[9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9
We have three Windows laptops in our family. I've been using free software systems off and on for years. Last week I learned about Plan 9 from Bell Labs, from someone in a Linux Questions forum. Now I have it installed on a partition on my laptop, along with XP, Ubuntu-on-NTFS, Debian, and Slackware. I've learned to access a fat partition, change the font size, and use Acme. Now I need to learn how to set up a wireless connection to the family router network, access my files on my wife's Vista laptop, and browse the Internet. My wireless card is not listed in Plan9.ini. Does that mean there's no way for me to connect with that card? I'd like to learn how much I can use Plan 9 for home office, multimedia and Internet socializing, then I'd like to experiment with distributing the system between computers. I've learned about as much as I can for now from the documentation on the Plan 9 site, except for how to connect to the network. I'm waiting to find out if it's even possible. Now I'm listing /bin, reading man pages, and practicing commands. After that I might have some questions. Meanwhile, does anyone have any suggestions about learning to use Plan 9 for home office, multimedia and Internet socializing, and then to learn more about networking and distributed systems?
Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9
My wireless card is not listed in Plan9.ini. Does that mean there's no way for me to connect with that card? Hi ! What type of wireless card you have -- С наилучшими пожеланиями Жилкин Сергей With best regards Zhilkin Sergey
Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9
Plan 9 in the home... an interesting experiment. (I am the only one in my home who uses it.) Enjoy! My message contains references to files in /n/sources/contrib. When you get your internet up in Plan 9, use 9fs sources to gain access to this folder. PostScript and PDF files can be seen with page. If a program is distributed as source code and a file mkfile, type mk install to build and install. Some of us have switched to Federico Benavento's contrib system. To install it, run /n/sources/contrib/fgb/root/rc/bin/contrib/install fgb/contrib On Apr 14, 2009, at 2:05 AM, Jim Habegger wrote: Meanwhile, does anyone have any suggestions about learning to use Plan 9 for home office, troff for document processing and presentations. A troff document is a text file containing text and commands, like so: .PP Hey there! This is troff. .B I have bold text . The main troff documentation is /sys/doc/troff.ps, but a tutorial is a better bet. Take a look at http://www.troff.org/papers.html. To integrate a picture, you will first need to convert that picture file into a postscript file: lp -dstdout -pgifpost file.gif file.ps lp -dstdout -pjpgpost file.jpg file.ps Then look up the mpictures macro set. You can have more than one macro set: troff -ms -mpictures cool.ms Converting to PDF: troff -ms -mpictures cool.ms | dpost -f | ps2pdf cool.pdf There are several specialized slideshow packages. * the archaic mv macro set included with Plan 9 (doc: /n/sources/ contrib/pietro/mv.pdf). * Uriel's slides scripts (/n/sources/contrib/uriel/slides/) * Russ Cox's talk scripts (/n/sources/contrib/rsc/talk/) Plan 9 doesn't have: multimedia Each picture type has a program for viewing it, named after the file extension (png, jpg, etc.); page can be used to view multiple pictures at once. juke(6) for how to go about playing music. I don't think there are video players. and Internet socializing, There are IRC clients in /n/sources/contrib and an AIM client at /n/ sources/contrib/leitec/bsflite/. I don't think you can use websites with Plan 9 unless everything is done server-side. The primary web browser is abaco: contrib/install fgb/abaco and then to learn more about networking and distributed systems? Read the files in /sys/doc.
Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9
I don't think there are video players. Someone created an ffmpeg port, but I'm not sure if it does video output or just conversion as I've never actually used it. --dho
Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9
On Apr 14, 2009, at 8:36 AM, Pietro Gagliardi wrote: juke(6) for how to go about playing music. that should be juke(7), sorry.
Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9
2009/4/14 Jim Habegger jimhabeg...@gmail.com: My wireless card is not listed in Plan9.ini. Does that mean there's no way for me to connect with that card? The easy way is to run Plan9 inside a virtual machine like qemu on Linux or Windows. Andrés
Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9
Thanks to everyone for all the information and ideas! At first I was going to try to make Plan 9 my all-purpose system on this laptop, but for now it looks like I'll just be using it to learn more about networking and distributed systems. I've tried using virtual machines in Windows before to run other operating systems, and I've always ended up installing them independently in their own partitions, but I may have to use Plan 9 on a virtual machine if that's the only way I can connect to our family network. First I just want to get comfortable and develop some skills in the Plan 9 environment, then experiment with distributing it between computers or virtual machines. Zhilkin, my wireless card is Atheros AR5001X+. Is there anything like a diswrapper in Plan 9? Pietro, thanks for the beginner's guide. I'm not sure I'll be able to connect to the Internet with Plan 9 on its own partition, the way I'm using it now. I might have to run it on a virtual machine, and it might take some time for me to decide which one to use, and learn how to do it. Meanwhile I'll have to learn to download and install applications manually. I'll download them to my shared fat partition in some other system, and install them into my Plan 9 system from there. My Internet socializing now is mostly: - email - calling people with Skype - reading and commenting in blogs - posting in my own blogs - reading and posting in the Linux Questions forums - reading and posting on this list - Facebook Devon, thanks for the links. I had started to read the network configuration doc earlier, but I got stuck at the part where my card is not supported. If I can't get around that, I might try using Plan 9 on a virtual machine in XP or Slackware or Debian. Pros and cons would be welcome. Andrés, thanks for the suggestion. I've tried to run systems on virtual machines before, but I didn't like all the complications involved and I always ended up installing them independently on their own partitions. Maybe I won't be able to avoid virtual machines this time. I might consider it an opportunity to enrich my knowledge and experience, along with learning to use Plan 9.
Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9
* * My Internet socializing now is mostly: - email - calling people with Skype - reading and commenting in blogs - posting in my own blogs - reading and posting in the Linux Questions forums - reading and posting on this list - Facebook better keep another system handy, fully featured WWW is not the strong suit and no Skype (unless it workes with LinuxEMU - anyone tried ?) Plan9 in Qemu works well, my preferred method for virtualization is running it as a CPU/AUTH server and drawterming in. I use VDE to give it a proper IP so I dont have to mess about with --redir http://wiki.virtualsquare.org/index.php/VDE_Basic_Networking I recently used Proxmox virtualization and they have a better way of doing it where each instance got an IP on the same subnet as the machine itself but I haven't worked out how yet.
Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9
Look at - http://9fans.net/archive/2008/10/304 Plan9 hardware support is limited to those that plan9 users have. -- С наилучшими пожеланиями Жилкин Сергей With best regards Zhilkin Sergey
Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9
On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 3:43 AM, Sergey Zhilkin szhil...@gmail.com wrote: Look at - http://9fans.net/archive/2008/10/304 Plan9 hardware support is limited to those that plan9 users have. Well, now there's a Plan 9 user with Atheros 5K. I suppose I could try to port ath5k myself. I had some experience many years ago programming and debugging in machine language, assembly language, Fortran, COBOL, dBase and VisualBasic. I've never even looked at a C source, or even compiled any. In all the time I've been using free software systems, I've only used gui installers and updaters. Does anyone have any guesses about how many hours it might take for me to learn to port ath5k to Plan 9? I might need to study and experiment with some ath5k Linux and BSD sources, and study some Plan 9 sources for wireless cards. If I got something working, I might write to the authors of the sources to get their ideas about the license issue.
