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Open Source Release Of Bell Labs' Plan 9
Joined by dozens of other readers, johnmullin writes: "Bell Labs has made the third release of its Plan 9 computer operating system available on the World Wide Web under an open-source agreement. Anyone interested in using Plan 9 may download the system, including source code and documentation, from http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/. Check out the full story here here." Note for the lazy: An English company called Vita Nuova will also be selling "a full boxed set with CDs and manuals." Surely, systems research is not dead ...
No, they really mean "window"...
Meaning, the user's default (and personalized) view into the system, as modified by any changes the user has made to their view within the current window of the windowing system.
The effect is as if the entire filesystem, composition of compound directories, etc could be changed with the ease, transparency and *local scope* of environment variables set within an xterm in Unix...
Of course, I am nitpicking.
"Window" in this case is probably closer in equivalence to "login/run environment", than to "gui (as opposed to non-gui) interface", since there is no tty interface. What this gives you is the ability to construct restricted views, and run processes in them... a' la the webserver in the above post.
Permissions, etc remain unchanged as elements are bound and recombined into new views.
Also a note: the overview doc refers to Plan 9 as it existed in the mid-90s... the window manager, for instance, has changed since then.
keete
-
keete
I've heard all kinds of cool things about 8 1/2, but... it's no longer with us. It has been replaced (according to the docs.)
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
The License is here: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9d ist/license.html for anyone who wants to check it out
Do you know how they managed the effiency? The common logic is that efficiency is inversly proportional to abstraction. The more abstraction, the less efficiency. That's why DirectX has a very small abstraction layer, and why (partially) why Windows GDI is so slow because it is abstracted so much.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Couldn't happen too soon.
--
Maybe Inferno and Limbo are the next to go Open Source? We'll see!
I have to say that I've always thought that Limbo sounded like a much better thought out Java. Read this for some interesting points.
Face it, Java was "designed" for appliances, then, made to work for applets and now, we're to understand it's just perfect for server side programming and practically made for XML. Give me a break.
Inferno/Limbo actually looks like there really was thought and design put into them to make a good networked programming environment. I've always thought that the licensing was a hindrance to the adoption of Inferno in contrast to Java, but maybe that'll be fixed now?
We'll see... Too little, too late? I don't think so. Despite all the feverish development going on with Java, what real impact has it had? How many people really use Java in production systems today?
-Jordan Henderson
It supports only a small amount of hardware, but I found it easy to install after digging around in my box to get the right stuff. Actually it does use a windowing system that basically acts as a filesystem. All the windows and processes communicate with eachother thru files. When you start the "rio" server you actually just mounting /mnt/wsys (as well as /dev). All the control of services, such as mouse and control of applications and windows is done thru files as well. It does seem a bit slower, but I only installed it standalone which isn't recommended or intended. If I set up three boxes for the CPU service, 2 for the file services and 1 for the networking servs I'm sure it would *haul ass*. It also uses this interesting method of process communication called plumbing which is file based.
:-)
As for porting GNOME, Perl and Python, as you were saying, I think that's a step in the wrong direction. GTK+ relies on X, and though you could port X to Plan 9, why would you want to?! All the services that X provides could be easily mimiced using some file based "translators", which I'm sure would be a much more concise and transparent environment to understand, code and be productive in. I think getting a lot of the GNU software may prove difficult (as well as pointless), as Plan 9 uses a dialect of C (and some other way cool distubuted languages) which has some major differences. For instance you can't use a lot of the preprocessor directives such as #if, which I know are prolifically used in programs such as bash (and GNOME/GTK software).
Though it would be relatively straight forward to do and I'm sure it will be done, I for one don't need a "UNIX compatibility layer" over Plan 9. All it needs is a more sophisticated OE, and I think I'm at home. Time to go to the used somputer store and buy a 10 pack of old pentium 200's and a 100mbs lan.
I can tell you've never had to deal with a large cluster of PC's and UNIX workstations. Yes, NUMAs and other large shared memory SMP systems offer better memory bus bandwidth and low latency compared to clustered systems. And for an organization with a single large threaded application and money to burn this advantage might actually be worth the heavy upfront capital outlay.
Where MPI and batch clusters win is cost/performance not sheer speed and/or low latency. This is especially true for batch systems which run a single process per node and can allocate the entire data set in local RAM. Moving the data to the node over NFS takes time, but if the application is written properly the bulk of time in transforming the data will be taken up by CPU ops, not network transfers. This is how we do it in the Speech group at BBN, with a good 300+ Linux, Sun, and SGI hosts.
ugh, I need sleep -- I've just been trolled.
IMHO Every OS is better in certain task Linux -- Server for x86 family Win98 -- Games & Home use BeOS -- Multimedia?? OpenBSD -- Security - firewall etc emm... well others just try coping with the trend.. ------------- Technology is there to make our life easy not the other way around
Plan 9's position as UNIX's successor is by no means clear. Operating systems have tremendous inertia; people will use an OS if it has enough applications. Which is why Windows is so popular (surely it's not because of its elegant design and technical superiority), why its main competitors are based on UNIX, and the most successful unices are relatively unweird ones like Linux and BSD.
By the time there is sufficient dissatisfaction with the classic UNIX design to warrant a move, things will have evolved so much that the alternatives will be quite different from what exists now. Perhaps one of them will be descended from, or inspired by, Plan 9; perhaps not.
While Plan 9 is technically interesting, for most uses it doesn't offer enough advantage to warrant switching from vanilla UNIX. Its distributed architecture probably won't be of use to a hobbyist surfing the web on a PC.
Exhibit A - The GNU General Public License - is in reference to the fonts used from the gnu ghostscript package. There simply stating that those fonts are licensed differently.
Hmm... :-)
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
I'm also an ex-evolutionist.
So, you're a moron, basicaly.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
On the other hand, GPL promotes development while BSD doesn't (as much).
Really? I'm not all the way through the site yet, but I haven't seen anything about an emacs port...
(actually I'm a righteous emacs zealot cleverly disguised)
Upon a second reading, I think they meant for just the ghostscript fonts to be GPL. But it hardly matters, because the Plan 9 license is basically the GPL anyway.
nojw
Take a look at http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/l icense.html. It looks like this software is being distributed under the GPL (look down at the bottom) but with a sort of wrapper that allows Lucent to change the license in the future.
Contrary to some of the previous assertions, this software is available for commercial as well as non-commercial use. In fact, the license states that users can modify and sell the software so long as the source is included.
Sweet!
What's all too common is for people to react with:
I was reacting generally against that; while it would be nice if there are some "creature features," as well as some "past functionality," that certainly does not lead in the direction of really coming up with cool NEW stuff.
There's lots of dilemma here; a problem with an utterly different OS, like EROS, is that of having an environment capable of hosting it.
For instance, in order to use EROS, which doesn't support "files," as such, you need to take a bunch of C and C++ files and compile them. This pretty much mandates having something that "smells like UNIX" kicking around, to provide:
Any self-respecting system will be "self-hosting;" you get:
- Systems descended from mainframes;
- Systems descended from RSX-11;
- Systems descended from System 34 and Hydra;
- Systems descended from Multics;
- A few Lisp environments that are getting pretty unsupportable (well, there's Genera);
- FORTHs
And that's about it. (Heh, heh, I didn't mention Linux or Unix. They're "descended," loosely, from Multics... Guess where Windows falls in?Most of these systems have pretty much converged into general similarity, perhaps save for Lisp and FORTH, although the most recent environments getting deployed for those rest upon either POSIX or Win32.
Based on the above set of ancestors and their children, I'm actually not sure that it's not a reasonable idea to assume the presence of something looking like a POSIX subsystem that could support stuff like GNOME, Perl, and Python.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Sounds like you didn't read the papers. There is very special technology in the compilers, and the flat link was a deliberate design decision, tuned to the assumed network architecture.
>The only thing more pathetic than your >praise-baiting is the fact that it apparently >worked. Maybe slashdotters really are as dumb as >they act; they bought your line.
/. including trolls, scientists, ...
sweeping generalization - many types of
people read
engineers, programmers, students,
>Exploiting the open source community for WHAT
>precisely, fool? To help develop the system?
To spread acceptance, and make it a complete
viable system I presume.
> They don't need help with that; the system
>is already far ahead of what Linux has achieved,
> and in about a third the time.
It could be the greatest system in the world,
but if 0 people use it, it is worthless to
Lucent other than as a research vehicle.
This is a pretty good move IMO - good for Lucent,
good for OS researchers/implementors.
> Here, watch. This'll probably get moderated
> up, just because of the following:
> LINUX RULES DUDE! OPEN SOURCE FOREVER!!! DAMN
> THE MAN! PROPERTY SUCKS!!! BRING ON THE NEW
> SOCIALISM!!! BSD SUCKS!!! COMPANIES SUCK!
> METALLICA SUCKS! I LOVE LIMP BIZKIT!!!
please
> Oh, wait, nevermind. I'm not an idiot after
> all.
Well, it is possible that you are not an idiot.
It is fairly obvious you don't understand or
care about licensing issues which are extremely
important in this business.
> Ignore all that crap in caps. Apparently a
> Slashdot Moron[tm] invaded my head for a second.
Your juvenile insults are not necessary and,
in fact, refect poorly on your ability to
present a logical/real argument here.
If you have tangible substantive arguments, post
them. If you do not, that is your freedom
but I will not encourage it.
> Does it bother any of you that you could
> easily be replaced by a post bot that would just > regurgitate the same set of five or six
> arguments over and over again?
Nobody is forcing you to read them.
Umm... in Unix/Linux/*BSD/etc, is not everything a file?
Not exactly. In Plan 9, everything is a file.
For example, the contents of the current mouse selection is available from a file, whose name escapes me.
Also, the distinction between block and character devices is gone from Plan 9.
I saw a complaint about this clause on comp.os.plan9 The reply was that it wasn't for any nefarious purposes, but to keep someone from sueing over something that was given away. Much like the disclaimer on GNU stuff: If we give you this thing (for free) and it screws up your stuff, you can't take us to court...
Calmacil
I can't seem to face up to the facts, I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax... --Talking Heads
Plan9 has been around since 1988.
This is release 3, Release 2 was in 1995.
Thanx.
$ export DISPLAY=192.168.0.2
$ xterm &
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
It was named after the Ed Wood movie. From what I can tell, the similarities end there.
--
Max V.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
in some ways they're trying, yes. but this is mainly through a POSIX layer. or are you really only refering to the fact that they both have command lines which you can do things from? oh, no... you're not one of those horridly uninformed people who think DOS was "like Unix, only smaller", are you?"
No, definitely not! What I am referring to is all the new (Keyword NEW, not the old DOS 'similarities')Unix "compatibility"/"similarity" that was added into Win2K. They've added a Telnet server, and all kinds of things like that. Microsoft has recently bought an XWindows server company (I forget the name) and will be releasing an XWindows client (That'll be weird) but I don't know if it will offer the ability to connect to a Win2K session via XWindows; that would throw a brick at their Terminal Server sales. (Unless they have a bigger plan)
As far as MacOS X being Unix-based: Yes, still it is Unix based/unix-clonish. The VW vs Corvette argument fails: They are both automobiles. I'm thinking along the lines of something completely different, like comparing a Lamborghini to an FTL UFO or something - something COMPLETELY different, can it be done??
The Plan9 GUI is a strange beast. The WM is elegantly simple. A little too elegantly simple, but still simple.
The hybrid editor/kitchen sink is an odd creature, though.
--
Max V.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Me? Plea for peace? Not too often...
Sometimes, though you just have to speak with candor rather than diplomacy. I could have danced around the offense, but wouldn't have made the point as well. If one person tries to use the tools and philosophy of Unix instead of C on thier next project, I'll be happy and the world will be a better place.
There's no panacea. Not scripting, not C, but in general, it makes sense to use the highest-level tool available for a particular task, and modularizing helps mix those tools.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
I'm amazed at the amount of vitriol that little sig is generating. Kind of makes the point about evolution being a religion of its own, I guess...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
lighten up, man. Actualy, I wrote a windows program that drew a bouncing ball on the screen, in something like 23 lines of code once. Just add an icon
; c eHandle(),MAKEINTRESOURCE(10 5)));}
#include <afxwin.h>
class BallWindow : public CFrameWnd{
public:
BallWindow(){LoadFrame(128);
SetWindowPos(&wndTop,40,40,300,332,SWP_DRAWFRAME)
double hello[5] = {50,50,.2,.25};
for(int i = 0; i afx_msg void OnPaint();
double data[5];
DECLARE_MESSAGE_MAP()};
void BallWindow::OnPaint(){CClientDC dc(this);
for(int i = 0; i 260){data[i+2] -= data[i+2]*2;}
data[i] += data[i+2];}
dc.FillSolidRect(0,0,300,300,0x00a0a0a0);
dc.DrawIcon(data[0],data[1],LoadIcon(AfxGetInstan
BEGIN_MESSAGE_MAP(BallWindow, CFrameWnd)
ON_WM_PAINT()
END_MESSAGE_MAP()
class BootStrap : public CWinApp{
public:
virtual BOOL InitInstance(){m_pMainWnd = new BallWindow;
m_pMainWnd->ShowWindow(m_nCmdShow);
return TRUE;}};
BootStrap NEAR application;
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
DISCLAIMER: even though my email address says @bell-labs.com I'm not speaking for anyone other than myself here.
Having lived pretty much exclusively in Plan9 and Inferno for several years now, allow me to make the following observations:
To answer the question about the Sparc kernel: cross compilers are distributed for:
Kernel source is distributed for:
Absent from this list is the Sparc kernel.
So: there is a Sparc compiler, but no kernel. However, if you have Plan 9 2nd edition, you have a sparc kernel that could quickly be ported to the new system.
NOTE: The underlying system architecture is largely irrelevant in Plan 9. I italicized cross because there is no distinction between compiling and/or debugging something for the architecture you're running on vs. some other architecture.
When people describe one of Plan 9's features as "everything is a file", it's misleading. Especially since your typical nix weenie will come back with "But everything in my nix is a file too".
You'll get a better picture of the Plan 9 environment by thinking of a device driver as a "file server". That is, a device driver exports a hierarchical filesystem rather than a single file. The driver entry points correspond to the basic filesystem operations (rather than the basic *file* operations, as in nix). To make a horrible analogy, think of a Plan 9 device driver as implementing the vnode interface. In actual fact, it implements an interface to the "9p" protocol.
For example, here's a du(1) of the /net directory.
A few devices are bound into /net:
Also, a couple of user level file servers have posted communication channels in /net:
The point is that there comes a time when fast enough is truely fast enough. "Fast" is defined by the *apparent* response of the machine to the load placed on it. "Fast" is a human parameter, not a machine parameter.
When the machine is fast enough you can use 90% of its power to interpret, without the operator experiencing any difference in output rate. This is not at all the same thing as "only getting 5%-10% of the speed I payed for," it is using 90% of the power which is now in the realm of overhead to accomplish the work of overhead.
I don't get your point in your second paragraph at all. It seems to me that your point of view *supports* the idea of coding "on the metal."
I'd also point out that the original poster never said anything about destroying the dreams of others. Where did that come from? You have a dream, follow it. Go ahead, I don't mind, and neither does the original poster.
In any case it dosn't take any ill will for one dream to "destroy" the dreams of another. I have no reason to believe that Gottlieb Daimler meant any ill will to the Hansom cab. His dream none the less "destroyed" it. However, if the Hansom cab is your "dream" you can still build or buy, and operate one.
It certainly seems likely that the time will come when interpreted languages will "triumph" in the sense that they will accomplish all that is asked of them in the time frame desired and thus become the most used languages.
*I* may still be coding in APL, but so what?
100,000 programmer can't be wrong!
Feed The Need[goatse.cx]
Why go through the pain of writing all 100% of your code in a compiled language like C, when you could write only that speed-critical 10% in it, and write the rest in something like Python?
Python code cannot be compressed as easily as C code. In C (or any of its interpreted cousins), source code can be compressed by removing all indentation and decompressed by re-indenting with GNU indent. With Python's indentation-as-syntax, deep nesting of if-then structures, even at one space per indent, runs up a big bill in terms of space. I'm not dissing Python (I think indentation as syntax is wonderful; if then if then else anyone?), but interpreters need to understand .py.gz files.
Will I retire or break 10K?
#include <afx.h>
:P
.class file would be around 800 bytes or so
int winmain(int a, int b, char* c, int d){
MessageBox(0,"World","Hello",0);
}
thats exactly 16k compiled, without an icon.
I don't know what java stuff you'd need to do, but I'd be the
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
It's a new OS (open source) system.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The correct idiom is "Unix on Viagra."
In this forum, however, "Unix on "Penguin Mints" would also be accepted.
This is so excellent. Since Amoeba, Plan 9 and EROS are all now open source, there's no excuse not to experiment. Contrary to what Pike might have said, now is an excellent time for OS research. Since hardware is cheap too (I mean come on, an 100Mbps 8-port Ethernet switch for less than USD $200), it's a good time to be in the field, especially looking at distributed and/or parallel computing.
I'm not quite sold on the idea of "everything is a file" notion with Plan 9 (from my understanding of it) but it has a lot of cool ideas. Now if only I had room to set up a 19" rack for a small cluster...
Time to read some code!
James Graves
From the top of the release notes:
Copyright © 2000 Lucent Technologies Inc.
All Rights Reserved
THIS IS UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES INC.
The copyright notice above does not evidence any actual or
intended publication of such source code.
All Rights Reserved
Are we to interpret this as laziness on their part in not changing their standard copyright notice, or are they actually asserting that posting a link on a publicly available site which can be accessed without even a dodgy attempt at a click-through doesn't constitute publishing?
The only thing that's unusual is that one is required to provide bell labs with changes, but only at their request.
Smacks of APSL (I'd provide a link but Apple's server is down), a license RMS hates because he claims it "disrespect[s] ... privacy."
Will I retire or break 10K?
I've been wanting to play with Plan 9 ever since I read the early papers and listened to Rob Pike talk about it. Looks like now I get the chance (or should that read, no I have no excuse ;)
Anyone notice this interesting note in the release notes (which are dated yesterday)?
Copyright © 2000 Lucent Technologies Inc.
All Rights Reserved
THIS IS UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES INC.
The copyright notice above does not evidence any actual or intended publication of such source code.
All Rights Reserved
I don't know. Does this mean it's not open after all?
---
I always thought that Plan 9 was from Outer Space and not Bell Labs. Huh... learn something new every day.
I guess the GNU helped that happen with their backing of Linux. They should have backed a bsd.
Hmmm.. i guess cause bsd is not really "free software"
http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/license.html
http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/LEGAL
I can't wait to see if it's going to run under VMWare!
I played with the bootable image they made available free awhile back, but balked at paying hundreds for the manuals. Now the source--life is good!
I plan to play with this soon, but I am curious. What exactly about Plan 9 is so special? I've heard things about its GUI, or something...
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
> but i can sure as hell open(), read(), and write() to devices and ports just like any other file.
OK, but can you do everything you do to a device to any ordinary file ? In unix every file is created equal but some files are more equal than others. See ioctl(), 'nuff said.
So, I suggest people beat away on it, try to port stuff to it, run the license past their corporate lawyers, and share what they find.
Again, on the whole, I think this is very positive. But it may also turn out to be too late: Linux and similar systems also have evolved and included some really innovative stuff (e.g., ReiserFS). At least, with its general availability, Plan 9 may influence the future evolution of Linux and other open source OS'es. A lot of the functionality of Plan 9 can actually also be provided on top of a standard UNIX kernel without kernel modifications.
Incidentally, on the license front, Bell Labs still seems to have a few problems; consider this part from the release notes:
considering UNIX has been known as DOS on steroids
:)
Why? Just because both run a command-line interface as default instead of a GUI? That's like saying that insert random GNU/Linux distro is 'Windoze on steroids' because it ships with fvwm95 as the default window manager, or that Pike is 'C on steroids' because they have similar syntax. I.e., absurd and meaningless.
Sorry for the rant.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
According to the articles they provide Plan9 is supposed to be a distributed UNIX, or something.
Or something. Plan 9 is not a UNIX system. It was designed as a separate OS research project, but given the authors, it's natural that some UNIX ideas were used.
It was designed to explore the ideas of distributed computing and the proliferation of commodity hardware.
Maybe i'm missing the point but i get a feeling of "been there - done that".
Yes, but look at the dates on the system. Plan 9 has been there, and was doing that ten years ago.
For some reason, Slashdot folks seem to think Plan 9 is new software. Not so.
Lucent grants to Licensee, a royalty-free, nonexclusive, non-transferable, worldwide license to use, reproduce, modify, execute, display, perform, distribute and sublicense, the Original Software (with or without Modifications) in Source Code form and/or Object Code form for commercial and/or non-commercial purposes
I think that you are wrong. It seems to clearly state that this software is available royalty-free for anyone, profit or non-profit.
This is not flamebait, I honestly don't know.
Isn't plan9 based on a Mach kernel, compared to say a monloith kernel (like linux has)? Wasn't one of hurds goals to have a mach kernel OS system? Couldn't they use this (if the license is compatiable?)?
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Actually, I think it would be more accurate to say that DOS is like UNIX after a horrendous automobile accident - multiple amputations, brain dead, in an iron lung...
________________________
Corporate Jenga: You take a blockhead from the bottom and you put him on top...
Does it work under BOCHS?
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
---
I loved the film. First OS from outer space. Too bad Bella Lugosi died during production How soon does the Glen or Glenda OS come out?
-----
"Defenestration" is to throw out of a window; what's a word for throwing 'Windows' out of something?
Can a company that makes changes to GPLed software actually prevent their own employees from redistributing the changes? As users of the software aren't they guaranteed certain rights by the GPL? Specifically, section 6 of the terms for redistribution says...
Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. YOU MAY NOT IMPOSE ANY FURTHER RESTRICTIONS ON THE RECIPIENTS' EXCERCISE OF THE RIGHTS GRANTED HEREIN. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.
The caps are my own emphasis.
To put it another way... Is distribution within an organization somehow exempt from this clause in the GPL? Could my boss ask me to sign an NDA over changes I make to GPLed software that we only use in-house?
Darian
~O~
Am I correct in understanding that Plan 9 is designed to use central servers (esp. file)? This seems rather antiquated when it can be assumed that all the workstations have hard disks.
I know Beowulf clusters are usually used for dedicated supercomputing, but don't they and Plan 9 come from similar philosophies?
Finally, the Introduction says "a remote 8½ application sees the mouse, bitblt, and consfiles for the window as usual in /dev; it does not know whether the files are local." To me this implies that if OpenGL were to be ported I could run Quake using my local workstation's video card but all the available computing power of the entire network.
VMware PANIC: NOT_IMPLEMENTED F(562):1654
So much for running this thing in a sandbox....
---
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
> Seriously, wouldn't food get just about permanently stuck in that beard?
It does. I've dined with him, and he does get a tidbit stuck in there now and then. Food for later when on a hacking (or more likely documenting) run. However, his hair-combing habits at the table are much more disturbing. Particularly when pulls at his hair over a plate full of food.
Okay, this is semi-on-topic (as we are discussing alternate OSes as hobby, an this relates).
I've got a nice rack set up in my office - I've rackmounted my video and sterio equipment, along with a small TV, and it looks great. Then I have two computers sitting on a rack shelf. In regular cases. Yuck.
Has anybody seen hobby-level rackmount cases? I.E., cheap, decent, but not industrial class? I've got four systems that I use, and I'd love to rack them all, but at around $400 average (I've seen as low as $250), it's just too expensive for hobby.
Incidently, it's not just for looks - rackmounts have easier cable handling, make better use of space (I can fit four systems in the space of two), and have better ventilation on the 19" rack.
In case you're wondering, I spent $125 on the rack, and about $100 on shelves, stand alone foot, and such. I also bought some furnature grade plywood, trim and stain, and slapped an enclosure around it (velcroed on :) The velcro works great - rip it off and on for access to the side, and it meets up flush against my wall, looking nice.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Are you sure this isn't "Cloud 9" That would make this the best! Would it not? I could use something to put me on cloud nine while using my 3133+ box.
huh?
At least they're not asking for the copyright. And since most people here probably happily share their sourcecode, that shouldn't be much of a problem.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
The only thing that actually switches in this device is the two port 10/100 switch (really, it's more of a bridge) These devices suck so bad, I'd rather get a 100Mbps HUB
I bet it's only a matter of time till we get an open letter from Richie Stallman telling us why Plan 9 isn't really Open Source. Not a flame, just an insight.
Seriously, wouldn't food get just about permanently stuck in that beard?
Earn cash in your spare time! Blackmail your friends!
While I haven't read the license in great detail yet, I see nothing in it about "recreational" (or "racreational") use. On the contrary, under the "Grant of Rights" section, part of section 2.1 reads:Now, I'm no lawyer, but "for commercial and/or non-commercial purposes" sounds a whole lot different from "recreational use only"...
However... I do notice that the word "perpetual" only exists in the "Modifications" section, and not under "Grant of Rights". Is this an oversight, or should we be alarmed? Is Lucent contemplating revoking the license if they don't like what you do with the code?
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
IMHO, just about *any* movie is better than Plan 9. Never watched Linux, though. Can't find it on IMDB, either.
Who Wants To Date A Norwegian?
I read thorugh through the license. It has very few restrictions, and no revocation clause. The only thing that's unusual is that one is required to provide bell labs with changes, but only at their request.
Plan9 is the successor to UNIX. It uses a different paradigm, as far as processes and user spaces go, so now that it's available to everyone it should have a positive effect on the rest of the os community.
This is not as innocent as they sound in the press release or on their Plan 9 site. You would propably get a better deal working through a third party such as Vita Nuova or one of the others who will more than likely have press releases out tomorrow. If nothing else, you can download the binaries, but to really use them with the horsepower expected, you'll need the tools. These are not GPL'd and without them, you may as well be running generic Linux from LinuxOne.
To be honest, I'm really not sure, however I do know the fine print is not your standard GPL wording, this had me wondering about the future of the program well before I left.
They're too busy flogging another dead horse.
But I can't find it in the distribution and even the papers or other references seem to have disappeared from the Plan 9 site. (You can still get a copy of the reference manual in Google's cache by searching for "alef language"; it's the first hit).
That's a shame, because Plan 9 otherwise seems pretty poor when it comes to anything higher level than C.
I certainly hope that the window system is not a "real graphical environment". We don't need widgets built into the system, it is easy (trivial, really) to build them atop the system. Or do you also think that file systems would be better if there were different calls to read image files than to read text files (there were systems that worked this way once upon a time, too).
Cutting and pasting anything is not the graphics system's responsibility. Even X does too much of this. I think in Plan9 cut/paste would be done by reading and writing files, and of course *ANY* data can be put through the file.
With the long appeals process coming up, the last thing we need is another operating system Microsoft can claim as competition in the marketplace.
.oO0Oo.
sorry bud, can't see the word new in there anywhere
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
hmm, I would say that the employees are not the recipients, they are the users. If my company lends me a car I am not the owner. but your point is an interesting one. What consititutes distribution? What if I form some sort of association and "lend" them gpl'd code. Is that a release to the public?
.oO0Oo.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
The legal mumbo-jumbo thats sets it apart from the GNU Public License is the bit that says that none of the software included (except for the UW Postscript fonts) is covered by the GPL.
IANAL, and CSINL (common sense is not law), but this license seems very different from the GPL in intent. The GPL attempts to give both the copyright holder and the licensee a great deal of rights to software. For example, the GPL doesn't prevent the copyright holder from distributing the GPL'd software under any other license -- If I write and distribute GNU Plan 2000A under the GPL, I'm allowed to distribute Plan 2000B under any other license I may choose. However, the GPL tries very hard to make certain I can't take away the rights of anyone that has the GPL'd GNU Plan 2000A -- once someone has GNU Plan 2000A, I can't retroactively change their license to the Plan 2000B license, even if its exactly the same software. Once someone has GPL'd software, they enjoy a great deal of rights to that software, and those rights are intended to be both transferable and non-removable.
The Plan 9 license doesn't provide any of the rights to the user that the GPL does. The Plan 9 license is explicitely both non-transferable and removable. The license says that Lucent owns this software. We may look at the source, and change it, and distribute it, but Lucent has absolute rights (including patent rights!!!) to any changes anyone makes to the software (whether those changes are distributed or not), and the absolute right to remove your rights at any time. If Lucent doesn't like what you're doing with plan 9, they can make you stop. If you make a cool addition to plan 9, they can sell it, and make you stop using it. They own anything you do with the software.
This is an open source license, in the sense that we can see the source. This is a free license, in the free beer sense. This is not free software, in the GNU sense.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
This has already been moderated as flamebait, but I'm up for a small flame anyhow. Yes, the BSD license is "more free". It's failing, however, is in the fact that it does not _promote_ freedom. It does not guarantee that a piece of software will remain free. I don't like the idea that someone could take the code upon which I've spent a lot of time and effort, and make a proprietary system out of it. If you want to argue "more free", the I'll argue that software in the public domain is a hundred times more free than the BSD license. That doesn't sway me to put my code in public domain.
Just wanted to get that straight!
J.
- The fonts included with Plan 9 (not the ghostscript ones) are not open source. You may not redistribute them, except with Plan 9.
- Plan 9 and derived works require a small copyright notice a'la the old BSD license.
- Plan 9's license specifically allows a commercial distributor to make additional warranties as long as those warranties are held only to the commercial distributor.
- Lucent may request that you provide them with any changes that you make to their software, regardless of whether or not you are distributing said changes, and incorporate those changes with Plan 9, a'la the QPL.
Aside from that, it looks an aweful lot like the GPL. Yes, there is a clause that states that Lucent may change the license at their discretion at any time, but that this change will only affect versions of their software downloaded after said change has been published.Is there any real reason why Plan9 is better than modern Unices TODAY?
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
-legolas
i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...
Where have y'all been? Plan 9 has been available for download for ages.
The 5-floppy install set is pretty much all you needed for a working system that you could play with. The extra money for the CD version got you source and extra doco.
-- veni vidi nuclei deceri --- I came, I saw, I dumped core.
awk, grep, cron, vi, biff (nice naming a command after your dog), etc...
I think the name is a clear copyright violation of the movie "Plan 9 from Outer Space" by Ed Wood! To allow them to release it would be harmful to horrible movies everywhere!
Linux is a Unix clone
Mac OS X is a Unix clone
Windows 2000 is even trying to be Unix-ish. (But a pathetic imitation)
Amiga is now a Unix clone
Is BeOS a Unix clone? (I haven't played with it)
I'm getting bored. Gimme something else...
... in other words, if you sue someone who has contributed to Plan 9, you lose your right to use Plan 9! That's beautiful! Rob Pike, Doug Blewett, Stu Feldman, Chris Fraser, Brian Kernighan, Dennis Ritchie, and Phil Winterbottom are programming gods!
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
>>I'm not quite sold on the idea of "everything is a file" notion with Plan 9
>Hmm.. Isn't that the way unix handles things as well?
no, not really. In unix ethernet cards aren't files, tcp/ip connections aren't files and windows aren't files.
/Erik
Erik Dalén
Plan 9 is different than the usual Unix ways of doing these, and in some respects, better. One of the cool things about Plan9 (and its follow-on Inferno, which I've been looking at lately) is that pretty much *everything* is network extensible and *completely* location transparent, and this is all built in and does not rely on bolt-ons like AFS directory services, etc. (Imagine being able to relocate any service, part, or function of the OS as easily and effectively as you redirect an X display and you'll start to get the idea... And on top of that, they actually managed to make it quite small and efficient!)
Yes, you *can* make Unix jump through those hoops, but in many ways it's just pretending. Plan 9 was arguably the first really serious attempt to write a true network-centric OS that recognized the power and potential of networked computing. I'm not sure if Plan 9 is the same as Inferno in this regard, but one of the things that's impressing me about Inferno is that to a much greater degree than Unix, *everything* is a file. This makes it possible to write scripts that have incredible power, for instance, to open a TCP connection, you just write a connect command with the proper parameters to the TCP device file, so pretty much everything can now be done from the command line. This is a higher level of functional abstraction that makes scripting much more powerful, allowing those of us that love the power and leverage of Unix' superior text processing and scripting tools to really shine. In this respect, although it's clearly post-Unix, it's actually truer to the "Unix philosophy" than Unix itself! (Not to start a flame war, but I've always believed that unless you're writing bit-banging code like device drivers, resorting to C reflects a substantial lack of imagination and knowledge of Unix on the part of the programmer.)
I think we all recognize that assuming from the get-go that the network is an ever-present and reliable service would lead to an operating environment very different in some important respects from what we have today. Plan 9 and Inferno are the result of one approach to taking that assumption to its logical conclusion.
You really need to read up on it yourself to appreciate it, but don't think that Plan 9 is either "just another Unix clone", "something bolted onto Unix", or "just the same old thing." It really is a different spin on the role of the network from the OS point of view. Although there may be better obscure examples, Plan 9/Inferno is the most network-aware, network-integrated OS I know of. Check it out - I'm going to!
P.S.: One of the interesting side-effects of this philosophy is it's impact on the prevalence and power of interpreted languages in general. Now that Open Source is here to stay, and Moore's law is outrunning the hardware nedds of most of us, do we really even need compiled languages anymore? (The classical reasons are speed and secrecy of source for comercial reasons - those are now both becoming increasingly irrelevant. I personally believe interpreted languages will triumph in the end, as I have believed since 1985. We're not there yet, but we're getting much closer...)
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
plan 9 was made long before linux so it's hardly another new OS!
/Erik
Erik Dalén
Lucent bases several workgroup networks around it.
It is not an OS-hacker system.
What you fail to recognize is that for all practical purposes the contemporary BSD License *is* a public domain license, with the exception of the two clauses which indemnify the author(s) and prohibit removal of the indemnification.
Each window is created in a separate name space. Adjustments made to the name space in a window do not affect other windows or programs, making it safe to experiment with local modifications to the name space, for example to substitute files from the dump file system when debugging.
I'm assuming that they really mean "process" when they say "window" here (and I could be wrong), but the things one could conceivably do with a complete and separate namespace per process make chroot look like kid toys.
If everything including the TCP stack is accessed as a file, and every process can have it's own namespace, then you could have a webserver that only sees the part of the filesystem (as in actual documents) that it needs to serve, and only sees the part of the network stack it needs to talk to..
The support for clustering also appears to be quite impressive. Check out the "import" and "cpu" commands..
Looks like something I'm going to have to check out. My main questions mostly have to do with what the security and access control mechanisms look like for exported resources. I don't want Joe X. Random importing my ethernet interface and then hopping out through that to wreak havoc on the world..
Another issue is that all tty/user input tasks seem to be under the control of the windowing system. I kind of like booting in textmode.. Plus, if all that stuff is handled by the windowing system, is the OS even capable of handling, say, a telnet daemon? Hate to sound stupid, but ya gotta wonder..
Oh well. I guess I'll cease my uninformed musing..
Interpreted languages are _justly_ becoming more prevalent. But the higher you go, the less flexibility you have. The same data structures or mechanisms may not be available. This is one cause of the bloat we see in much software nowadays, and is a down-side of what is, otherwise, a positive trend.
The thing that excites me most about the release of Plan9 is the inclusion of Ken Thompson's C compiler suites. Although GCC has served well, it's gotten pretty crufty over the years. I'm hoping that this release from the master might someday provide alternative compilers for the open source community.
Does anyone have a definitive list of machines that Plan9 will run on? The web site mentions compilers for x86, 68020, Sparc etc. I assume that getting it to work on a non x86 machine involves setting up a PC and cross-compiling it.
'more Unix then Unix'
'everything is a file -- more then Unix'
'network resources can be handled with pipes much more easily'
'a research OS'
'no sane person would use it as the basis of a network'
'has a licence that is like the BSD/GPL/... except in some minor respects'(!?!?!?)
...it struck me. Wouldn't this be an ideal shell environment? If a quick patch to the underlying network is needed, the tools that could be created on this would make it ideal.
Tell me I'm crazy...but it seems like an obvious use of this source, even if it has a good but not ideal licence.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Okay, so it's not /dev/eth*, but....
/dev/el* /dev/le -> ../devices/pseudo/clone@0:le /devices/pseudo/fore_mpoa\@0\:el /devices/pseudo/fore_mpoa@0:el /devices/pseudo/fore_mpoa\@0\:el
/dev/tok0 /dev/tok0 /dev/tok0
/dev/{network card} character device.
ericssparc:/#ls -l
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 28 Mar 8 1999
ericssparc:/# ls -l
crw-rw-rw- 1 root sys 96, 1 Apr 2 1999
ericssparc:/# file
/devices/pseudo/fore_mpoa@0:el: character special (96/1)
ericssparc:/# uname -a
SunOS ericssparc 5.7 Generic sun4m sparc SUNW,SPARCstation-10
erics5#ls -l
crw-rw-rwT 1 root system 21, 0 Feb 13 01:06
erics5#file
/dev/tok0: character special (21/0)
erics5#uname -a
AIX erics5 2 3 000065003500
What holds true for linux does not nessicarily hold true for all unix, and indeed, I believe most unix _do_ have a
Check again... there's a GNU Public License at the bottom. As far as I can tell it's nearly identical. There's probably some legal mumbo-jumbo that sets it apart.
FUD ALERT!
Section 2b (page 147) also includes an 'setup' section which indicates that V7 binaries fit on a 2.5MB partition and the sources fit onto a 9MB partition. (!). Ah, for the good old days. (cough, cough)
The 'bc' manual also indicates that it could multiply two 500 digit numbers in about 10 seconds. As a quick benchmark, this places a PDP/11 at about 1/2000 the speed of a P3-450 (~0.25 BogoMIPS). Ah, for the good old days. (cough, cough)
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Is there any real reason why Plan9 is better than modern Unices TODAY?
No. Plan 9 is a really cool system, but it's not the kind of thing you're going to use as your desktop OS. It's stripped down and raw, and is lacking a lot of the functionality we now take for granted. (web browser, etc...)
Plan 9 is very much like V7 UNIX plus some modern tech, and is pretty much an OS-hacker system. It's cool for a research toy, and exploring something different, but no sane person is going to base their network around it.
Consider it a different snapshot of Bell Labs OS work.
With the long appeals process coming up, the last thing we need is another operating system Microsoft can claim as competition in the marketplace.
-Joe
Unfortunately, I'm not sure it's as simple as some people going out and installing Plan 9, and seeing about porting Perl and Python and GNOME over.
To the contrary, actually developing new things means taking these systems, perhaps trying them out to see what insights fall out of them, and then developing further systems.
I guess I'd argue that the result of the availability of these systems is that of improved system diversity, and not necessarily the creation of new abstractions.
As for the "everything a file" notion, I suspect that if it had taken off in the early '80s, we might have a windowing system now that could be manipulated as a filesystem. Possibly a mite slower than X, but doubtless rather powerful, and easier to customize...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Good question. At a glance, it looks like it just means you can't bootstrap yourself from a SPARC unless you have the previous kernel: i.e.: that you'd have to build the SPARC kernel elsewhere first unless you have the old one. One wonders why they'd do this though...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
For those that didn't know it there's been an open-source (GPL) OS with the same differences to UNIX as plan9 for years called VSTa(http://www.vsta.org).
It was started because plan9 was closed source so I'm not sure what the future of that project will be though. Either it will benefit greatly or it will just die. It has some really nice features that plan 9 doesn't have though.
/Erik
Erik Dalén
OK, OK, so it's late...
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Well, the folks at Bell Labs have a fair bit of experience writing C compilers ;-)
It seems like a nice OS that was designed primarily for communication and multiple processors. I previoulsy hadn't heard of it. Some of the papers refer to it as a sort of clean unix, being built from the ground up in one nice piece instead of adding features as the years go by as in the current model.
...and I'm not sure we should trust this Kyle Sagan either.
I submitted this story, too, but I figured I wasn't first. I was hoping, however, that the person who posted the story would note that the source is available under the GPL.
I was curious about the "open source" license used. Reading the license, I was very pleased to find that it was very much like the GPL. Then I got to "Exhibit A", which was the GPL itself.
Yes, I favor the GPL over the BSD license. Insert mandatory license flame war here : )
sure, several. the elegance of the system makes using it or developing on it simply beautiful. the windowing system, rio, makes writing graphical apps easy (especially compared to X or MS), the built-in support for Unicode on every level is really nice, and (speaking as a systems admin) the dump file system has saved me more time (and saved my ass more times) than i can count. not to mention all the "incremental" improvements they've got over comparable Unix tools: mk vs. make, rc vs. *sh*, etc. management of networked systems is far easier than anything i've seen or worked with (other than a bunch of Unix servers with XTs hanging off, and Plan 9's alot more powerful than that). it's fast and small.
try it. you'll like it.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
Moderate this down...he's trolling :)
Does anybody have any screenshots, or extra information about this operating system before I go ahead and format a partition to start playing with it?
no, it means no such thing. it's an old message, from the old AT&T unix days. see /etc/rc? on any (i think) commercial unix. lots of other places, too.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
no, that's not the editor... not in Plan 9, anyway. my favorite man page in the distrobution's got to be the man page for Emacs. the whole manual's at:
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/man
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
I've heard enough about Plan 9 to be very interested, and have contemplated finding an old box somewhere to install it on, but this worries me. What is "Spin", and why would I find it necessary or at least useful? What other Fun Things would be missing from the distribution?
dude,
he said SWITCH
but, true, i just bought a 8 port switch the other day for $129
A program can export a file hierarchy, which it read and writes, forming a file server, or "procedural file system". Say
/myserver/control
/myserver/data
What if I want to modify the program? I can write another file server, which exports a similar, but different hierarchy. This program reads strings written to "control", copies them to debug, and then reroutes them to the original program.
/myserver/control
/myserver/debug
Now I mount the original hierarchy to a process name space. Then I mount the latter hierarchy on top of it, like in a stack. The result is:
/myserver/control
/myserver/debug
/myserver/data
The "data" file shows transparently through from the original hierarchy!
What is this? It is inheritance! Objects! But the objects can inherit from each other, even if they are written in different languages, I don't have access to their implementation and they are mounted while running on different machines and stacked dynamically at run time!!!!!!!!!
Anssi Porttikivi / app@iki.fi
what are the chances of getting C++ (egcs maybe), or better still something like CC++ to compile under Plan 9. And would it work well, or just be a dog?
Might one be better off with a C++ to C translator running on top of the Plan 9 C compiler?
amphibiously affectionate
treefrog
I have not yet read the licence, but I had impression thet it's not GPL compatible.
But looks really like one of those proprietary open source licences.
And sure: Truly the Best of Times...
Sure Plan9 may be a nifty operating system for UNIX nerds, but what about speed? It seems that all programs communicate through a protocol, and that the interface to the system is hideously abstracted. Has anybody played with this system and tested its speed in relation to other OSs? ALso, this distributed computing thing sounds cool, but again, does the architecture translate into a tangible speed increase over systems like QNX?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
signed,
Big Ed Wood & Lugosi Fan
/ k.d / earth trickle / Monkeys vs. Robots Films /
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
The license resembles the GPL in many ways, but contains some disturbing text.
``You agree to provide the Original Contributor [Lucent], at its request, with a copy of the complete Source Code version, Object Code version and related documentation for Modifications created or contributed to by You if used for any purpose.''
This requirement is puzzling. Note that the GNU license does not require anything like this; you must reveal your source to everyone only if you redistribute, not if you merely use the software for any purpose. You can, for instance, make ``in house'' changes to GNU software.
What does this really mean? What does ``if used for any purpose'' mean? Used by whom?
I read through the license. I see only one significant difference between it and the GPL: under the GPL, you can create internal versions that you do not distribute. Under the license Lucent is offering, you must provide modifications to Lucent if they ask for them. No mention is made of whether the modifications are distributed, as far as I can see.
Other than that, it looks like it provides almost exactly the same thing as the GPL, except that it's written from the point of view of "here is this massive software package, which you might want to make small changes to", rather than "here's a bunch of code, which you might want to incorporate into your stuff" that the GPL suggests.
--Kevin
There is a reason why the GPL is put in as an exhibit. The Lucent license itself says that EXHIBIT A applies to some fonts. It does not apply to Plan 9 itself.
no, not really. In unix ethernet cards aren't files, tcp/ip connections aren't files and windows aren't files.
/dev/eth0, /proc/net/tcp, and .. what's a window? ok, maybe windows aren't files, but i can sure as hell open(), read(), and write() to devices and ports just like any other file.
so
--
blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
You know something funny. My SPARC machine's hostname is dublin.
I'm also an ex-evolutionist.
Small world eh?
I was curious so I ran a Netcraft "What's that site running?" check on plan9.bell-labs.com. Looks like it's being hosted by Plan 9 (of course.)
A testament to this neat little operating system's ability is that it is taking the Slashdotting in full stride. I'll definately want to play around with this system.
zsazsa
aha. well, if you believe the world bank, anything that preserves and enhances property rights helps the poor more than rules that don't (where they find government tolerating inflation and government spending / redistribution are the two actions that most harm the poor).
k ray.htm
:-) :-)
So something that is not quite GPL and not really open is better for society, especially the poor. Hurray for Rob and folks for showing us a better way. And so much for bits crying to be free (to make a better world).
see: http://www.worldbank.org/research/growth/absddola
Ari
The license appears to be a modified BSD-type license. The system design is fantstic. If we all used Plan 9, we could stop fooling around with PVM, Mosix, etc. and have Real Distributed Computing. It's windowing system, ½, is only a 90k binary on the 68020 processor. Much less bloat than X! And there's NO MOTIF on Plan 9! An added bonus! (rimshot)
/* clear */
/* initialize graphics library */ /* initialize event library */
/* wait for release of button */
From http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/do c/8½/8½.html
Here is a complete program that runs under 8½. It prints the string "hello world" wherever the left mouse button is depressed, and exits when the right mouse button is depressed. It also prints the string in the center of its window, and maintains that string when the window is resized.
#include
#include
#include
void
ereshaped(Rectangle r)
{
Point p;
screen.r = r;
bitblt(&screen, screen.r.min, &screen, r, Zero);
p.x = screen.r.min.x + Dx(screen.r)/2;
p.y = screen.r.min.y + Dy(screen.r)/2;
p = sub(p, div(strsize(font, "hello world"), 2));
string(&screen, p, font, "hello world", S);
}
main(void)
{
Mouse m;
binit(0, 0, 0);
einit(Emouse);
ereshaped(screen.r);
for(;;){
m = emouse();
if(m.buttons & RIGHTB)
break;
if(m.buttons & LEFTB){
string(&screen, m.xy, font, "hello world", S);
do; while(emouse().buttons & LEFTB);
}
}
}
The complete loaded binary is a little over 26K bytes on a 68020.
The only thing X can do in 26 bytes is dump core.
A web application server built using Plan 9 should be uber-scalable! Too much load? Add more CPU servers. Need more file storage? Add more file servers. I'm ordering a CD!
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Well, the folks at Bell Labs have a fair bit of experience writing C compilers ;-)
Unless they've done major work on it (which I doubt), they didn't really use that knowledge.
The last Plan 9 release was almost apologetic about the C compiler. It worked, but wasn't very advanced, i.e. it would lay out the entire program in flat memory while linking, etc.. A classic case of "good enough".
Alef (their threaded C-like language) was the cool development toy in Plan 9, but it's been dropped from this release.
I bet it's only a matter of time till we get an open letter from Richie Stallman telling us why Plan 9 isn't really Open Source.
The picture I have in my mind is:
RMS (for the 100000th time): Why do people keep asking me about the Open Source movement? I'm a member of the Free Software movement! Aaaaagh! (RMS promptly bursts into flames)
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
(Not to start a flame war, but I've always believed that unless you're writing bit-banging code like device drivers, resorting to C reflects a substantial lack of imagination and knowledge of Unix on the part of the programmer.)
rofl....dude, I agree. But that has got to be the most violent plea for peace I've ever read. My hat is off to you.
-- "It was as if the paint factories had decided to deal direct with the art galleries." - Thursday Next
Yeah, but can you create new net connections by writing to /proc/net/tcp?
Don't be so defensive about UNIX, it doesn't have every good idea...
Just ask the guys who wrote it...
What a news day:
Break-up MS
Value Added Linux & Andover stock lockout is ending -- article in San Francisco Chronicle
Plan 9
Some of Plan9's distributed computing stuff is cool, but it is not entirely new. Back around 1993, there was an OS called Chorus made by some french company. Chorus had a nifty distributed system where each machine (or "site" in chorus lingo) would run the microkernel (or "nucleus") Then, different machines would run the different servers needed. The kernel would either dispatch threads to these sites, or call the services of the servers one those sites. This seems to provide about the same features as Plan9, but seems less resource intensive than the huge levels of abstraction Plan9 has.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Sounds interesting, and if Plan 9 is focusing on systems design, maybe this will be more efficient even on old boxes than Linux is now. But are there any apps out for this yet? It would be nice to compare something running on this to Linux or Windows, just to see if there are any advantages in the underlying design. I switched from Windows to Linux because of increased stability and speed, so maybe I'll have to try this out if it's better in those departments. I only know a little C and Fortran right now though, so I won't be able to use this much unless it at least has decent compilers.
100Mbps 8-port Ethernet hub = $74, not $200 www.pricewatch.com
Ansible was talking about an 8-port 100mbit switch, not a hub. A hub and a switch are not the same device. A good switch can sustain a full-duplex 100mbit switched connection between every pair of ports. A hub will give you a total of 100mbit shared between all of the ports. Hubs are rarely full-duplex.
You can get a D-Link 100Mbps 8-port switch for $80.95 from buy.com...
The article gives a summary of Plan 9's features. It seems that is has better networking and sharing of resources and graphics support. It really sounds like UNIX on steroids (that is a weird analogy to make, considering UNIX has been known as DOS on steroids).
But quite frankly, I am speaking out of my ass. I'll look more into the OS sometime later. I have never used it.
So, does anyone who knows about Plan 9 want to give us a link to a comparision between it and GNU/Linux? Or write a brief comparison themselves? *sheepish smile*
Thanks.
The list of architectures has changed; more compilers are included and the list of kernels has changed. There is solid support for Intel x86 multiprocessors. Also, although the sources are available for other architectures, the binaries and libraries are built only for the Intel x86 architectures. Kernel source is available for x86, Mips, DEC Alpha, and Power PC architectures. Compilers also exist for AMD 29000, Motorola MC68000 and MC68020, Intel i960, and SPARC. (Unlike the the last release, no SPARC kernel exists for the current system.) The compilers and related tools have been made easier to port to Unix and Windows.
Does this mean I can compile it on my sparc but would need a previously released Plan 9 kernel?
Ansible was talking about an 8-port 100mbit switch, not a hub.
I'm being truly pedantic here, but technically, a hub, a switch, and a repeater are all different things.
Hub is simply a generic term for anything that forms the center of a star topology cabling system. Key phone systems have hubs. Electrical equipment often has hubs. TP Ethernet has hubs.
Repeaters do just that: Repeat an Ethernet transmission (frame) on other ports. Repeaters operate at the electrical level; they don't have any intelligence. Originally used simply to work around cable length limits, multi-port repeaters are required for TP.
Switch is a term for a multi-port bridge. A bridge is a small computer with at least two network interfaces. It receives Ethernet frames, figures out which interface the destination is on, and sends it appropriately (or not at all, if the destination and source interface are the same). If the bridge doesn't know which interface the destination is on, it sends the frame out on all of them (except the source interface).
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I've seen UNIX do huge networks with a common filesystem (AFS), common password storage, etc. Using something like SUN-rays one doesn't even require a terminal, just a graphics card, a monitor and a network-card. (Makes thin clients look awfully chubby)
Maybe i'm missing the point but i get a feeling of "been there - done that".
Could someone "in the know" enlighten me, I must be missing something...
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
You can get a D-Link 100Mbps 8-port switch for $80.95 from buy.com...
The DSH-8 is a repeater hub, not a switch. While it gets you full duplex and overcomes some of the collision problems inherant in hubs, it doesn't allow more than one pair of ports to talk at full 100mbit speeds.
VMware PANIC:
NOT_IMPLEMENTED F(562):1654
on VMware under Linux. Time to make a partition!
The current release of Plan 9 will must soon have Inferno available as an optional subsystem, because that is such and obvious application. The existing Inferno version for old Plan 9 was not mentioned, because it seems to be in need of a little tuning to reduce some now redundant functionality in the new Plan 9 environment.
See also:
The design of the Inferno virtual machine
Phil Winterbottom and Rob Pike
http://www.cs.bell-labs.com /cm/cs/who/rob/hotchips.html
And I note, that Plan 9/ Inferno has a security model, which is a millennium more advanced than that of Java.
Ceterum censeo: XML is a hoax. Luckily, Plan 9 has no use of it whatsover.
Anssi Porttikivi / app@iki.fi
Efficiency has been a major design criteria. In theory, most of Plan 9 is very opimized.
In practice, it is faster than anything else, because it is small, flexible and simple, thus easier to optimize for the task at hand.
Anssi Porttikivi / app@iki.fi
If we're going to go that route, why don't we use the now-ultra-cheap 80486 series along with hand-coded assembly language programs and have $30 computers?
As with all such monomaniacal fantasies...
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
I detect some bitterness in your post...
What this means in laymans terms is that if you use Plan 9 ib any sort of business environment, including not for profit corporations, expect to pay bigtime for the honor.
What's so bad about that. They spent the money to develop it and now they are letting people play with it and see the source. Of course they aren't just going to give it away to everybody for anything.
"If you are falling, dive." -Joseph Campbell
Since the project has not taken off as much as it could have, many people have suggested that it be made "open" to further its development. Hopefully, the positive responses from the decision to release Plan 9 as Open Source will convince the guys at Bell Labs that releasing Inferno as well would be a good idea.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Well, Eros is interface independant, and works form the assumption that "Everything is a Data Structure", and the GNU/HURD is Bizzare and Uber Flexible.
Command Line != UNIX-like
And besides, if you make the assumption that small programs are easier to debug, and that access modes should be uniform, then you tend to converge to something UNIX like as your basic system. Now, if memory or networking become cheap, things change a bit, but the bits that dont change will STAY unix like, because it WORKS, and it is near optimal.
-- Crutcher --
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
Anyone see the movie Plan 9 from Outer Space, directed by Ed Wood (yes, of the movie of the same name)?
:) [/sarcasm]
It's a black-and-white B movie from 1958 (link): it's also supposed to be the worst movie in all existence. For example, during one scene they have a spaceship that's obviously two paper plates glued together, and you can see the fishing line, and there'a a shower curtain in the background!
AND, DURING THE WHOLE THING, THEY TRY TO BE SERIOUS!
[sarcasm]Obviously, there has to be a connection between this Plan 9 and the movie.
Oh, those silly Bell Labs people!
-- BlueCalx | http://nickd.org/
What this means in laymans terms is that if you use Plan 9 ib any sort of business environment, including not for profit corporations, expect to pay bigtime for the honor. Please make checks payable to Lucent. The system wasn't even designed for "recreational use" with it's single protocol to refer to and communicate with processes, programs, and data, including aspects of both the user interface and the network. In this way the system provides a uniform means of access to diverse computing resources, which may be distributed across a network of servers, terminals, and other devices. IMO, this is true and blue developed solely for exploiting the Open Source community and they current open source hype that the press is giving companies that support it. This isn't BSD, and this isn't the next great thing. This is a stripped down *nix environment where you will need to go back to BL and Lucent time after time. Not a great move for BL.
I was unable to find a copy of the license on Bell's Site, anyone know where one is or have a copy handy to share?