I want Linux, NetBSD or
Windows, I have them all at my fingertips, at least in one version.
None of them is an adequate replacement for any of the others, so I
don't see how Plan 9, considerably less mainstream/orthodox than any
of the others, could ever aspire to grab marketplace from any of its
competitors.  Certainly, I won't sell it on that ticket.

++L

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Harri Haataja]

On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 09:28:00PM +0200, lucio@proxima.alt.za wrote:
> As I see little merit in making another Windows of Plan 9, even via
> the Linux route, I prefer the second option.  Also, I don't understand
> the benefits of the first option: when I want Linux, NetBSD or
> Windows, I have them all at my fingertips, at least in one version.

IF you wanted to look at the popularity aspect, bit by bit a Windows
was made of Linux in order to get a wider audience. In replacing NT
servers in small shops sneakily and making firewalls, print servers,
web servers etc, it worked fine. In the current desktop horrors,
maybe not. A lot of doors were opened to all kinds of systems.

Doing similiar with plan9 might mean that there could be small plan9
servers doing those back of the closet jobs. I really like that goal.

Another thing might be trying to get everywhere, including glossy
desktops. Looking at Linux today, that might be a very risky route.

Then there's the compatibility. You might have to stick with some
system or such just because of one app (Excel, Photoshop, Firefox...)
and that's a miserable state IMO/E. Maybe Xen will make that a lot
easier than before.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Uriel]

Stop this thread. Please.

Eternally grateful

uriel

P.S.: If you need to have this discussion, please read the 9fans
archives from the past ten years, you will not notice the difference.


On 3/16/07, Harri Haataja <harriha@mail.student.oulu.fi> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 09:28:00PM +0200, lucio@proxima.alt.za wrote:
> > As I see little merit in making another Windows of Plan 9, even via
> > the Linux route, I prefer the second option.  Also, I don't understand
> > the benefits of the first option: when I want Linux, NetBSD or
> > Windows, I have them all at my fingertips, at least in one version.
>
> IF you wanted to look at the popularity aspect, bit by bit a Windows
> was made of Linux in order to get a wider audience. In replacing NT
> servers in small shops sneakily and making firewalls, print servers,
> web servers etc, it worked fine. In the current desktop horrors,
> maybe not. A lot of doors were opened to all kinds of systems.
>
> Doing similiar with plan9 might mean that there could be small plan9
> servers doing those back of the closet jobs. I really like that goal.
>
> Another thing might be trying to get everywhere, including glossy
> desktops. Looking at Linux today, that might be a very risky route.
>
> Then there's the compatibility. You might have to stick with some
> system or such just because of one app (Excel, Photoshop, Firefox...)
> and that's a miserable state IMO/E. Maybe Xen will make that a lot
> easier than before.
>
>

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Noah Evans]

Hey Lucio,

We're missing each other. The initial point of discussion was "what
are the barriers for the adoption of plan 9?" not the development
model or what is the "right" way to do things. My post was not meant
to advocate making rio "prettier". I hope I made that clear.

What I would like to reiterate, though, is that the expectations of a
typical user, even a very smart one, differ from Plan 9 community. If
we could better understand that difference and couch Plan 9 advocacy
in terms a regular user can more readily understand Plan 9 advocacy
would be much more effective.

Noah

On 3/15/07, lucio@proxima.alt.za <lucio@proxima.alt.za> wrote:
> > I'm not advocating doo-dads, I'm just saying that's fundamentally
> > where I think a lot of the resistance to Plan 9 is coming from. A
> > large percentage of the OS hobbyists are vain. They would rather have
> > something like gnome or kde than something like rio because it looks
> > "cool."
> >
> >  Noah
> >
> > On 3/14/07, lucio@proxima.alt.za <lucio@proxima.alt.za> wrote:
> >> > I think the root of the bias against rio is that it isn't "pretty". I
> >> > was joking when I talked about gradients and rounded corners, but I'm
> >> > willing to bet that if rio did have cute windows, anti-aliased fonts
> >> > and little whirry 3d doo dads that a lot of the complaints about it
> >> > would disappear.
> >>
> >> But that is all computing time that could be better spent elsewhere.
> >> Who actually wants their machine to run no faster than a 4.7MHz IBM
> >> PC-Clone, albeit a very snazzy looking one?
> >>
> > Lots of people. That's the problem.
> >
> So what?  I didn't ask "how many?", I asked "who?".  We do not run
> Plan 9 development as a democracy, it is a meritocracy where program
> code gets you Noddy points.  So is Linux, actually, and the real and
> significant difference is that Linux was there to fill a gap before
> Plan 9, so the expectant mediocracy took it on as their own.  In a lot
> of ways, I'm glad Plan 9 didn't suffer that fate and I'm even more
> glad that the mediocracy is too busy shining the chrome on Linux to
> come and interfere with the engineering in Plan 9.
>
> ++L
>
>

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[lucio]

> We're missing each other. The initial point of discussion was "what
> are the barriers for the adoption of plan 9?" not the development
> model or what is the "right" way to do things. My post was not meant
> to advocate making rio "prettier". I hope I made that clear.
> 
I'm sure you're right, and I ought to have pointed out at the outset
that the adoption of Plan 9 by lots of users is not the good thing
that it seems to be.  In fact, in my opinion, it is not even likely as
it would be, as discussed here, by imitation, which is hardly the role
Plan 9 should be playing.

> What I would like to reiterate, though, is that the expectations of a
> typical user, even a very smart one, differ from Plan 9 community. If
> we could better understand that difference and couch Plan 9 advocacy
> in terms a regular user can more readily understand Plan 9 advocacy
> would be much more effective.

But we'd waste enormous resources in exactly the wrong direction.
Plan 9 has an appeal of itself.  It is hardly sensible to try to cast
Bette Midler in Claudia Schiffer's role.  Teaching Claudia Schiffer to
act (or sing) like Bette Midler may be more successful, but the result
isn't a certainty.

I'm sorry we (I, in particular) lost the thread of this conversation,
as you point out.  I think it should be made clear as soon as the
subject is raised that Plan 9 is not anywhere near ready for broad
acceptance, largely because it would entail straying very far from its
fundamentals, but also because the active community, meaning the
contributors, are much more likely to focus on Plan 9's unique
properties than on imitating Windows.

Perhaps we could (re)assemble an FAQ in which this feature of Plan 9
would be made much clearer, with corroborating evidence from the realm
of those assets that the mainstream OSes are still struggling to
acquire.

++L

PS: I think Plan 9's biggest "mistake" was to drop Alef where it
should have become the _only_ development language.  I know this is
absolute pie-in-the-sky and I accept without qualification the
motivation for dropping Alef.  But a lot of discussion would have been
avoided if there wasn't so much C code out there waiting to be
adopted, poorly, into the Plan 9 fold.  Andrey's "libssh" is very much
a case in point, but anything APE could be used as an example.  I do
not intend any disrespect by this, I'm merely pointing out that C
raises expectations of Plan 9 that are not realistic.  Plan
9-with-Alef became Inferno and no-one is suggesting that _it_ should
be more widely adopted by adding Linux or Windows features to it.

In summary, I think the subject needs resolving.  The derided "road
map" for Plan 9 should be a topic for study and contribution, as much
as are P9P and APE ports, although it is understandable that we all
only have the resources (or motivation) to contribute when we're stung
personally :-)

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Geoffrey Avila]

>
> PS: I think Plan 9's biggest "mistake" was to drop Alef where it
> should have become the _only_ development language.  I know this is
> absolute pie-in-the-sky and I accept without qualification the
> motivation for dropping Alef.  But a lot of discussion would have been
> avoided if there wasn't so much C code out there waiting to be

So like Cortez, you burn your ships behind you. That would remove the
temptation to move ill-considered software over. Isn't the fact that 8c
isn't bug-compatible with gcc obstacle enough? :)

However, it isn't like there's pressure to maintain legacy applications...

-GBA

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

On 3/15/07, lucio@proxima.alt.za <lucio@proxima.alt.za> wrote:
>
> I'm sorry we (I, in particular) lost the thread of this conversation,
> as you point out.  I think it should be made clear as soon as the
> subject is raised that Plan 9 is not anywhere near ready for broad
> acceptance, largely because it would entail straying very far from its
> fundamentals, but also because the active community, meaning the
> contributors, are much more likely to focus on Plan 9's unique
> properties than on imitating Windows.
>

That sort of ignores the whole Java on Inferno fiasco.  Unfortunately,
people seem to want incremental change -- they want their old
environments with perhaps a smattering of something new.  I suppose in
that way Inferno does really well since it runs in (and beside) old
environments.  Unfortunately, many of Plan9/Inferno's advantages can
only be realized in a much more systematic way (plumber is far less
useful with only a single app using it).

However, I don't think that detracts from your overall point -- as
I've said previously I think we are far better off focusing on
developing Plan 9/Inferno's strengths rather than trying to make it
look like something which already exists elsewhere.

              -eric

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[C H Forsyth]

>Plan9-with-Alef became Inferno and no-one is suggesting that _it_ should
>be more widely adopted by adding Linux or Windows features to it.

you'd be surprised ... (or perhaps not).

anyway, i think uriel is right and this endlessly revisited discussion
isn't profitable, and could be dealt with in the FAQ by a reference to the
archives with a self-referring link at the end of that, so that the FAQ
reader could feel the full effect.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Jack Johnson]

On 3/13/07, Noah Evans <noah.evans@gmail.com> wrote:
> I was serious about screencasts though.

Maybe using something like this?

http://www.unixuser.org/~euske/vnc2swf/  or
http://www.sodan.org/~penny/vncrec/

though other tools and drawterm might work just as well.  You'd have
to use some other tools for the voiceover.

-Jack

RE: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Gabriel Díaz]

Hello

>From tip9ug mail list:

http://www.wakhok.ac.jp/~kida/plan9/acmewin/

slds

gabi


-----Mensaje original-----
De: 9fans-bounces+gabidiaz=gmail.com@cse.psu.edu
[mailto:9fans-bounces+gabidiaz=gmail.com@cse.psu.edu] En nombre de Noah
Evans
Enviado el: miércoles, 14 de marzo de 2007 5:26
Para: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
Asunto: Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

I think the root of the bias against rio is that it isn't "pretty". I
was joking when I talked about gradients and rounded corners, but I'm
willing to bet that if rio did have cute windows, anti-aliased fonts
and little whirry 3d doo dads that a lot of the complaints about it
would disappear.

I was serious about screencasts though. If there were actual,
watchable examples of the way acme worked and tools gurus did things
then I think people would start to "get" plan 9 more.

Noah

On 3/12/07, Dave Eckhardt <davide+p9@cs.cmu.edu> wrote:
> > I'm really with Minnich on this one. The GUI is what *everyone*
> > complains about and it's always the *first* thing they complain
> > about.  I deal with pretty intelligent people in the security
> > community and they can't handle Rio and don't want to.
>
> In response, a serious, non-flame, question:  what's the realistic
> alternative?  It would be possible, if arduous, to replace rio with
> a clone of, say, fvwm.  But what about fluxbox and icewm and sawfish
> and windowmaker and enlightenment?  Is "the problem" really rio per
> se, or is the problem that for each person rio isn't the thing they
> already use?
>
> I guess my question translates into "Is there *one* X window manager
> which, if cloned for Plan 9, would solve the 'rio problem'?".
>
> Dave Eckhardt
>
> P.S. And I guess the follow-on question is "Would that window manager
> be sufficient, or are bash and turning vt into xterm necessary too?".
>

RE: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Charles Forsyth]

	It would be a lot easier to accept the lesser functionality required
	... if it were ever going to be improved, but I honestly don't believe it ever will be.

	I've been using it on the desktop for nearly 10 years now, and
	while it's come a long way, it's still nowhere near where it should be
	considering the amount of time and effort that has been spent on it.
	In many cases, I'm still seeing the same arguments that I saw 2 years
	ago, and 2 years before that.  Hardware support has improved, but in
	the main areas where we need free drivers, the options are still
	limited (networking and video).

	Without the cooperation of the hardware vendors, the current situation
	will never change.  Without a change in the mindset surrounding
	interface design (we need psychologists for this more than we need
	programmers) it will still be just that little bit too much more
	complex for the average end user.

i changed some of the nouns to pronouns. that was someone writing about Linux a few days ago.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[matt]

 >  if rio did have cute windows,
I'll have to show you these later, my ISP's ftp has disappeared & I cant 
remember the uri for the image

 > anti-aliased fonts
check : http://farm1.static.flickr.com/163/420928486_15d959102c_b_d.jpg
> and little whirry 3d doo dads that a lot of the complaints about it
> would disappear. 
cant do that one :)

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[erik quanstrom]

i missed this the first time around.  i put code2000 and cyberbit
on ftp:/quanstro.net/pub/plan9/antialias.tar.  it's 28MB.  i didn't
know if that's too big for sources.

cyberbit and code2000 are anti-aliased, variable-width fonts.

- erik

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Wes Kussmaul]

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Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Paul Lalonde]

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Hash: SHA1

The less cynical part of me says that windows got so huge through the  
usual process by which software gets huge: hiring.
It's really easy to believe you need more manpower on your software  
project.  That eventually leads to dividing your now-unmanageable  
team into smaller teams with interface committees sitting in  
between.  As the process repeats itself the interfaces become  
increasingly harder to change and the effort to re-use or encapsulate  
similar pieces of work from across organizational barriers becomes  
more than just re-building something expedient yourself.  Which leads  
to more hiring to help maintain the thing you built.  Which leads to  
more interfaces.

The number one job of a product/development manager should be to keep  
the team size small enough that this doesn't happen.  The number one  
job of the architect is to find an architecture that can be  
implemented by a team small enough that the interface documents stay  
small.  To bring this back onto topic, Plan 9's file server  
abstraction is exactly this: a mechanism to ensure that interfaces  
are consistent and that allows separation of development concerns  
without the strangle-hold of interface committees.

Paul

On 8-Mar-07, at 10:34 AM, Wes Kussmaul wrote:

> David Leimbach wrote:
>> So how did Windows get so huge? :-)
> By
> skillfully managing perceptions
> building a worldwide network of "certified" people whose  
> livelihoods depend upon increasing complexity
> ensuring the support of the hardware community by requiring regular  
> purchases of new computers
> working behind the scenes to ensure that friends become decision  
> makers
> FUD

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Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Robert Hibberdine]

ron minnich wrote:

>
> As for C++, it has happened on any number of machines I have worked
> with, whether there is a compile on them or not, gcc/g++ are a
> prerequisite for success. Like it or not. I really wish we could get
> someone to wrap up the gcc port and feed the changes back into the
> tree.


Ahh, yes, g++, WxWidgets Universal and rio ......:-)

Bob

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[John Floren]

On 3/6/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
> Now, I run rio, on linux and plan 9, and I like it. But, that said, if
> Plan 9 has an achilles heel, rio is it. It's the first (and last)
> thing many people see on Plan 9.
</snip>

If the average Linux user is as picky about his window managers as I
am, rio is certainly a turnoff. I've tried and rejected most every
window manager available for Linux either because they can't be
customized, the keyboard shortcuts are nearly nonexistant, or
dual-head support is broken. I was so excited about evilwm, but it
doesn't do dual head properly :( I'm back on FVWM now; I'd be using
uwm, but the project is pretty much dead *and* has broken dual-head
support.
I personally like rio well enough for interacting with Plan 9,
although I don't think I'd run it on Linux.


John
-- 
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Harri Haataja]

On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 02:28:08PM -0800, John Floren wrote:
> On 3/6/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> <snip>
> >Now, I run rio, on linux and plan 9, and I like it. But, that said, if
> >Plan 9 has an achilles heel, rio is it. It's the first (and last)
> >thing many people see on Plan 9.
> </snip>
> 
> If the average Linux user is as picky about his window managers as I
> am, rio is certainly a turnoff. I've tried and rejected most every
> window manager available for Linux either because they can't be
> customized, the keyboard shortcuts are nearly nonexistant, or
> dual-head support is broken. 

I might not qualify for any average or even Linux user, but I have done
much of the same wrt "desktop" UI's. I'm sticking with Ion3 (and rarely dwm
on some tricky systems where lua or something blows up). Practically never
having to resize or move frames (windows) and never having things obscured
or having to look for something or do pixel tweaks it is something I'll never
expect to want to give up again.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[C H Forsyth]

>and [rio] is undoubtedly why plan9 remains obscure. 

i think that's very unlikely to be the main reason, myself.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[geoff]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 116 bytes --]

It makes a good excuse though.  If it's not the licence, it's rio or
lack of X11 or <fill in the excuse du jour>.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 2314 bytes --]

From: C H Forsyth <forsyth@vitanuova.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 23:17:55 +0000
Message-ID: <a9cbc9a129719bd33d26b1b1ab7e8973@vitanuova.com>

>and [rio] is undoubtedly why plan9 remains obscure. 

i think that's very unlikely to be the main reason, myself.

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[John Floren]

On 3/6/07, geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com <geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com> wrote:
> It makes a good excuse though.  If it's not the licence, it's rio or
> lack of X11 or <fill in the excuse du jour>.
>

I'll take the excuse du jour with a side of elitism, please, and easy
on the licensing!

John Floren
-- 
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Joel C. Salomon]

On 2/26/07, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> I prefer to go optimistic. I'm looking at Qt to see what it would take
> to have it drive libdraw on linux, just out of curiosity. If Qt can
> work on libdraw, I wonder if it could ever be native to Plan 9.

Qt wants C++.  And an ugly custom precompiler pass hack on top of that.

--Joel

Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno

[Latchesar Ionkov]

Qt is C++.

	Lucho

On Feb 26, 2007, at 2:19 AM, ron minnich wrote:

> On 2/26/07, fgergo@gmail.com <fgergo@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Sure, but at the moment that's official and Sean Moss Pultz the
>> project manager for the Neo1973 seems to be quite enthusiastic about
>> the product.
>
>
> What you need for the greenphone is qt. I don't know all the answers
> here, but small mobile devices seem a good fit to plan  9 or inferno.
> Actually, the mobile phones have enough memory etc. that they are as
> big as a Power challenge that was described as "a big boy" in some of
> the code ... remember when 32M was a lot of memory ?
>
> [[ now all us old guys can contribute our "I used to compute with 1
> bit" stories, right?]]
>
> I prefer to go optimistic. I'm looking at Qt to see what it would take
> to have it drive libdraw on linux, just out of curiosity. If Qt can
> work on libdraw, I wonder if it could ever be native to Plan 9.
>
> Hey, if we got Qt on Plan 9, we might actually have a GUI that people
> don't hate right away ... then we can slowly, gradually suck them into
> the system ... slowly ... gradually ... until they're running rio
> without noticing ...
>
> ron