• bubstanceOPEnglish
        15•5 months ago

        But of course! Real hardware or bust.

        This particular machine has been my daily driver for months now, so I would say it is faring quite well.

              • bubstanceOPEnglish
                8•5 months ago

                Oh sure, lots of things are “inconvenient” on Plan 9.

                Of note for most would-be users: if you rely on a modern web browser like Firefox/Chrome, forget about it. Never going to happen.

                It’s important to remember that Plan 9 is fundamentally a research operating system; it’s not really a “typical” environment by any stretch, and that stems largely from it being entirely network-based and distributed. A single Plan 9 system in isolation can only be so interesting. Using it on a laptop like this can be an entirely different set of problems.

                If you’d like some examples of things you may face:

                • booting can be slow

                • can be intimidating to set up for some of the more important features – factotum(4) and secstore(1), new users and directories under /, etc.

                • cwfs is slow

                • hjfs is really slow

                • no multi-monitor support

                • only recently did we get a filesystem that specifically aims to be crash-safe

                • poor documentation, though it’s been getting better

                • reading research papers is basically a requirement for understanding the system

                • security is not a priority

                For me, though? I genuinely don’t need much more than what’s available in the base system.

          • bubstanceOPEnglish
            4•5 months ago

            On this machine I have everything except for Bluetooth and the fingerprint reader, neither of which I ever use anyway.

    • @barsquid@lemmy.world
      5•5 months ago

      Is this for business or personal? Both? Other? I’m wondering about differences in daily interactions when running Plan 9.

    • bubstanceOPEnglish
      12•5 months ago

      It’s an email indicator. See faces(1) for details.

  • @billgamesh@lemmy.ml
    5•5 months ago

    rio’s color scheme may be modified by editing the .c configuration files and re-compiling:

    Note: Someone will mock you for doing this.

    What’s wrong with the pretty gray background?

    • bubstanceOPEnglish
      5•5 months ago

      Nothing at all.

      It’s purely for my own needs — what worked for Rob Pike’s eyes in the '90s doesn’t really work for mine when it comes to actually using it every day, so I figured I’d have fun with it while I was changing the colors for the various programs.

      • @gwilikers@lemmy.ml
        2•5 months ago

        Ah, I didn’t know Pike or Thompson were involved with Plan 9 . Does anyome here know why they used the Ed Wood movie for the name?

        • bubstanceOPEnglish
          2•5 months ago

          I think it really is as simple as our dorks from the Labs liking Ed Wood.

          Same reason the mascot is named Glenda.

  • Presi300English
    5•5 months ago

    What is Plan9? Is is an OS… or a kernel… or a set of utilities? I’ve been sorta interested in it in the past, but have no idea where to start.

    • bubstanceOPEnglish
      11•5 months ago

      Plan 9 is a research operating system developed by Bell Labs as a successor to UNIX.

      I would suggest starting somewhere like here to get an idea of what it’s about, as well as checking out this video from one of 9front’s core contributors.

    • bubstanceOPEnglish
      6•5 months ago

      I use it for all of my day-to-day computing tasks. Writing, email, browsing, programming, drawing, games… the works.

      Anything I can’t do directly in 9 is covered by a combination of ssh(1), vt(1), and vnc(1) — with just a touch of vmx(1) if I’m feeling dangerous.

  • @Steamymoomilk@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    4•5 months ago

    Thats super freaking cool!!! I didnt know what plan 9 was until i read the comments and then went to wikipedia and mannn its super epic. Like in 2015 theres videos of a guy porting plan 9 on a raspberry pi!!

    • bubstanceOPEnglish
      4•5 months ago

      I have an RPi4 and a 0W that run 9front as diskless terminals thanks to that effort. It works really well!

      Richard Miller is one of the OGs; he did the first port of UNIX, and if you look into Plan 9 more you’ll see exactly how much of a connection to history it really is.