[9fans] Plan9 as an everyday OS

[Lorenzo Bolla]

Hi all,
I've just installed (with few difficulties, I must admit) a fresh Plan9 on my Dell Inspiron laptop.
I played with it and I'd really like to study it and get used to it.
Ideally, I would like to make it my "everyday OS", to do all the nice stuff you can do with a computer (a part from work and study), like browsing the web, watching movies and so on...
Is anyone using it for such things?
Is there, for example, a decent browser for Plan9 (I haven't found any)?
Or a music/movie player?

Thanks in advance,
Lorenzo.

[André Günther]

there's a thing called mailing list archives.
and you know..heh..there's this funny thing..dunno, it's called google
or something.
what you do is: type some words and then hit return...and wooha it
searches like the whole web. it's magic.

[maht]

Lorenzo Bolla wrote:
> Hi all,
> I've just installed (with few difficulties, I must admit) a fresh
> Plan9 on my Dell Inspiron laptop.
> I played with it and I'd really like to study it and get used to it.
> Ideally, I would like to make it my "everyday OS", to do all the nice
> stuff you can do with a computer (a part from work and study), like
> browsing the web, watching movies and so on...

Me too, good luck with that !

[John Floren]

At least once a month it happens. We can't escape. We're forever
doomed to get a "Can I use Plan 9 as my desktop OS for web browsing
and watching movies and stuff?" thread every couple weeks, because
people are only willing to spend juuuust enough effort to find the
Plan 9 web page and subscribe to 9fans.

John

--
"I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS
reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C,
Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba

[Noah Evans]

There's nothing wrong with being new. There's nothing wrong with
being polite either.

Sent from my iPhone

[Andrés Domínguez]

2009/7/10 Lorenzo Bolla <lbo...@gmail.com>:

> Hi all,
> I've just installed (with few difficulties, I must admit) a fresh Plan9 on
> my Dell Inspiron laptop.
> I played with it and I'd really like to study it and get used to it.
> Ideally, I would like to make it my "everyday OS", to do all the nice stuff
> you can do with a computer (a part from work and study), like browsing the
> web, watching movies and so on...
> Is anyone using it for such things?
> Is there, for example, a decent browser for Plan9 (I haven't found any)?

8c

> Or a music/movie player?

8c

But the cold startup is a little bit slower than wmp or ie, have to
do some coding first.

If you are looking for something done:

Google -> "list of plan 9 applications" -> click "I'm Feeling Lucky"

Probably you will be more happy with Linux, running Plan9 on
virtual machine.

Andrés

[Don Bailey]

Noah++

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

There is no "decent" browser for Plan 9 as such by many peoples' standards. The big problem here is that the Plan 9 community by and large really appreciates sane design, and it seems to be quite impossible to write a browser conforming to w3c standards without putting a lot of very very crazy code in it.

*Howevah* there is Linuxemu. You can run Firefox under Linuxemu in Plan 9. You may be able to run mplayer or xine-whatever that way too, but some of Plan 9's display drivers may be too slow, you'd have to try it and see. Linuxemu is in rsc's contrib... 9fs sources && cd /n/sources/contrib/rsc/linuxemu ... then I guess cat README & go from there. I couldn't tell you how to install it since I've never done it.

What works for me is rather the other way around. I run Linux (64bit, for a machine with 4GB of RAM), and run Plan 9 in Qemu. It works nicely, although it was a bit of hassle setting up. Some people do this & use the plumber to communicate with the plan9port plumber running on the Linux side, it all sounds a lot of fun but I haven't got that far yet. :)

Have fun with it, anyhow. :)

--
Ethan Grammatikidis

Those who are slower at parsing information must
necessarily be faster at problem-solving.

[Jack Johnson]

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 8:05 AM, Lorenzo Bolla<lbo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is anyone using it for such things?

Some of us either do different things day-to-day or have found
workarounds or alternatives to the way people usually enjoy the
Internet and their attached computers.

Without (or until) a change of mindset, it's likely that the easiest
way to keep one foot on land and the other in the pool is to run Plan
9 in a virtual machine or to run plan9port on top of your regular OS.

Best of luck,

-Jack

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:52:38 -0700
John Floren <slawm...@gmail.com> wrote:

> At least once a month it happens. We can't escape. We're forever
> doomed to get a "Can I use Plan 9 as my desktop OS for web browsing
> and watching movies and stuff?" thread every couple weeks, because
> people are only willing to spend juuuust enough effort to find the
> Plan 9 web page and subscribe to 9fans.

I wish you people would shut up and point them at linuxemu or virtualisation ideas. :p You have to make the transition somehow.

>
>
> John
>
> On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 9:30 AM, André Günther<And...@gmx.de> wrote:
> > there's a thing called mailing list archives.
> > and you know..heh..there's this funny thing..dunno, it's called google or
> > something.
> > what you do is: type some words and then hit return...and wooha it searches
> > like the whole web. it's magic.
> >
> > On Jul 10, 2009, at 6:05 PM, Lorenzo Bolla wrote:
> >
> >> Hi all,
> >> I've just installed (with few difficulties, I must admit) a fresh Plan9 on
> >> my Dell Inspiron laptop.
> >> I played with it and I'd really like to study it and get used to it.
> >> Ideally, I would like to make it my "everyday OS", to do all the nice
> >> stuff you can do with a computer (a part from work and study), like browsing
> >> the web, watching movies and so on...
> >> Is anyone using it for such things?
> >> Is there, for example, a decent browser for Plan9 (I haven't found any)?
> >> Or a music/movie player?
> >>
> >> Thanks in advance,
> >> Lorenzo.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> "I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS
> reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C,
> Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba
>

[Joseph Stewart]

Thanks for saying what I didn't have the words to say. May I quote you forever?

-joe

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:25:55 +0100
Ethan Grammatikidis <eek...@fastmail.fm> wrote:

> On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:05:13 +0100
> Lorenzo Bolla <lbo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> > I've just installed (with few difficulties, I must admit) a fresh Plan9 on
> > my Dell Inspiron laptop.
> > I played with it and I'd really like to study it and get used to it.
> > Ideally, I would like to make it my "everyday OS", to do all the nice stuff
> > you can do with a computer (a part from work and study), like browsing the
> > web, watching movies and so on...
> > Is anyone using it for such things?
> > Is there, for example, a decent browser for Plan9 (I haven't found any)?
> > Or a music/movie player?
>
> There is no "decent" browser for Plan 9 as such by many peoples' standards. The big problem here is that the Plan 9 community by and large really appreciates sane design, and it seems to be quite impossible to write a browser conforming to w3c standards without putting a lot of very very crazy code in it.
>
> *Howevah* there is Linuxemu. You can run Firefox under Linuxemu in Plan 9. You may be able to run mplayer or xine-whatever that way too, but some of Plan 9's display drivers may be too slow, you'd have to try it and see. Linuxemu is in rsc's contrib... 9fs sources && cd /n/sources/contrib/rsc/linuxemu ... then I guess cat README & go from there. I couldn't tell you how to install it since I've never done it.

Apologies, the up-to-date linuxemu is in cinap's contrib:
/n/sources/contrib/cinap_lenrek/linuxemu3/
and
/n/sources/contrib/cinap_lenrek/linuxemu3.tgz

[hiro]

Plan9 is more like a programming platform, some call it a research OS.
How did you get interested in this?

[jo...@csplan9.rit.edu]

> Apologies, the up-to-date linuxemu is in cinap's contrib:
> /n/sources/contrib/cinap_lenrek/linuxemu3/
> and
> /n/sources/contrib/cinap_lenrek/linuxemu3.tgz
>

Having just set up Linuxemu, a quick note:
The distributed root filesystem is rather old; it uses
the sarge distribution of debian. It's old enough, in fact,
that you'll need to change /etc/apt/sources.list if you
want to download any software; archive.debian.org still
serves sarge, so my file looks like:

deb http://archive.debian.org/debian sarge main

I exchanged some emails with cinap yesterday; it seems
that the reason he still uses sarge for linuxemu is that
newer versions are incompatible with linuxemu as it stands,
and sarge runs effectively enough.

John

[Don Bailey]

Didn't your mother tell you saying nothing is better than saying something rude? :-)

I've learned this new thing in the past few years. It's hard, I know...

 

[jo...@csplan9.rit.edu]

I'm tired of the perpetual September, after several years of being
polite and pointing people to the wiki and the archives.

Even Ghandi would have eventually gotten sick of people asking, "So,
hey, what's up with this thing you're doing here, and how are the
British involved?"

Resuming operation as a human Google proxy in 3... 2... 1...

I use Plan 9 as my desktop for development. I keep a Linux laptop
beside the desktop for running a browser, although I've been fiddling
with linuxemu so I can potentially use just the Plan 9 box. When I'm
at home, I use a Linux box for watching movies and everything else,
although I could do basically everything except web browsing and movie
watching from within Plan 9 there too.

It's really a pretty good time to start using Plan 9, if you're
willing to put in a little work. fgb's contrib(1) scripts make it
easy to install software, some of which is very useful in migrating
from Linux or interoperating with Linux; I'm using openssh on a daily
basis, I've been using X11 as I experiment with linuxemu, and I just
installed TeX which I'll probably try next time I have to write a
paper. It also feels like the number of users is growing, despite my
increasingly curmudgeonly sentiments (durn kids git orf mah lawn).
We're also gaining recognition in the general OS world and especially
in supercomputing, thanks to the FastOS work.

I probably said a lot of this last time somebody posted one of these
threads. I'll probably say it again the next time.

John

[Noah Evans]

Heh.. go ahead.

[Don Bailey]

"And the King shall answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me."

[J.R. Mauro]

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 1:46 PM, <jo...@csplan9.rit.edu> wrote:
>
> I'm tired of the perpetual September, after several years of being
> polite and pointing people to the wiki and the archives.

You could filter instead of bitching and contributing to the noise.

[Devon H. O'Dell]

2009/7/10 J.R. Mauro <jrm...@gmail.com>:

> On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 1:46 PM, <jo...@csplan9.rit.edu> wrote:
>>
>> I'm tired of the perpetual September, after several years of being
>> polite and pointing people to the wiki and the archives.
>
> You could filter instead of bitching and contributing to the noise.

Spoken like a true hypocrite ;)

--dho

[J.R. Mauro]

Oh, no, I carefully just said `you'. I intend to not filter, bitch,
contribute to noise, and possibly other horrible things. Like spam the
list with your picture of the sexy plumber.

>
> --dho
>
>

[cinap_...@gmx.de]

had no success with mplayer yet because of lacking mmx support. got ffmpeg to
compile (without mmx/sse) and play on linuxemu, but it was too slow on my 1
ghz via machine.

--
cinap

[Jason Catena]

"Much anger there is in him. Too much pride in his powers."

Jason Catena

[jo...@csplan9.rit.edu]

Whare are you using for an audio device on Plan 9? The AC97 driver?
Or did you buy a USB audio thing?

John

[cinap_...@gmx.de]

usb audio... havnt tried it with ac97 on my t23 yet.

--
cinap

[jo...@csplan9.rit.edu]

> usb audio... havnt tried it with ac97 on my t23 yet.
>
> --
> cinap

Which model of USB audio? Is it something available on Amazon? I
have a T22 laptop that I use for Plan 9 sometimes, and I believe that
has ac97, but like you I haven't tried it. Also, I use other Plan 9
machines which could use an audio output.

John

[cinap_...@gmx.de]

EDIROL UA-1X

http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.php?ProductId=635

needs some patching in the usbaudio driver because it contains
a bogus descriptor i think. as i buyed some time ago it it worked out
of the box with plan9.

--
cinap

[Jack Johnson]

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 2:10 PM, <jo...@csplan9.rit.edu> wrote:
> Which model of USB audio?  Is it something available on Amazon?

Looks like this might be the new version of the Turtle Beach Audio Advantage:

http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Advantage-Micro-Sound-Card/dp/B0002ICGDY

Hopefully it works as well.

-Jack

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sape Mullender <sa...@plan9.bell-labs.com>
Date: Wed, Jun 28, 2006 at 11:24 AM
Subject: Re: [9fans] More USB audio
To: knap...@gmail.com, 9f...@cse.psu.edu
Cc: j...@plan9.bell-labs.com, p...@plan9.bell-labs.com

> http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/audioadvantage/

We got one ath the labs. Plugged it into Plan 9. It works. It
actually outputs a lot of oomph into my headset. Nice
device.

44100 or 48000 Hz, 16-bit stereo. Has mute & volume control.

Sape

[Andreas Eriksen]

There is a list of tested usb sound cards at
http://www.plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Supported_PC_hardware/index.html

This could be added to the list (i have it):

http://www.amazon.com/SteelSeries-Siberia-USB-Soundcard-White/dp/B000WJCM9G/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1247264255&sr=8-9

When i start it with 'usb/audio' i get

Warning, can't configure stereo recording, configuring mono instead
Warning, can't configure record for 44100 Hz, configuring for 48000 Hz
instead
term% usb/audio: read /dev/usb/ep11.3/data: babble detected

and volume keys on it don't work, but my headset has an analog volume
control.
It works well for playback of mp3s at 44100 Hz, i haven't tried using
it for
anything else.

[Uriel]

> Google -> "list of plan 9 applications" -> click "I'm Feeling Lucky"

The result you will get from this is most likely to be extremely
outdated and incomplete. Just saying...

uriel

2009/7/10 Andrés Domínguez <andr...@gmail.com>:

[Lorenzo Bolla]

Thanks all, the rudes and the polites.

I'll try your suggestions.

L.

[sqweek]

lies! we had ac97 working on the t23 at IWP-Bondi!
-sqweek

2009/7/11 <cinap_...@gmx.de>:

> usb audio... havnt tried it with ac97 on my t23 yet.
>
> --
> cinap
>
>

[Uriel]

With which ac97 driver?

uriel

[cinap_...@gmx.de]

i havnt tried the *linuxemu/ffplay* stuff with ac97 on my t23.

--
cinap

[Francisco J Ballesteros]

On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 12:58 AM, Andreas Eriksen<and...@pvv.ntnu.no> wrote:
> There is a list of tested usb sound cards at
> http://www.plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Supported_PC_hardware/index.html
>

Beware, some of the ones working before might not work now
(All I tested work, but who knows), and some that did not work might
work now. I mean, a lot changed in usb and I don't know if the supported pc hw
list is up to date wrt it.

[sqweek]

/n/sources/contrib/mason/ac97.tgz
Worked out of the box, just had to drop it in place and recompile the kernel.
-sqweek

2009/7/12 Uriel <uri...@gmail.com>:

[Markus Sonderegger]

ac97 works fine for me, on 3 different machines.
just to say it here. i put this driver to my contrib,
but aki is the author! is just added some lines of code.

but there seem to be a bug, when used with juke(7).
i get ton's of these messages when i play the first
song

qlock: 0xf018d159: ilockdepth 1

i tried to debug it, but can't find the bug.

[erik quanstrom]

one bug is in ac97write. there's a memmove into
user memory with an ilock held. that's a no-no,
since you could take a page fault.

you can get a better handle on which
qlock is causing the problem by converting
the address given on the console to the
qlock in question.

- erik

[Bela Valek]

Hi Everybody,

This AC97 driver seems to be around for awhile already. Why don't you
just include it in the distribution?
I suggest to fix the problem you guys found, compile the kernel with
it, and add it to the default install CD image.

Béla

[sqweek]

I suspect the main inhibitor there is that (as I recall) it stomps
all over the existing soundblaster code. These days AC97 is probably
more desirable, but it would be nice to have them coexist.
-sqweek

2009/7/13 Bela Valek <bva...@gmail.com>:

[markus]

> one bug is in ac97write. there's a memmove into
> user memory with an ilock held. that's a no-no,
> since you could take a page fault.
>
> you can get a better handle on which
> qlock is causing the problem by converting
> the address given on the console to the
> qlock in question.
>
> - erik
>
>

hi,
thanks, i'll look at it in the next few days.
i'm too busy now. i'll try to let it coexist
with the soundblaster code.

markus

[erik quanstrom]

On Tue Jul 14 02:41:02 EDT 2009, sqw...@gmail.com wrote:
> I suspect the main inhibitor there is that (as I recall) it stomps
> all over the existing soundblaster code. These days AC97 is probably
> more desirable, but it would be nice to have them coexist.

that's going to require thinking out how ac97 can provide a strict
superset of sb. as a first step, it would make sense for ac97 to
bring it's own implementation of #A to the party.

there are other sound models, it would be nice to design ac97's
interface in such a way that it can work with other sound models.

- erik

[Devon H. O'Dell]

2009/7/14 erik quanstrom <quan...@quanstro.net>:

Particularly Intel HDA (which supercedes AC97 and is what all new
machines are being shipped with now, essentially) and the various
chipset codecs on top of that. Plenty of BSDLed code on them and
plenty of documentation too.

--dho

> - erik
>
>

[Dan Cross]

On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 9:01 AM, erik quanstrom<quan...@quanstro.net> wrote:
> there are other sound models, it would be nice to design ac97's
> interface in such a way that it can work with other sound models.

Years ago, I suggested building a generic audio layer into the kernel
and plugging specific devices into that, much like how the Ethernet
device drivers are structured. At the time, it wasn't seen as
worthwhile as there was essentially no code sharing between the
various drivers for audio devices (SB16, ESS-whatever, the bitsy).
However, I still think this is worthwhile just to provide (a) a
standard interface for audio devices (e.g., /dev/audioctl always
accepts the same messages to set volume, input levels, etc), and (b)
to have a single kernel support more than one type of audio device
(imagine a network where you actually have an SB16 plus a bunch of
AC97 devices and some of these HCI things that Devon mentioned-one 9pc
should be able to support them all).

- Dan C.

[Tim Newsham]

> However, I still think this is worthwhile just to provide (a) a
> standard interface for audio devices (e.g., /dev/audioctl always
> accepts the same messages to set volume, input levels, etc), and (b)
> to have a single kernel support more than one type of audio device
> (imagine a network where you actually have an SB16 plus a bunch of
> AC97 devices and some of these HCI things that Devon mentioned-one 9pc
> should be able to support them all).

I was looking at audio interfaces a little lately and
I noticed that inferno's audio device uses different
conventions and seems to be more complete. It might
be worthwhile to shoot for an interface like that.

> - Dan C.

Tim Newsham
http://www.thenewsh.com/~newsham/

[Devon H. O'Dell]

2009/7/14 Tim Newsham <new...@lava.net>:

Several years ago, Kris and I were working on a mixerfs. Neither of us
were terribly familiar with digital audio at the time, and it never
ended up working entirely properly (read: multiple channels got
choppy), but if anybody is interested in the code, I still have it.

--dho