Plan 9 (Was RE: Linux & NT)

[pbreton at cs.umb.edu (Peter Breton)]

> >The linux newsgroups have lots of discussion of this, since Linux folks
> >have run multiples OSes from day 1. Anyone on the list running plan 9?   
> :-)
> 
> I looked into running plan 9, but I just can't see
> paying AT&T $250 for a copy of it. Not when I can run
> Linux for free.

  Last I heard, you could run plan 9 for free, but you had to pay $$ for 
the source. 

  Linux and plan 9 are probably as different as Linux and Hurd; 
one is essentially a mainstream Unix adding advanced features, the other 
is designed from the ground up as a next-generation OS. A lot of the 
Linux stuff looks to me like Unix trying to act like a micro-kernel (eg, 
all the loadable modules, user-defined file-systems, and so on). While I 
like where Linux is going, I have no doubt that it will hit an 
architectural wall sooner or later. Andy Tannenbaum said as much in that 
famous debate with Linus way-back-when: micro-kernels are the future. 
Though it seems now that he (Tannenbaum) was wrong on at least two counts, 
viz:

1) Linux has certainly proved to be a worthwhile project (far more so 
than Minix)

2) The Linux kernel is (provably) portable, probably much more so now 
than when the debate occurred.

				Peter

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Peter Breton  pbreton at cs.umb.edu          PGP key by finger
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Shave the whales!