[9fans] 9atom fails to boot on ThinkPat T400
Hi, I want to install 9atom on a ThinkPad T400 laptop. T400 uses the ICH9M-E/M SATA controller. Both the CD-ROM and the internal HDD are on the same SATA controller. When I boot 9atom, it prompts me with: Boot devices fd0 sdE0!9fat boot from: sdE1!cdboot!9pcflop.gz boot from: It seems that it doesn't find all my SATA devices. sdE0 seems to be the internal HDD (suspicion augmented by the fact that it has a 9fat partition on it). I guess my CD-ROM should be sdE1 (as I tried above) but when trying that it doesn't seem to do anything -- no error, nothing changes. I am prompted again asking for the boot device. I have tried sdE0 to sdE6, same behavior. Do you think it's a bug that prevents the CD-ROM from being detected? Any suggestions on what to do next? Thanks, -- Aram Hăvărneanu
Re: [9fans] 9atom fails to boot on ThinkPad T400
Aram Hăvărneanu wrote: I want to install 9atom on a ThinkPad T400 laptop. T400 uses the ICH9M-E/M SATA controller. Both the CD-ROM and the internal HDD are on the same SATA controller. [...] Do you think it's a bug that prevents the CD-ROM from being detected? Any suggestions on what to do next? I must mention that I also tried installing with SATA controller in IDE mode, and that works (in Plan9 works but only with DMA disabled). Maybe this is relevant. Thanks you, -- Aram Hăvărneanu
[9fans] Noob says Hi ..
Hello 9fans ... I'm _totally_ new to Plan9! Two days ago I had never heard of it. Yesterday I DLed the LiveCD - now I want to know more. The closest I've come to such an OS as Plan9, is the Native Oberon OS. I have a partition which I can overwrite. Does the LiveCD installation process allow me to abort the process if I see that things are not proceeding smoothly (like I need to gather some hardware info, etc)? Should I be installing Lucent's Plan9 or a more recent derivative, if any? Is there software available for this OS? Or do I have to write my own? What is the primary development language for Plan9? C? What languages have been ported to Plan9? Where are the best docs? TIA... -- Duke Normandin Turner Valley, Alberta, Canada
Re: [9fans] Noob says Hi ..
When you boot the live cd you'll have a pretty good idea whether your system is supported -- if things are OK you'll get to a gui with installation information. You'll be able to figure out whether you want to try it or not even before you get to the hard drive partitioning :) There's no 'other plan9', WYSIWYG. There's another installation cd with slightly more supported hardware called '9atom'. You can try that if the current one doesn't work. Failing the CD path, you can download 9vx and try the full Plan 9 environment hosted on your normal OS. cheers On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 7:30 AM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: Hello 9fans ... I'm _totally_ new to Plan9! Two days ago I had never heard of it. Yesterday I DLed the LiveCD - now I want to know more. The closest I've come to such an OS as Plan9, is the Native Oberon OS. I have a partition which I can overwrite. Does the LiveCD installation process allow me to abort the process if I see that things are not proceeding smoothly (like I need to gather some hardware info, etc)? Should I be installing Lucent's Plan9 or a more recent derivative, if any? Is there software available for this OS? Or do I have to write my own? What is the primary development language for Plan9? C? What languages have been ported to Plan9? Where are the best docs? TIA... -- Duke Normandin Turner Valley, Alberta, Canada
Re: [9fans] 9atom fails to boot on ThinkPad T400
I must mention that I also tried installing with SATA controller in IDE mode, and that works (in Plan9 works but only with DMA disabled). Maybe this is relevant. Thanks you, you should be able to type pcihinv at the 9load prompt. that output would be useful. just send a picture offline. - erik
Re: [9fans] Noob says Hi ..
On Jan 13, 2011 9:32 AM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: Hello 9fans ... I'm _totally_ new to Plan9! Two days ago I had never heard of it. Yesterday I DLed the LiveCD - now I want to know more. The closest I've come to such an OS as Plan9, is the Native Oberon OS. I have a partition which I can overwrite. Does the LiveCD installation process allow me to abort the process if I see that things are not proceeding smoothly (like I need to gather some hardware info, etc)? You can, just reboot with ^t rr. ;) Should I be installing Lucent's Plan9 or a more recent derivative, if any? There's a iso by erik quanstrom called 9atom. It has some extra hardware support. Just google 9atom Is there software available for this OS? Or do I have to write my own? There's plenty of software. Most of it is in contrib. What is the primary development language for Plan9? C? What languages have been ported to Plan9? Ansi c with some changes. Where are the best docs? TIA... See /sys/doc and the wiki. Also, you may want to google 9.intro.pdf.
Re: [9fans] Noob says Hi ..
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, Jacob Todd wrote: On Jan 13, 2011 9:32 AM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: Hello 9fans ... I'm _totally_ new to Plan9! Two days ago I had never heard of it. Yesterday I DLed the LiveCD - now I want to know more. The closest I've come to such an OS as Plan9, is the Native Oberon OS. I have a partition which I can overwrite. Does the LiveCD installation process allow me to abort the process if I see that things are not proceeding smoothly (like I need to gather some hardware info, etc)? You can, just reboot with ^t rr. ;) Should I be installing Lucent's Plan9 or a more recent derivative, if any? There's a iso by erik quanstrom called 9atom. It has some extra hardware support. Just google 9atom Is there software available for this OS? Or do I have to write my own? There's plenty of software. Most of it is in contrib. What is the primary development language for Plan9? C? What languages have been ported to Plan9? Ansi c with some changes. Where are the best docs? TIA... See /sys/doc and the wiki. Also, you may want to google 9.intro.pdf. ^t rr is cool 9atom noted just Dled 9.intro.pdf Thanks a bunch! Just to be forewarned ... When I start the install process from the Live CD, I'll probably be asked to choose a partition where I want Plan9 to live, right? I'll choose one; it'll warn me that the partition is already in use, do I want to overwrite it? I'll reply, yes, and BOOM the partition is committed to Plan9. The rest of my partitions are left alone! - right? Much obliged. -- Duke Normandin Turner Valley, Alberta, Canada
Re: [9fans] Noob says Hi ..
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, andrey mirtchovski wrote: When you boot the live cd you'll have a pretty good idea whether your system is supported -- if things are OK you'll get to a gui with installation information. You'll be able to figure out whether you want to try it or not even before you get to the hard drive partitioning :) Excellent.. There's no 'other plan9', WYSIWYG. There's another installation cd with slightly more supported hardware called '9atom'. You can try that if the current one doesn't work. It works. I've had Plan9 up and running from the Live CD. Failing the CD path, you can download 9vx and try the full Plan 9 environment hosted on your normal OS. That's great! I have Native Oberon for Linux running the very same way. Best of both worlds - at a bit of a price though. :) Thanks for the input. -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Noob says Hi ..
When I start the install process from the Live CD, I'll probably be asked to choose a partition where I want Plan9 to live, right? I'll choose one; it'll warn me that the partition is already in use, do I want to overwrite it? I'll reply, yes, and BOOM the partition is committed to Plan9. The rest of my partitions are left alone! - right? Much obliged. nice in theory. in practice, make backups. - erik
Re: [9fans] Noob says Hi ..
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, erik quanstrom wrote: When I start the install process from the Live CD, I'll probably be asked to choose a partition where I want Plan9 to live, right? I'll choose one; it'll warn me that the partition is already in use, do I want to overwrite it? I'll reply, yes, and BOOM the partition is committed to Plan9. The rest of my partitions are left alone! - right? Much obliged. nice in theory. in practice, make backups. I was waiting for that one to pop up. :) If it's _that_ unpredictable, I think that I'll install it on a spare box. FWIW, 8 mos ago, I installed XP on Part1; Linux on 2 (with the swap on an extended partition); PcBSD on 3; and Native Oberon on 4. used Gnome `gparted' to resize and move partitions, with XP still in Part.1 Zero problems! No OS install tried to mess with another partition. So, are you being overly cautious here, or is there a real danger that Plan9 has a run-away? -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Noob says Hi ..
On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 4:33 PM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, erik quanstrom wrote: When I start the install process from the Live CD, I'll probably be asked to choose a partition where I want Plan9 to live, right? I'll choose one; it'll warn me that the partition is already in use, do I want to overwrite it? I'll reply, yes, and BOOM the partition is committed to Plan9. The rest of my partitions are left alone! - right? Much obliged. nice in theory. in practice, make backups. I was waiting for that one to pop up. :) If it's _that_ unpredictable, I think that I'll install it on a spare box. FWIW, 8 mos ago, I installed XP on Part1; Linux on 2 (with the swap on an extended partition); PcBSD on 3; and Native Oberon on 4. used Gnome `gparted' to resize and move partitions, with XP still in Part.1 Zero problems! No OS install tried to mess with another partition. So, are you being overly cautious here, or is there a real danger that Plan9 has a run-away? I haven´t seen Plan 9 do this, but better safe than sorry... -- - curiosity sKilled the cat
Re: [9fans] 9atom fails to boot on ThinkPad T400
you should be able to type pcihinv at the 9load prompt. that output would be useful. just send a picture offline. Tried sending the picture off list, but your SMTP server rejects me for some reason so I put it here: http://i.imgur.com/9dO07.jpg Thanks, -- Aram Hăvărneanu
Re: [9fans] Noob says Hi ..
Zero problems! No OS install tried to mess with another partition. So, are you being overly cautious here, or is there a real danger that Plan9 has a run-away? I haven´t seen Plan 9 do this, but better safe than sorry... i've never seen this myself, but i recall this discussion http://9fans.net/archive/?q=partition+overwritten - erik
Re: [9fans] Noob says Hi ..
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, erik quanstrom wrote: Zero problems! No OS install tried to mess with another partition. So, are you being overly cautious here, or is there a real danger that Plan9 has a run-away? I haven´t seen Plan 9 do this, but better safe than sorry... i've never seen this myself, but i recall this discussion http://9fans.net/archive/?q=partition+overwritten Thanks for the heads-up! -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Noob says Hi ..
@Gorka Guardiola @Tassilo Philipp Thanks for the warnings, and friendly advice :) I think I'll just use a bare 2nd HDD on the same machine, or a junker box kicking around. Do you guys know if Plan9 will boot off a slave HDD? -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Noob says Hi ..
If I'm not mistaken, you should be able to edit the plan9.ini file on a PC, to set the source you want to boot from. However, I did that only once, and I don't remember the details... look up plan9.ini(8) (http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/8/plan9.ini), boot(8) (http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/8/boot) and booting(8) (http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/8/booting) for details, etc.. @Gorka Guardiola @Tassilo Philipp Thanks for the warnings, and friendly advice :) I think I'll just use a bare 2nd HDD on the same machine, or a junker box kicking around. Do you guys know if Plan9 will boot off a slave HDD? -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Noob says Hi ..
On Thu Jan 13 11:53:18 EST 2011, tphil...@potion-studios.com wrote: If I'm not mistaken, you should be able to edit the plan9.ini file on a PC, to set the source you want to boot from. However, I did that only once, and I don't remember the details... look up plan9.ini(8) (http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/8/plan9.ini), boot(8) (http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/8/boot) and booting(8) (http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/8/booting) for details, etc.. if you're using 9atom. all you need to do is replace hard-coded references to the boot device with $bootdev. e.g., bootargs=local!$bootdev/fs bootfile=$bootdev!9fat!9pccpu.gz this particular example is for a kfs install. - erik
Re: [9fans] 9atom fails to boot on ThinkPad T400
On Thu Jan 13 10:43:46 EST 2011, ara...@mgk.ro wrote: you should be able to type pcihinv at the 9load prompt. that output would be useful. just send a picture offline. Tried sending the picture off list, but your SMTP server rejects me for some reason so I put it here: http://i.imgur.com/9dO07.jpg looks like smtp was a transient dns problem. nothing to do with the picture. should work now. let me know if it doesn't. thanks. i see the case we're looking at. can you take a picture just when it boots? there should be some ahci ... blah blah blah information. i want to see that. - erik
Re: [9fans] Noob says Hi ..
regarding the occasional missing vid/did's it seems that frequently it involves adding the did to the right place in the corresponding driver and recompiling. it would be a nice if there was a way to map new vid/did's to known driver+did's in plan9.ini.
Re: [9fans] Noob says Hi ..
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, erik quanstrom wrote: On Thu Jan 13 11:53:18 EST 2011, tphil...@potion-studios.com wrote: If I'm not mistaken, you should be able to edit the plan9.ini file on a PC, to set the source you want to boot from. However, I did that only once, and I don't remember the details... look up plan9.ini(8) (http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/8/plan9.ini), boot(8) (http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/8/boot) and booting(8) (http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/8/booting) for details, etc.. if you're using 9atom. all you need to do is replace hard-coded references to the boot device with $bootdev. e.g., bootargs=local!$bootdev/fs bootfile=$bootdev!9fat!9pccpu.gz this particular example is for a kfs install. Have no clue what you're talking about! No problem though ... Let me do some reading of the recommended docs above. I'm sure they will go a long way in clueing me in. :) Remember, I've _never_ , EVER, messed with Plan9. So, it's all new to me. -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Noob says Hi ..
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, Tassilo Philipp wrote: If I'm not mistaken, you should be able to edit the plan9.ini file on a PC, to set the source you want to boot from. However, I did that only once, and I don't remember the details... look up plan9.ini(8) (http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/8/plan9.ini), boot(8) (http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/8/boot) and booting(8) (http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/8/booting) for details, etc.. Thanks for all the homework! :)) Much appreciated ... -- Duke
[9fans] Plan9 topology
Just read: http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/1/0intro [quote] Plan 9 is a distributed computing environment assembled from separate machines acting as terminals, CPU servers, and file servers.[/quote] Does the above imply, that ideally Plan9 should be running on a LAN? Not so good as the OS on a stand-alone box? -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, Duke Normandin wrote: Just read: http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/1/0intro [quote] Plan 9 is a distributed computing environment assembled from separate machines acting as terminals, CPU servers, and file servers.[/quote] Does the above imply, that ideally Plan9 should be running on a LAN? Not so good as the OS on a stand-alone box? Then I went to: http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/4/0intro and got a better handle on what is meant by server. Not another machine on the network, but any application that serves up files for whatever reason. Correct? -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 10:38 AM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: Just read: http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/1/0intro [quote] Plan 9 is a distributed computing environment assembled from separate machines acting as terminals, CPU servers, and file servers.[/quote] Does the above imply, that ideally Plan9 should be running on a LAN? Not so good as the OS on a stand-alone box? -- Duke A lot of us with just one machine to spare tend to install the system, then build and configure a CPU/Auth/FS server on one box, or even just a VMWare or other virtualization instance. With plan 9 you do not have to run your CPU, authentication and file system parts of your computing system all in one place From there we can log into our plan 9 server using unix programs like drawterm, or even 9vx, each of which are more or less ports of Plan 9 to other OSes with different pros and cons. With plan 9 you do not have to run your CPU, authentication and file system parts of your computing system all in one place, and really, you can just run a terminal and play around with that to get started if you like.
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
if the intent is to get a full understanding of what an operational Plan 9 environment is like, using VMware or Qemu to create VM's for various roles (auth/cpu, fs, term) connected by a virtual network is an excellent option. i've successfully used this setup for experimenting/testing and for demos. -Skip On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 10:50 AM, David Leimbach leim...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 10:38 AM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: Just read: http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/1/0intro [quote] Plan 9 is a distributed computing environment assembled from separate machines acting as terminals, CPU servers, and file servers.[/quote] Does the above imply, that ideally Plan9 should be running on a LAN? Not so good as the OS on a stand-alone box? -- Duke A lot of us with just one machine to spare tend to install the system, then build and configure a CPU/Auth/FS server on one box, or even just a VMWare or other virtualization instance. With plan 9 you do not have to run your CPU, authentication and file system parts of your computing system all in one place From there we can log into our plan 9 server using unix programs like drawterm, or even 9vx, each of which are more or less ports of Plan 9 to other OSes with different pros and cons. With plan 9 you do not have to run your CPU, authentication and file system parts of your computing system all in one place, and really, you can just run a terminal and play around with that to get started if you like.
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, Skip Tavakkolian wrote: if the intent is to get a full understanding of what an operational Plan 9 environment is like, using VMware or Qemu to create VM's for various roles (auth/cpu, fs, term) connected by a virtual network is an excellent option. I've successfully used this setup for experimenting/testing and for demos. Sounds like _a lot_ of fooling around! I've set up numerous *nix LANs before, but don't have one at the moment. How much memory would a machine need to set up all those VMs? -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
Maybe a gigabyte if you used a separate vm for cpu, auth and the fs. You can combine cpu/auth and even the file server into one if you wanted. On Jan 13, 2011 2:34 PM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, Skip Tavakkolian wrote: if the intent is to get a full understanding of what an operational Plan 9 environment is like, using VMware or Qemu to create VM's for various roles (auth/cpu, fs, term) connected by a virtual network is an excellent option. I've successfully used this setup for experimenting/testing and for demos. Sounds like _a lot_ of fooling around! I've set up numerous *nix LANs before, but don't have one at the moment. How much memory would a machine need to set up all those VMs? -- Duke
[9fans] Nvidia announces it will do ARM based desktop and server CPUs
For those of you wanting something different than Intel Architecture, Nvidia plans to give it to you. It should be interesting. http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/05/nvidia-announces-project-denver-arm-cpu-for-the-desktop/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/05/microsoft-confirms-arm-support-is-coming-in-windows-will-play-n/ I'm not rushing to sell my Intel stock though! :-) Arnold
Re: [9fans] mk (from plan9ports) modification time resolution issue?
On Fri, Jan 7, 2011 at 12:40, Henning Schild
henn...@plan9.bell-labs.com wrote:
On Fri, 7 Jan 2011 10:51:56 +0100
Ciprian Dorin Craciun ciprian.crac...@gmail.com wrote:
:) I've kind of feared that this is the reason... :)
But still how do people handle the issue?
I guess in most cases it is ok to ignore the slight waste of CPU-time.
And i guess people just ignore it. After all it costs less than a
second for each of these targets. If your project it full of them and
they are deps for bigger targets you may want to add sleep x.y to the
rules. That way it will maybe take more time but will idle instead of
wasting CPU-time. When using the sleeps adjusting NPROC might help to do
something useful while sleeping.
Another way i could think of is adjusting the mtimes using touch. So
touch the sources -1s or the target +1s after creation of the target.
Depending on the graph that might cause other trouble i guess.
Henning
Thank you all for the feedback!
Indeed having some very quick targets rebuilt again isn't that a
big of an issue, nor is waiting 1 second at the end of each recipe.
(The solution with touching the files out of recipes is not applicable
as it interferes with the dependency graph...)
But the above statement is true unless you have about 367 targets
(for quite a small project -- only 2 tiny and 1 larger Erlang
applications), which when built takes about 45 seconds (with
NPROC=16), and the second time (without touching a single file in the
source directory) takes about exactly the same amount (still 45
seconds), the third time goes down to 44 seconds, then 43 seconds,
then 7 seconds, then 1 second, then 0.6 seconds, then 0.2 seconds,
then again 0.2 seconds, again 0.2 seconds, again 0.2, again 0.2, again
0.2, and finally after ONLY 13 builds it finds out that nothing is to
be made...
So unfortunately neither of the solutions (both waiting, or
touching) are quite reasonable for me...
As a consequence I've hacked `mk` to take into consideration
sub-second timestamps... (And believe me the term hacked is most
appropriated as my solution isn't quite that clean.) :) (For those
interested I've put the patch at the end. It seems that I needed only
to hack the `mkmtime` function in `unix.c` to do the following: I
assume that the oldest file that I care to take into account is not
older than 24 hours from now, any file older than that is capped at 24
hours ago; I also assume that any file newer than one hour from now
(any over is capped again); thus I use the signed long not as seconds
from the epoch but as milliseconds starting from 24 hours ago... The
patch works only on Linux, by using the non portable (??)
(undocumented) `st_mtim` (and not `st_mtime`) `stat` field... Any one
knows a portable Unix way of doing this?)
BTW... People might wonder how come I have 367 targets (with 1221
prerequisites) for such a small project? :) The answers is I don't
write the `mk` script by hand, but I've written a small Scheme
application that just generates the `mk` script based on descriptions
like the following. (Thus the resulting `mk` script is quite
exhaustive with quite tight dependencies and doesn't use
meta-rules...) :)
So just out of curiosity are there any `mk` script generators out there?
Ciprian.
(vbs:require-erlang)
(vbs:define-erlang-application 'rabbit
erl: \\./(rabbitmq-server--latest/src|generated)/.*\\.erl
hrl: \\./(rabbitmq-server--latest/include|generated)/.*\\.hrl
additional-ebin: \\./generated/rabbit\\.app)
(vbs:define-erlang-application 'rabbit_common
erl:
\\./(rabbitmq-server--latest/src|generated)/(rabbit_writer|rabbit_reader|rabbit_framing_amqp_0_8|rabbit_framing_amqp_0_9_1|rabbit_framing_channel|rabbit_basic|rabbit_binary_generator|rabbit_binary_parser|rabbit_channel|rabbit_exchange_type|rabbit_misc|rabbit_net|rabbit_heartbeat|rabbit_msg_store_index|gen_server2|priority_queue|supervisor2)\\.erl
hrl: \\./(rabbitmq-server--latest/include|generated)/.*\\.hrl
additional-ebin: \\./generated/rabbit_common\\.app)
(vbs:define-erlang-application 'amqp_client
dependencies: 'rabbit_common
erl: \\./rabbitmq-erlang-client--latest/src/.*\\.erl
hrl: \\./rabbitmq-erlang-client--latest/include/.*\\.hrl
additional-ebin: \\./generated/amqp_client\\.app)
diff -u ./mk-orig/unix.c ./mk-timeres/unix.c
--- ./mk-orig/unix.c2011-01-02 22:52:50.0 +0200
+++ ./mk-timeres/unix.c 2011-01-09 16:43:32.150837213 +0200
@@ -329,13 +329,33 @@
}
}
+#define TIMERES_SEC ((unsigned long) 1000)
+#define TIMERES_NANO ((unsigned long) 1000 * 1000)
+#define TIMEBASE ((unsigned long) 1024)
+#define TIMESPAN_SEC ((unsigned long) 1) 31) - 1 - TIMEBASE -
1) / TIMERES_SEC / 3600) * 3600)
+
unsigned long
mkmtime(char *name)
{
struct stat st;
+ static unsigned long long ref_time = 0;
+ unsigned long long abs_time;
+
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, David Leimbach wrote: On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 10:38 AM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: Just read: http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/1/0intro [quote] Plan 9 is a distributed computing environment assembled from separate machines acting as terminals, CPU servers, and file servers.[/quote] Does the above imply, that ideally Plan9 should be running on a LAN? Not so good as the OS on a stand-alone box? -- Duke A lot of us with just one machine to spare tend to install the system, then build and configure a CPU/Auth/FS server on one box, or even just a VMWare or other virtualization instance. OK! So it _is_ possible to run a full Plan9 OS in one partition, on one machine? With plan 9 you do not have to run your CPU, authentication and file system parts of your computing system all in one place I understand. In bygone days, Unix shops ran exactly that way. A central file server box, with terminals 9or workstations) connected to it. From there we can log into our plan 9 server using unix programs like drawterm, or even 9vx, each of which are more or less ports of Plan 9 to other OSes with different pros and cons. You bet! With plan 9 you do not have to run your CPU, authentication and file system parts of your computing system all in one place, and really, you can just run a terminal and play around with that to get started if you like. I don't have any extra boxes to play around with at the moment. So if I can let one partition be Plan9 - in all it's glory - so much the better. -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
depending on the host os, 1g is sufficient. i've never needed to use more than 256M for plan9 vm's. On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 11:31 AM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, Skip Tavakkolian wrote: if the intent is to get a full understanding of what an operational Plan 9 environment is like, using VMware or Qemu to create VM's for various roles (auth/cpu, fs, term) connected by a virtual network is an excellent option. I've successfully used this setup for experimenting/testing and for demos. Sounds like _a lot_ of fooling around! I've set up numerous *nix LANs before, but don't have one at the moment. How much memory would a machine need to set up all those VMs? -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 11:16:25 PST Skip Tavakkolian skip.tavakkol...@gmail.com wrote: if the intent is to get a full understanding of what an operational Plan 9 environment is like, using VMware or Qemu to create VM's for various roles (auth/cpu, fs, term) connected by a virtual network is an excellent option. i've successfully used this setup for experimenting/testing and for demos. Would be nice if there was a script that did this. In a past company we had added an ability to create virtual hosts (each with its own network stack + interfaces) and virtual nets to our version of FreeBSD. A grad student modified a gui program to draw network topologies and generate a shell script from it to set up these nodes and nets on a single FreeBSD box. We did the opposite of what Sun was touting. The computer is the network :-)
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 01/13/2011 11:40 AM, Duke Normandin wrote: On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, David Leimbach wrote: On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 10:38 AM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: Just read: http://lsub.org/magic/man2html/1/0intro [quote] Plan 9 is a distributed computing environment assembled from separate machines acting as terminals, CPU servers, and file servers.[/quote] Does the above imply, that ideally Plan9 should be running on a LAN? Not so good as the OS on a stand-alone box? -- Duke A lot of us with just one machine to spare tend to install the system, then build and configure a CPU/Auth/FS server on one box, or even just a VMWare or other virtualization instance. OK! So it _is_ possible to run a full Plan9 OS in one partition, on one machine? With plan 9 you do not have to run your CPU, authentication and file system parts of your computing system all in one place I understand. In bygone days, Unix shops ran exactly that way. A central file server box, with terminals 9or workstations) connected to it. From there we can log into our plan 9 server using unix programs like drawterm, or even 9vx, each of which are more or less ports of Plan 9 to other OSes with different pros and cons. You bet! With plan 9 you do not have to run your CPU, authentication and file system parts of your computing system all in one place, and really, you can just run a terminal and play around with that to get started if you like. I don't have any extra boxes to play around with at the moment. So if I can let one partition be Plan9 - in all it's glory - so much the better. If you only have one computer available and have to dual-boot, you can actually do pretty good with a simple, standalone terminal (this is what gets installed by default). You can then get an account at one or two of the public Plan 9 servers and connect from your terminal. If you have a second computer available that you can devote to Plan 9 (a Pentium II with 128 MB of RAM will perform admirably), I recommend that you find the instructions on the wiki for setting up a standalone CPU server (http://www.plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Configuring_a_standalone_CPU_server/index.html) and follow them. You will end up with a Plan 9 cpu/auth/file server all on one box, to which you can then connect from a Plan 9 terminal, 9vx on Linux, or drawterm on Linux/OS X/Windows. Personally, I've run at least half a dozen Plan 9 servers over the years, always installing a full cpu/auth/file server, usually on any PC I can scrape together out of the parts bin or the loading dock. Then I just connect from my desktop using drawterm, or I use the Thinkpad with Plan 9 installed as a terminal. Good luck; Plan 9 is a very fun system. John -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJNL1tzAAoJEJ9D0dbIh7TLDcIIAJFy25HLbQaINe/1wsomA2d4 Ha8xzD/q0VTndGUI7D+qYQ/EdCr3WwEmTzZQTBho3Ykm0DEnYgLAxSyqiZz/2slP vGamc/5NQfNfiRohIDiXhnuqvBrarRaunHtjHtlBiU23irPR0twSOX6c7syogeEv /2rrSgVYnFKlfuQBE/tdiVk1maaqqveQSXCzbOKdt91B2qGTotFmgaP///1H5cYe NJk3Zj4U5w/4yVbxLYmkIv9SRQpiJMpEvdAy0sul5pYjGPhd6NnBcsepOwB12f0E Ef/lXHVK6XgXk0I8ptWZbk0Lj6Ddmb28sTS2kdnbhTa15KaMPzwhVWedx0yrdo8= =5J9Z -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, Skip Tavakkolian wrote: On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 11:31 AM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, Skip Tavakkolian wrote: if the intent is to get a full understanding of what an operational Plan 9 environment is like, using VMware or Qemu to create VM's for various roles (auth/cpu, fs, term) connected by a virtual network is an excellent option. I've successfully used this setup for experimenting/testing and for demos. Sounds like _a lot_ of fooling around! I've set up numerous *nix LANs before, but don't have one at the moment. How much memory would a machine need to set up all those VMs? depending on the host os, 1g is sufficient. i've never needed to use more than 256M for plan9 vm's. The box that I'd be using has a total of 1G RAM. If I do this, it would be on top of Xubuntu 10.10. But the VM thing doesn't really appeal to me. I could run a headless box as a Plan9 auth/cpu, fs server. Then, if I want to this Plan9 server, is there a minimum Plan9 install that I could put on the spare partition that I have? Kinda like what I had for a long time: a 486DX running FreeBSD as a mailserver; another running as a webserver; another couple running primary and slave nameservers; and one dual-homed FreeBSD box routing and doing firewall/natd. Had a couple of Linux and FreeBSD workstations hung on this LAN. Those 486DX _never_ hiccuped! (Thank you UPS!!!) The above sounds like a job for Plan9 :) But my point is - is that I don't need to set up a LAN to enjoy Linux or FreeBSD. Can I use Plan9 standalone in a dedicated partition? -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu Jan 13 14:47:52 EST 2011, bakul+pl...@bitblocks.com wrote: On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 11:16:25 PST Skip Tavakkolian skip.tavakkol...@gmail.com wrote: if the intent is to get a full understanding of what an operational Plan 9 environment is like, using VMware or Qemu to create VM's for various roles (auth/cpu, fs, term) connected by a virtual network is an excellent option. i've successfully used this setup for experimenting/testing and for demos. Would be nice if there was a script that did this. thanks for volunteering! - erik
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, John Floren wrote: [snip] If you only have one computer available and have to dual-boot, you can actually do pretty good with a simple, standalone terminal (this is what gets installed by default). You can then get an account at one or two of the public Plan 9 servers and connect from your terminal. Do you mean the Plan 9 terminal that you mention below? Roughly, what does this installation include? If you have a second computer available that you can devote to Plan 9 (a Pentium II with 128 MB of RAM will perform admirably), I recommend that you find the instructions on the wiki for setting up a standalone CPU server (http://www.plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Configuring_a_standalone_CPU_server/index.html) and follow them. You will end up with a Plan 9 cpu/auth/file server all on one box, to which you can then connect from a Plan 9 terminal, 9vx on Linux, or drawterm on Linux/OS X/Windows. I see! Plan 9 is essential a server OS. That's it! That's all! It can't be run as a client and server all on one box. Personally, I've run at least half a dozen Plan 9 servers over the years, always installing a full cpu/auth/file server, usually on any PC I can scrape together out of the parts bin or the loading dock. Then I just connect from my desktop using drawterm, or I use the Thinkpad with Plan 9 installed as a terminal. Been there; done that! with FreeBSD. :) Good luck; Plan 9 is a very fun system. Sounds like it might be. Thanks for the input! -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Nvidia announces it will do ARM based desktop and server CPUs
Good news :) On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 10:37 PM, Aharon Robbins arn...@skeeve.com wrote: For those of you wanting something different than Intel Architecture, Nvidia plans to give it to you. It should be interesting. http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/05/nvidia-announces-project-denver-arm-cpu-for-the-desktop/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/05/microsoft-confirms-arm-support-is-coming-in-windows-will-play-n/ I'm not rushing to sell my Intel stock though! :-) Arnold -- С наилучшими пожеланиями Жилкин Сергей With best regards Zhilkin Sergey
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 01/13/2011 12:24 PM, Duke Normandin wrote: On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, John Floren wrote: [snip] If you only have one computer available and have to dual-boot, you can actually do pretty good with a simple, standalone terminal (this is what gets installed by default). You can then get an account at one or two of the public Plan 9 servers and connect from your terminal. Do you mean the Plan 9 terminal that you mention below? Roughly, what does this installation include? Yes. You just stick in the CD and do a basic install. When you're done, you get all the programs that ship with Plan 9; it's very usable, you can connect to various Plan 9 servers or FTP to move files around and stuff. Used to be, when I'd visit home and get stuck on dialup, I'd use my laptop as a standalone terminal and just dial up and connect to my server when I needed to grab a file or push one up. If you have a second computer available that you can devote to Plan 9 (a Pentium II with 128 MB of RAM will perform admirably), I recommend that you find the instructions on the wiki for setting up a standalone CPU server (http://www.plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Configuring_a_standalone_CPU_server/index.html) and follow them. You will end up with a Plan 9 cpu/auth/file server all on one box, to which you can then connect from a Plan 9 terminal, 9vx on Linux, or drawterm on Linux/OS X/Windows. I see! Plan 9 is essential a server OS. That's it! That's all! It can't be run as a client and server all on one box. You *can* sit down at a cpu/auth/file server and work, but it's just not very usable--consider it an administration console. Personally, I've run at least half a dozen Plan 9 servers over the years, always installing a full cpu/auth/file server, usually on any PC I can scrape together out of the parts bin or the loading dock. Then I just connect from my desktop using drawterm, or I use the Thinkpad with Plan 9 installed as a terminal. Been there; done that! with FreeBSD. :) Good luck; Plan 9 is a very fun system. Sounds like it might be. Thanks for the input! I think you mentioned in another message that you have a headless box available; I recommend temporarily hooking that up to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, then installing a standalone cpu/auth/file server on it. Once you're done, you can try using drawterm from Windows or Linux or whatever you have to test the configuration. If the configuration is good, you can go ahead and install Plan 9 as a terminal on your spare partition, or just keep working from drawterm, which is what I usually do (the graphics performance is better). John -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJNL2NEAAoJEJ9D0dbIh7TLtt0H/2heoig4frHiOBBOxPK7WBxd j17D3G2U1fOtpz6XEZij/TKMiRcY4xBQve/9S/nVpI3neVx9oarqVWZ3Ycv5ehou bViHe3bQMIesRAiSSwtF3Ce8E/KHzwQ8OsepuYln33OhCs6uSLlokXZYaCAFUPGe WXOteKAqQ77eZS+BD3SF5lcMucQRgpvuh7zNItDQjGV9JV70J41KsWVK9XkbOspk 4e4jea2cweJbs9hWxLCKNYkTKydgGzC7cir9FhdCqrBZoFmd02Acpiy/aWYxXK0n 0wfHh8towKLGlLGQ1NnBqf2sU74nd0sH+gN/qedq01b5+G+SsHsAY0PXD2hLs5o= =LTbR -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
Can I use Plan9 standalone in a dedicated partition? Yes, of course!
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, John Floren wrote: [snip] Yes. You just stick in the CD and do a basic install. When you're done, you get all the programs that ship with Plan 9; it's very usable, you can connect to various Plan 9 servers or FTP to move files around and stuff. I see! I mis-understood what you meant by Plan 9 terminal. I thought that the Plan 9 Live CD gave you a choice of either installing the Plan 9 server or a Plan 9 client/terminal. I now see that that there are terminals available on various OSes to connect to a Plan 9 server. Turns out that I can install `drawterm' version 20091003-1 directly from my Xubuntu box - using Synaptic. Didn't see `9vx' though. I'll have to Google it. I did see that `wily', an Linux ACME clone is available. Guess what I did? :) [snip] You *can* sit down at a cpu/auth/file server and work, but it's just not very usable--consider it an administration console. Got it! [snip] I think you mentioned in another message that you have a headless box available; I recommend temporarily hooking that up to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, then installing a standalone cpu/auth/file server on it. Once you're done, you can try using drawterm from Windows or Linux or whatever you have to test the configuration. I just checked - it's a 166Mhz P-I with 98M RAM and 4.5G HDD. Made a good dedicated mail server. May not have enough gonads for a Plan 9 server though. If the configuration is good, you can go ahead and install Plan 9 as a terminal on your spare partition, or just keep working from drawterm, which is what I usually do (the graphics performance is better). So I can install Plan 9 as a client/terminal from the CD! But I wouldn't waste a 30G BSD partition on that. Which is where I was going to put Plan 9. I might just wipe the 4G Native Oberon partition, and put the Plan 9 terminal there. Although this box that I use multi-boots, why bother installing Plan 9 as a terminal on a dedicated partition, when I can connect from Linux using `drawterm' or `9vx'. Thanks for the input! -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
I could run a headless box as a Plan9 auth/cpu, fs server. Then, if I want to this Plan9 server, is there a minimum Plan9 install that I could put on the spare partition that I have? With this setup available, there are several ways you can go. As a lot of people have suggested, you can install a cpu/auth/fs server on the headless machine and use drawterm to be a terminal talking to him. An even more Plan9-like way of doing it is to net-boot a Plan9 terminal from your cpu/auth/fs machine. If you want to boot your main box that way, you can without installing anything on it. From within Linux, you can do the same thing in virtualbox. In fact, I have a virtualbox terminal running right now on my machine. It's net booted, taking its Plan9 kernel from a Plan9 machine that provides DHCP service and it mounts its root from a Ken FS machine. At home, I use 9vx taking its root from a Plan9 fossil/venti file server. for a long time: a 486DX running FreeBSD as a mailserver; another running as a webserver; another couple running primary and slave nameservers; and one dual-homed FreeBSD box routing and doing firewall/natd. The only problem you'd run into there is that Plan9 doesn't currently have a NAT implementation. The above sounds like a job for Plan9 :) But my point is - is that I don't need to set up a LAN to enjoy Linux or FreeBSD. Can I use Plan9 standalone in a dedicated partition? Yes, the default install from the CD sets up a stand-alone machine. And for most of us, that's the starting point from which we configure any specialized machines such as cpu, auth, or file servers. And you can get a pretty good feel for what Plan9 is about with a stand-alone machine. However, some parts of the system make a lot more sense when you experience them in a networked environment. Auth is a good example of this. But whichever path(s) you take, I hope you'll find Plan9 is a great system, just as we do. BLS
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
I see! I mis-understood what you meant by Plan 9 terminal. I thought that the Plan 9 Live CD gave you a choice of either installing the Plan 9 server or a Plan 9 client/terminal. I now see that that there are terminals available on various OSes to connect to a Plan 9 server. It has become a little confusing over the last 20 years. In a way too brief way, here are the basic incarnations of Plan9: - Natively running the current Plan9 kernel - Stand-alone terminal with its own fs - Terminal (possibly diskless) talking to an external fs - CPU, auth, or file server (or some combination) All of these are running Plan9 as their bare metal OS - Same as above but in a virtual machine, such as virtualbox, vmware, qemu, etc. - Ken's FS: a file server that runs on bare hardware - 9vx: a port of the Plan9 kernel to vx32 that allows a full Plan9 system to run as a user-level application on another system, including Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OSX - drawterm: an earlier port of a limited Plan9 kernel that's similar to a terminal connecting to a remote CPU server - P9P (aka Plan9 ports, Plan9 from user space): a port of the Plan9 user apps to POSIX-like systems And just for fun these can all play together. At the moment, I'm using a MacOS machine that has one file system mounted using the P9P 9pfuse program. It's also running an instance of virtualbox that's net booted a Plan9 terminal. There's also an instance of 9vx running which is accessing the file system mounted via P9P. All of these pieces are talking to a Plan9 CPU server which in turn uses a Ken FS file server. I did see that `wily', an Linux ACME clone is available. Guess what I did? :) I remember playing with wily quite a lot a while back. With Russ's P9P port of acme, though, you can run the real acme as a Linux app too. I just checked - it's a 166Mhz P-I with 98M RAM and 4.5G HDD. Made a good dedicated mail server. May not have enough gonads for a Plan 9 server though. I wouldn't dismiss it entirely. My old Plan9 CPU/auth/file server at home had a very similar configuration. BLS
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, Brian L. Stuart wrote: [snip] It has become a little confusing over the last 20 years. In a way too brief way, here are the basic incarnations of Plan9: - Natively running the current Plan9 kernel - Stand-alone terminal with its own fs - Terminal (possibly diskless) talking to an external fs - CPU, auth, or file server (or some combination) All of these are running Plan9 as their bare metal OS - Same as above but in a virtual machine, such as virtualbox, vmware, qemu, etc. - Ken's FS: a file server that runs on bare hardware - 9vx: a port of the Plan9 kernel to vx32 that allows a full Plan9 system to run as a user-level application on another system, including Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OSX - drawterm: an earlier port of a limited Plan9 kernel that's similar to a terminal connecting to a remote CPU server - P9P (aka Plan9 ports, Plan9 from user space): a port of the Plan9 user apps to POSIX-like systems And just for fun these can all play together. At the moment, I'm using a MacOS machine that has one file system mounted using the P9P 9pfuse program. It's also running an instance of virtualbox that's net booted a Plan9 terminal. There's also an instance of 9vx running which is accessing the file system mounted via P9P. All of these pieces are talking to a Plan9 CPU server which in turn uses a Ken FS file server. I *know* that I'm going to get myself into trouble, hanging around a bunch of Plan 9 hackers - like you seem to be :) My wife just made me get rid of a bunch of P-IIIs that would have been great for this new venture. Shoot!! (that's sh#t with 2 Os ) [snip] I just checked - it's a 166Mhz P-I with 98M RAM and 4.5G HDD. Made a good dedicated mail server. May not have enough gonads for a Plan 9 server though. I wouldn't dismiss it entirely. My old Plan9 CPU/auth/file server at home had a very similar configuration. Then I'll have to give it a shot. Then go looking for some more recent hardware! Here we go again ... :D -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, Brian L. Stuart wrote: I could run a headless box as a Plan9 auth/cpu, fs server. Then, if I want to this Plan9 server, is there a minimum Plan9 install that I could put on the spare partition that I have? With this setup available, there are several ways you can go. As a lot of people have suggested, you can install a cpu/auth/fs server on the headless machine and use drawterm to be a terminal talking to Got it! him. An even more Plan9-like way of doing it is to net-boot a Plan9 terminal from your cpu/auth/fs machine. If you want to boot your main box that way, you can without installing anything on it. From within Linux, you can do the same thing in virtualbox. In fact, I have a virtualbox terminal running right now on my machine. It's net booted, taking its Plan9 kernel from a Plan9 machine that provides DHCP service and it mounts its root from a Ken FS machine. At home, I use 9vx taking its root from a Plan9 fossil/venti file server. So the NIC in your Linux box must have to be PXE capable? Truth be told, I've never set up a net-booting system. The Plan ( server would have to have enough disk space to store its own stuff, plus the workstation's file system? Could get dicey, if you've got a few workstations net-booting, could it not? for a long time: a 486DX running FreeBSD as a mailserver; another running as a webserver; another couple running primary and slave nameservers; and one dual-homed FreeBSD box routing and doing firewall/natd. The only problem you'd run into there is that Plan9 doesn't currently have a NAT implementation. I should be able to hang the Plan 9 server off my router without any problems, should I not? The router NATs .. The above sounds like a job for Plan9 :) But my point is - is that I don't need to set up a LAN to enjoy Linux or FreeBSD. Can I use Plan9 standalone in a dedicated partition? Yes, the default install from the CD sets up a stand-alone machine. And for most of us, that's the starting point from which we configure any specialized machines such as cpu, auth, or file servers. And you can get a pretty good feel for what Plan9 is about with a stand-alone machine. However, some parts of the system make a lot more sense when you experience them in a networked environment. Auth is a good example of this. I see your point - because Plan 9 was after all, built as a distributed system. I'll give it a shot on that P-I mentioned in another post. But whichever path(s) you take, I hope you'll find Plan9 is a great system, just as we do. I'm in trouble already ... -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
At Thu, 13 Jan 2011 14:37:52 -0700 (MST), Duke Normandin wrote: On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, John Floren wrote: I think you mentioned in another message that you have a headless box available; I recommend temporarily hooking that up to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, then installing a standalone cpu/auth/file server on it. Once you're done, you can try using drawterm from Windows or Linux or whatever you have to test the configuration. I just checked - it's a 166Mhz P-I with 98M RAM and 4.5G HDD. Made a good dedicated mail server. May not have enough gonads for a Plan 9 server though. That should do well enough for a basic Plan 9 cpu/auth/file server, although you may wish to forgo Venti given the small RAM and drive. If the configuration is good, you can go ahead and install Plan 9 as a terminal on your spare partition, or just keep working from drawterm, which is what I usually do (the graphics performance is better). So I can install Plan 9 as a client/terminal from the CD! But I wouldn't waste a 30G BSD partition on that. Which is where I was going to put Plan 9. I might just wipe the 4G Native Oberon partition, and put the Plan 9 terminal there. Although this box that I use multi-boots, why bother installing Plan 9 as a terminal on a dedicated partition, when I can connect from Linux using `drawterm' or `9vx'. Thanks for the input! -- Duke I've never bothered to install Plan 9 as a boot option on my desktops; I prefer to leave them booted into Linux and connect via drawterm, so as not to disturb my open applications. On my old laptop, I kept a Plan 9 terminal install because that was actually quite convenient, and I could boot using the server's root from most anywhere. John
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
yes, I dual booted Plan 9 and windows for years, it worked great, just boot the cdroom and follow the instructions, choose the empty space or partition from the installer, etc. you'll end up with a standalone terminal, no need for a cpu server in the beginning, later you could just rebuild the kernel and turn it into a cpu server. if the other OS is linux and uses grub, it'll need an entry for Plan 9 similar to the windows entries, (chainload or something) if it's windows, it's a bit more hacking booting Plan 9 from vista's loader but totally doable ah, and make sure your nic is supported. On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 5:08 PM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, Skip Tavakkolian wrote: On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 11:31 AM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, Skip Tavakkolian wrote: if the intent is to get a full understanding of what an operational Plan 9 environment is like, using VMware or Qemu to create VM's for various roles (auth/cpu, fs, term) connected by a virtual network is an excellent option. I've successfully used this setup for experimenting/testing and for demos. Sounds like _a lot_ of fooling around! I've set up numerous *nix LANs before, but don't have one at the moment. How much memory would a machine need to set up all those VMs? depending on the host os, 1g is sufficient. i've never needed to use more than 256M for plan9 vm's. The box that I'd be using has a total of 1G RAM. If I do this, it would be on top of Xubuntu 10.10. But the VM thing doesn't really appeal to me. I could run a headless box as a Plan9 auth/cpu, fs server. Then, if I want to this Plan9 server, is there a minimum Plan9 install that I could put on the spare partition that I have? Kinda like what I had for a long time: a 486DX running FreeBSD as a mailserver; another running as a webserver; another couple running primary and slave nameservers; and one dual-homed FreeBSD box routing and doing firewall/natd. Had a couple of Linux and FreeBSD workstations hung on this LAN. Those 486DX _never_ hiccuped! (Thank you UPS!!!) The above sounds like a job for Plan9 :) But my point is - is that I don't need to set up a LAN to enjoy Linux or FreeBSD. Can I use Plan9 standalone in a dedicated partition? -- Duke -- Federico G. Benavento
Re: [9fans] Noob says Hi ..
I've trashed my partition table more than once in the past years TeskDisk always saved my ass, I just booted a linux live cd, download the static binary and fixed my partition table... http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 12:33 PM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, erik quanstrom wrote: When I start the install process from the Live CD, I'll probably be asked to choose a partition where I want Plan9 to live, right? I'll choose one; it'll warn me that the partition is already in use, do I want to overwrite it? I'll reply, yes, and BOOM the partition is committed to Plan9. The rest of my partitions are left alone! - right? Much obliged. nice in theory. in practice, make backups. I was waiting for that one to pop up. :) If it's _that_ unpredictable, I think that I'll install it on a spare box. FWIW, 8 mos ago, I installed XP on Part1; Linux on 2 (with the swap on an extended partition); PcBSD on 3; and Native Oberon on 4. used Gnome `gparted' to resize and move partitions, with XP still in Part.1 Zero problems! No OS install tried to mess with another partition. So, are you being overly cautious here, or is there a real danger that Plan9 has a run-away? -- Duke -- Federico G. Benavento
Re: [9fans] Noob says Hi ..
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, Federico G. Benavento wrote: I've trashed my partition table more than once in the past years TeskDisk always saved my ass, I just booted a linux live cd, download the static binary and fixed my partition table... http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk So have I! Thanks for the link. have you tried gparted? I have it as a LiveCD. Hose a partition - no probs. Boot the CD; fix it; go for lunch. :) I'm going to DL TestDisk anyway - you never know! -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
him. An even more Plan9-like way of doing it is to net-boot a Plan9 terminal from your cpu/auth/fs machine. If you want to boot your main box that way, you can without installing anything on it. From within Linux, you can do the same thing in virtualbox. In fact, I have a virtualbox terminal running right now on my machine. It's net booted, taking its Plan9 kernel from a Plan9 machine that provides DHCP service and it mounts its root from a Ken FS machine. At home, I use 9vx taking its root from a Plan9 fossil/venti file server. So the NIC in your Linux box must have to be PXE capable? It depends. If you want to PXE boot the box directly and have it run the Plan9 kernel natively, then at some point, something will have to be PXE capable. That could be the machine's BIOS or BIOS code on the NIC or even a boot loader loaded from a disk or CD or... On the other hand, for the case of virtualbox the PXE booting support is built into virtualbox itself. Truth be told, I've never set up a net-booting system. Because Plan9 was designed from the ground up around a network organization, it does a good job of supporting net booting. It's not hard to set up. The Plan ( server would have to have enough disk space to store its own stuff, plus the workstation's file system? Could get dicey, if you've got a few workstations net-booting, could it not? It can. The clients all share a single copy of the common files, but each user will have his own files on the common server. But the full Plan9 installation is quite managable. You can do quite a lot with only a few gig. I should be able to hang the Plan 9 server off my router without any problems, should I not? The router NATs .. Definitely. Most of the Plan9 systems I've run do access the external net through a NAT box. But whichever path(s) you take, I hope you'll find Plan9 is a great system, just as we do. I'm in trouble already ... Rotfl... You will be assimilated :) Seriously though, the Plan9 community is a good bunch and everyone is happy to help anyone who genuinely wants to learn. My suggestion would be to work on your spare machine first. You won't have to worry about blowing anything away and it might evolve into a useful part of your network. I'd also start by installing from the CD as a stand-alone machine. After you know your way around some, you can try to convert it to a combined CPU/auth/file server and then look into how you connect to it from other machines. BLS
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, Federico G. Benavento wrote: yes, I dual booted Plan 9 and windows for years, it worked great, just boot the cdroom and follow the instructions, choose the empty space or partition from the installer, etc. you'll end up with a standalone terminal, no need for a cpu server in the beginning, later you could just rebuild the kernel and turn it into a cpu server. Cool .. if the other OS is linux and uses grub, it'll need an entry for Plan 9 similar to the windows entries, (chainload or something) You bet .. ah, and make sure your nic is supported. RTL1839 I think. I'm almost sure that it's supported. All sounds very encouraging. Addio ... -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, John Floren wrote: At Thu, 13 Jan 2011 14:37:52 -0700 (MST), Duke Normandin wrote: On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, John Floren wrote: I think you mentioned in another message that you have a headless box available; I recommend temporarily hooking that up to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, then installing a standalone cpu/auth/file server on it. Once you're done, you can try using drawterm from Windows or Linux or whatever you have to test the configuration. I just checked - it's a 166Mhz P-I with 98M RAM and 4.5G HDD. Made a good dedicated mail server. May not have enough gonads for a Plan 9 server though. That should do well enough for a basic Plan 9 cpu/auth/file server, although you may wish to forgo Venti given the small RAM and drive. What is Venti again? [snip] I've never bothered to install Plan 9 as a boot option on my desktops; I prefer to leave them booted into Linux and connect via drawterm, so as not to disturb my open applications. The more I think about it, and the more I understand what Plan9 is, the more I'm convinced that hanging a dedicated Plan9 box off my router, and connecting to it from anywhere inside the subnet, is the way to go. On my old laptop, I kept a Plan 9 terminal install because that was actually quite convenient, and I could boot using the server's root from most anywhere. You must have had a dedicated server box as well, then? -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
The Plan ( server would have to have enough disk space to store its own stuff, plus the workstation's file system? Could get dicey, if you've got a few workstations net-booting, could it not? It can. The clients all share a single copy of the common files, but each user will have his own files on the common server. But the full Plan9 installation is quite managable. You can do quite a lot with only a few gig. i think there's a fundamental misunderstanding here. a plan 9 file server serves a *common* set of files. so loosely speaking, storage requirements scale with users, and not with the number of systems attached. one could boot dozens of cpu servers from a fs with only 1gb of storage. the distribution takes only 300mb. - erik
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On 1/13/2011 7:42 PM, Duke Normandin wrote: On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, John Floren wrote: At Thu, 13 Jan 2011 14:37:52 -0700 (MST), Duke Normandin wrote: On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, John Floren wrote: I think you mentioned in another message that you have a headless box available; I recommend temporarily hooking that up to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, then installing a standalone cpu/auth/file server on it. Once you're done, you can try using drawterm from Windows or Linux or whatever you have to test the configuration. I just checked - it's a 166Mhz P-I with 98M RAM and 4.5G HDD. Made a good dedicated mail server. May not have enough gonads for a Plan 9 server though. That should do well enough for a basic Plan 9 cpu/auth/file server, although you may wish to forgo Venti given the small RAM and drive. What is Venti again? [snip] Venti is the archival storage for Plan 9. Basically, new files and changes to files get written to the Fossil file system. If Venti exists, those changes get written to Venti; Venti never deletes anything and works on a rather cool block-coalescing system. I highly recommend reading the paper. On a system with a small disk, it's a good idea to go without Venti, because of the space required. Fossil will then hold all your files, meaning you don't get the daily snapshots, but you probably won't miss those immediately--there's plenty of time to set up a system with a bigger disk for Venti if you like Plan 9, or you could even add Venti after the fact by sticking in another disk. I've never bothered to install Plan 9 as a boot option on my desktops; I prefer to leave them booted into Linux and connect via drawterm, so as not to disturb my open applications. The more I think about it, and the more I understand what Plan9 is, the more I'm convinced that hanging a dedicated Plan9 box off my router, and connecting to it from anywhere inside the subnet, is the way to go. That's really the best way, in my opinion. On my old laptop, I kept a Plan 9 terminal install because that was actually quite convenient, and I could boot using the server's root from most anywhere. You must have had a dedicated server box as well, then? I did until a few weeks ago, when I moved, yes. John
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, blstu...@bellsouth.net wrote: [snip] So the NIC in your Linux box must have to be PXE capable? It depends. If you want to PXE boot the box directly and have it run the Plan9 kernel natively, then at some point, something will have to be PXE capable. That could be the machine's BIOS or BIOS code on the NIC or even a boot loader loaded from a disk or CD or... Got it ... On the other hand, for the case of virtualbox the PXE booting support is built into virtualbox itself. ummm... Truth be told, I've never set up a net-booting system. Because Plan9 was designed from the ground up around a network organization, it does a good job of supporting net booting. It's not hard to set up. The Plan ( server would have to have enough disk space to store its own stuff, plus the workstation's file system? Could get dicey, if you've got a few workstations net-booting, could it not? It can. The clients all share a single copy of the common files, but each user will have his own files on the common server. But the full Plan9 installation is quite managable. You can do quite a lot with only a few gig. Yeah! It's only going to be me using the server. So it's not like I'm going to hit it that hard. Can I run several Plan9 boxen, each dedicated to a task - like mail; named; httpd, etc. All headless, but just purring away ;) [snip] I'm in trouble already ... Rotfl... You will be assimilated :) Seriously though, the Plan9 community is a good bunch and everyone is happy to help anyone who genuinely wants to learn. I sense that already. I've got _a lot_ to learn; but I'm willing. BTW, I'm just a 63yr old programmer / networking hobbyist - all self-taught. As I said in another post, my networking experience started when I discovered FreeBSD - some 15 years ago. I've had some nice LANs running - all before WIFI, and before routing appliances were available. No probs. I enjoy it. Starting over with Plan9 is going to be fun. My suggestion would be to work on your spare machine first. You won't have to worry about blowing anything away and it might evolve into a useful part of your network. I'd also start by installing from the CD as a stand-alone machine. After you know your way around some, you can try to convert it to a combined CPU/auth/file server and then look into how you connect to it from other machines. Sounds like a plan -- pun intended! Much obliged! -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
works on a rather cool block-coalescing system. I highly recommend reading the paper. On a system with a small disk, it's a good idea to go without Venti, because of the space required. oh, the irony. - erik
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, John Floren wrote: On 1/13/2011 7:42 PM, Duke Normandin wrote: What is Venti again? Venti is the archival storage for Plan 9. Basically, new files and changes to files get written to the Fossil file system. If Venti exists, those changes get written to Venti; Venti never deletes anything and works on a rather cool block-coalescing system. I highly recommend reading the paper. I'll look for it. Sounds something like a RAID system to me. Or `vinum' on FreebSD. On a system with a small disk, it's a good idea to go without Venti, because of the space required. Fossil will then hold all your files, meaning you don't get the daily snapshots, but you probably won't miss those immediately--there's plenty of time to set up a system with a bigger disk for Venti if you like Plan 9, or you could even add Venti after the fact by sticking in another disk. What is the minimum HDD capacity required to run an Auth/cpu/fs server with Venti support? -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, erik quanstrom wrote: The Plan ( server would have to have enough disk space to store its own stuff, plus the workstation's file system? Could get dicey, if you've got a few workstations net-booting, could it not? It can. The clients all share a single copy of the common files, but each user will have his own files on the common server. But the full Plan9 installation is quite managable. You can do quite a lot with only a few gig. i think there's a fundamental misunderstanding here. a plan 9 file server serves a *common* set of files. so loosely speaking, storage requirements scale with users, and not with the number of systems attached. one could boot dozens of cpu servers from a fs with only 1gb of storage. the distribution takes only 300mb. I see! -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 8:15 PM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, John Floren wrote: On 1/13/2011 7:42 PM, Duke Normandin wrote: What is Venti again? Venti is the archival storage for Plan 9. Basically, new files and changes to files get written to the Fossil file system. If Venti exists, those changes get written to Venti; Venti never deletes anything and works on a rather cool block-coalescing system. I highly recommend reading the paper. I'll look for it. Sounds something like a RAID system to me. Or `vinum' on FreebSD. On a system with a small disk, it's a good idea to go without Venti, because of the space required. Fossil will then hold all your files, meaning you don't get the daily snapshots, but you probably won't miss those immediately--there's plenty of time to set up a system with a bigger disk for Venti if you like Plan 9, or you could even add Venti after the fact by sticking in another disk. What is the minimum HDD capacity required to run an Auth/cpu/fs server with Venti support? There's no hard and fast rule, really, but your Fossil partition needs to be at least big enough to hold the full distribution, and Venti should be big enough to hold everything you ever intend to put on the system. I wouldn't try it with less than a 20 GB disk, with say 2 GB for Fossil and the rest for Venti; unless you start storing music and video on there, that should give you plenty of room to work with. John
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, John Floren wrote: On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 8:15 PM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: [snip] What is the minimum HDD capacity required to run an Auth/cpu/fs server with Venti support? There's no hard and fast rule, really, but your Fossil partition needs to be at least big enough to hold the full distribution, and Venti should be big enough to hold everything you ever intend to put on the system. The Fossil partition being the partition where Plan9 will be running. Venti should then be on another partition? I wouldn't try it with less than a 20 GB disk, with say 2 GB for Fossil and the rest for Venti; unless you start storing music and video on there, that should give you plenty of room to work with. Ok! Can Venti be managed? As in, every so often, purge what isn't needed? -- Duke
Re: [9fans] Plan9 topology
On Jan 13, 2011 11:33 PM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, John Floren wrote: On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 8:15 PM, Duke Normandin dukeofp...@ml1.net wrote: [snip] What is the minimum HDD capacity required to run an Auth/cpu/fs server with Venti support? There's no hard and fast rule, really, but your Fossil partition needs to be at least big enough to hold the full distribution, and Venti should be big enough to hold everything you ever intend to put on the system. The Fossil partition being the partition where Plan9 will be running. Venti should then be on another partition? Yes. I wouldn't try it with less than a 20 GB disk, with say 2 GB for Fossil and the rest for Venti; unless you start storing music and video on there, that should give you plenty of room to work with. Ok! Can Venti be managed? As in, every so often, purge what isn't needed? No. -- Duke
