[9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Jim Habegger]

We have three Windows laptops in our family. I've been using free
software systems off and on for years. Last week I learned about Plan
9 from Bell Labs, from someone in a Linux Questions forum. Now I have
it installed on a partition on my laptop, along with XP,
Ubuntu-on-NTFS, Debian, and Slackware. I've learned to access a fat
partition, change the font size, and use Acme. Now I need to learn how
to set up a wireless connection to the family router network, access
my files on my wife's Vista laptop, and browse the Internet.

My wireless card is not listed in Plan9.ini. Does that mean there's no
way for me to connect with that card?

I'd like to learn how much I can use Plan 9 for home office,
multimedia and Internet socializing, then I'd like to experiment with
distributing the system between computers. I've learned about as much
as I can for now from the documentation on the Plan 9 site, except for
how to connect to the network. I'm waiting to find out if it's even
possible.

Now I'm listing /bin, reading man pages, and practicing commands.
After that I might have some questions. Meanwhile, does anyone have
any suggestions about learning to use Plan 9 for home office,
multimedia and Internet socializing, and then to learn more about
networking and distributed systems?

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Sergey Zhilkin]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 282 bytes --]

>
>
> My wireless card is not listed in Plan9.ini. Does that mean there's no
> way for me to connect with that card?
>
> Hi !

What type of wireless card you have ????




-- 
С наилучшими пожеланиями
Жилкин Сергей
With best regards
Zhilkin Sergey

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 522 bytes --]

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Pietro Gagliardi]

Plan 9 in the home... an interesting experiment. (I am the only one in
my home who uses it.) Enjoy!

My message contains references to files in /n/sources/contrib. When
you get your internet up in Plan 9, use

	9fs sources

to gain access to this folder. PostScript and PDF files can be seen
with page. If a program is distributed as source code and a file
"mkfile", type

	mk install

to build and install. Some of us have switched to Federico Benavento's
contrib system. To install it, run

	/n/sources/contrib/fgb/root/rc/bin/contrib/install fgb/contrib

On Apr 14, 2009, at 2:05 AM, Jim Habegger wrote:

> Meanwhile, does anyone have
> any suggestions about learning to use Plan 9 for home office,

troff for document processing and presentations. A troff document is a
text file containing text and commands, like so:

	.PP
	Hey there!
	This is troff.
	.B "I have bold text" .

The main troff documentation is /sys/doc/troff.ps, but a tutorial is a
better bet. Take a look at http://www.troff.org/papers.html.

To integrate a picture, you will first need to convert that picture
file into a postscript file:
	lp -dstdout -pgifpost file.gif > file.ps
	lp -dstdout -pjpgpost file.jpg > file.ps
Then look up the mpictures macro set. You can have more than one macro
set:
	troff -ms -mpictures cool.ms

Converting to PDF:
	troff -ms -mpictures cool.ms | dpost -f | ps2pdf > cool.pdf

There are several specialized slideshow packages.
	* the archaic mv macro set included with Plan 9 (doc: /n/sources/
contrib/pietro/mv.pdf).
	* Uriel's slides scripts (/n/sources/contrib/uriel/slides/)
	* Russ Cox's talk scripts (/n/sources/contrib/rsc/talk/)

Plan 9 doesn't have:

> multimedia

Each picture type has a program for viewing it, named after the file
extension (png, jpg, etc.); page can be used to view multiple pictures
at once.

juke(6) for how to go about playing music.

I don't think there are video players.

> and Internet socializing,

There are IRC clients in /n/sources/contrib and an AIM client at /n/
sources/contrib/leitec/bsflite/. I don't think you can use websites
with Plan 9 unless everything is done server-side. The primary web
browser is abaco:

	contrib/install fgb/abaco

> and then to learn more about
> networking and distributed systems?

Read the files in /sys/doc.

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Devon H. O'Dell]

2009/4/14 Jim Habegger <jimhabegger@gmail.com>:
> My wireless card is not listed in Plan9.ini. Does that mean there's no
> way for me to connect with that card?
>
> I'd like to learn how much I can use Plan 9 for home office,
> multimedia and Internet socializing, then I'd like to experiment with
> distributing the system between computers. I've learned about as much
> as I can for now from the documentation on the Plan 9 site, except for
> how to connect to the network. I'm waiting to find out if it's even
> possible.> We have three Windows laptops in our family. I've been using free
> software systems off and on for years. Last week I learned about Plan
> 9 from Bell Labs, from someone in a Linux Questions forum. Now I have
> it installed on a partition on my laptop, along with XP,
> Ubuntu-on-NTFS, Debian, and Slackware. I've learned to access a fat
> partition, change the font size, and use Acme. Now I need to learn how
> to set up a wireless connection to the family router network, access
> my files on my wife's Vista laptop, and browse the Internet.
>

Plan 9 wireless support is not great. There may or may not be support
for your wireless card. For information on configuring your Plan 9
system to get on the network, see:

http://www.plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/network_configuration/index.html

A list of known supported hardware is available at:

http://www.plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Supported_PC_hardware/index.html

> Now I'm listing /bin, reading man pages, and practicing commands.
> After that I might have some questions. Meanwhile, does anyone have
> any suggestions about learning to use Plan 9 for home office,
> multimedia and Internet socializing, and then to learn more about
> networking and distributed systems?

There's not much to do with Plan 9 in the way of multimedia and home
office. The papers in /sys/doc are useful for learning about the
system. Additionally, the wiki is a good resource and development for
the system is detailed in http://lsub.org/who/nemo/9.intro.pdf.

--dho

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Devon H. O'Dell]

> I don't think there are video players.

Someone created an ffmpeg port, but I'm not sure if it does video
output or just conversion as I've never actually used it.

--dho

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Pietro Gagliardi]

On Apr 14, 2009, at 8:36 AM, Pietro Gagliardi wrote:

> juke(6) for how to go about playing music.
that should be juke(7), sorry.

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Andrés Domínguez]

2009/4/14 Jim Habegger <jimhabegger@gmail.com>:
> My wireless card is not listed in Plan9.ini. Does that mean there's no
> way for me to connect with that card?

The easy way is to run Plan9 inside a virtual machine like
qemu on Linux or Windows.

Andrés

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Eris Discordia]

I don't know if it's because of bashfulness or what that people aren't
telling it to your face: Plan 9 is not intended for home or home office. It
hasn't matured to that point and its age is already past when it had a
chance to mature. From what I've read on this list it probably serves as
the back-end so some useful SOHO (and embedded?) applications, in addition
to research and probably industrial use, but I don't think it's the
front-end to any. These people who use it--I don't--all are either very
much interested in computer systems or simply students, professors,
researchers, and/or employees in the field.

You can try using Plan 9--I did and was dejected because learning about
computers is for me only a pleasant aside to actual use of computers--but I
don't think you can get much from it by way of productivity, unless you
intend to get productive in software engineering and/or computer science.

--On Tuesday, April 14, 2009 2:05 PM +0800 Jim Habegger
<jimhabegger@gmail.com> wrote:

> We have three Windows laptops in our family. I've been using free
> software systems off and on for years. Last week I learned about Plan
> 9 from Bell Labs, from someone in a Linux Questions forum. Now I have
> it installed on a partition on my laptop, along with XP,
> Ubuntu-on-NTFS, Debian, and Slackware. I've learned to access a fat
> partition, change the font size, and use Acme. Now I need to learn how
> to set up a wireless connection to the family router network, access
> my files on my wife's Vista laptop, and browse the Internet.
>
> My wireless card is not listed in Plan9.ini. Does that mean there's no
> way for me to connect with that card?
>
> I'd like to learn how much I can use Plan 9 for home office,
> multimedia and Internet socializing, then I'd like to experiment with
> distributing the system between computers. I've learned about as much
> as I can for now from the documentation on the Plan 9 site, except for
> how to connect to the network. I'm waiting to find out if it's even
> possible.
>
> Now I'm listing /bin, reading man pages, and practicing commands.
> After that I might have some questions. Meanwhile, does anyone have
> any suggestions about learning to use Plan 9 for home office,
> multimedia and Internet socializing, and then to learn more about
> networking and distributed systems?
>

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Pietro Gagliardi]

On Apr 15, 2009, at 4:26 AM, Eris Discordia wrote:

> Plan 9 is not intended for home or home office.

True, but that doesn't mean it can't be used in such an environment. I
type all my reports up in Plan 9.

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Eris Discordia]

> Now I need to decide whether to install qemu or kvm, and whether to
> install it in Ubuntu or in Debian, and then reorganize my partitions
> accordingly.

QEMU would be the way to go. It seems most people here who run Plan 9 in a
VM do it on QEMU on Linux; you'll have a better chance of getting answers
if something goes wrong. I believe there won't be any need for changing
your partition table as long as you don't want QEMU read/write from/to a
"raw" partition.

--On Wednesday, April 15, 2009 9:05 PM +0800 Jim Habegger
<jimhabegger@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 4:26 PM, Eris Discordia
> <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Plan 9 is not intended for home or home office.
>
> Yes, I understood that from the responses to my questions. As soon as
> I read them, I gave up the idea of trying to switch to Plan 9. Now
> it's more about enriching my knowledge and experience. It might be
> good experience for me to see how far I can stretch Plan 9 for home
> computing.
>
>> learning about
>> computers is for me only a pleasant aside to actual use of computers
>
> It's more the other way around with me. Using them is only a pleasant
> aside to learning about them!
>
> Now I need to decide whether to install qemu or kvm, and whether to
> install it in Ubuntu or in Debian, and then reorganize my partitions
> accordingly.
>

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[hiro]

> and its age is already past when it had a chance to mature.

Maturity is relative to what you want your system to do.

But I agree that plan9 is not productive in the youtube/skype/facebook
sense of 'productivity'.
it's technologically innovative and exemplary simple.
Another thing I've learned is that we 9fans never code, they just
talk. And for that plan9 is an excellent, interesting system :D

9greetings,
hiro

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Jim Habegger]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 4:26 PM, Eris Discordia
<eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
> Plan 9 is not intended for home or home office.

Yes, I understood that from the responses to my questions. As soon as
I read them, I gave up the idea of trying to switch to Plan 9. Now
it's more about enriching my knowledge and experience. It might be
good experience for me to see how far I can stretch Plan 9 for home
computing.

> learning about
> computers is for me only a pleasant aside to actual use of computers

It's more the other way around with me. Using them is only a pleasant
aside to learning about them!

Now I need to decide whether to install qemu or kvm, and whether to
install it in Ubuntu or in Debian, and then reorganize my partitions
accordingly.

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Eris Discordia]

> If you phrased this slightly more gently, people may in fact agree
> with you.

They'd be agreeing with the wrong formulation, then.

> But Plan 9 is a great environment to experiment in.

Sure. So is every nascent or vestigial system.

Anyhow, the thread's originator says he's interested in computer systems in
a very autotelic way. So, applications don't matter a lot; he's going to
dine on the contents of the Petri dish no matter what :-D

--On Wednesday, April 15, 2009 3:52 PM +0200 lucio@proxima.alt.za wrote:

>> but I
>> don't think you can get much from it by way of productivity, unless you
>> intend to get productive in software engineering and/or computer science.
>
> If you phrased this slightly more gently, people may in fact agree
> with you.  Although I find my workstation quite a useful mail agent,
> perhaps for all the wrong reasons (the best way to describe it:
> acme/Mail is *fast*!).
>
> But Plan 9 is a great environment to experiment in.  Perhaps you ought
> to look upon it as the Petri dish for information technology: concepts
> grow a great deal faster in Plan 9 than they do elsewhere, for all the
> _right_ reasons.
>
> ++L
>
>

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[lucio]

> but I
> don't think you can get much from it by way of productivity, unless you
> intend to get productive in software engineering and/or computer science.

If you phrased this slightly more gently, people may in fact agree
with you.  Although I find my workstation quite a useful mail agent,
perhaps for all the wrong reasons (the best way to describe it:
acme/Mail is *fast*!).

But Plan 9 is a great environment to experiment in.  Perhaps you ought
to look upon it as the Petri dish for information technology: concepts
grow a great deal faster in Plan 9 than they do elsewhere, for all the
_right_ reasons.

++L

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Navin Johnson]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 10:05 PM, Jim Habegger <jimhabegger@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Now I need to decide whether to install qemu or kvm, and whether to
> install it in Ubuntu or in Debian, and then reorganize my partitions
> accordingly.

If you want to see Plan 9 run natively on hardware, then I recommend
purchasing one or more inexpensive refurbished Dell GX250 desktops
online.

This model provides you the option to install Plan 9 via floppy or CD.
And you do not need to be concerned about whether the hardware is
supported.

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[hugo rivera]

> Now I need to decide whether to install qemu or kvm, and whether to
> install it in Ubuntu or in Debian, and then reorganize my partitions
> accordingly.

I am using 9vx for experimenting and learning a bit, and is good
enough for me. Never mind that it crashes quite often (specially when
you start to use more memory) but it is fast, faster than qemu.



--
Hugo

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Steve Simon]

...
> hasn't matured to that point and its age is already
> past when it had a chance to mature.

Methinks he doth protest too much.

-Steve

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[ron minnich]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 9:00 AM, Steve Simon <steve@quintile.net> wrote:
> ...
>> hasn't matured to that point and its age is already
>> past when it had a chance to mature.
>
> Methinks he doth protest too much.

Yes. If you keep thinking of Plan 9 as a Unix variant, you're going to
be continually upset. It doesn't fit that box.

I think that's his problem.

If you don't get it, you don't get it.

I have some young friends who get it, and they run vx32 all the time.
They love it.

I showed one guy /net the other day. "See, I can mount /net from
elsewhere .. now I'm making sockets on that system". Once he got it,
he was pretty excited.

Linux is one kernel that doesn't ever quite seem to get it. They now
have network namespaces, Woo hoo! But can you mount them? Of course
not! how do you name the network stack? Talk about missing the concept
...

ron

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Jim Habegger]

Thanks to everyone again for all the information and ideas. I decided
to try running Plan 9 with Qemu in Ubuntu. I can't use kvm because my
processor doesn't support it. I resized my partitions to make room to
install Ubuntu in its own partition. Before that it was running from a
CD image on my XP partition.

I've decided to also try 9vx. It looks like it might be a lot simpler,
and it might be good enough for this stage of my learning.

After I get one of those working enough to practice the commands, and
try out some of the ideas that have been posted, I might have some
more questions.

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Eris Discordia]

It's like I'm seeing an apparition of myself back more than a year ago. No
wonder 9fans got to dislike me so much. Do 9fans get nuisances like me in
regular intervals?

--On Friday, April 17, 2009 1:14 PM +0000 Balwinder S Dheeman
<bdheeman@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 04/15/2009 05:22 PM, Pietro Gagliardi wrote:
>> On Apr 15, 2009, at 4:26 AM, Eris Discordia wrote:
>>
>>> Plan 9 is not intended for home or home office.
>>
>> True, but that doesn't mean it can't be used in such an environment. I
>> type all my reports up in Plan 9.
>
> Please set aside rare cases and let us know who except for the students,
> teachers and, or researchers uses Plan9 and, or Inferno in the offices,
> homes and, or cafes and for what?
>
> The Plan9 project started in 1980, took around 9 years to be solid
> enough to be usable and that too by the internal and, or lab people
> [http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/9.html] only. Whereas, the FreeBSD
> and, or Linux (though not an OS or Unix variant in a sense) came into
> existence later in 1993 and 1991 respectively are more popular among any
> other variants of Unix.
>
> IMHO, the Plan9 and, or Inferno are just failed attempts and have no
> real and, or viable commercial and, or industrial use in absence of
> hardware drivers and, or not the killer but some useful applications.
>
> Moreover, the user interface and, or window manager i.e. rio is too
> technical for an average user to put in to a good use. It lacks usual
> buttons for minimizing (hiding), maximizing, controlling windows. You
> can't even send a window to background and even if Inferno's wm has some
> of these including title bars, but the meanings and, or behavior of the
> same is quite different from other popular GUI systems.
>
> --
> Balwinder S "bdheeman" Dheeman        Registered Linux User: #229709
> Anu'z Linux@HOME (Unix Shoppe)        Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
> Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India         Plan9, T2, Arch/Debian/FreeBSD/XP
> Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/  Visit: http://counter.li.org/
>

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Jim]

On Apr 14, 7:15�pm, szhil...@gmail.com (Sergey Zhilkin) wrote:
> > My wireless card is not listed in Plan9.ini. Does that mean there's no
> > way for me to connect with that card?
>
> > Hi !
>
> What type of wireless card you have ????
>
> --
> ? ?????????? ???????????
> ?????? ??????
> With best regards
> Zhilkin Sergey

Sorry, I forgot to say! It's Atheros AR5001X+.

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Balwinder S Dheeman]

On 04/15/2009 05:22 PM, Pietro Gagliardi wrote:
> On Apr 15, 2009, at 4:26 AM, Eris Discordia wrote:
>
>> Plan 9 is not intended for home or home office.
>
> True, but that doesn't mean it can't be used in such an environment. I
> type all my reports up in Plan 9.

Please set aside rare cases and let us know who except for the students,
teachers and, or researchers uses Plan9 and, or Inferno in the offices,
homes and, or cafes and for what?

The Plan9 project started in 1980, took around 9 years to be solid
enough to be usable and that too by the internal and, or lab people
[http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/9.html] only. Whereas, the FreeBSD
and, or Linux (though not an OS or Unix variant in a sense) came into
existence later in 1993 and 1991 respectively are more popular among any
other variants of Unix.

IMHO, the Plan9 and, or Inferno are just failed attempts and have no
real and, or viable commercial and, or industrial use in absence of
hardware drivers and, or not the killer but some useful applications.

Moreover, the user interface and, or window manager i.e. rio is too
technical for an average user to put in to a good use. It lacks usual
buttons for minimizing (hiding), maximizing, controlling windows. You
can't even send a window to background and even if Inferno's wm has some
of these including title bars, but the meanings and, or behavior of the
same is quite different from other popular GUI systems.

--
Balwinder S "bdheeman" Dheeman        Registered Linux User: #229709
Anu'z Linux@HOME (Unix Shoppe)        Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India         Plan9, T2, Arch/Debian/FreeBSD/XP
Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/  Visit: http://counter.li.org/

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[erik quanstrom]

> The Plan9 project started in 1980, took around 9 years to be solid
> enough to be usable and that too by the internal and, or lab people
> [http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/9.html] only.

unless one is speaking in geologic terms, there's a significant difference
between the "mid-1980s" and 1980.

in fact the quote is "Plan 9 began in the late 1980's...". and "... by
1989 the system had become solid enough that some of us begain
using it as our exclusive computing environment."

i'd encourage you to read your source material.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Devon H. O'Dell]

2009/4/17 Eris Discordia <eris.discordia@gmail.com>:
> It's like I'm seeing an apparition of myself back more than a year ago. No
> wonder 9fans got to dislike me so much. Do 9fans get nuisances like me in
> regular intervals?

>From time to time :)

We have a high conversion rate, though.

--dho

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Steve Simon]

> The Plan9 project started in 1980, took around 9 years to be solid
> enough to be usable and that too by the internal and, or lab people
> [http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/9.html] only.

I was using plan9 outside of bell labs in 1993 - not very aggressively
I admit but I didn't have the skils then that I do now. It was solid
and usable at the time.

> Whereas, the FreeBSD
> and, or Linux (though not an OS or Unix variant in a sense) came into
> existence later in 1993 and 1991 respectively are more popular among any
> other variants of Unix.

I first remember seeing references to Linux as a reworking of the Minix project
in 1988. BSD has been around forever.

> IMHO, the Plan9 and, or Inferno are just failed attempts and have no
> real and, or viable commercial and, or industrial use in absence of
> hardware drivers and, or not the killer but some useful applications.

You are, of course, entitled to your own opinion, its a shame you didn't
do more research however.

> Moreover, the user interface and, or window manager i.e. rio is too
> technical for an average user to put in to a good use.

Too "technical"? Really?

> It lacks usual
> buttons for minimizing (hiding), maximizing, controlling windows. You
> can't even send a window to background and even if Inferno's wm has some
> of these including title bars, but the meanings and, or behavior of the
> same is quite different from other popular GUI systems.

Here we agree

-Steve				Registered Plan9 User #954854834843

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[hiro]

>> It lacks usual
>> buttons for minimizing (hiding), maximizing, controlling windows. You
>> can't even send a window to background and even if Inferno's wm has some
>> of these including title bars, but the meanings and, or behavior of the
>> same is quite different from other popular GUI systems.
>
> Here we agree

Huh? Rio works fine here, you can resize, move and hide windows; also
a click brings the window to the front.
I prefer tiling window managers, but rio comes just afterwards in my
list of preferences.

I agree, that inferno's attempt to imitate popular GUIs failed ;)

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Gorka Guardiola]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 3:14 PM, Balwinder S Dheeman <bdheeman@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Please set aside rare cases and let us know who except for the students,
> teachers and, or researchers uses Plan9 and, or Inferno in the offices,
> homes and, or cafes and for what?
>
> The Plan9 project started in 1980, took around 9 years to be solid
> enough to be usable and that too by the internal and, or lab people
> [http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/9.html] only. Whereas, the FreeBSD
> and, or Linux (though not an OS or Unix variant in a sense) came into
> existence later in 1993 and 1991 respectively are more popular among any
> other variants of Unix.

That is the difference between coming up with a design an rethinking the
system and just copying one and porting software already written. Linux
started mostly using all the gnu stuff and copied all the design from already
existing Unix things. That of course takes less than rethinking
everything carefully
from scratch. For example UTF. Among other things.

That said what is the points of this discussions?. Use whatever you want
and have fun. I use 4 or 5 operating systems
for different things. One of them is Plan 9. Not only for teaching but
as infrastructure
For example this is the CMS for our courses:
http://lsub.org/magic/group?o=i&g=c
And we ran several labs which runs diskless for teaching and so.
This infrastructure serves hundreds of students. I can even have 100 computers
running diskless with students with daily automatic incremental backups (venti)
using the CMS (yes, with abaco) and compiling and running programs
at the same time against one file server. Try that with *any* other
operating system
(and our hardware infrastructure).

Then again, that may not be "solid enough" for you. I happen to work
at a University, sorry.

I also run Mac OS and use it for web browsing. Windows for several
devices (like a USB sniffer) which I don't have drivers nor I do I
feel like writing.
Linux in my illiad ebook.
And inferno/octopus for integrating all this stuff into a usable environment.
And some time even others.

If Plan 9 is not useful for you nor you get how it can be, good, don't use it.

For me it is.
--
- curiosity sKilled the cat

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Robert Raschke]

On 4/17/09, Balwinder S Dheeman <bdheeman@gmail.com> wrote:
> Please set aside rare cases and let us know who except for the students,
> teachers and, or researchers uses Plan9 and, or Inferno in the offices,
> homes and, or cafes and for what?

At the risk (or maybe honour :-) of being branded as a rare case (I'm
neither student, nor teacher, nor hobbyist), I use Plan 9 in to
maintain my own network, email, web server and wiki, remote editing
facility (ftpfs) and in terms tools, I use acme a lot wherever I go. I
also use it as a handy way to store stuff centrally, for easy
worldwide access via drawterm. I would classify myself as slightly
paranoid, in that I don't really feel comfortable with letting Google
have at it willy nilly. Storing stuff at home may be more prone to
loss, but makes me feel better.

Plan 9 satisfies my curiosity in that I can understand and learn
things within it quite easily. Every time I have to use something like
Linux or MS, I feel overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of it all.
That's fine if it's for work (I get paid for that, after all), but not
for my private life.

Robby

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[lucio]

> Every time I have to use something like
> Linux or MS, I feel overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of it all.

Possibly OT, my main beef with Linux and Windows is that they keep
wanting to update themselves and the effort to "manage" these updates
is enormous (less so with Ubuntu, but still great).  With Plan 9, I
find I can control the updating process and do not feel I'm leaving
myself exposed whenever I do.  Of course, the factors involved are
very different, but I have a suspicion that with Windows and Linux one
relinquishes control at too deep a level and the continual updates are
a particularly visible case of this loss of control.

++L

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[J.R. Mauro]

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 1:47 AM,  <lucio@proxima.alt.za> wrote:
>> Every time I have to use something like
>> Linux or MS, I feel overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of it all.
>
> Possibly OT, my main beef with Linux and Windows is that they keep
> wanting to update themselves and the effort to "manage" these updates
> is enormous (less so with Ubuntu, but still great).  With Plan 9, I
> find I can control the updating process and do not feel I'm leaving
> myself exposed whenever I do.  Of course, the factors involved are
> very different, but I have a suspicion that with Windows and Linux one
> relinquishes control at too deep a level and the continual updates are
> a particularly visible case of this loss of control.
>
> ++L
>
>

The update/installation process in Ubuntu sucks. If you try something
using BSD ports or Gentoo portage, you can fine tune things and have
explicit control over the update process.

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Eris Discordia]

This thing about Windows updates, I think it's a non-issue. It's not like
updates are mandatory and, as a matter of fact, there's rather fine-grained
classification of them on Microsoft's knowledge base which can be used by
any more or less experienced user to identify exactly what they need for
addressing a specific glitch and to download and install that and only
that. Periodic updates of Windows are really unnecessary and can be easily
turned off. Cumulative updates (like the service packs), on the other hand,
are often the best way to go.

What seems to actually be the problem for you is that you don't like being
told there's a closed modification to your existing closed software. Well,
that's the nature of binary-only proprietary for-profit software. The only
way to get you to pay out of anything other than good will, which is a rare
bird.

P.S. On open/free software mailing lists and forums justice is often not
done to Windows, et al. Particularly, no meaningful alternative is
presented for carrying out the important duties Windows currently performs
for general computing, i.e. non-technical home and office applications
which combined together were and continue to be the killer application of
microcomputers.

--On Saturday, April 18, 2009 8:11 AM +0200 lucio@proxima.alt.za wrote:

>> The update/installation process in Ubuntu sucks. If you try something
>> using BSD ports or Gentoo portage, you can fine tune things and have
>> explicit control over the update process.
>
> I was specifically omitting BSD ports, as they are in a different
> league.  The point I _was_ making is that one readily sacrifices
> control for convenience and that Linux and Windows users and those who
> assist them have to accept second-rate management and pay for it (I
> should know, I can see it when XP decides to use the GPRS link for its
> updating :-(
>
> Enough reason for me to prefer Plan 9 (and NetBSD, but I can only get
> my teeth into so many apples), if there weren't many more reasons.
>
> ++L
>
>

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[lucio]

> The update/installation process in Ubuntu sucks. If you try something
> using BSD ports or Gentoo portage, you can fine tune things and have
> explicit control over the update process.

I was specifically omitting BSD ports, as they are in a different
league.  The point I _was_ making is that one readily sacrifices
control for convenience and that Linux and Windows users and those who
assist them have to accept second-rate management and pay for it (I
should know, I can see it when XP decides to use the GPRS link for its
updating :-(

Enough reason for me to prefer Plan 9 (and NetBSD, but I can only get
my teeth into so many apples), if there weren't many more reasons.

++L

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[J.R. Mauro]

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 2:11 AM,  <lucio@proxima.alt.za> wrote:
>> The update/installation process in Ubuntu sucks. If you try something
>> using BSD ports or Gentoo portage, you can fine tune things and have
>> explicit control over the update process.
>
> I was specifically omitting BSD ports, as they are in a different
> league.  The point I _was_ making is that one readily sacrifices
> control for convenience and that Linux and Windows users and those who
> assist them have to accept second-rate management and pay for it (I
> should know, I can see it when XP decides to use the GPRS link for its
> updating :-(
>
> Enough reason for me to prefer Plan 9 (and NetBSD, but I can only get
> my teeth into so many apples), if there weren't many more reasons.
>
> ++L
>

Seriously, give Gentoo portage a try. There is a sane package
management system for Linux.

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[J.R. Mauro]

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 2:08 AM, Eris Discordia
<eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
> This thing about Windows updates, I think it's a non-issue. It's not like
> updates are mandatory and, as a matter of fact, there's rather fine-grained
> classification of them on Microsoft's knowledge base which can be used by
> any more or less experienced user to identify exactly what they need for
> addressing a specific glitch and to download and install that and only that.
> Periodic updates of Windows are really unnecessary and can be easily turned
> off. Cumulative updates (like the service packs), on the other hand, are
> often the best way to go.

That is a lie. There are updates which (at least on XP) you could
never refuse. Nevermind the fact that Windows would have to restart
more than once on a typical series of updates.

>
> What seems to actually be the problem for you is that you don't like being
> told there's a closed modification to your existing closed software. Well,
> that's the nature of binary-only proprietary for-profit software. The only
> way to get you to pay out of anything other than good will, which is a rare
> bird.

No, I think he's saying that Windows Update is a piece of fetid garbage.

>
> P.S. On open/free software mailing lists and forums justice is often not
> done to Windows, et al. Particularly, no meaningful alternative is presented
> for carrying out the important duties Windows currently performs for general
> computing, i.e. non-technical home and office applications which combined
> together were and continue to be the killer application of microcomputers.

Mac's updater is miles ahead of Windows Update, but both are still
crappy. I've given Linux to several "computer illiterates" and they
were immediately relieved that they could open up a single application
and search for any kind of software they needed, and updating it all
was done by that simple application. How simple is that!

The rate of failure of updates (compared to Windows update, which
would leave you with a completely unusable system every once in a
while) was also much lower.

>
> --On Saturday, April 18, 2009 8:11 AM +0200 lucio@proxima.alt.za wrote:
>
>>> The update/installation process in Ubuntu sucks. If you try something
>>> using BSD ports or Gentoo portage, you can fine tune things and have
>>> explicit control over the update process.
>>
>> I was specifically omitting BSD ports, as they are in a different
>> league.  The point I _was_ making is that one readily sacrifices
>> control for convenience and that Linux and Windows users and those who
>> assist them have to accept second-rate management and pay for it (I
>> should know, I can see it when XP decides to use the GPRS link for its
>> updating :-(
>>
>> Enough reason for me to prefer Plan 9 (and NetBSD, but I can only get
>> my teeth into so many apples), if there weren't many more reasons.
>>
>> ++L
>>
>>
>
>

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[erik quanstrom]

> Seriously, give Gentoo portage a try. There is a sane package
> management system for Linux.

if you don't upgrade in lock step you will get into dependency hell.
portage is now exactly what its developers railed against — rpm
dependency hell.  portage just kicks the can down the street a bit.

in fact, an upgraded system will differ significantly from a fresh install
even after an emerge world.

portage is just broken.

unfortunately, i don't know of any alternatives that will allow me
and not rh or somebody else to decided if i am going to run ldap
or whatever.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[ron minnich]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 6:00 AM, Eris Discordia
<eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
> It's like I'm seeing an apparition of myself back more than a year ago. No
> wonder 9fans got to dislike me so much. Do 9fans get nuisances like me in
> regular intervals?


yes, they come and they go. But there's always one. Never more,
according to Yoda.

ron

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[lucio]

>> It's like I'm seeing an apparition of myself back more than a year ago. No
>> wonder 9fans got to dislike me so much. Do 9fans get nuisances like me in
>> regular intervals?
>
>
> yes, they come and they go. But there's always one. Never more,
> according to Yoda.

I think I can see why.  In fact, Eris explains it well: had there been
two of them a year ago, one (or both) might have seen the light.

No offense intended, of course.

++L

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[J.R. Mauro]

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 12:20 PM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>> Seriously, give Gentoo portage a try. There is a sane package
>> management system for Linux.
>
> if you don't upgrade in lock step you will get into dependency hell.
> portage is now exactly what its developers railed against — rpm
> dependency hell.  portage just kicks the can down the street a bit.

I didn't upgrade for 6 months because of the e2fsprogs problem, but
when I finally did, I didn't have any problems across 190 packages.

>
> in fact, an upgraded system will differ significantly from a fresh install
> even after an emerge world.
>
> portage is just broken.

In many ways, yes, but it is less broken than apt or rpm. The only way
it could be less broken is by not caring about dependencies, but then
you're left with something like Arch, where you *really* have to know
what you're doing.

Of course, 90% of this could be solved by the elimination of shared
libraries, but oh well.

>
> unfortunately, i don't know of any alternatives that will allow me
> and not rh or somebody else to decided if i am going to run ldap
> or whatever.

If you want something that gives you freedom from "standard packaging"
and is less of a nanny than portage, either LFS or Arch are your best
bet.

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Eris Discordia]

> That is a lie. There are updates which (at least on XP) you could
> never refuse. Nevermind the fact that Windows would have to restart
> more than once on a typical series of updates.

Windows isn't really the subject on this thread or this list. Except when 
someone goes out of their way to nonsensically blame it. I don't think 
that's really meaningful or productive in any imaginable way. As it 
happens, no one here is really a Windows user (or some are and they're 
laughing in the hiding bush). You are no better. Please do substantiate 
what you claim or stop trolling. There are absolutely no mandatory Windows 
updates; you can run a Windows system intact, with zero modification, for 
as long as you want or as long as it holds up given its shortcomings. So, 
my educated guess goes: you have zero acquaintance with that OS. Not even 
as much acquaintance as a normal user should have.

--On Saturday, April 18, 2009 12:19 PM -0400 "J.R. Mauro" 
<jrm8005@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 2:08 AM, Eris Discordia
> <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>> This thing about Windows updates, I think it's a non-issue. It's not like
>> updates are mandatory and, as a matter of fact, there's rather
>> fine-grained classification of them on Microsoft's knowledge base which
>> can be used by any more or less experienced user to identify exactly
>> what they need for addressing a specific glitch and to download and
>> install that and only that. Periodic updates of Windows are really
>> unnecessary and can be easily turned off. Cumulative updates (like the
>> service packs), on the other hand, are often the best way to go.
>
> That is a lie. There are updates which (at least on XP) you could
> never refuse. Nevermind the fact that Windows would have to restart
> more than once on a typical series of updates.
>
>>
>> What seems to actually be the problem for you is that you don't like
>> being told there's a closed modification to your existing closed
>> software. Well, that's the nature of binary-only proprietary for-profit
>> software. The only way to get you to pay out of anything other than good
>> will, which is a rare bird.
>
> No, I think he's saying that Windows Update is a piece of fetid garbage.
>
>>
>> P.S. On open/free software mailing lists and forums justice is often not
>> done to Windows, et al. Particularly, no meaningful alternative is
>> presented for carrying out the important duties Windows currently
>> performs for general computing, i.e. non-technical home and office
>> applications which combined together were and continue to be the killer
>> application of microcomputers.
>
> Mac's updater is miles ahead of Windows Update, but both are still
> crappy. I've given Linux to several "computer illiterates" and they
> were immediately relieved that they could open up a single application
> and search for any kind of software they needed, and updating it all
> was done by that simple application. How simple is that!
>
> The rate of failure of updates (compared to Windows update, which
> would leave you with a completely unusable system every once in a
> while) was also much lower.
>
>>
>> --On Saturday, April 18, 2009 8:11 AM +0200 lucio@proxima.alt.za wrote:
>>
>>>> The update/installation process in Ubuntu sucks. If you try something
>>>> using BSD ports or Gentoo portage, you can fine tune things and have
>>>> explicit control over the update process.
>>>
>>> I was specifically omitting BSD ports, as they are in a different
>>> league.  The point I _was_ making is that one readily sacrifices
>>> control for convenience and that Linux and Windows users and those who
>>> assist them have to accept second-rate management and pay for it (I
>>> should know, I can see it when XP decides to use the GPRS link for its
>>> updating :-(
>>>
>>> Enough reason for me to prefer Plan 9 (and NetBSD, but I can only get
>>> my teeth into so many apples), if there weren't many more reasons.
>>>
>>> ++L
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Eris Discordia]

> Actually, I used Windows for years before discovering something
> better. I explicitly disabled updates in XP, and it would insist on
> looking for them and bothering me about them, anyway.

I put it here for I don't know what to call it--shall we say... historical 
record?--how to turn off your Windows XP installation's automatic update 
service: get into Control Panel, run the System applet, turn to Automatic 
Updates page tab, set the radio button to your desired option. If you want 
Windows to never download anything of its own accord, even when instructed 
by applications (such as InstallShield) that use Windows Update 
infrastructure for their purposes, go to Control Panel, go to 
Administrative Tools, run the Services MMC snap-in, find Background 
Intelligent Transfer Service, stop the service, set the service's startup 
mode to 'Disabled.'

Very easy, very logical, very intuitive, clearly documented, and even 
self-documented. Windows has lots of disadvantages but UI, configuration, 
and representation of the local system is where there's the smallest 
concentration of them. If you want to blame it get under the hood, find 
actual OS design flaws, and then laugh to your heart's content.

In conclusion, I apologize to 9fans for polluting their list with Windows 
nonsense. This will end right here even if J. R. Mauro goes on to say 
her/his Windows system won't boot after a clean successful installation.

--On Saturday, April 18, 2009 3:43 PM -0400 "J.R. Mauro" 
<jrm8005@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 2:29 PM, Eris Discordia
> <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> That is a lie. There are updates which (at least on XP) you could
>>> never refuse. Nevermind the fact that Windows would have to restart
>>> more than once on a typical series of updates.
>>
>> Windows isn't really the subject on this thread or this list. Except when
>> someone goes out of their way to nonsensically blame it. I don't think
>> that's really meaningful or productive in any imaginable way. As it
>> happens, no one here is really a Windows user (or some are and they're
>> laughing in the hiding bush). You are no better. Please do substantiate
>> what you claim or stop trolling. There are absolutely no mandatory
>> Windows updates; you can run a Windows system intact, with zero
>> modification, for as long as you want or as long as it holds up given
>> its shortcomings. So, my educated guess goes: you have zero acquaintance
>> with that OS. Not even as much acquaintance as a normal user should have.
>
> Actually, I used Windows for years before discovering something
> better. I explicitly disabled updates in XP, and it would insist on
> looking for them and bothering me about them, anyway.
>
> Now maybe I missed some other option or the option I chose was
> misleadingly labeled, or something was biffed in my registry. I just
> googled for "can't turn off Automatic update" and found a bunch of
> similar stories, though. In any event, it was so long ago I can't
> remember what the circumstances exactly were.
>
>>
>> --On Saturday, April 18, 2009 12:19 PM -0400 "J.R. Mauro"
>> <jrm8005@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 2:08 AM, Eris Discordia
>>> <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> This thing about Windows updates, I think it's a non-issue. It's not
>>>> like updates are mandatory and, as a matter of fact, there's rather
>>>> fine-grained classification of them on Microsoft's knowledge base which
>>>> can be used by any more or less experienced user to identify exactly
>>>> what they need for addressing a specific glitch and to download and
>>>> install that and only that. Periodic updates of Windows are really
>>>> unnecessary and can be easily turned off. Cumulative updates (like the
>>>> service packs), on the other hand, are often the best way to go.
>>>
>>> That is a lie. There are updates which (at least on XP) you could
>>> never refuse. Nevermind the fact that Windows would have to restart
>>> more than once on a typical series of updates.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> What seems to actually be the problem for you is that you don't like
>>>> being told there's a closed modification to your existing closed
>>>> software. Well, that's the nature of binary-only proprietary for-profit
>>>> software. The only way to get you to pay out of anything other than
>>>> good will, which is a rare bird.
>>>
>>> No, I think he's saying that Windows Update is a piece of fetid garbage.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> P.S. On open/free software mailing lists and forums justice is often
>>>> not done to Windows, et al. Particularly, no meaningful alternative is
>>>> presented for carrying out the important duties Windows currently
>>>> performs for general computing, i.e. non-technical home and office
>>>> applications which combined together were and continue to be the killer
>>>> application of microcomputers.
>>>
>>> Mac's updater is miles ahead of Windows Update, but both are still
>>> crappy. I've given Linux to several "computer illiterates" and they
>>> were immediately relieved that they could open up a single application
>>> and search for any kind of software they needed, and updating it all
>>> was done by that simple application. How simple is that!
>>>
>>> The rate of failure of updates (compared to Windows update, which
>>> would leave you with a completely unusable system every once in a
>>> while) was also much lower.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> --On Saturday, April 18, 2009 8:11 AM +0200 lucio@proxima.alt.za wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> The update/installation process in Ubuntu sucks. If you try something
>>>>>> using BSD ports or Gentoo portage, you can fine tune things and have
>>>>>> explicit control over the update process.
>>>>>
>>>>> I was specifically omitting BSD ports, as they are in a different
>>>>> league.  The point I _was_ making is that one readily sacrifices
>>>>> control for convenience and that Linux and Windows users and those who
>>>>> assist them have to accept second-rate management and pay for it (I
>>>>> should know, I can see it when XP decides to use the GPRS link for its
>>>>> updating :-(
>>>>>
>>>>> Enough reason for me to prefer Plan 9 (and NetBSD, but I can only get
>>>>> my teeth into so many apples), if there weren't many more reasons.
>>>>>
>>>>> ++L
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[J.R. Mauro]

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 2:29 PM, Eris Discordia
<eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>> That is a lie. There are updates which (at least on XP) you could
>> never refuse. Nevermind the fact that Windows would have to restart
>> more than once on a typical series of updates.
>
> Windows isn't really the subject on this thread or this list. Except when
> someone goes out of their way to nonsensically blame it. I don't think
> that's really meaningful or productive in any imaginable way. As it happens,
> no one here is really a Windows user (or some are and they're laughing in
> the hiding bush). You are no better. Please do substantiate what you claim
> or stop trolling. There are absolutely no mandatory Windows updates; you can
> run a Windows system intact, with zero modification, for as long as you want
> or as long as it holds up given its shortcomings. So, my educated guess
> goes: you have zero acquaintance with that OS. Not even as much acquaintance
> as a normal user should have.

Actually, I used Windows for years before discovering something
better. I explicitly disabled updates in XP, and it would insist on
looking for them and bothering me about them, anyway.

Now maybe I missed some other option or the option I chose was
misleadingly labeled, or something was biffed in my registry. I just
googled for "can't turn off Automatic update" and found a bunch of
similar stories, though. In any event, it was so long ago I can't
remember what the circumstances exactly were.

>
> --On Saturday, April 18, 2009 12:19 PM -0400 "J.R. Mauro"
> <jrm8005@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 2:08 AM, Eris Discordia
>> <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> This thing about Windows updates, I think it's a non-issue. It's not like
>>> updates are mandatory and, as a matter of fact, there's rather
>>> fine-grained classification of them on Microsoft's knowledge base which
>>> can be used by any more or less experienced user to identify exactly
>>> what they need for addressing a specific glitch and to download and
>>> install that and only that. Periodic updates of Windows are really
>>> unnecessary and can be easily turned off. Cumulative updates (like the
>>> service packs), on the other hand, are often the best way to go.
>>
>> That is a lie. There are updates which (at least on XP) you could
>> never refuse. Nevermind the fact that Windows would have to restart
>> more than once on a typical series of updates.
>>
>>>
>>> What seems to actually be the problem for you is that you don't like
>>> being told there's a closed modification to your existing closed
>>> software. Well, that's the nature of binary-only proprietary for-profit
>>> software. The only way to get you to pay out of anything other than good
>>> will, which is a rare bird.
>>
>> No, I think he's saying that Windows Update is a piece of fetid garbage.
>>
>>>
>>> P.S. On open/free software mailing lists and forums justice is often not
>>> done to Windows, et al. Particularly, no meaningful alternative is
>>> presented for carrying out the important duties Windows currently
>>> performs for general computing, i.e. non-technical home and office
>>> applications which combined together were and continue to be the killer
>>> application of microcomputers.
>>
>> Mac's updater is miles ahead of Windows Update, but both are still
>> crappy. I've given Linux to several "computer illiterates" and they
>> were immediately relieved that they could open up a single application
>> and search for any kind of software they needed, and updating it all
>> was done by that simple application. How simple is that!
>>
>> The rate of failure of updates (compared to Windows update, which
>> would leave you with a completely unusable system every once in a
>> while) was also much lower.
>>
>>>
>>> --On Saturday, April 18, 2009 8:11 AM +0200 lucio@proxima.alt.za wrote:
>>>
>>>>> The update/installation process in Ubuntu sucks. If you try something
>>>>> using BSD ports or Gentoo portage, you can fine tune things and have
>>>>> explicit control over the update process.
>>>>
>>>> I was specifically omitting BSD ports, as they are in a different
>>>> league.  The point I _was_ making is that one readily sacrifices
>>>> control for convenience and that Linux and Windows users and those who
>>>> assist them have to accept second-rate management and pay for it (I
>>>> should know, I can see it when XP decides to use the GPRS link for its
>>>> updating :-(
>>>>
>>>> Enough reason for me to prefer Plan 9 (and NetBSD, but I can only get
>>>> my teeth into so many apples), if there weren't many more reasons.
>>>>
>>>> ++L
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[J.R. Mauro]

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Eris Discordia
<eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Actually, I used Windows for years before discovering something
>> better. I explicitly disabled updates in XP, and it would insist on
>> looking for them and bothering me about them, anyway.
>
> I put it here for I don't know what to call it--shall we say... historical
> record?--how to turn off your Windows XP installation's automatic update
> service: get into Control Panel, run the System applet, turn to Automatic
> Updates page tab, set the radio button to your desired option. If you want
> Windows to never download anything of its own accord, even when instructed
> by applications (such as InstallShield) that use Windows Update
> infrastructure for their purposes, go to Control Panel, go to Administrative
> Tools, run the Services MMC snap-in, find Background Intelligent Transfer
> Service, stop the service, set the service's startup mode to 'Disabled.'

Yes, simple as 1,2,3... 4,5,6,7,8,9. What a snap!

>
> Very easy, very logical, very intuitive, clearly documented, and even
> self-documented. Windows has lots of disadvantages but UI, configuration,
> and representation of the local system is where there's the smallest
> concentration of them. If you want to blame it get under the hood, find
> actual OS design flaws, and then laugh to your heart's content.
>
> In conclusion, I apologize to 9fans for polluting their list with Windows
> nonsense. This will end right here even if J. R. Mauro goes on to say
> her/his Windows system won't boot after a clean successful installation.

No one asked you to pollute the list the first time around, and I
haven't run Windows on anything in years. I'm glad it works for you.
Wish I could say the same.

>
> --On Saturday, April 18, 2009 3:43 PM -0400 "J.R. Mauro" <jrm8005@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 2:29 PM, Eris Discordia
>> <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> That is a lie. There are updates which (at least on XP) you could
>>>> never refuse. Nevermind the fact that Windows would have to restart
>>>> more than once on a typical series of updates.
>>>
>>> Windows isn't really the subject on this thread or this list. Except when
>>> someone goes out of their way to nonsensically blame it. I don't think
>>> that's really meaningful or productive in any imaginable way. As it
>>> happens, no one here is really a Windows user (or some are and they're
>>> laughing in the hiding bush). You are no better. Please do substantiate
>>> what you claim or stop trolling. There are absolutely no mandatory
>>> Windows updates; you can run a Windows system intact, with zero
>>> modification, for as long as you want or as long as it holds up given
>>> its shortcomings. So, my educated guess goes: you have zero acquaintance
>>> with that OS. Not even as much acquaintance as a normal user should have.
>>
>> Actually, I used Windows for years before discovering something
>> better. I explicitly disabled updates in XP, and it would insist on
>> looking for them and bothering me about them, anyway.
>>
>> Now maybe I missed some other option or the option I chose was
>> misleadingly labeled, or something was biffed in my registry. I just
>> googled for "can't turn off Automatic update" and found a bunch of
>> similar stories, though. In any event, it was so long ago I can't
>> remember what the circumstances exactly were.
>>
>>>
>>> --On Saturday, April 18, 2009 12:19 PM -0400 "J.R. Mauro"
>>> <jrm8005@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 2:08 AM, Eris Discordia
>>>> <eris.discordia@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> This thing about Windows updates, I think it's a non-issue. It's not
>>>>> like updates are mandatory and, as a matter of fact, there's rather
>>>>> fine-grained classification of them on Microsoft's knowledge base which
>>>>> can be used by any more or less experienced user to identify exactly
>>>>> what they need for addressing a specific glitch and to download and
>>>>> install that and only that. Periodic updates of Windows are really
>>>>> unnecessary and can be easily turned off. Cumulative updates (like the
>>>>> service packs), on the other hand, are often the best way to go.
>>>>
>>>> That is a lie. There are updates which (at least on XP) you could
>>>> never refuse. Nevermind the fact that Windows would have to restart
>>>> more than once on a typical series of updates.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> What seems to actually be the problem for you is that you don't like
>>>>> being told there's a closed modification to your existing closed
>>>>> software. Well, that's the nature of binary-only proprietary for-profit
>>>>> software. The only way to get you to pay out of anything other than
>>>>> good will, which is a rare bird.
>>>>
>>>> No, I think he's saying that Windows Update is a piece of fetid garbage.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> P.S. On open/free software mailing lists and forums justice is often
>>>>> not done to Windows, et al. Particularly, no meaningful alternative is
>>>>> presented for carrying out the important duties Windows currently
>>>>> performs for general computing, i.e. non-technical home and office
>>>>> applications which combined together were and continue to be the killer
>>>>> application of microcomputers.
>>>>
>>>> Mac's updater is miles ahead of Windows Update, but both are still
>>>> crappy. I've given Linux to several "computer illiterates" and they
>>>> were immediately relieved that they could open up a single application
>>>> and search for any kind of software they needed, and updating it all
>>>> was done by that simple application. How simple is that!
>>>>
>>>> The rate of failure of updates (compared to Windows update, which
>>>> would leave you with a completely unusable system every once in a
>>>> while) was also much lower.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --On Saturday, April 18, 2009 8:11 AM +0200 lucio@proxima.alt.za wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>> The update/installation process in Ubuntu sucks. If you try something
>>>>>>> using BSD ports or Gentoo portage, you can fine tune things and have
>>>>>>> explicit control over the update process.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I was specifically omitting BSD ports, as they are in a different
>>>>>> league.  The point I _was_ making is that one readily sacrifices
>>>>>> control for convenience and that Linux and Windows users and those who
>>>>>> assist them have to accept second-rate management and pay for it (I
>>>>>> should know, I can see it when XP decides to use the GPRS link for its
>>>>>> updating :-(
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Enough reason for me to prefer Plan 9 (and NetBSD, but I can only get
>>>>>> my teeth into so many apples), if there weren't many more reasons.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ++L
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Balwinder S Dheeman]

On 04/18/2009 01:02 AM, Gorka Guardiola wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 3:14 PM, Balwinder S Dheeman <bdheeman@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Please set aside rare cases and let us know who except for the students,
>> teachers and, or researchers uses Plan9 and, or Inferno in the offices,
>> homes and, or cafes and for what?
>>
>> The Plan9 project started in 1980, took around 9 years to be solid
>> enough to be usable and that too by the internal and, or lab people
>> [http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/9.html] only. Whereas, the FreeBSD
>> and, or Linux (though not an OS or Unix variant in a sense) came into
>> existence later in 1993 and 1991 respectively are more popular among any
>> other variants of Unix.
>
> That is the difference between coming up with a design an rethinking the
> system and just copying one and porting software already written. Linux
> started mostly using all the gnu stuff and copied all the design from already
> existing Unix things. That of course takes less than rethinking
> everything carefully
> from scratch. For example UTF. Among other things.
>
> That said what is the points of this discussions?. Use whatever you want
> and have fun. I use 4 or 5 operating systems
> for different things. One of them is Plan 9. Not only for teaching but
> as infrastructure
> For example this is the CMS for our courses:
> http://lsub.org/magic/group?o=i&g=c
> And we ran several labs which runs diskless for teaching and so.
> This infrastructure serves hundreds of students. I can even have 100 computers
> running diskless with students with daily automatic incremental backups (venti)
> using the CMS (yes, with abaco) and compiling and running programs
> at the same time against one file server. Try that with *any* other
> operating system
> (and our hardware infrastructure).
>
> Then again, that may not be "solid enough" for you. I happen to work
> at a University, sorry.
>
> I also run Mac OS and use it for web browsing. Windows for several
> devices (like a USB sniffer) which I don't have drivers nor I do I
> feel like writing.
> Linux in my illiad ebook.
> And inferno/octopus for integrating all this stuff into a usable environment.
> And some time even others.
>
> If Plan 9 is not useful for you nor you get how it can be, good, don't use it.
>
> For me it is.

Again, but that's only a rare case, sorry.

I understand your sentiments well, because I also worked as a lecturer
for about 4 years and I managed to setup such an environment based on
Linux systems there; that's not a production deployment for any
commercial and, or industrial use cases.

Let me repeat that the question is/was, "Who uses Plan9 in the Offices,
homes and, or cafes for commercial and, or industrial application".

I'm not against using, spreading, technology and, or philosophy behind
Plan9, but am curious to know some solid example cases; no doubt yours
is one such case though again only educational and, or research related.

Please don't tell/dictate me what I should and, or should't I use.

--
Balwinder S "bdheeman" Dheeman        Registered Linux User: #229709
Anu'z Linux@HOME (Unix Shoppe)        Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India         Plan9, T2, Arch/Debian/FreeBSD/XP
Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/  Visit: http://counter.li.org/

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Balwinder S Dheeman]

On 04/18/2009 05:47 AM, Robert Raschke wrote:
> On 4/17/09, Balwinder S Dheeman <bdheeman@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Please set aside rare cases and let us know who except for the students,
>> teachers and, or researchers uses Plan9 and, or Inferno in the offices,
>> homes and, or cafes and for what?
>
> At the risk (or maybe honour :-) of being branded as a rare case (I'm
> neither student, nor teacher, nor hobbyist), I use Plan 9 in to
> maintain my own network, email, web server and wiki, remote editing
> facility (ftpfs) and in terms tools, I use acme a lot wherever I go. I
> also use it as a handy way to store stuff centrally, for easy
> worldwide access via drawterm. I would classify myself as slightly
> paranoid, in that I don't really feel comfortable with letting Google
> have at it willy nilly. Storing stuff at home may be more prone to
> loss, but makes me feel better.
>
> Plan 9 satisfies my curiosity in that I can understand and learn
> things within it quite easily. Every time I have to use something like
> Linux or MS, I feel overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of it all.
> That's fine if it's for work (I get paid for that, after all), but not
> for my private life.

Well, that's an example and a good one indeed, that's me. I need not
comment much on your case, because you already have explained all the
details in your own words.

I like sam, acme and other development tools, no doubt Plan9 as whole is
clean and good operating system and environment. Although, it is based
on best techniques, but it is not the best as yet;

--
Balwinder S "bdheeman" Dheeman        Registered Linux User: #229709
Anu'z Linux@HOME (Unix Shoppe)        Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India         Plan9, T2, Arch/Debian/FreeBSD/XP
Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/  Visit: http://counter.li.org/

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Balwinder S Dheeman]

On 04/18/2009 11:23 AM, lucio@proxima.alt.za wrote:
>> Every time I have to use something like
>> Linux or MS, I feel overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of it all.
>
> Possibly OT, my main beef with Linux and Windows is that they keep
> wanting to update themselves and the effort to "manage" these updates
> is enormous (less so with Ubuntu, but still great).  With Plan 9, I
> find I can control the updating process and do not feel I'm leaving
> myself exposed whenever I do.  Of course, the factors involved are
> very different, but I have a suspicion that with Windows and Linux one
> relinquishes control at too deep a level and the continual updates are
> a particularly visible case of this loss of control.

I don't use Windows/XP that much, kids boot it off and on, because they
need it per their syllabus.

As for as fetching and, or applying updates to Linux and FreeBSD
machines are concerned I never ever lost control.

--
Balwinder S "bdheeman" Dheeman        Registered Linux User: #229709
Anu'z Linux@HOME (Unix Shoppe)        Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India         Plan9, T2, Arch/Debian/FreeBSD/XP
Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/  Visit: http://counter.li.org/

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Balwinder S Dheeman]

On 04/18/2009 11:36 AM, J.R. Mauro wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 1:47 AM,  <lucio@proxima.alt.za> wrote:
>>> Every time I have to use something like
>>> Linux or MS, I feel overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of it all.
>> Possibly OT, my main beef with Linux and Windows is that they keep
>> wanting to update themselves and the effort to "manage" these updates
>> is enormous (less so with Ubuntu, but still great).  With Plan 9, I
>> find I can control the updating process and do not feel I'm leaving
>> myself exposed whenever I do.  Of course, the factors involved are
>> very different, but I have a suspicion that with Windows and Linux one
>> relinquishes control at too deep a level and the continual updates are
>> a particularly visible case of this loss of control.
>>
>> ++L
>>
>>
>
> The update/installation process in Ubuntu sucks. If you try something
> using BSD ports or Gentoo portage, you can fine tune things and have
> explicit control over the update process.

I don't think so, one can acquire a complete control over any common
Linux distribution, can opt for tuning and, tweaking around any package
build system, provided one has the knowledge and courage to do so.

OTOH, I hate wasting cpu cycles on compiling each and every package from
source; IMHO, building, updating and managing a FreeBSD, Gentoo and, or
other so called source or meta distribution is merely a wastage of the
man and machine hours.

--
Balwinder S "bdheeman" Dheeman        Registered Linux User: #229709
Anu'z Linux@HOME (Unix Shoppe)        Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India         Plan9, T2, Arch/Debian/FreeBSD/XP
Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/  Visit: http://counter.li.org/

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Federico G. Benavento]

sorry if I read wrong, but I thought the thread was "Help for home
user discovering Plan 9"
not "FreeBSD and Linux rule" or "Who uses Plan 9?"


On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 7:41 AM, Balwinder S Dheeman <bdheeman@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 04/18/2009 01:02 AM, Gorka Guardiola wrote:
>> On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 3:14 PM, Balwinder S Dheeman <bdheeman@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Please set aside rare cases and let us know who except for the students,
>>> teachers and, or researchers uses Plan9 and, or Inferno in the offices,
>>> homes and, or cafes and for what?
>>>
>>> The Plan9 project started in 1980, took around 9 years to be solid
>>> enough to be usable and that too by the internal and, or lab people
>>> [http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/9.html] only. Whereas, the FreeBSD
>>> and, or Linux (though not an OS or Unix variant in a sense) came into
>>> existence later in 1993 and 1991 respectively are more popular among any
>>> other variants of Unix.
>>
>> That is the difference between coming up with a design an rethinking the
>> system and just copying one and porting software already written. Linux
>> started mostly using all the gnu stuff and copied all the design from already
>> existing Unix things. That of course takes less than rethinking
>> everything carefully
>> from scratch. For example UTF. Among other things.
>>
>> That said what is the points of this discussions?. Use whatever you want
>> and have fun. I use 4 or 5 operating systems
>> for different things. One of them is Plan 9. Not only for teaching but
>> as infrastructure
>> For example this is the CMS for our courses:
>> http://lsub.org/magic/group?o=i&g=c
>> And we ran several labs which runs diskless for teaching and so.
>> This infrastructure serves hundreds of students. I can even have 100 computers
>> running diskless with students with daily automatic incremental backups (venti)
>> using the CMS (yes, with abaco) and compiling and running programs
>> at the same time against one file server. Try that with *any* other
>> operating system
>> (and our hardware infrastructure).
>>
>> Then again, that may not be "solid enough" for you. I happen to work
>> at a University, sorry.
>>
>> I also run Mac OS and use it for web browsing. Windows for several
>> devices (like a USB sniffer) which I don't have drivers nor I do I
>> feel like writing.
>> Linux in my illiad ebook.
>> And inferno/octopus for integrating all this stuff into a usable environment.
>> And some time even others.
>>
>> If Plan 9 is not useful for you nor you get how it can be, good, don't use it.
>>
>> For me it is.
>
> Again, but that's only a rare case, sorry.
>
> I understand your sentiments well, because I also worked as a lecturer
> for about 4 years and I managed to setup such an environment based on
> Linux systems there; that's not a production deployment for any
> commercial and, or industrial use cases.
>
> Let me repeat that the question is/was, "Who uses Plan9 in the Offices,
> homes and, or cafes for commercial and, or industrial application".
>
> I'm not against using, spreading, technology and, or philosophy behind
> Plan9, but am curious to know some solid example cases; no doubt yours
> is one such case though again only educational and, or research related.
>
> Please don't tell/dictate me what I should and, or should't I use.
>
> --
> Balwinder S "bdheeman" Dheeman        Registered Linux User: #229709
> Anu'z Linux@HOME (Unix Shoppe)        Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
> Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India         Plan9, T2, Arch/Debian/FreeBSD/XP
> Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/  Visit: http://counter.li.org/
>
>



-- 
Federico G. Benavento

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Uriel]

We can't tell you who uses Plan 9, because it is a secret and they
don't want anyone to learn about their secret competitive advantage.
/sarcasm (But still sadly true.)

uriel


On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 12:41 PM, Balwinder S Dheeman
<bdheeman@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 04/18/2009 01:02 AM, Gorka Guardiola wrote:
>> On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 3:14 PM, Balwinder S Dheeman <bdheeman@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Please set aside rare cases and let us know who except for the students,
>>> teachers and, or researchers uses Plan9 and, or Inferno in the offices,
>>> homes and, or cafes and for what?
>>>
>>> The Plan9 project started in 1980, took around 9 years to be solid
>>> enough to be usable and that too by the internal and, or lab people
>>> [http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/9.html] only. Whereas, the FreeBSD
>>> and, or Linux (though not an OS or Unix variant in a sense) came into
>>> existence later in 1993 and 1991 respectively are more popular among any
>>> other variants of Unix.
>>
>> That is the difference between coming up with a design an rethinking the
>> system and just copying one and porting software already written. Linux
>> started mostly using all the gnu stuff and copied all the design from already
>> existing Unix things. That of course takes less than rethinking
>> everything carefully
>> from scratch. For example UTF. Among other things.
>>
>> That said what is the points of this discussions?. Use whatever you want
>> and have fun. I use 4 or 5 operating systems
>> for different things. One of them is Plan 9. Not only for teaching but
>> as infrastructure
>> For example this is the CMS for our courses:
>> http://lsub.org/magic/group?o=i&g=c
>> And we ran several labs which runs diskless for teaching and so.
>> This infrastructure serves hundreds of students. I can even have 100 computers
>> running diskless with students with daily automatic incremental backups (venti)
>> using the CMS (yes, with abaco) and compiling and running programs
>> at the same time against one file server. Try that with *any* other
>> operating system
>> (and our hardware infrastructure).
>>
>> Then again, that may not be "solid enough" for you. I happen to work
>> at a University, sorry.
>>
>> I also run Mac OS and use it for web browsing. Windows for several
>> devices (like a USB sniffer) which I don't have drivers nor I do I
>> feel like writing.
>> Linux in my illiad ebook.
>> And inferno/octopus for integrating all this stuff into a usable environment.
>> And some time even others.
>>
>> If Plan 9 is not useful for you nor you get how it can be, good, don't use it.
>>
>> For me it is.
>
> Again, but that's only a rare case, sorry.
>
> I understand your sentiments well, because I also worked as a lecturer
> for about 4 years and I managed to setup such an environment based on
> Linux systems there; that's not a production deployment for any
> commercial and, or industrial use cases.
>
> Let me repeat that the question is/was, "Who uses Plan9 in the Offices,
> homes and, or cafes for commercial and, or industrial application".
>
> I'm not against using, spreading, technology and, or philosophy behind
> Plan9, but am curious to know some solid example cases; no doubt yours
> is one such case though again only educational and, or research related.
>
> Please don't tell/dictate me what I should and, or should't I use.
>
> --
> Balwinder S "bdheeman" Dheeman        Registered Linux User: #229709
> Anu'z Linux@HOME (Unix Shoppe)        Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
> Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India         Plan9, T2, Arch/Debian/FreeBSD/XP
> Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/  Visit: http://counter.li.org/
>
>

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[erik quanstrom]

On Mon Apr 20 11:04:31 EDT 2009, uriel99@gmail.com wrote:
> We can't tell you who uses Plan 9, because it is a secret and they
> don't want anyone to learn about their secret competitive advantage.
> /sarcasm (But still sadly true.)

i have a counterexample.

coraid, inc.  uses plan 9.  it's a big competitive advantage and
it's no secret.  on the other hand, they don't advertise it much
because nobody cares.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[J.R. Mauro]

>>
>> The update/installation process in Ubuntu sucks. If you try something
>> using BSD ports or Gentoo portage, you can fine tune things and have
>> explicit control over the update process.
>
> I don't think so, one can acquire a complete control over any common
> Linux distribution, can opt for tuning and, tweaking around any package
> build system, provided one has the knowledge and courage to do so.

Yes and no. If you want to patch something, you have to build it on
your own, so you lose package management support. And building your
own deb package is not a great process. Plus, you have to rebuild it
whenever you update. I'm not saying you can't "completely control"
your distro, just that the package manager is inflexible and immature.
USE flags give you /real/ control over packages without forcing you to
step out of the package management infrastructure (i.e., you don't
have to install anything locally to get a patch incorporated, and you
don't sacrifice updates). You also have less namespace pollution, such
as having mutt and mutt-ng in the repository.

Emerge and ports also don't have a database that can only have one
process using it at a time, and don't take forever to update said
database.

>
> OTOH, I hate wasting cpu cycles on compiling each and every package from
> source; IMHO, building, updating and managing a FreeBSD, Gentoo and, or
> other so called source or meta distribution is merely a wastage of the
> man and machine hours.
>

I wouldn't install gentoo on an older machine, but on anything I use
day-to-day, the compilation time is a non-issue. There is no wastage
of man-hours in managing Gentoo. That is what emerge is for. There is
some wastage in CPU cycles. I never notice it (a decent machine can
emerge world, watch an HD movie, and compile a Linux kernel without
slowdown)

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Steve Simon]

> Let me repeat that the question is/was, "Who uses Plan9 in the Offices,
> homes and, or cafes for commercial and, or industrial application".

I use plan9 at home and at work as a development environment. It is my
primary desktop OS, though I do VNC onto other OSs to use more complex
websites (like my bank).

vote +1

-Steve

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[David Leimbach]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 849 bytes --]

On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 11:57 AM, Steve Simon <steve@quintile.net> wrote:

> > Let me repeat that the question is/was, "Who uses Plan9 in the Offices,
> > homes and, or cafes for commercial and, or industrial application".
>
> I use plan9 at home and at work as a development environment. It is my
> primary desktop OS, though I do VNC onto other OSs to use more complex
> websites (like my bank).
>
> vote +1
>
> -Steve
>
>
Are you counting Inferno users?  I'm about to deploy a small service via a
juiced up Linksys router with the Inferno port to WRT Linux.

Basically it's a more secure remote control protocol for my home network
goo.... I'm not sure which goo it will work on yet but it should be fairly
capable in terms of the plumbing to do most anything I want.

I guess I could put more detail on that later.

Dave

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1235 bytes --]

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Balwinder S Dheeman]

On 04/20/2009 11:46 PM, J.R. Mauro wrote:
>>> The update/installation process in Ubuntu sucks. If you try something
>>> using BSD ports or Gentoo portage, you can fine tune things and have
>>> explicit control over the update process.
>> I don't think so, one can acquire a complete control over any common
>> Linux distribution, can opt for tuning and, tweaking around any package
>> build system, provided one has the knowledge and courage to do so.
>
> Yes and no. If you want to patch something, you have to build it on
> your own, so you lose package management support. And building your
> own deb package is not a great process. Plus, you have to rebuild it
> whenever you update. I'm not saying you can't "completely control"
> your distro, just that the package manager is inflexible and immature.
> USE flags give you /real/ control over packages without forcing you to
> step out of the package management infrastructure (i.e., you don't
> have to install anything locally to get a patch incorporated, and you
> don't sacrifice updates). You also have less namespace pollution, such
> as having mutt and mutt-ng in the repository.

FYI, I'm am/was a contributor to a number FreeBSD ports. I'm retracting
somewhat from using FreeBSD these days. Although, nothing is perfect not
even the God in this world, but things could have been resolved which
were backed by a lot users in a similar fashion -- on FreeBSD, just try
building a meta/virtual-port qt4 library which depends on around 39+
sub-ports; see how same tarball is md5/sha256 verified, extracted,
configured and compiled again and again 39 times *just* to sub-divide a
single source package into sub-packages.

More and more, the FreeBSD people are reluctant to use separate build
directories and a 'make DESTDIR=/whatever install' approach.

Is not that a wastage of CPU cycles?

Now, people who know this and many other such flaws in FreeBSD ports
build framework might be laughing at you ;)

> Emerge and ports also don't have a database that can only have one
> process using it at a time, and don't take forever to update said
> database.

I don't use Gentoo these days, so don't if they people have resolved
similar issues or not. IHMO, Emerge is not a panacea at all.

Moreover, though well documented building, updating and, or managing a
Gentoo and, or FreeBSD server or desktop is not an everyone's mug of
coffee :(

>> OTOH, I hate wasting cpu cycles on compiling each and every package from
>> source; IMHO, building, updating and managing a FreeBSD, Gentoo and, or
>> other so called source or meta distribution is merely a wastage of the
>> man and machine hours.
>>
>
> I wouldn't install gentoo on an older machine, but on anything I use
> day-to-day, the compilation time is a non-issue. There is no wastage
> of man-hours in managing Gentoo. That is what emerge is for. There is
> some wastage in CPU cycles. I never notice it (a decent machine can
> emerge world, watch an HD movie, and compile a Linux kernel without
> slowdown)


--
Balwinder S "bdheeman" Dheeman        Registered Linux User: #229709
Anu'z Linux@HOME (Unix Shoppe)        Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India         Plan9, T2, Arch/Debian/FreeBSD/XP
Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/  Visit: http://counter.li.org/

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Skip Tavakkolian]

J.R. Mauro and Balwinder S Dheeman
> Gentoo and, or FreeBSD

please stop polluting. thanks.

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Jim Habegger]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 3:43 AM, Sergey Zhilkin <szhilkin@gmail.com> wrote:
> Look at - http://9fans.net/archive/2008/10/304
>
> Plan9 hardware support is limited to those that plan9 users have.

Well, now there's a Plan 9 user with Atheros 5K.

I suppose I could try to port ath5k myself.

I had some experience many years ago programming and debugging in
machine language, assembly language, Fortran, COBOL, dBase and
VisualBasic. I've never even looked at a C source, or even compiled
any. In all the time I've been using free software systems, I've only
used gui installers and updaters. Does anyone have any guesses about
how many hours it might take for me to learn to port ath5k to Plan 9?

I might need to study and experiment with some ath5k Linux and BSD
sources, and study some Plan 9 sources for wireless cards. If I got
something working, I might write to the authors of the sources to get
their ideas about the license issue.

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Sergey Zhilkin]

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Look at - http://9fans.net/archive/2008/10/304

Plan9 hardware support is limited to those that plan9 users have.



-- 
С наилучшими пожеланиями
Жилкин Сергей
With best regards
Zhilkin Sergey

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Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[maht]

    *
*

> My Internet socializing now is mostly:
> - email
> - calling people with Skype
> - reading and commenting in blogs
> - posting in my own blogs
> - reading and posting in the Linux Questions forums
> - reading and posting on this list
> - Facebook
better keep another system handy, fully featured WWW is not the strong
suit and no Skype (unless it workes with LinuxEMU - anyone tried ?)

Plan9 in Qemu works well, my preferred method for virtualization is
running it as a CPU/AUTH server and drawterming in.
I use VDE to give it a proper IP so I dont have to mess about with --redir

http://wiki.virtualsquare.org/index.php/VDE_Basic_Networking

I recently used Proxmox virtualization and they have a better way of
doing it where each instance got an IP on the same subnet as the machine
itself but I haven't worked out how yet.

Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

[Jim Habegger]

Thanks to everyone for all the information and ideas!

At first I was going to try to make Plan 9 my all-purpose system on
this laptop, but for now it looks like I'll just be using it to learn
more about networking and distributed systems. I've tried using
virtual machines in Windows before to run other operating systems, and
I've always ended up installing them independently in their own
partitions, but I may have to use Plan 9 on a virtual machine if
that's the only way I can connect to our family network.

First I just want to get comfortable and develop some skills in the
Plan 9 environment, then experiment with distributing it between
computers or virtual machines.

Zhilkin, my wireless card is Atheros AR5001X+. Is there anything like
a diswrapper in Plan 9?

Pietro, thanks for the beginner's guide. I'm not sure I'll be able to
connect to the Internet with Plan 9 on its own partition, the way I'm
using it now. I might have to run it on a virtual machine, and it
might take some time for me to decide which one to use, and learn how
to do it. Meanwhile I'll have to learn to download and install
applications manually. I'll download them to my shared fat partition
in some other system, and install them into my Plan 9 system from
there.

My Internet socializing now is mostly:
- email
- calling people with Skype
- reading and commenting in blogs
- posting in my own blogs
- reading and posting in the Linux Questions forums
- reading and posting on this list
- Facebook

Devon, thanks for the links. I had started to read the network
configuration doc earlier, but I got stuck at the part where my card
is not supported. If I can't get around that, I might try using Plan 9
on a virtual machine in XP or Slackware or Debian. Pros and cons would
be welcome.

Andrés, thanks for the suggestion. I've tried to run systems on
virtual machines before, but I didn't like all the complications
involved and I always ended up installing them independently on their
own partitions. Maybe I won't be able to avoid virtual machines this
time. I might consider it an opportunity to enrich my knowledge and
experience, along with learning to use Plan 9.