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Plan 9 from Bell Labs (1995)

plan9.bell-labs.com

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Re: Plan 9 from Bell Labs (1995)

#21

Post by zheng »

jff wrote: post #12

Plan 9 pops up on the front page from time to time, and I see a lot of people expressing a lot of misconceptions about it. I know there are at least 2 or 3 other Plan 9 users on this site, and they help try to clear up some of the questions. I've done quite a bit of poking around in Plan 9, but of course I don't know all of it. I've hacked in the kernel and worked on the 64-bit version as well, I've fooled with the c…

Ok, first question, why aren't we all using Plan 9 instead of a linux-based OS? Maybe more importantly, what could the next upstart kernel/OS do different than Plan 9 if it wants to be more successful?

Re: Plan 9 from Bell Labs (1995)

#22

Post by mhurron »

zheng wrote: post #21
jff wrote: post #12

Plan 9 pops up on the front page from time to time, and I see a lot of people expressing a lot of misconceptions about it. I know there are at least 2 or 3 other Plan 9 users on this site, and they help try to clear up some of the questions. I've done quite a bit of poking around in Plan 9, but of course I don't know all of it. I've hacked in the kernel and worked on the 64-bit version as well, I've fooled with the c…

Ok, first question, why aren't we all using Plan 9 instead of a linux-based OS? Maybe more importantly, what could the next upstart kernel/OS do different than Plan 9 if it wants to be more successful?

> why aren't we all using Plan 9

Plan 9 wasn't always free.

Also, its GUI sucks. That's sort of important for end users.

Re: Plan 9 from Bell Labs (1995)

#23

Post by 4ad »

zheng wrote: post #21
jff wrote: post #12

Plan 9 pops up on the front page from time to time, and I see a lot of people expressing a lot of misconceptions about it. I know there are at least 2 or 3 other Plan 9 users on this site, and they help try to clear up some of the questions. I've done quite a bit of poking around in Plan 9, but of course I don't know all of it. I've hacked in the kernel and worked on the 64-bit version as well, I've fooled with the c…

Ok, first question, why aren't we all using Plan 9 instead of a linux-based OS? Maybe more importantly, what could the next upstart kernel/OS do different than Plan 9 if it wants to be more successful?

I don't use Plan 9 much because it lacks a modern web browser, though I miss it dearly. I get some comfort on Linux and Mac OS X by using Russ Cox's excellent port of the Plan 9 tools to Unix[1]. To me, the most important Plan 9 tool is of course, the editor, Rob Pike's acme[2].

[1] http://swtch.com/plan9port/

[2] http://acme.cat-v.org/

Re: Plan 9 from Bell Labs (1995)

#24

Post by ChuckMcM »

zheng wrote: post #21
jff wrote: post #12

Plan 9 pops up on the front page from time to time, and I see a lot of people expressing a lot of misconceptions about it. I know there are at least 2 or 3 other Plan 9 users on this site, and they help try to clear up some of the questions. I've done quite a bit of poking around in Plan 9, but of course I don't know all of it. I've hacked in the kernel and worked on the 64-bit version as well, I've fooled with the c…

Ok, first question, why aren't we all using Plan 9 instead of a linux-based OS? Maybe more importantly, what could the next upstart kernel/OS do different than Plan 9 if it wants to be more successful?

Rob Pike and the other folks who developed Plan 9 worked at AT&T's Bell Laboratories. Nothing developed in a Bell Lab has ever been 'free' directly. Rather folks who have seen the research and been inspired by it have made changes to their free stuff which you use every day. There are influences from Plan 9 in Linux (the /proc file system for example which was influenced by the SunOS /proc filesystem which was influenced by Plan 9) but that is as far as it goes.

Re: Plan 9 from Bell Labs (1995)

#25

Post by 4ad »

sp332 wrote: post #15
mseepgood wrote: post #3

The linked text is from the 90s. Not exactly news. But Plan 9 was a big improvement over Unix. Unfortunately, good things are often ignored.

A lot of the ideas in Plan 9 were ported to Linux. UTF-8, the /proc filesystem, and the idea of union filesystems. Also Plan 9 is arguably better because of what's not in it http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhatIsNotInPlanNine

/proc in Linux is nothing like /proc in Plan 9 though. Not only that the exported files are completely different conceptually and in their internal format, but on Linux I can't bind /proc from another box and do remote debugging with tools that know nothing about where the process runs.

Also Linux union mounts are clunky and not as useful as they are in Plan 9 because you can't have private namespaces if you are not root.

Re: Plan 9 from Bell Labs (1995)

#26

Post by noselasd »

zheng wrote: post #21
jff wrote: post #12

Plan 9 pops up on the front page from time to time, and I see a lot of people expressing a lot of misconceptions about it. I know there are at least 2 or 3 other Plan 9 users on this site, and they help try to clear up some of the questions. I've done quite a bit of poking around in Plan 9, but of course I don't know all of it. I've hacked in the kernel and worked on the 64-bit version as well, I've fooled with the c…

Ok, first question, why aren't we all using Plan 9 instead of a linux-based OS? Maybe more importantly, what could the next upstart kernel/OS do different than Plan 9 if it wants to be more successful?

* It's not enough to be better to displace something ubiquitous (as unix like systems are today). You likely have to be orders of magnitude "better".

* Do not be hostile to your potential users. (The community that formed around Plan 9 as it went open source were quite hostile, there's no need for public beatings just because someone suggests to port X11 to Plan 9 even if it's a bad idea).

Re: Plan 9 from Bell Labs (1995)

#27

Post by chimeracoder »

zheng wrote: post #21
jff wrote: post #12

Plan 9 pops up on the front page from time to time, and I see a lot of people expressing a lot of misconceptions about it. I know there are at least 2 or 3 other Plan 9 users on this site, and they help try to clear up some of the questions. I've done quite a bit of poking around in Plan 9, but of course I don't know all of it. I've hacked in the kernel and worked on the 64-bit version as well, I've fooled with the c…

Ok, first question, why aren't we all using Plan 9 instead of a linux-based OS? Maybe more importantly, what could the next upstart kernel/OS do different than Plan 9 if it wants to be more successful?

Plan9 doesn't replace Linux-the-kernel; it contains its own kernel, but there exists a port of the Plan9 utilities to the Linux kernel, replacing the GNU utilities (I'm not sure if this is complete).

For what it's worth, I use wmii on Linux, which uses the Plan9 model for configuration. It makes it super-scriptable and really easy to use.

Re: Plan 9 from Bell Labs (1995)

#28

Post by throwaway64 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #24
zheng wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, first question, why aren't we all using Plan 9 instead of a linux-based OS? Maybe more importantly, what could the next upstart kernel/OS do different than Plan 9 if it wants to be more successful?

Rob Pike and the other folks who developed Plan 9 worked at AT&T's Bell Laboratories. Nothing developed in a Bell Lab has ever been 'free' directly. Rather folks who have seen the research and been inspired by it have made changes to their free stuff which you use every day. There are influences from Plan 9 in Linux (the /proc file system for example which was influenced by the SunOS /proc filesystem which was influe…

not true, plan9 as of the 4th edition has a OSI/FSF approved license.

Re: Plan 9 from Bell Labs (1995)

#29

Post by Arelius »

4ad wrote: post #23
zheng wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, first question, why aren't we all using Plan 9 instead of a linux-based OS? Maybe more importantly, what could the next upstart kernel/OS do different than Plan 9 if it wants to be more successful?

I don't use Plan 9 much because it lacks a modern web browser, though I miss it dearly. I get some comfort on Linux and Mac OS X by using Russ Cox's excellent port of the Plan 9 tools to Unix[1]. To me, the most important Plan 9 tool is of course, the editor, Rob Pike's acme[2]. [1] http://swtch.com/plan9port/ [2] http://acme.cat-v.org/

Could you talk about the editor? Without knowing the editor specifically, it'd would seem at a severe disadvantage to either editors with much large communities (vi, emacs) or editors that are much more modern (textmate, sublime?).

Re: Plan 9 from Bell Labs (1995)

#30

Post by Arelius »

jff wrote: post #12

Plan 9 pops up on the front page from time to time, and I see a lot of people expressing a lot of misconceptions about it. I know there are at least 2 or 3 other Plan 9 users on this site, and they help try to clear up some of the questions. I've done quite a bit of poking around in Plan 9, but of course I don't know all of it. I've hacked in the kernel and worked on the 64-bit version as well, I've fooled with the c…

On that note what are some common misconceptions, myths and FUD surrounding Plan 9? I just get the impression that's it's a pretty amazing operating system that never took off... And considering you are a Plan 9 user I suspect you don't think poorly of it either.
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