Why Linux? Why not Plan9?

[%hMa@?b<C]

Now, Just to get things straight, I am in no way bashing linux, or trying to troll here or anything. I use and love linux, and have for almonst 2 years. I have never used plan 9, due to the fact that I dont have a huge hard drive for another partition.

Ok, here goes, Today, I was reading a couple of old "Linux Format" magazines that I had stuffed under my bed, and saw one article about Plan 9 from Bell Labs (the same guys who made c c++ and unix). I read it, and decided to check out Plan 9, figuring it would be a nothing due to the screenshot. After reading the Wikipedia article found here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs), I was actually a bit surprised that there aren't many, if any, distributions/offshoots of Plan 9. Just looking at the screenshots, it seems still in early stages, compared to linux, but the article gave information that really amazed me. It has been ported to nearly all archetectures, it is open source, the GUI is built in (no layers of Xserver and metacity etc.) And if Bell Labs replaced UNIX with this, it must be good. Has anyone here tried it, and if so, what are your impressions? Can it compile/run linux programs?

[G Morgan]

The question is why Plan 9?

[fuscia]

i use 9wm, on occassion.

[bensexson]

There is a live CD totest it. I tried it and found to not be very intuitive. It does seem to have some nice features but for those of use used to Windows/Mac/X would have a hard time using it. http://cm.bell-labs.com/plan9/

[%hMa@?b<C]

thankss for the LiveCD Link, I will try it in a few minutes.
To answer the question "why plan9?"
Why not use something that was developed solely as an improvement for unix?

[Brunellus]

I think it's simply that Linux has a much friendlier/easier to understand license.

[RAV TUX]

Why Plan9, Why Not PlanB?

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/6929/omerovb4.gif
http://lsub.org/ls/planb.html

[blah blah blah]

Because Linux and unix in general is will established and even though there are some crappy things about it it is good enough for most people.

[init1]

i use 9wm, on occassion.
9wm is fun. It's one of the few light weight wm's with click to focus.

[init1]

I tried plan9, but I couldn't get is to work. It asked me some weird questions, some of which I answered with the help of a web site, but I usually give it some answer it doesn't like and I have to restart.

[jrusso2]

Plan 9 is for lab use for cluster computing. I don't think it was ever intended as a desktop consumer OS.

[jgrabham]

And I have to do about "View from the bridge" for English - not the mob, but Itallian Americans living in Brooklyn with really bad accents (worst actors ever in the TV series) I hate Eddie Carbone - had to go and get stabbed so I have to write about it.

[blah blah blah]

Plan 9 is for lab use for cluster computing. I don't think it was ever intended as a desktop consumer OS.

It was meant to replace Unix and unix-like OSs.

[Extreme Coder]

And I have to do about "View from the bridge" for English - not the mob, but Itallian Americans living in Brooklyn with really bad accents (worst actors ever in the TV series) I hate Eddie Carbone - had to go and get stabbed so I have to write about it.
What?

[koshatnik]

Now, Just to get things straight, I am in no way bashing linux, or trying to troll here or anything. I use and love linux, and have for almonst 2 years. I have never used plan 9, due to the fact that I dont have a huge hard drive for another partition.

Ok, here goes, Today, I was reading a couple of old "Linux Format" magazines that I had stuffed under my bed, and saw one article about Plan 9 from Bell Labs (the same guys who made c c++ and unix). I read it, and decided to check out Plan 9, figuring it would be a nothing due to the screenshot. After reading the Wikipedia article found here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs), I was actually a bit surprised that there aren't many, if any, distributions/offshoots of Plan 9. Just looking at the screenshots, it seems still in early stages, compared to linux, but the article gave information that really amazed me. It has been ported to nearly all archetectures, it is open source, the GUI is built in (no layers of Xserver and metacity etc.) And if Bell Labs replaced UNIX with this, it must be good. Has anyone here tried it, and if so, what are your impressions? Can it compile/run linux programs?

It doesn't have Beryl or look like OSX, therefore it must suck.

[deanlinkous]

take and not give back license doesn't interest me....no source requirement

[matthinckley]

"Plan 9 failed simply because it fell short of being a compelling enough improvement on Unix to displace its ancestor. Compared to Plan 9, Unix creaks and clanks and has obvious rust spots, but it gets the job done well enough to hold its position. There is a lesson here for ambitious system architects: the most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an existing codebase that is just good enough."

hence why linux hasn't taken over the desktop market

[blah blah blah]

take and not give back license doesn't interest me....no source requirement

It is open source.

[blah blah blah]

hence why linux hasn't taken over the desktop market

exactly

[jgrabham]

What?

I have no Idea

[notwen]

I have no Idea

hahaha

[FuturePilot]

Where's the WM? I don't even see anything that resembles a WM:(

[muximus]

It doesn't have Beryl or look like OSX, therefore it must suck.

well linux was not developed to have flashy effects and look like os X either..

[Nonno Bassotto]

"Because Plan 9 has a very different system model from other modern operating systems, it is sometimes difficult to port external software to Plan 9. In particular, Plan 9 has no full-featured web browser; webfs(4) and html(2) are intended as steps toward a solution."

Seems already a good reason to me...

[blah blah blah]

Seems already a good reason to me...

That should be something like "That already seems to be a good reason to me..." or "That already seems like a good reason to me...".

[%hMa@?b<C]

what exactly makes porting software to plan9 so difficult. Plan 9 is unix-like, isnt it?>

[blah blah blah]

what exactly makes porting software to plan9 so difficult. Plan 9 is unix-like, isnt it?>

It has a few similarities to Unix but not nearly as much as Linux, FreeBSD or, Solaris. It really isn't what I would call Unix-like.

[Nonno Bassotto]

That should be something like "That already seems to be a good reason to me..." or "That already seems like a good reason to me...".

Thank you! You're the first one who replies to my signature (maybe it was my first mistake? :P)

[blah blah blah]

Thank you! You're the first one who replies to my signature (maybe it was my first mistake? :P)

You're welcome. Also, "replies" is present tense (a verb being done now) I think you meant "replied" (a past tense).

[Tundro Walker]

...I was reading a couple of old "Linux Format" magazines that I had stuffed under my bed...

Wow. Most folks hide the playboys under the matress. You hide the Linux Magazines. That's rough!