Re: [dev] Re: Worse is better: Plan9 and Linux?

From: Marc Chantreux <eiro_AT_phear.org>
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2019 12:58:18 +0100

hello,

(i really thing this shouldn't happen in a dev list)

> > So my question to you is:
> > how do you put Linux and Plan9 into this scala?
> > (I get the feeling you deliberately don't want to understand my
> > question.)

you are (deliberately?) elusive with your question so Laslo was
(deliberately?) elusive in his anwser. nevertheless,
he already replied. so i try my way:

you can compare those two OS only thru perspectives.

* linux is a unix clone (so flaws in the design, including symlinks)
  are cloned too.
* linux is a side project that became the most used unix kernel of
  the world, supporting a lot of hardware and providing a stable
  ABI no matter what (thanks to linus's opiniated point of view).
  so yes ... it has history and this shows on the codebase.

plan9 was a research os to fix the design flaws of unix but
didn't evolve that much since it was abandonned then publicly released.
so ...

* design and code are much more cleaner and consistent and remained
  that way.
* tools are probably the state of art of 90's
  (good starting point to reinvent the computer tech because
  everything went terribly wrong since then)
* on the other hand, it works on very few hardware and lack of
  tools for modern usage.

the question is: what do you need to compare them? what's your goal?
if it's considering using one or another, that's the way i would use
plan9:

* as a deskop os on tiny hardware if you don't mind the lack of tools
* as a virtual machine in a qemu to provide distributed services

also when i talk about plan9, i think about recent evolutions of it
like harvey os or 9front (i have to admit i don't know about the
others).

> The same point applies to Linux: I use Linux on my personal computer
> and OpenBSD on my servers.

+1

> I think OpenBSD is the best trade-off

+1

> however, even it fails to fit all my use-cases.

can you be specific ?

regards
marc
Received on Thu Oct 31 2019 - 12:58:18 CET