I think it really is as simple as our dorks from the Labs liking Ed Wood.

Same reason the mascot is named Glenda.

As in a less mouse-driven way to move around? Or just a straight up different window manager?

For the first, 9front has extras on top of Plan 9 – riow(1) and a /dev/kbdtap device described in rio(4) – to allow for more keyboard-driven workflows. It can make rio into a sort of mouse-driven i3/ratpoison-ish thing… kind of.

I autostart it with rio like this:

riow </dev/kbdtap >/dev/kbdtap |[3] mybar

where mybar is a shell function that prints the status bar at the bottom of the screen. That part is used to intercept mouse clicks and turn them into commands for the audio player, zuke.

No, but it comes with Doom as well as a bunch of other games and emulators. See games(1) and nintendo(1) for details.

Perhaps just PNU?

That would be the port of NetSurf.

On this machine I have everything except for Bluetooth and the fingerprint reader, neither of which I ever use anyway.

I certainly hope so.

In all seriousness, it seems to me that interest in Plan 9 will continue to grow from here, especially with 9front taking the lead and actually moving ahead with real development.

Oh sure, lots of things are “inconvenient” on Plan 9.

Of note for most would-be users: if you rely on a modern web browser like Firefox/Chrome, forget about it. Never going to happen.

It’s important to remember that Plan 9 is fundamentally a research operating system; it’s not really a “typical” environment by any stretch, and that stems largely from it being entirely network-based and distributed. A single Plan 9 system in isolation can only be so interesting. Using it on a laptop like this can be an entirely different set of problems.

If you’d like some examples of things you may face:

• booting can be slow

• can be intimidating to set up for some of the more important features – factotum(4) and secstore(1), new users and directories under /, etc.

• cwfs is slow

• hjfs is really slow

• no multi-monitor support

• only recently did we get a filesystem that specifically aims to be crash-safe

• poor documentation, though it’s been getting better

• reading research papers is basically a requirement for understanding the system

• security is not a priority

For me, though? I genuinely don’t need much more than what’s available in the base system.

I guess that depends on if you consider doing basically all of my day-to-day computing as doing anything “real”.

I use it for writing, email, programming, browsing, drawing, games… pretty much everything I would do on any other machine. Anything that I can’t do directly in Plan 9 is done by accessing from Plan 9.

• machine: ThinkPad T420

• os: ⑨front

  • auth+cpu+file on encrypted cwfs

• wm: rio + riow

• programs:

  • aux/statusmsg

  • bar

  • clock

  • faces

  • stats

  • zuke

• wallpaper

For those interested in learning more about Plan 9 and trying it out in a public environment: SDF Public Access UNIX System is hosting their seasonal Plan 9 Boot Camp starting June 20th. Feel free to drop into com and say hello!

I have an RPi4 and a 0W that run 9front as diskless terminals thanks to that effort. It works really well!

Richard Miller is one of the OGs; he did the first port of UNIX, and if you look into Plan 9 more you’ll see exactly how much of a connection to history it really is.

Nothing at all.

It’s purely for my own needs — what worked for Rob Pike’s eyes in the '90s doesn’t really work for mine when it comes to actually using it every day, so I figured I’d have fun with it while I was changing the colors for the various programs.

I use it for all of my day-to-day computing tasks. Writing, email, browsing, programming, drawing, games… the works.

Anything I can’t do directly in 9 is covered by a combination of ssh(1), vt(1), and vnc(1) — with just a touch of vmx(1) if I’m feeling dangerous.

Plan 9 is a research operating system developed by Bell Labs as a successor to UNIX.

I would suggest starting somewhere like here to get an idea of what it’s about, as well as checking out this video from one of 9front’s core contributors.

Very much and very actively.

There are new commits every week and the latest release was April 28th.

All? I just use it like any other computer, honestly.

Are there any specific questions you have? I can try my best to explain.

Indeed.

9front comes with two browsers out of the box: abaco and mothra. There is also a port of NetSurf as well as both gopher and gemini browsers.

It uses /dev/draw.

See draw(3) and rio(4) for details.

It’s an email indicator. See faces(1) for details.

But of course! Real hardware or bust.

This particular machine has been my daily driver for months now, so I would say it is faring quite well.