The fourth release of the Plan 9 operating system from Bell Labs packages a major overhaul of the system at every level. From the underlying file system protocol, 9P, through the kernel, libraries, and applications, almost everything has been modified and, in many cases, redesigned or rewritten. The most significant change is that 9P has been redesigned to address a number of shortcomings, most important, its previous inability to handle long file names.
Bell Labs Releases New Version of Plan 9
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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… send me over one of those freakin Glenda-bunnies..
???
…looks like it needs to turn off the computer, go outside, and get some exercise. It’s looking a little on the tubby side.
It’s cool. You can edit the webpages on some of the plan 9 sites. Anyway…
Ok what is Plan 9? What is it used for???
Plan 9 is a Unix. it is extreme in the way it is set up. you know how everything in Unix is a file? well in this, everything that was not a file in Unix is a file too.
I also hear it is being developed for embeded devices, but I am not sure about that.
Well judging by the name and the mascot I’m guessing it was the 9th version of the rabbit. Only earlier versions, the cotton tail, snowshoe, jack, jackalope, Volkswagon and a few others were released into nature. As you can see by the photo this rabbit has a bit of stray potato gene in it. It just cannot be put into mass distribution do to this. Development continues but only by a small group.
One thing that did come to mind about the mascot is this OS can’t be to secure, secure OS’s have mascots like demons and spiky blow fish. this is a freaking rabbit, that sorta makes it to warm and fuzzy and inviting to be secure. Maybe if it had rabies or something.
but if you’d have just read some of the documentation on site you would realise what plan 9 is.:)
It’s the next evolution of UNIX from bell labs. Everything is a file, as far as the user knowns there is “no distinction between the library, the os, and the app”. This leads to seamless client-server computing, and allows a program to run on anything from a mainframe to a workstation, without the user being aware of it (pretty nifty). It’s mostly used just for research, although some of the labs run it.
RTFM
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/man/index.html
NOT Unix.
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/download.html
Picky with HW.
Ther will be a test
😉
— Quote —
Plan 9 is a Unix. it is extreme in the way it is set up. you know how everything in Unix is a file? well in this, everything that was not a file in Unix is a file too.
— End Quote —
I think the correct analogy is that everything in Unix is plain text, therefore enabling filters, piping, et cetera. Everything in Plan 9 is a file, enabling what I don’t know. That’s obviously a shallow description, but it comes from one of the creators.
Rob Campbell
[email protected]
One thing that did come to mind about the mascot is this OS can’t be to secure, secure OS’s have mascots like demons and spiky blow fish. this is a freaking rabbit
Aah. You obviously aren’t familiar with the great “bun-bun”.
There ain’t nothing cuddly about rabbits.
http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=970901
Here is my opinionated view:
Plan 9 is much misunderstood. There are many explanations of the ideas behind it’s design available, but none that can be clearly expressed in a few paragraphs. You have to _work_ to understand it. You have to read academic papers about it and then try it for yourself.
There is no “selling point” and most people who have lived with it long-term are happy with that. They are happy to explain things to newbies who do their homework, but have no interest in writing marketing hype.
I’ll mention a few things.
The characteristic of people who would get something out of using it are those technical people who want their existing ideas about OS design challenged.
The UI is geared towards providing a graphical interface to text, text editing, and the command-line. This is different from trying to replace text with graphical metaphors. The OS design does not prohibit you from developing a userland web appliance but nobody seems interested in doing so. Rather, the applications seem to make no attempt to layer a userland metaphor on top of the underlying Plan 9 OS architectural features. This is not necessarily a good thing, but it means there a fewer metaphors competing with the textual oriented environment that is the primary domain of the developers who use it.
This “text obsession” is similar to it’s “file obession”. For programmers and system integrators it means there are fewer competing programming interface abstractions. The “everything is a file” notion is much misunderstood because most people have an existing concept which is not exactly the same as the Plan 9 concept of a file and it’s relationship with a file-system.
For a different class of user a different UI might be desirable. Perhaps it’s a dilemma that the type of person comfortable with Plan 9 is not type of person who would demand different type of UI, afterall, there are so many other OSes to choose from. Also, this type of person is not likely to feel they need to seek general community approval of his or her choice of OS.
If this gap is to be bridged, it would take someone with a foot in both worlds. The “Biz-Dev”, Business Developer, would be an analogy of such a cross-over person. This person would be an entrepreneur who manages to develop a popular product which incidentally benefits from Plan 9’s architecture. Until then, most people will find Plan 9 unsuitable for them.
I hope this has saved some people more time that it has taken them to read it, and armed others with a reasonable idea of what to expect.