Opossum: Cross-platform web browser written in Golang, optimized for Plan 9 • Hacker News Board

Re: Opossum: Cross-platform web browser written in Golang, optimized for Plan 9

#21

Post by spenczar5 » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 5:00 PM UTC

exitb wrote: post #13

spenczar5 wrote: post #6

I fully acknowledge that Plan9 had a cool vision, maybe a superior one to the world we’ve got. But is it practical as an operating system for day to day use, particularly when working with other people using conventional Linux/Mac/Windows?

That question makes no sense really. It’s like asking whether camping can be as practical as living in a proper house - maybe for some people, but generally, that’s just not the point.

If that's the analogy, then I think the question is certainly answered for me! "Practical isn't the point" seems pretty similar to "no, it's not generally practical."

Re: Opossum: Cross-platform web browser written in Golang, optimized for Plan 9

#22

Post by pram » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 5:04 PM UTC

spenczar5 wrote: post #6

I fully acknowledge that Plan9 had a cool vision, maybe a superior one to the world we’ve got. But is it practical as an operating system for day to day use, particularly when working with other people using conventional Linux/Mac/Windows?

It's trivial to get running in qemu if you're really curious.

Re: Opossum: Cross-platform web browser written in Golang, optimized for Plan 9

#23

Post by calvinmorrison » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 5:05 PM UTC

mburee wrote: post #14

762236 wrote: post #9

[flagged]

What's the problem with GC? Between C and Go (and maybe Scheme) there's not much choice of languages on plan 9 today. So not having to think about memory management in a browser pet project is surely the best choice when it comes to a relatively ambitious project as this. Also of note, Limbo (the language the successor was written is) is also garbage collected, so it's not like it's against the spirit of plan 9. The…

Don't forget Perl

Re: Opossum: Cross-platform web browser written in Golang, optimized for Plan 9

#24

Post by spenczar5 » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

pram wrote: post #22

spenczar5 wrote: post #6

I fully acknowledge that Plan9 had a cool vision, maybe a superior one to the world we’ve got. But is it practical as an operating system for day to day use, particularly when working with other people using conventional Linux/Mac/Windows?

It's trivial to get running in qemu if you're really curious.

Sure, but that doesn't seem to really be using Plan9, at least to me. Networked access seems so fundamental to Plan9 that running it in a sandbox seems like trying out a car with all the tires removed.

I'm interested in hearing what it's like to use it more seriously; my biggest doubts are around collaborating with people on conventional OSes.

Re: Opossum: Cross-platform web browser written in Golang, optimized for Plan 9

#25

Post by dgb23 » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 5:22 PM UTC

762236 wrote: post #9

[flagged]

I wonder how much ad-hoc GC popular browsers have and what the tradeoffs are in comparison to using a runtime with a GC and avoiding allocations where necessary.

Re: Opossum: Cross-platform web browser written in Golang, optimized for Plan 9

#26

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 5:22 PM UTC

spenczar5 wrote: post #24

pram wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's trivial to get running in qemu if you're really curious.

Sure, but that doesn't seem to really be using Plan9, at least to me. Networked access seems so fundamental to Plan9 that running it in a sandbox seems like trying out a car with all the tires removed. I'm interested in hearing what it's like to use it more seriously; my biggest doubts are around collaborating with people on conventional OSes.

Qemu allows full network access. It's a very porous "sandbox"

Re: Opossum: Cross-platform web browser written in Golang, optimized for Plan 9

#27

Post by n4ture » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 5:26 PM UTC

spenczar5 wrote: post #24

pram wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's trivial to get running in qemu if you're really curious.

Sure, but that doesn't seem to really be using Plan9, at least to me. Networked access seems so fundamental to Plan9 that running it in a sandbox seems like trying out a car with all the tires removed. I'm interested in hearing what it's like to use it more seriously; my biggest doubts are around collaborating with people on conventional OSes.

I've used it as my "main driver" for around 6 months last year and I can assure you it's definitely practical, you can also easily interact with the other OSes with ssh and vnc, that way I could even do some remote video calls from plan9 with the help of another linux computer for instance.

Re: Opossum: Cross-platform web browser written in Golang, optimized for Plan 9

#28

Post by klodolph » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 5:27 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #19

Curious to see how they will get WebGL and WebGPU over file handles.

Does Plan9 even have hardware OpenGL implementations to begin with?

Re: Opossum: Cross-platform web browser written in Golang, optimized for Plan 9

#29

Post by pjmlp » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #28

pjmlp wrote: post #19

Curious to see how they will get WebGL and WebGPU over file handles.

Does Plan9 even have hardware OpenGL implementations to begin with?

No, and having a file based driver for graphics also doesn't help that much.

https://marc.info/?l=9fans&m=111558695515839&w=2

Re: Opossum: Cross-platform web browser written in Golang, optimized for Plan 9

#30

Post by bitwize » Mon, Feb 20, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #18

762236 wrote: post #9

[flagged]

Indeed, we need more such projects to clean our industry from non believers. Alef for Plan 9 was going to be GC based, and even though it went in another way, Inferno and Limbo clearly fix that error.

Go itself is pretty much Alef 2.0