[COFF] Inferno/Limbo Experiences

[COFF] Inferno/Limbo Experiences

[segaloco via COFF]

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So as I was searching around for literature I came across someone selling a 2 volume set of Inferno manuals. I had never seen print manuals so decided to scoop them up, thinking they'd fit nicely with a 9front manual I just ordered too.

That said, I hate to just grab a book for it to sit on my shelf, so I want to explore Inferno once I've got literature in hand. Does anyone here know the best way of VMing Inferno these days, if I can just expect to find a copy of distribution media somewhere that'll work in VirtualBox or QEMU or if there's some particular "path of righteousness" I need to follow to successfully land in an Inferno environment.

Second, and I hope I don't spin up a debate with this, but is this something I'm investing good time in getting familiar with? I certainly don't hear as much about Inferno as I do about Plan9, but it does feel like it's one of the little puzzle pieces in this bigger picture of systems theory and development. Have there been any significant Inferno-adjacent developments or use cases in recent (past 10-15) years?

- Matt G.

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[COFF] Re: Inferno/Limbo Experiences

[Edouard Klein]

Hi Matt !

Inferno is friggin' awesome.

You'll find plenty to read here:
https://github.com/henesy/awesome-inferno

This series of blog post will walk you through creating a basic grid:
http://debu.gs/tags/inferno

Inferno's documentation is (compared to Plan 9's) absolutely stellar.

With Plan 9 I often have to resort to reading the sources, whereas
Inferno man pages almost always explain things in context, as fully as I
need.

Also, If the 9p virus bites you, be sure to attend the next
international workshop on plan 9:
http://iwp9.org/

I learned more about Plan 9 in a few days than in years playing on and
off with the system. Special thanks to the organizing committee and to
Skip and Ron who took the time to answer my beginner questions, walked
me through the codebase, and gave very valuable advice.

I don't know if Charles Forsyth is reading here, but I asked him about
use cases and he gave me interesting examples of Inferno use, maybe
he'll pop up :) What I remember (I may be misremembering, so please
don't take this as reliable information) is Inferno was used as the
technical solution to solve client's problem, but clients did not care
about inferno per se. So most of the use cases were quite ad-hoc and did
not give rise to publications or directly shareable code.

I've never used Inferno more than as a toy, but if the opportunity ever
arise, I know I'll do it. I dream of creating an inferno powered smart
home. It's somewhere on the todo list, down there...

Please keep us updated on your explorations :)

Cheers,

Edouard.




segaloco via COFF <coff@tuhs.org> writes:

> So as I was searching around for literature I came across someone selling a 2 volume set of Inferno manuals. I had never seen print manuals so decided to scoop them up, thinking
> they'd fit nicely with a 9front manual I just ordered too.
>
> That said, I hate to just grab a book for it to sit on my shelf, so I want to explore Inferno once I've got literature in hand. Does anyone here know the best way of VMing Inferno these
> days, if I can just expect to find a copy of distribution media somewhere that'll work in VirtualBox or QEMU or if there's some particular "path of righteousness" I need to follow to
> successfully land in an Inferno environment.
>
> Second, and I hope I don't spin up a debate with this, but is this something I'm investing good time in getting familiar with? I certainly don't hear as much about Inferno as I do about
> Plan9, but it does feel like it's one of the little puzzle pieces in this bigger picture of systems theory and development. Have there been any significant Inferno-adjacent developments
> or use cases in recent (past 10-15) years?
>
> - Matt G.