9front "This Was Supposed to Be Fun" Released • Hacker News Board

Re: 9front "This Was Supposed to Be Fun" Released

#21

Post by vintagedave » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 2:28 PM UTC

MisterTea wrote: post #13

lproven wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

9front is the community fork of the OS that the creators of UNIX and C did next. This is what Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson did to fix the faults in the Unix design. Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and all the other FOSS Unix-like OSes are community recreations of the flawed AT&T Unix. 9front is the continuation of the OS that came next.

Plan 9 is mostly Rob Pikes idea and did not involve Ritchie heavily. https://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/1st_edition/designing_plan_9 Recently, Pike commented that he designed Plan 9 so he could build the windowing system he wanted. (edit: oops, link) https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T4fec171fec7e3845-M2...

So that would be 'rio'?[0] I can find screenshots but haven't found much that explains how or why it's different -- what I've read explains it's not how it looks so much as how it functions, eg, each process genuinely own a console or mouse rather than getting events from the OS as you might in, say, Windows. I can't tell if I am understanding this correctly, of course.

I do know that in Plan9, 'everything is a file' is literally correct. So owning a mouse would mean reading from /path/to/mouse. But what I've also read is that every process can do so believing they own it - it's theirs exclusively?

For anyone reading this comment in future please do not trust it, I don't know what I'm talking about, except that standard references I've found don't fully explain.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs#Graphica...

Re: 9front "This Was Supposed to Be Fun" Released

#22

Post by Arodex » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

lproven wrote: post #10

Explanation of the codename, from the artist who did the "cover art" for an earlier version and who works on 9front: https://analognowhere.com/_/tcrxsm/

"Stairway to Anschluss"

I see the 9front guys still love flirting with "nazi for laughs and giggles" esthetic...

Re: 9front "This Was Supposed to Be Fun" Released

#23

Post by 2b3a51 » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 2:56 PM UTC

lproven wrote: post #12

iberator wrote: post #2

What is it? Some hobby operating system or what?

9front is the community fork of the OS that the creators of UNIX and C did next. This is what Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson did to fix the faults in the Unix design. Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and all the other FOSS Unix-like OSes are community recreations of the flawed AT&T Unix. 9front is the continuation of the OS that came next.

All true, but I can't help pointing out that the code name for this new OS came from Plan Nine from Outer Space, a film (which I gather the gang went to watch and found hilarious, although it appears that the film was mainly shown on TV by the 1980s) by Ed Wood.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Outer_Space

A theme in the film is the waking of the undead, and I'm wondering if this is a message from the original gang.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/PlanNine...

Re: 9front "This Was Supposed to Be Fun" Released

#24

Post by andai » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 3:17 PM UTC

Arodex wrote: post #22

lproven wrote: post #10

Explanation of the codename, from the artist who did the "cover art" for an earlier version and who works on 9front: https://analognowhere.com/_/tcrxsm/

"Stairway to Anschluss" I see the 9front guys still love flirting with "nazi for laughs and giggles" esthetic...

Stairway to gulag for you!

Re: 9front "This Was Supposed to Be Fun" Released

#25

Post by stephenbez » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 3:17 PM UTC

I got “402 PAYMENT REQUESTED”

Re: 9front "This Was Supposed to Be Fun" Released

#26

Post by bediger4000 » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 3:28 PM UTC

2b3a51 wrote: post #23

lproven wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

9front is the community fork of the OS that the creators of UNIX and C did next. This is what Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson did to fix the faults in the Unix design. Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and all the other FOSS Unix-like OSes are community recreations of the flawed AT&T Unix. 9front is the continuation of the OS that came next.

All true, but I can't help pointing out that the code name for this new OS came from Plan Nine from Outer Space , a film (which I gather the gang went to watch and found hilarious, although it appears that the film was mainly shown on TV by the 1980s) by Ed Wood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Outer_Space A theme in the film is the waking of the undead, and I'm wondering if this is a message from the origi…

I heard there was some inside joke on the "IX" suffix of UNIX as a Roman numeral, and the 9 in Plan 9.

Re: 9front "This Was Supposed to Be Fun" Released

#27

Post by xelxebar » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 3:50 PM UTC

iberator wrote: post #2

What is it? Some hobby operating system or what?

I daily drive 9front.

The historical emergence answers here are fine as far as they go, but they're a bit like saying that Linux is an OS developed by Linus to help him learn x86.

IMO 9front is an exposé of what an OS can look like when it's written for and by hackers with a focus on simplicity. The YouTube channel adventuresin9[0] parades some nice examples of what real world usage looks like.

For example, since everything is just a file, you tunnel traffic with a simple bind mount. Since everything is just text, small regexes suffice to route mouse clicks to UI actions. Since windows are just buffers, grepping history is grepping the window's text buffer; taking a screenshot is just cp-ing the window's draw buffer.

Oh, and 9front C diverges from the standard intentionally in some nice ways: evaluation of function args is sequenced, anonymous unions like

    struct {
      int a;
      union {
        uint i;
        int j;
      };
    }

do what you want, the libc is a lot leaner and cleaner, etc.

[0]:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7qFfPYl0t8Cq7auyblZqxA

Re: 9front "This Was Supposed to Be Fun" Released

#28

Post by nylonstrung » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 3:52 PM UTC

Arodex wrote: post #22

lproven wrote: post #10

Explanation of the codename, from the artist who did the "cover art" for an earlier version and who works on 9front: https://analognowhere.com/_/tcrxsm/

"Stairway to Anschluss" I see the 9front guys still love flirting with "nazi for laughs and giggles" esthetic...

A lot of the aesthetic and the "9" in a circle seems inspired by Death in June, who have similar Nazi-adjacent imagery, sans-serif text over reappropriate historical photos and use "6" as an icon similarly

It seems really weird and misplaced for OSS

Re: 9front "This Was Supposed to Be Fun" Released

#29

Post by BSDobelix » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC

nylonstrung wrote: post #28

Arodex wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Stairway to Anschluss" I see the 9front guys still love flirting with "nazi for laughs and giggles" esthetic...

A lot of the aesthetic and the "9" in a circle seems inspired by Death in June, who have similar Nazi-adjacent imagery, sans-serif text over reappropriate historical photos and use "6" as an icon similarly It seems really weird and misplaced for OSS

[flagged]

Re: 9front "This Was Supposed to Be Fun" Released

#30

Post by serf » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 4:05 PM UTC

nylonstrung wrote: post #28

Arodex wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Stairway to Anschluss" I see the 9front guys still love flirting with "nazi for laughs and giggles" esthetic...

A lot of the aesthetic and the "9" in a circle seems inspired by Death in June, who have similar Nazi-adjacent imagery, sans-serif text over reappropriate historical photos and use "6" as an icon similarly It seems really weird and misplaced for OSS

mentally I associate all that stuff with the punk/hardcore/post-punk thing rather than nazis anyway -- but all those groups were known for copying nazi aesthetic in a mocking tone.

pil, 7 seconds, dead kennedies, black flag, husker du, bad religion, bad brains, off, crass -- everyone in the 70s and 80s had a band logo that would've looked just fine on a red arm band.

thinking about it, kinda sucks the nazi got the branding and aesthetic permanently attributed to them , the punks have been employing it for way longer -- and I like them.