[HN Gopher] Plan 9 from User Space
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Plan 9 from User Space
Author : welovebunnies
Score : 63 points
Date : 2025-09-28 14:27 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| kotenok2000 wrote:
| Why did they put installation script in INSTALL INSTEAD OF
| install.sh? Most other repositories i have seen put human-
| readable instructions in there.
| lstodd wrote:
| It's plan9. It is supposed to be at once weird and somewhat
| fitting.
| throwaway2fd82 wrote:
| I don't think an INSTALL script with that name is common
| among Plan 9 software.
|
| Also, this project is designed for operating systems other
| than Plan 9.
| opless wrote:
| * plan9 PORT _sigh_ the clue is in the name
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Yes, it's a _plan9_ port; why would you expect it to change
| any more than is absolutely needed to get it running on the
| new host OS?
| MisterTea wrote:
| There is likely some history there. Plan 9 is the only OS I
| know of that bakes in all of the documentation and there is a
| heavily ingrained culture of 'RTFM!' in the community.
|
| The interesting part is the two references to a person who has
| long since passed, Uriel. The make file and configure files
| both print "read the README file." I am sure he complained that
| most people would blindly unpack the source and immediately run
| make or configure without ever reading anything. It could be a
| way to force people to RTFM. But that is just my opinion. If
| you really want an answer, drop an email to the 9fans mailing
| list and ask. It's still active.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Pretty common in all UNIXes, which is why projects like GNU
| and Linux even had a starting point what to compare
| themselves to.
|
| IBM systems have the famous Red Books, but ok it isn't
| included.
|
| Windows before the Internet days, when the SDK came in CD,
| having a MSDN subscription meant receiving a box with all
| documentation from Microsoft.
|
| Inferno as Plan 9's successor also included all
| documentation.
|
| Niklaus Wirth OSes for Modula-2 and Oberon, had the OS
| documentation as hypertext.
|
| All Xerox PARC OSes, across Smalltalk, Interlisp-D and
| Mesa/Cedar had online help with the system documentation.
| packetlost wrote:
| Plan9port is available in a lot of package managers. I've been
| using mk and rc for my build/task running and scripting needs for
| a while and have been very happy. rc in particular is such a
| concise scripting language that shaves off all the rough edges of
| sh (not to mention bash), I rarely need to reference docs.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Plan 9 is amazing. I just released my own ancient little
| operating system (see 'Show HN') which took some of Plan 9's
| ideas. Plan 9 was a massive inspiration at the time that it was
| released, I had it running on a really small machine for the time
| and I love the underlying concepts. It is a real pity that it
| never really took off.
|
| Plan 9 is what Unix could have been, the whole idea that
| 'everything is a file' is so powerful that we ended up not
| believing it and the resulting hacks are all so ugly in
| comparison. Plan 9 does this so consistently that you can test a
| new version of the window manager in a window on the currently
| running window manager.
|
| For fun I ran the Bell-Core window manager inside a Plan 9 window
| at some point just to see if it could be done.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ManaGeR
|
| And yes, you could do it, and fairly easily so. This kind of
| structural coherency is a great feature for an operating system
| to have.
| Isamu wrote:
| >the whole idea that 'everything is a file' is so powerful that
| we ended up not believing it and the resulting hacks are all so
| ugly in comparison
|
| I agree. People find it hard to wrap their heads around simple
| and uniform interfaces. They can't simplify what they want to
| accomplish, they want to inflict their complexity on everyone.
|
| Simplifying is maybe emotionally deflating, it makes for a less
| satisfying solution. Career-wise, it is better to propose
| complex solutions that take lots of manpower. That's how you
| climb the ladder.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| yet - you still have to learn opaque crap. example
|
| echo kill > /proc/123/ctl
|
| Sure, that works if you know kill, but you cannot inspect ctl
| and understand the interface, its a write interface. so you
| can certainly RTFM, read the dev proc list, etc. it's not
| discoverable
|
| so like /proc/net/stat or whatever, it means nothing to me...
| its gonna just be a TSV of bytes that mean something, unless
| you know it.
|
| so for all the simplicity, it's what i would call, not very
| usable.
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| "everything is a file" is unix's equivalent of the Greek's
| "everything is a basic geometric shape" and epicycles, or heck,
| "everything is an object". These kinds of reductions are naive
| and result in kludges of representation.
| poncho_romero wrote:
| By that logic isn't this argument equally reductive?
| tiu wrote:
| Why Plan 9 seems to be 'much' more popular/discussed and not
| Inferno?
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(operating_system)
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Applications are written in the Limbo programming language,
| which provides static typing, garbage collection, and built-in
| concurrency features. Limbo code is compiled into architecture-
| independent bytecode executed by the Dis virtual machine. The
| Dis VM can interpret the bytecode or compile it just-in-time
| into native instructions, allowing applications to run
| consistently across different platforms.
|
| Can you port existing software to it, or do you have to rewrite
| everything in Limbo? Because if you do, that right there almost
| completely kills it IMO.
| rcarmo wrote:
| As someone who tried to use both, there is little you can do
| with it in practice when compared to Plan9. There was a _great_
| baremetal port of Inferno to the Raspberry Pi, but there aren't
| any modern versions for other SBCs.
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(page generated 2025-09-28 23:01 UTC)