What is Plan 9?

(fqa.9front.org)

69 points | by AlexeyBrin 1 hour ago

5 comments

  • rcarmo 1 hour ago
    People wanting a Retina-capable drawterm to access Plan9/9front from their Macs are welcome to have a look at https://github.com/rcarmo/drawterm
    • tucnak 31 minutes ago
      Ooh la la
  • pjmlp 39 minutes ago
    The transition step between UNIX and Inferno, and between C and Limbo as main userspace language, by its authors.

    Which tends to be forgotten when praising Plan 9.

    • krmboya 31 minutes ago
      Is it correct to say Golang is bringing Limbo to the masses?
      • pjmlp 18 minutes ago
        Partially, Go still doesn't support a few Limbo features.

        However the influence is quite clear, plus the Oberon-2 style methods and SYSTEM package.

  • irusensei 1 hour ago
    >9front.org frequently questioned answers

    Knowing that project am I going to be rickrolled?

  • franciscator 1 hour ago
    I would love to see more Rust on Plan9 implementations, IMHO, could be a good modern combination.
    • solarexplorer 56 minutes ago
      I don't know. I use a lot of Swift and C++ and while both are OK languages there is an absurd amount of complexity in these languages that doesn't seem to serve any real purpose. Just a lot of foot traps, really. Coming back to Plan9 from that world is a breeze, the simplicity is like a therapy for me. So enjoyable.

      If "modern" means complex, I don't think it fits Plan9.

    • AlexeyBrin 1 hour ago
      AFAIK there is no Rust compiler for Plan 9 or 9front. The project is using a dialect of C and its own C compiler(s). I doubt adding Rust to the mix will help. For a research OS, C is a nice clean language and the Plan 9 dialect has a some niceties not found in standard C.

      If you really want Rust, check this https://github.com/r9os/r9 it is Plan 9 reimplemented in Rust (no idea about the project quality):

      R9 is a reimplementation of the plan9 kernel in Rust. It is not only inspired by but in many ways derived from the original Plan 9 source code.

    • exitb 53 minutes ago
      I’m fairly sure that Rust compiler is bigger than the entire 9front (and 9front has Doom in it).
  • Eikon 1 hour ago
    ZeroFS [0] is very thankful for what it brought to Linux with the v9fs [1] subsystem which is very nice to work with (network native) compared to fuse :)

    [0] https://github.com/Barre/ZeroFS

    [1] https://docs.kernel.org/filesystems/9p.html