Plan 9 from Bell Labs (What's the Deal?)

This is a useless video of the second and third times I ever booted into Plan 9 using QEMU. You can tell by the way I move my cursor after I've booted in that I'm completely baffled. I definitely need to learn more about it.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• qemu
• plan
• mum
• we
• have
• map
• of
• the
• piano
• os
• operating
• system
• unix
• computing
• bell
• labs

[355over113]

Just changed the tags to reflect that the music here is Mum, and not Boards of Canada like I'd mistakenly labeled it a few years ago. That kind of thing bugs me, so I fixed it.

[Xabraxas]

10 years of development? Get ready to be disappointed then because Plan 9 has been around for over 20 years. The video doesn't really showcase what Plan 9 is really about (it isn't about the GUI). Plan 9 takes the UNIX philosophy of "everything is a file" to the extreme and allows you to have direct access to any part of another machine on the network as if it was a local resource. Pretty cool stuff.

[LTS1287]

From what I hear, Plan9 and Inferno are pushing the limit of what an OS actually is. Everything is a file. Example: you could have two computers connected and computer A would be able to use Computer B's soundcard.

[GRNoam]

what is song?

[bluesrunthegame]

It's 'We Have a Map of the Piano' by Mum.

[WretchedWinston]

My favorite part is the "everything is a file" idea. This very much a badass idea. we see this idea implemented pretty often today...

[stayelusive]

"Boards of Canada Circle"

lmao so wrong.

[bootiack]

it seems easier for me to use archlinux with iceWM right now

plus how develop software for plan9?

limbo?

I dont know that!!

the pegasus webserver seems k00l

the interface drawterm kicked my ass

and had no idea howto get web browser going either

it did install easily

[jckchrstphr]

It's either evolve the browser, desktop or web. And the focus now is on the web. But I don't see the other two as impossible; it could happen a few ways:

1. Kludge FireFox into something OS-like.

2. Make Linux more Plan 9-like, or vice versa, like Glendix

3. Evolve the web (apps) to work together like an OS.

I don't know which one I favor; or which is likeliest. But computing is too centralized. And decentralizing it (computing/web) goes back to Doug Engelbart at least. We need to solve it.

[orangetide]

perhaps, but consumer desktop environments are not that exciting or innovative in my experience. Be it the the browser is the OS model (how many times have I heard that one, shesh). It's the computers that provide the foundation for science, industry and technology that are interesting (to me), and the hundreds of tiny OSes found in every home that excite me.

The reason I say it is not interesting is that browsers are no longer technology, they are a commodity.

[jckchrstphr]

The criticism is helpful but looses sight of the point; you're right. But it's not surprising that Plan 9 isn't mainstream.

Engineers, scientists and mathematicians show new stuff to colleagues first. Their colleagues are usually the only people who can understand it at /all/. But it's a slow process to get others interested to help improve it. It takes time for improvements to add up to mainstream usability.

The browser is becoming the OS. But the OS could be the browser too ... Plan 9.

[Tplkkvkk]

cool, cool