Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[Adriano Verardo]

cinap_len...@felloff.net wrote:

What VMare version do you use ?

VMware Player 6.0.2 build-1744117. win7 64 bit.

but what difference does it make? you have to look at the evidence, not
version numbers that dont tell you anything.
Absolutely true, it makes no difference. But I'm trying to fulfill a 
crazy request
of a client ... being sure that he will throw away all old stuff in a 
few months.

So I'm looking for a whatever, time inexpensive solution.

Anyway, as you suggested, the problem seems to be the downloaded bz2.

Downloaded again. SHA not verified
Repeated 4 times the install procedure following - slavishly - my notes
with several changes in the virtual hw config.
Perfectly up and running 4 times in a few minutes each.

For who could find it useful, this works

 * Windows 7 *32 bit*
 * VMware 9.0.4
 * 9front-5368.b4963e7e3204.iso.bz2
 * cwfs64x
 * VM: 1GB Ram, 8GB IDE HD, mbr, USB2.0, NIC

Thanks a lot to cinap and all other 9fans who kindly spent their time to 
help.


adriano

Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

> On Sep 2, 2016, at 3:00 PM, Bakul Shah  wrote:
> 
> Separately, an interesting project would be to implement plan9
> sandboxes (ala linux "containers" or freebsd "jails)" so that
> one can easily set up a cluster of plan9 boxes.

Namespaces would make that an easy application, no?  There is no required 
user/kernel interface in 9P, so why not?


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Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[Bakul Shah]

On Fri, 02 Sep 2016 15:08:16 PDT Kurt H Maier  wrote:
>
> > However, if anyone makes plan9 work under bhyve or khyve I'm
> > interested.
> 
> I'm also interested in this, and every once in a while I test it out.
> Nothing worth reporting yet, but once I get something running I'll
> report it here.

Great!

> > Separately, an interesting project would be to implement plan9
> > sandboxes (ala linux "containers" or freebsd "jails)" so that
> > one can easily set up a cluster of plan9 boxes.
> 
> mycroft's ANTS tools can be used to do this very effectively.  He's
> written copious documentation, including step-by-step walkthroughs, that
> cover doing just this.  I've got his code preserved, but I need to
> gather up the various texts and stash them in a repo alongside the code.

[I had meant to post the following on that silly "9fans dead
 or alive" thread. Better late than never!]

What I want is to have multiple plan9 virtual nodes (each with
its own IP address and a full set of udp/tcp ports and network
interfaces and potentially independent storage and each can be
started up/shutdown independently).  For the experts this is
probably trivially doable given plan9 namespaces.

The idea is to be able to easily bring up a cluster of nodes
providing a set of services. Example: a venti backup server.
a source mirror server etc.

Going one step further, a deployment program should be able to
read a single config file, build or pull in all the required
binaries from some standard repo, add in storage, data files
etc. and stand up all the services.

I was thinking that a platform-as-a-service setup can make
application services largely independent of the underluing OS.
Particularly if they are built in Go!

Re: [9fans] Linker and duplicate symbols

[Steve Simon]

the linker rejects later instances of symbols if it had already found an 
instance. the important point however is that this is done on a per file basis 
if the symbol is in a library.

the case where I have seen this is your code (the kernel code in this case) 
references another symbol which only exists in the file that contains the 
second instance of clock on the command line.

this means both copies of clock are forced into the linkage, one directly 
through a call to clock, the other through the other reference.

what I have done to find these in the past (crude but effective) is to delete 
both files which contain the clock call (for libc use "ar d") then run mk again 
and see what complains.

 my bet is there will be unresolved calls to clock, and something else that 
shouldn't be there...

good luck,

-Steve

> On 2 Sep 2016, at 21:00, Chris McGee  wrote:
> 
> Thanks Cinap, Richard,
> 
> That makes sense and was probably obvious or in a man page somewhere.
> 
> Chris
> 
>> On Sep 2, 2016, at 12:12 PM, cinap_len...@felloff.net wrote:
>> 
>> uses the first one it finds, so the order matters. its not unusual
>> for programs to override certain library function by providing ther
>> own version and putting them first in the object file list. this
>> works only when the function you want to replace sits alone in his
>> own object file (the smallest unit of linkage).
>> 
>> the kernel does link in some standard libc functions, but obviously
>> not the ones attempting syscalls :)
>> 
>> --
>> cinap
>> 

Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[Kurt H Maier]

On Fri, Sep 02, 2016 at 03:00:26PM -0700, Bakul Shah wrote:
> 
> Don't keep updating it. Problem solved!

Our problem was that each individual user who reported a problem on vbox
was running an apparently unique version -- I don't think we ever had
two trouble reports that matched each other, or two trouble reports
about the same version of vbox...

> However, if anyone makes plan9 work under bhyve or khyve I'm
> interested.

I'm also interested in this, and every once in a while I test it out.
Nothing worth reporting yet, but once I get something running I'll
report it here.

> Separately, an interesting project would be to implement plan9
> sandboxes (ala linux "containers" or freebsd "jails)" so that
> one can easily set up a cluster of plan9 boxes.

mycroft's ANTS tools can be used to do this very effectively.  He's
written copious documentation, including step-by-step walkthroughs, that
cover doing just this.  I've got his code preserved, but I need to
gather up the various texts and stash them in a repo alongside the code.

khm

Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[Bakul Shah]

On Fri, 02 Sep 2016 17:15:32 EDT stanley lieber  wrote:
> Bakul Shah  wrote:
> 
> >On Fri, 02 Sep 2016 22:54:38 +0200 Adriano Verardo
> > wrote:
> >> What about VirtualBox or other VMs ?
> >
> >VirtualBox has worked well for me though I haven't installed
> >plan9 lately.
> 
> http://fqa.9front.org/fqa3.html#3.3

Don't keep updating it. Problem solved!

However, if anyone makes plan9 work under bhyve or khyve I'm
interested.

Separately, an interesting project would be to implement plan9
sandboxes (ala linux "containers" or freebsd "jails)" so that
one can easily set up a cluster of plan9 boxes.

Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[cinap_lenrek]

> What VMare version do you use ?

VMware Player 6.0.2 build-1744117. win7 64 bit.

i used to have virtual box for testing too but when i tried to update it,
it stoped working and killed all my network connections during the installation.
so i got angry and removed it from the computer. it was a whack the mole
game anyway... each new version was broken in a different way and performance
is bad.

but what difference does it make? you have to look at the evidence, not
version numbers that dont tell you anything.

--
cinap

Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[stanley lieber]

Bakul Shah  wrote:

>On Fri, 02 Sep 2016 22:54:38 +0200 Adriano Verardo
> wrote:
>> What about VirtualBox or other VMs ?
>
>VirtualBox has worked well for me though I haven't installed
>plan9 lately.

http://fqa.9front.org/fqa3.html#3.3

sl

Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[Bakul Shah]

On Fri, 02 Sep 2016 22:54:38 +0200 Adriano Verardo  
wrote:
> What about VirtualBox or other VMs ?

VirtualBox has worked well for me though I haven't installed
plan9 lately.

Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[Adriano Verardo]

cinap_len...@felloff.net wrote:

I'm sure the problem is the mix "obsolete(Win+VMware) + up-to-date Plan9  
distro".

doubt it. i'm actually testing every release on a windows 7 with vmware
doing a install from scratch, then building amd64 on the newly installed
system and reboot into 64 bit kernel as a regression test.

Ah. I was convinced that Wint-32 were no more used in the USA.
Stating that you do these tests, the problem is certainly here.
I'm using win7, 32 bit, VMware 9.0.4.

What VMare version do you use ?

What about VirtualBox or other VMs ?

adriano

Re: [9fans] Linker and duplicate symbols

[Chris McGee]

Thanks Cinap, Richard,

That makes sense and was probably obvious or in a man page somewhere.

Chris

> On Sep 2, 2016, at 12:12 PM, cinap_len...@felloff.net wrote:
> 
> uses the first one it finds, so the order matters. its not unusual
> for programs to override certain library function by providing ther
> own version and putting them first in the object file list. this
> works only when the function you want to replace sits alone in his
> own object file (the smallest unit of linkage).
> 
> the kernel does link in some standard libc functions, but obviously
> not the ones attempting syscalls :)
> 
> --
> cinap
> 

Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[cinap_lenrek]

> I'm sure the problem is the mix "obsolete(Win+VMware) + up-to-date Plan9  
> distro".

doubt it. i'm actually testing every release on a windows 7 with vmware
doing a install from scratch, then building amd64 on the newly installed
system and reboot into 64 bit kernel as a regression test.

however, in your case i'd suggest a more systematic approach and actually
check what the status of the mbr / partition table is. you can do that
from the system booted off the iso. just run disk/fdisk /dev/sdC0/data
and see if the plan9 partition has a "*" there.

the mbr should look like this:

cpu% dd -if /dev/sdC0/data -count 1 | xd -x1
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
000  fa 31 c0 8e d0 bc ec 7b 89 e5 8e d8 be 00 7c 8e <- start of mbr code 
(should be identical to /386/mbr)
010  c0 bf 00 06 b9 00 01 fc f3 a5 ea 1f 06 00 00 30
020  c0 38 c2 75 02 b2 80 88 56 12 be 90 07 bf 20 07
030  ff d7 be be 07 b9 04 00 b4 80 30 c0 8a 5c 00 38
040  dc 74 13 38 d8 75 1f 81 c6 10 00 49 75 ee be 33
050  07 bf fd 06 ff d7 89 f7 81 c6 10 00 49 74 0f 8a
060  5c 00 38 dc 75 f2 be 4a 07 bf fd 06 ff d7 b4 41
070  bb aa 55 8a 56 12 cd 13 72 50 81 fb 55 aa 75 4a
080  81 e1 01 00 74 44 c6 46 00 10 c6 46 01 00 c6 46
090  02 01 c6 46 03 00 c7 46 04 00 7c c7 46 06 00 00
0a0  8b 85 08 00 89 86 08 00 8b 85 0a 00 89 86 0a 00
0b0  c7 46 0c 00 00 c7 46 0e 00 00 89 ee b4 42 cd 13
0c0  73 24 be 56 07 bf fd 06 ff d7 8a 75 01 8b 8d 02
0d0  00 b8 01 02 8a 56 12 bb 00 7c cd 13 73 08 be 56
0e0  07 bf fd 06 ff d7 bb 00 7c 8b 87 fe 01 81 f8 55
0f0  aa 75 07 89 fe ea 00 7c 00 00 be 60 07 bf 20 07
100  ff d7 be 6c 07 bf 20 07 ff d7 31 c0 cd 16 31 db
110  8e c3 bb 72 04 b8 34 12 26 89 07 ea 00 00 ff ff
120  60 31 db ac 08 c0 74 09 b4 0e cd 10 ac 08 c0 75
130  f7 61 c3 4e 6f 20 61 63 74 69 76 65 20 65 6e 74
140  72 79 20 69 6e 20 4d 42 52 00 49 6e 76 61 6c 69
150  64 20 4d 42 52 00 49 2f 4f 20 65 72 72 6f 72 00
160  49 6e 76 61 6c 69 64 20 50 42 53 00 0d 0a 50 72
170  65 73 73 20 61 6c 6d 6f 73 74 20 61 6e 79 20 6b
180  65 79 20 74 6f 20 72 65 62 6f 6f 74 2e 2e 2e 00
190  4d 42 52 2e 2e 2e 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 <- last byte of mbr 
code at 0x196 (407 bytes)
1a0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1b0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 01 <- partition table 
starts at 0x1BE, will be different for you
1c0  01 00 39 fe ff ff 3f 00 00 00 5f e0 7f 01 00 00
1d0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1e0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1f0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 55 aa <- 55AA boot 
signature, bios looks for this

once we know the status of that, we can worry about *why* it is this way
in your case.

maybe your download got corrupted? (we did have this case in the past)
just to make sure, the latest 9front-5368.b4963e7e3204.iso.bz2 file
has sha2-512 sum of:

fdd73ded92d912bebb11b7bf301fcf6c362c1df28d9d3b0ddb73a19ceaf2a1dfd5afc27f4f5a0330201f62004d86c84bc704dfcba0078bdfbc6ebcff6f14b1d3

--
cinap

Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[Adriano Verardo]

cinap_len...@felloff.net wrote:

Yes. Follwed the ~usual install procedure. All ok till bootsetup included.
Confirmed the "finish" step, unsolicited reboot, restart from .iso
Hiding the CD, boot fails saying that there is no OS on the HD.

... another possibility is that no master boot record got installed (you
get prompted for that during installation).

to manually update the mbr, see prep(8):

disk/mbr -m /386/mbr /dev/sdC0/data

Hi, cinap

Yes, on physical boxes I've faced this kind of problems several times in 
the past years.

All noted in my personal "troubleshooting memo"

But building the VM many times from scratch, tracking questions and 
answers on paper,
configuring all possible type of disk etc etc etc ... I couldnt get a 
bootable VM.


I'm sure the problem is the mix "obsolete(Win+VMware) + up-to-date Plan9 
distro".

Bell and 9legacy both install on the fly.

Having some constraints, I'm looking for a whatever (set of) VM
to have all/many distros running on my desk, being convinced that's not 
reasonable

to adapt current distros to a prehistoric environment.

adriano



--
cinap

Re: [9fans] Linker and duplicate symbols

[cinap_lenrek]

uses the first one it finds, so the order matters. its not unusual
for programs to override certain library function by providing ther
own version and putting them first in the object file list. this
works only when the function you want to replace sits alone in his
own object file (the smallest unit of linkage).

the kernel does link in some standard libc functions, but obviously
not the ones attempting syscalls :)

--
cinap

Re: [9fans] Linker and duplicate symbols

[Richard Miller]

> Is it that the linker prefers a symbol from a .5 file over the .a file?

I believe it's supposed to pick the first one it finds.  Object files and
libraries are processed in the order in which they appear on the command line.
On my system proc.5 appears before libc.a in the ld command, and libc.a(sleep.5)
doesn't contain any symbols other than sleep, so there should be no reason
for ld to pull it in from the library.

Re: [9fans] Linker and duplicate symbols

[Chris McGee]

Thanks Richard,

I tried outputting the echo of the ld command and it's linking all of the .5 
files together along with the few archive files to produce the raw kernel file. 
I'll go hunting to see if there is some other unbound symbol.

I think the reason why I'm confused is that I don't understand how the linker 
can possibly pick the "right" symbol here given that C doesn't allow 
overloading. There are two sleep symbols. Why does the linker generally know to 
pick the one from the .5 file and not the one from the libc.a. Is it that the 
linker prefers a symbol from a .5 file over the .a file?

Chris

On Sep 2, 2016, at 6:20 AM, Richard Miller <9f...@hamnavoe.com> wrote:

>> I have recently run into a problem when compiling the kernel where the 
>> linker complains about duplicate symbols and fails. The symbol is sleep(), 
>> which is exported in libc.a but is also exported in another file in port, 
>> but with different parameters (both number and type).
> 
> Shouldn't happen (TM).  The duplicate sleep may be a side effect of
> some other error (undefined symbol?) which is getting ld confused.
> I suggest finding the invocation of ld (or $LD) in the mkfile and
> inserting a copy of the command with "echo" prepended, to see exactly
> what's being linked; then have a good look at all the error messages
> and see if there's anything obvious you can clear up which could make
> the duplicate sleep go away too.
> 
> Otherwise you could post the ld line and error messages to get more
> eyes looking at the problem ...
> 
> 

Re: [9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[Kurt H Maier]

On Fri, Sep 02, 2016 at 09:19:48AM -0500, Steven Stallion wrote:
> 
> Strange... Option+click works great for me when I don't have a
> 3-button USB mouse plugged in (they make these too you know). Chording
> using the keyboard is quite pleasant as well.
> 

We call this 'typing'

Re: [9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[Steven Stallion]

On Fri, Sep 2, 2016 at 4:06 AM,   wrote:
> OH! wait!
> you have no middle button on your apple-pc. too bad...

Strange... Option+click works great for me when I don't have a
3-button USB mouse plugged in (they make these too you know). Chording
using the keyboard is quite pleasant as well.

Steve

Re: [9fans] Linker and duplicate symbols

[Richard Miller]

> I have recently run into a problem when compiling the kernel where the linker 
> complains about duplicate symbols and fails. The symbol is sleep(), which is 
> exported in libc.a but is also exported in another file in port, but with 
> different parameters (both number and type).

Shouldn't happen (TM).  The duplicate sleep may be a side effect of
some other error (undefined symbol?) which is getting ld confused.
I suggest finding the invocation of ld (or $LD) in the mkfile and
inserting a copy of the command with "echo" prepended, to see exactly
what's being linked; then have a good look at all the error messages
and see if there's anything obvious you can clear up which could make
the duplicate sleep go away too.

Otherwise you could post the ld line and error messages to get more
eyes looking at the problem ...

Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[cinap_lenrek]

> Yes. Follwed the ~usual install procedure. All ok till bootsetup included.
> Confirmed the "finish" step, unsolicited reboot, restart from .iso
> Hiding the CD, boot fails saying that there is no OS on the HD.

... another possibility is that no master boot record got installed (you
get prompted for that during installation).

to manually update the mbr, see prep(8):

disk/mbr -m /386/mbr /dev/sdC0/data

--
cinap

Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[cinap_lenrek]

> Yes. Follwed the ~usual install procedure. All ok till bootsetup included.
> Confirmed the "finish" step, unsolicited reboot, restart from .iso
> Hiding the CD, boot fails saying that there is no OS on the HD.

sounds like the plan9 partition isnt marked as active (you get prompted
for that during the installation), or you installed with a GPT partition table,
in which case you might need to make a boot menu entry in the efi firmware
(the installer doesnt attempt to modify efi non volatile memory at all).

you can boot from the iso and check the status of the partition table with
disk/fdisk /dev/sdC0/data (or wherever you installed the system on). the command
to mark a partition as active is A partname. like "A p1" in the case of
fdisk.

> adriano

--
cinap

Re: [9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[cinap_lenrek]

> What I mean is, all I want to do (tm pjp) is to open a new file by
> selecting File/Open, as in every other application I use, not type a series
> of arcane commands into the small window at the top.And then use the Sam
> command language in the open file. And yes, I'm whining, and yes I have the
> source. Where is Boyd to threaten you with assault weapons when you need
> him?

we call it the plumber. any text window can serve as a file/open in plan9,
you just plumb the file name by pressing the middle mouse... OH! wait!
you have no middle button on your apple-pc. too bad...

--
cinap

Re: [9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen]

I use Sam mostly for the remote editing facility, but I should perhaps try
to add plumber rules to  use a remote 'B' command to trigger opening the
files from the remote machine like James A. Robinson mentioned. Apart from
that, acme is my main command center. I usually have acme straddling two
monitors, with command windows running ssh to Solaris, Linux, and Windows
boxes. The file system is shared, so this lets me have essentially the same
environment on multiple platforms. Also, I find the acme button 3
invaluable when reading debug logs, since clicking on a file:line output in
the log immediately lets me see in which context the output was generated.

On Fri, Sep 2, 2016 at 9:34 AM, Steve Simon  wrote:

> hi,
>
> Sam has been my only editor since the X11 port was released in about 1992.
> I have not really tried acme, I never gave it a real chance but I used to
> use it
> to edit the plan 9 wiki so I have a little skill.
>
> I agree scroll select is the one feature I would add - I have a feeling
> the 9front guys may have already done this...
>
> I think it is just habit but I find Sam so comfortable I just resist
> change.
>
> -Steve
>
>
> On 1 Sep 2016, at 23:56, Winston Kodogo  wrote:
>
> Thanks to Brantley for his thoughtful musings. Me, I love many things
> about Sam, but I just can't use it as my everyday editor. The structural
> regular expression stuff is a work of genius, but I still find, such are my
> limitations, that the user interface is just too clunky and retro.
>
> On 2 September 2016 at 02:42, Brantley Coile  wrote:
>
>> I think I’ve been a member of 9fans for its entire history. The earliest
>> saved 9fans email in my /mail/box/bwc is dated 2001. But most of the time I
>> have not said much. Given that the list isn’t very busy these days, and
>> that I’m doing a lot of thinking about Plan 9, I thought I would post some
>> of my seemingly random musings.
>>
>> Today I’m thinking about Plan 9’s interfaces.
>>
>> The reason for thinking about those is that I’ve just switch back to
>> sam(1) from acme(1). No real reason, except for the old adage, a change is
>> as good as a rest. I’ve been working 10 to 12 hour days, six days a week
>> lately. I just wanted to change things a bit. Nothing against acme. I’ve
>> been using it for many years and it is a great tool.
>>
>> The one time that Ken Thompson visited my office, when I had an office in
>> Redwood City, he noticed that I was using acme and made a comment to the
>> effect that “you are one of those.” He uses sam as do many of the folks who
>> created Plan 9. Many of the original folks also use acme. I had did a poll
>> years ago but can’t seem to find the results. As did I for many years, even
>> after acme make its appearance. I had gotten a version of it working on my
>> Unix using an Teletype 630 terminal, downloading the samterm and all. It
>> was the main Plan 9 editor during my very brief tenure at Bell Labs in
>> 1990. Acme came after I left with the arrival of Phil Winterbottom and his
>> Alef language. The window manager was 8 1/2, which is like rio(1) without
>> the bumpers one can use to move and resize the window.
>>
>> I must say that it is refreshing to be back with the older editor. I did
>> have modify rio to look for an environmental variable that tells it not to
>> do acme chording. I kept trying to use chording in sam and realized that
>> part of the problem was that I could still use it in rio. So, I added a
>> shell variable that turned that feature of rio off. After that subconscious
>> chording stopped.
>>
>> I don’t think that sam is better than acme, or even the other way around.
>> Both do a good job of getting the job done. They are different. And that
>> difference has an affect on the way one used the system. When I use acme, I
>> mostly stay in acme, using the win program for my shell access. It becomes
>> a kind of integrated environment. With sam, I seem to use tools like sed
>> and awk in the rio windows, like sed and awk more than when I was using
>> acme. I had a similar thing happen when in the 1980’s I dropped vi for ed.
>> I used ed until the 1990’s when I was able to switch to sam full time.
>>
>> But my use of edit commands in sam is the biggest difference between it
>> and acme.
>>
>> In sam, I think more about how to modify things using the command window
>> rather than moving the mouse around and clicking on things. The command
>> language in acme using the Edit command is the same, but somehow it feels
>> different. There is something to be said for the convenience of the command
>> windows in sam.
>>
>> If I thought of the change as an experiment, one result would be the time
>> it took me to not have to think about which editor I was using while
>> working. Our tools should be, for the most part, transparent. It took about
>> a week to switch back to sam from acme. That time is certainly a function
>> of how much I used sam in 

Re: [9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[Steve Simon]

hi,

Sam has been my only editor since the X11 port was released in about 1992.
I have not really tried acme, I never gave it a real chance but I used to use it
to edit the plan 9 wiki so I have a little skill.

I agree scroll select is the one feature I would add - I have a feeling the 
9front guys may have already done this...

I think it is just habit but I find Sam so comfortable I just resist change.

-Steve


> On 1 Sep 2016, at 23:56, Winston Kodogo  wrote:
> 
> Thanks to Brantley for his thoughtful musings. Me, I love many things about 
> Sam, but I just can't use it as my everyday editor. The structural regular 
> expression stuff is a work of genius, but I still find, such are my 
> limitations, that the user interface is just too clunky and retro.
> 
>> On 2 September 2016 at 02:42, Brantley Coile  wrote:
>> I think I’ve been a member of 9fans for its entire history. The earliest 
>> saved 9fans email in my /mail/box/bwc is dated 2001. But most of the time I 
>> have not said much. Given that the list isn’t very busy these days, and that 
>> I’m doing a lot of thinking about Plan 9, I thought I would post some of my 
>> seemingly random musings.
>> 
>> Today I’m thinking about Plan 9’s interfaces.
>> 
>> The reason for thinking about those is that I’ve just switch back to sam(1) 
>> from acme(1). No real reason, except for the old adage, a change is as good 
>> as a rest. I’ve been working 10 to 12 hour days, six days a week lately. I 
>> just wanted to change things a bit. Nothing against acme. I’ve been using it 
>> for many years and it is a great tool.
>> 
>> The one time that Ken Thompson visited my office, when I had an office in 
>> Redwood City, he noticed that I was using acme and made a comment to the 
>> effect that “you are one of those.” He uses sam as do many of the folks who 
>> created Plan 9. Many of the original folks also use acme. I had did a poll 
>> years ago but can’t seem to find the results. As did I for many years, even 
>> after acme make its appearance. I had gotten a version of it working on my 
>> Unix using an Teletype 630 terminal, downloading the samterm and all. It was 
>> the main Plan 9 editor during my very brief tenure at Bell Labs in 1990. 
>> Acme came after I left with the arrival of Phil Winterbottom and his Alef 
>> language. The window manager was 8 1/2, which is like rio(1) without the 
>> bumpers one can use to move and resize the window.
>> 
>> I must say that it is refreshing to be back with the older editor. I did 
>> have modify rio to look for an environmental variable that tells it not to 
>> do acme chording. I kept trying to use chording in sam and realized that 
>> part of the problem was that I could still use it in rio. So, I added a 
>> shell variable that turned that feature of rio off. After that subconscious 
>> chording stopped.
>> 
>> I don’t think that sam is better than acme, or even the other way around. 
>> Both do a good job of getting the job done. They are different. And that 
>> difference has an affect on the way one used the system. When I use acme, I 
>> mostly stay in acme, using the win program for my shell access. It becomes a 
>> kind of integrated environment. With sam, I seem to use tools like sed and 
>> awk in the rio windows, like sed and awk more than when I was using acme. I 
>> had a similar thing happen when in the 1980’s I dropped vi for ed. I used ed 
>> until the 1990’s when I was able to switch to sam full time.
>> 
>> But my use of edit commands in sam is the biggest difference between it and 
>> acme.
>> 
>> In sam, I think more about how to modify things using the command window 
>> rather than moving the mouse around and clicking on things. The command 
>> language in acme using the Edit command is the same, but somehow it feels 
>> different. There is something to be said for the convenience of the command 
>> windows in sam.
>> 
>> If I thought of the change as an experiment, one result would be the time it 
>> took me to not have to think about which editor I was using while working. 
>> Our tools should be, for the most part, transparent. It took about a week to 
>> switch back to sam from acme. That time is certainly a function of how much 
>> I used sam in the past.
>> 
>> I’m very grateful to still be using these tools. It’s a very personal thing 
>> but for someone who first used 6th Edition Unix, ed and the old shell, and 
>> used all the versions of Unix that followed, these tools, both acme and sam, 
>> rio and 8 1/2, are an improvement to all that proceeded them and followed 
>> them.
>> 
>>   Brantley Coile
> 

Re: [9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[Mart Zirnask]

There is also a very actively maintained stand-alone Unix fork for sam:
https://github.com/deadpixi/sam

It has several additional keybindings, a command ("b") to perform a
fuzzy match on file names and, most recently -- colors!
(Be sure to look at the screenshot.)

Sam is really interesting. Cheers,
mart,
non-techie and newb

On 2 September 2016 at 01:56, Winston Kodogo  wrote:
> Thanks to Brantley for his thoughtful musings. Me, I love many things about
> Sam, but I just can't use it as my everyday editor. The structural regular
> expression stuff is a work of genius, but I still find, such are my
> limitations, that the user interface is just too clunky and retro.
>
> On 2 September 2016 at 02:42, Brantley Coile  wrote:
>>
>> I think I’ve been a member of 9fans for its entire history. The earliest
>> saved 9fans email in my /mail/box/bwc is dated 2001. But most of the time I
>> have not said much. Given that the list isn’t very busy these days, and that
>> I’m doing a lot of thinking about Plan 9, I thought I would post some of my
>> seemingly random musings.
>>
>> Today I’m thinking about Plan 9’s interfaces.
>>
>> The reason for thinking about those is that I’ve just switch back to
>> sam(1) from acme(1). No real reason, except for the old adage, a change is
>> as good as a rest. I’ve been working 10 to 12 hour days, six days a week
>> lately. I just wanted to change things a bit. Nothing against acme. I’ve
>> been using it for many years and it is a great tool.
>>
>> The one time that Ken Thompson visited my office, when I had an office in
>> Redwood City, he noticed that I was using acme and made a comment to the
>> effect that “you are one of those.” He uses sam as do many of the folks who
>> created Plan 9. Many of the original folks also use acme. I had did a poll
>> years ago but can’t seem to find the results. As did I for many years, even
>> after acme make its appearance. I had gotten a version of it working on my
>> Unix using an Teletype 630 terminal, downloading the samterm and all. It was
>> the main Plan 9 editor during my very brief tenure at Bell Labs in 1990.
>> Acme came after I left with the arrival of Phil Winterbottom and his Alef
>> language. The window manager was 8 1/2, which is like rio(1) without the
>> bumpers one can use to move and resize the window.
>>
>> I must say that it is refreshing to be back with the older editor. I did
>> have modify rio to look for an environmental variable that tells it not to
>> do acme chording. I kept trying to use chording in sam and realized that
>> part of the problem was that I could still use it in rio. So, I added a
>> shell variable that turned that feature of rio off. After that subconscious
>> chording stopped.
>>
>> I don’t think that sam is better than acme, or even the other way around.
>> Both do a good job of getting the job done. They are different. And that
>> difference has an affect on the way one used the system. When I use acme, I
>> mostly stay in acme, using the win program for my shell access. It becomes a
>> kind of integrated environment. With sam, I seem to use tools like sed and
>> awk in the rio windows, like sed and awk more than when I was using acme. I
>> had a similar thing happen when in the 1980’s I dropped vi for ed. I used ed
>> until the 1990’s when I was able to switch to sam full time.
>>
>> But my use of edit commands in sam is the biggest difference between it
>> and acme.
>>
>> In sam, I think more about how to modify things using the command window
>> rather than moving the mouse around and clicking on things. The command
>> language in acme using the Edit command is the same, but somehow it feels
>> different. There is something to be said for the convenience of the command
>> windows in sam.
>>
>> If I thought of the change as an experiment, one result would be the time
>> it took me to not have to think about which editor I was using while
>> working. Our tools should be, for the most part, transparent. It took about
>> a week to switch back to sam from acme. That time is certainly a function of
>> how much I used sam in the past.
>>
>> I’m very grateful to still be using these tools. It’s a very personal
>> thing but for someone who first used 6th Edition Unix, ed and the old shell,
>> and used all the versions of Unix that followed, these tools, both acme and
>> sam, rio and 8 1/2, are an improvement to all that proceeded them and
>> followed them.
>>
>>   Brantley Coile
>>
>>
>