[9fans] Re: Mounting a 9P filesystem under a Linux "user namespace"

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Edouard Klein  writes:

> I'm about to write my own 9P2000.L fuse wrapper, but before I dive into
> that, I thought I'd ask here: has anybody ever mounted a 9P filesystem
> from inside a Linux user namespace, or even better, a full blown
> container ?

Well, all my containers are in the recycling bin by my back door.  But I
do regularly mount and use 9P filesystems on Linux, using either the
"9p" filesystem in the Linux kernel or the 9pfuse FUSE client, depending
on the circumstances.

I modified 9pfuse to support Unix file types (block/character devices,
symlinks, etc.)  Those modifications allow storage/retrieval of vac
archives containing Unix filesystems.  IIRC, I submitted those changes
as a patch to plan9port about 10 years ago.

There are problems with 9pfuse, however.  9pfuse is slow and leaks
memory.  And, due to restrictions in the FUSE protocol, file ownership
is limited to a single user (the user mounting the export).  GNU find
(even with invoked with -noleaf) also has problems traversing
directories served by 9pfuse.  I haven't bothered porting my mods to
9pfs, though it may well be worth the effort.

I've been toying with the idea of writing a 9P2000 translation server to
translate between my extensions and 9p2000.u.  That way, a single 9P2000
filesystem could be mounted (presumably by root) and used by multiple
users.  The problem with the Linux kernel's 9p filesystem is that it
doesn't have any sensible way to map 9P2000 user/group names to Linux
UID/GIDs.  That seems to be the big stumbling block.

Wait, 9P2000.L?  What's that?

Inferno's "export" works OK with both 9pfuse and Linux's 9p fs driver.
But I recall there being other 9P2000 file servers out there.

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[9fans] Re: ctrans - Chinese language input for Plan9

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

sirjofri  writes:

> I'm pretty sure that pure Chinese computers would look different.

I've often wondered that.  What input methods do Chinese speakers use?
What do Chinese keyboards look like?  How do they find/select the
character they want?  Are different sets of characters available on
different computers, or are input methods standardized?  I wonder.

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[9fans] Re: Plan 9 applying to GSoC

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

sirjofri  writes:

> (3) A high-level filesystem interface for UI widgets. Many modern UI
> layouts can be described as a hierarchy of containers. The UI
> filesystem would start as an empty window, which is reflected by an
> empty filesystem. The user could create widget containers (hbox, vbox)
> by creating directories and files, as well as input boxes, buttons and
> more by creating files. The hierarchy would directly reflect the drawn
> window. The user can listen to files for button interaction and write
> text to labels etc..

Ballastero(sp?) and lsub's Octopus (Omero?  O-something) does something
like this.  With it, you can tar/untar a Tk UI from one system to
another.  IIRC, it was implemented with Inferno.  Since I is similiar to
9, it probably wouldn't be too hard to port.

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[9fans] Re: GSoC 2021 project ideas

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Jack Johnson  writes:

> Anyone know if this project went anywhere?
>
> https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~412/lectures/L05_Purge_Proposal.pdf
>
> A Hellaphone revisit.

I just read that PDF (which appears to be a series of slides from a
presentation).  It looks like a great project.  I would love to get my
hands on one of the "Purge ROMs" they describe.

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[9fans] Re: Whats the default font in Acme?

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Skip Tavakkolian  writes:

> Plan9port has fontsrv. Any truetype you have on your system is usable.
> man fontsrv for details.

Unfortunately, man fontsrv doesn't provide the details.  More
specifically, it doesn't describe how to configure fontsrv.  On my
system:

$ fontsrv &
$ 9p ls font
$ 

Nothing shows up.

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[9fans] Re: GSoC 2021 project ideas

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

"Ethan Gardener"  writes:

> On Mon, Feb 1, 2021, at 7:16 AM, cigar562hfsp952f...@icebubble.org wrote:
>> Anthony Sorace  writes:
>> 
>> (6) Incorporating Inferno's Dis virtual machine into the Plan 9 kernel,
>> so Plan 9 can run Dis binaries natively, without having to run the
>> Inferno emulator (emu) as a user process.
>
> This idea keeps popping up, but I just thought a Dis to native code
> compiler would achieve the same result without bloating the
> kernel. Perhaps it could even be built into Inferno, if the JIT
> compiler could be modified to output an object file instead of running
> the code.

That's a brilliant idea: a "Dis" assembler for Plan 9, to compile (well,
assemble, really) Dis code to binaries for the host architecture.  The
Dis architecture was specifically designed to make it easy to map the
Dis machine to the underlying architecture.  But... the binary interface
would have to be the Plan 9 one, so the proper place to do such assembly
would be on Plan 9.  If it were an extension of Inferno's JIT, it would
have to track changes made to Plan 9.  Since Dis is stable and
standardized, it makes more sense for a Plan 9 tool to track Dis than
the other way around.  Come to think of it, you wouldn't even need to
implement a full assembler.  Assembling Dis on Plan 9 could be achieved
simply by dis-assembling (a la appl/cmd/disdump.b) Dis modules to Plan 9
assembly language.  The Plan 9 assembler suite already exists.

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[9fans] GSoC 2021 project ideas (WAS: Re: Plan 9 Applying to GSoC 2021)

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Anthony Sorace  writes:

> Hello! After a few years away, we’ll be applying to Google’s Summer of Code 
> program again this year.

...

> 1. Project ideas. One of the key parts of the application is the
> project ideas page. If you’ve got ideas that seem like they’d be a

Plan 9-related:

(1) Porting the Plan 9 kernel to a microkernel architecture, such as
Mach.  This would give Plan 9 instant access to the whole range of
hardware supported by the underlying microkernel.

(2) A Zoom/video conferencing application for Plan 9.  Enough said.  :)

(3) Happauge/Brooktree BTTV/video capture drivers.  AFAIK, Plan 9 can
only use USB Web cams.

(4) Port SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) tools as a Plan 9 file system.
That would give Plan 9 instant access to a huge range of flatbed &
sheet-fed document scanners.

(5) An NFS sever for Plan 9.  Unix machines have a lot of trouble
handling edge cases encountered on 9P filesystems (such as the
number of hard links to directories).  An NFS server would make it
much easier for Unix/Linux and Plan 9 to get along happily.

(6) Incorporating Inferno's Dis virtual machine into the Plan 9 kernel,
so Plan 9 can run Dis binaries natively, without having to run the
Inferno emulator (emu) as a user process.

Inferno-related:

(A) A 64-bit version of Dis, which was designed as a 32-bit (31-bit?)
architecture.

(B) Porting Inferno to modern video game consoles, such as the Nintendo
Switch family.  Coolness.

(C) Creating a secure version of Dis.  The way that Dis handles
allocated/freed memory isn't particularly safe, and can leak
sensitive data (such as encryption keys).  It doesn't have a way to
whiten memory, or to mark ranges of memory as non-swappable.  This
could be done by adding new VM instructions, or on a per-module
basis by adding new module flags.

(D) Porting Nemo/LSUB's "OSHAD" to Plan 9.  OSHAD is an authentication
system (implemented in Inferno) which allows you to provide
passwords or acknowledge actions from a separate, wireless hand-held
device.

(E) A postscript/PDF viewer for Inferno.  Enough said.  :)

Android-related:

(a) An Android "app" that presents an Android phone's telephone and SMS
messaging facilities as a 9P filesystem.  This would enable Plan 9
and Inferno applications to place/receive voice calls and
send/receive text messages across a network.  This could be done by
extending bhgv's existing Android port of Inferno, or as a
separtate, stand-alone server app.

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[9fans] Re: Dual dialing/forking sessions to increase 9P throughput

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

"Ethan Gardener"  writes:

> What's the advantage over fcp(1)? 9p can have numerous requests "in
> flight" at once to work around latency issues, but of all the user
> programs, fcp is probably the only one which takes advantage of this.

The problem is that throughput and responsiveness are enemies.  If
you're trying to push a large quantity of data down a TCP connection,
and try to do anything interactive over that same connection, the
latency will make that interaction very slow.  In order to improve
responsiveness, the transport medium needs to know how to differentiate
between the two kinds of traffic.  In other words, you would need a way
to set different TCP options on 9P messages for different purposes.

"Joe S"  writes:

> Maybe a file server thats purpose is to mux parts of another file
> sounded like fun. My thoughts are that you could then transer thoes
> chunks on a single destination on seperate connections.

I might be possible to create a file server which interposes itself
between a 9P client and 9P server and bonds multiple network connections
together into a single 9P session.  It would be sort of a userspace
replacement for the kernel's mount driver.  Wait a minute, this problem
can be solved with a filesystem?  Of course... I should have thought of
that.  ;)

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[9fans] Dual dialing/forking sessions to increase 9P throughput

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

It's well-known that 9P has trouble transferring large files (high
volume/high bandwith) over high-latency networks, such as the Internet.
While sleeping, one night last week, I got an idea which might improve
throughput:

#define PSEUDOCODE ("this is psuedocode, not actual C")

#define OJUMBO   1< IOUNIT) ? chan.bulksrv : chan.srv;
  return write_9p(srv.conn, buf, len);
}

main() {
  fd = open(filename, ORD|OWR|OJUMBO);
  read(fd, buf, n);
  write(fd, buf, n);
  celebrate_newfound_speed();
}

The idea, basically, is to use an open flag (OJUMBO) to signal that two
connections to the same server should be attempted.  If a second
connection can be established, it is used for normal 9P transactions,
while the first connection is used for large ("jumbo") writes.  Of
course, this approach will only work if the server forks and accepts
multiple connections.  If the second connection cannot be established,
open() falls back to its customary behavior (with, perhaps, a larger
iosize, depending on the setting of OJUMBO).

There is, however, a very simple reason why this approach won't really
work: the fids for a file opened on one connection won't be recognized
by the server on the other connection.  I guess those are the kinds of
details you miss when you engineer software in your sleep.  :) The qids
would probably still be the same, assuming the same server answers both
connections.  But even that can't be guaranteed.

If it were possible to fork a 9P session off, onto another connection,
something like this could work.  But that introduces the possibility
that messages could arrive at the server or client out-of-order, which
would violate the 9P protocol.

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[9fans] Re: Plan 9 announcements on twitter

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Lucio De Re  writes:

> But do we want a flock of 9front-wielding droids flooding the 9fans
> mailing list?

Good point.  Making something popular usually destroys it.  E-mail used
to be good, prior to The September That Never Ended.  Linux used to be
good, until about 2005.  The World Wide Web used to be good, too...
until it became popular.  Maybe we should keep Plan 9 a secret.  ;)

It would be nice if there was some way to translate between technology
intended for idiots and technology intended for experts.  Imagine if,
for example, every Android app automatically exported its functionality
over 9P.  The cell phone idiots would have all their flashy toasts and
swipes, but the apps would still be usable by command line nerds.

> PS: I concur with the late Dijkstra that the programming language(s)
> you learn shape(s) your ability to construct abstractions in your
> mind. We're kind of safe for as long as C remains the base language

That sounds like a variant of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (which applies
to natural languages) as applied to computer languages.

> I had an electrical engineering friend, back at university, who used
> array subscripts in C because he couldn't get his head around
> pointers. Like me, his migration was from Pascal to C.

Pascal has pointers, too, and they make alot more sense than pointers in
C.

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[9fans] Re: Plan 9 announcements on twitter

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

cigar562hfsp952f...@icebubble.org writes:

> I actually think this is a REALLY good idea.  We can use Twitter to
> stir-up mass hysteria about zombies from outer space planning to invade

...

> Sounds like a great way to promote our favorite operating system.
> Wouldn't you agree?

OK, so, obviously, I was joking.  But the COVID-19 playbook does suggest
an interesting way to promote Plan 9.  The steps required to do this
would be, roughly:

 (1) Identify a worm that spreads from computer-to-computer and causes
 ZERO harm, 99.9% of the time, but causes TOTAL DESTRUCTION AND DATA
 LOSS in 0.1% of the computers it infests.

 (2) Get video of people in a panic, screaming and wailing about all
 their data being destroyed, and post it on the Internet.

 (3) Post lots of tweets about how dangerous the worm is, re-tweet,
 share, and generally hype-up the videos, along with dire
 predictions about how the worm will destroy the Internet.

 (4) Come up with a "test" to "detect" the worm, which has the following
 three characteristics:

  (A) Has a positive result whenever the worm is present;

  (B) Has a positive result whenever the CRC32 of the system's
  base-level page tables is less than 210210210; and

  (C) Only runs in Plan 9, installed to a vm image or live CD, so
  the test can only be run, in person, by a trained Plan 9
  technician with physical access to the computer being tested.

 (5) Release a new version of 9front named after the dreaded worm, and
 tell people that installing it will make their device immune to the
 worm.

It would require a little bit of coding, and a LOT of Tweeting, but if
9fans now have a Twitter account... creating a 9-demic is within the
realm of possibility.

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[9fans] Re: venti sealed arenas and ondisk format

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

"Steve Simon"  writes:

> is there any reasonable way I can view the dump filesystem from these with a 
> readonly
> filesystem without:
> formatting a filesystem to take them
> building indexes
> running venti
> finally running vacfs

How is this different from running venti with a ramdisk for your isect?

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[9fans] Re: Plan 9 announcements on twitter

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

>> > On Nov 12, 2020, at 8:51 PM, Lucio De Re  wrote:
>> > 
>> > On 11/12/20, Skip Tavakkolian  wrote:
>> >> Hi,
>> >> 
>> >> FYI, for those of you who are on twitter, I've set up the twitter handle
>> >> @Plan9_OS to push news and announcements to the community.   Please
>> >> consider following it; and if you tweet about Plan 9 or related topics,
>> >> please try to include this handle in your announcements.
>> >> 
>> > Is that a good idea? I, for one, have no intention of ever sharing a
>> > medium with Donald Trump.
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2020, at 10:55 PM, Don A. Bailey wrote:
>> You know Trump has email, right? ;-) 

I don't know about that.  He's never responded to e-mail from me.  :-/

"Calvin Morrison"  writes:

> It's ok, plan9 will get disputed by twitter fact checkers before a
> twitter presence is established.

LOL

Nothing that good could possible be true, could it?  ;)

"Pouya Tafti"  writes:

> Concerning LinkedIn as a platform, IMHO, it may be useful for
> recruitment but as a social medium it's a toxic wasteland of
> self-promotion and marketing hype

...just like Twitter.

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[9fans] Re: Plan 9 announcements on twitter

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Skip Tavakkolian  writes:

> FYI, for those of you who are on twitter, I've set up the twitter handle
> @Plan9_OS to push news and announcements to the community.   Please
> consider following it; and if you tweet about Plan 9 or related topics,
> please try to include this handle in your announcements.

I actually think this is a REALLY good idea.  We can use Twitter to
stir-up mass hysteria about zombies from outer space planning to invade
Earth by bombarding it with electromagnetic "Tmsgs."  As long as these
"Tmsgs" are invisible, the people on Twitter will believe it.  We can
lock-down the entire world, and make people shut off all the computers
on Earth!  We'll use the Defense Production Act to manufacture millions
of tinfoil hats (called "Mount Points") to block all the Tmsgs from
Outer Space, and tell people that it's dangerous to come within 6 feet
of a smartphone without wearing a Mount Point.  Then, exactly one week
after Skip Tavakkolian is declared Supreme Commander of the Internet,
Bell Labs (which Twitter users will believe still exists) announces its
developement of a "9front Space Force Edition" which is 90% effective at
generating Rmsgs that neutralize the deadly Tmsgs.  Because the ISOs
need to be stored in liquid nitrogen, however, we'll have to mobilize
the military to blanket the countryside, reaming every HPFS partition it
can find.  Then, every computer will be running Plan 9!  Plan 9 will
conquor Georgia, and then conquer the world!  Mahaaahaahaaa!

Sounds like a great way to promote our favorite operating system.
Wouldn't you agree?

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[9fans] Re: Flakey DNS server

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Charles Forsyth  writes:

> It's a virtual city in Switzerland, which is famously neutral (hence Geneva

Wes Kussmaul  writes:

> Instead, habitability of physical buildings is determined by building
> codes and professional licensing that are the product of participatory
> and duly constituted public authority.
>
> That's the role that Osmio sets out to play in non-physical digital
> indoor spaces.

Oh, I see.  But if that's their goal, their homepage does a terrible job
of describing/explaining it.  That site (at least the English version of
it) gives the impression that it's an actual (physical) city.  That
explains the confusion.

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[9fans] Re: Flakey DNS server

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Wes Kussmaul  writes:

> On 10/7/20 12:08 AM, Lucio De Re wrote:
>> my situation is getting
>> more difficult as norms on the Internet are being bent by service
>> provider that care for their profitability much more than for
>> interoperation
>
> I suggest taking a look at https://www.osmio.ch/

I don't get it.  That Web site appears to be the municipal homepage for
a city in Switzerland that uses digital certificates as official
government-recognized ID.  What does that have to do with anything?

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[9fans] Video conferencing on Plan 9/Inferno

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

When the Inferno operating system (a descendent of Plan 9) was
developed, one of its primary intended applications was video
conferencing/streaming.  With concern about the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and
people trying to keep at a distance from one another, there has been a
huge surge in intrest in (and application of) video conferencing.

What facilities do Plan 9/Inferno offer for making conference calls,
1-to-1 video calls, and/or video conferences?  Assuming 9P2000 is used
(with a sufficiently large msize to provide adequate throughput), what
would the file system API look like?  Could it be done in a peer-to-peer
fashion, without having to send all of the video through a central
server?

It's an interesting question to ponder... and an apropos time to be
pondering it.

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[9fans] Re: plan9port fossil

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

kim.lass...@gmail.com writes:

> Does anyone run fossil from plan9port? Is it stable? I am thinking of
> setting up a fossil + venti fileserver on Linux that Plan 9 terminals
> and cpu servers can connect to.

I don't think that plan9port includes a port of fossil.  If anyone knows
of one (a patch, a fork, or whatever), please advise.

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[9fans] Re: FOIA request?

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Jack Johnson  writes:

> Other than LANL, any idea what they might be fishing for?

The more salient question might be, "Why is this request being made of
the CIA, specifically?"  I'd think the NSA or DoD would be more
interested in Plan 9 than the CIA.  Why CIA?

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[9fans] FWD: Role of factotum(4) in Inferno security

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Hi, 9fans,

I recently posted this to the Inferno list.  I still haven't gotten any
replies after almost a week.  Since factotum originated on Plan 9, I'm
re-posting this to 9fans.  Hopefully, someone in 9-landia will be able
to provide some insight into what factotum does on Inferno.  Thanks!

 SNIP  SNIP  SNIP =
From: clasp126hfsp64...@icebubble.org
To: inferno-os 
Subject: Role of factotum(4) in Inferno security
Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2018 20:44:01 +

So, I've been reading about security in Inferno.  There are many
complex, interacting pieces, and lots of docs (and source code) to read.
But once you get it all in your head, it makes sense.  It's actually
quite elegant.

One thing which still confuses me, however, is the function of
factotum(4) on Inferno.  Factotum->mount, in the factotum(2) module,
allows Inferno to mount file systems exported from Plan 9, using the
factotum(4) file system to authenticate with the Plan 9 server.  The
"-9" option to mount(1), as described in bind(1), makes this
functionality fully available from the Inferno command-line.  However,
there doesn't appear to be any corresponding Factotum->export in
factotum(2) that uses factotum(4) to authenticate attach requests (made
with Tauth ).  Accordingly, neither export(4) nor styxlisten(1) have
anything which would correspond to the "-9" option of mount(1).  Is
factotum(4) on Inferno used only for mounting from Plan 9?  Why not for
exporting to Plan 9?

factotum(4) on Inferno only implements a few authentication protocols
(p9sk1, p9any, pass, and infauth, according to the man page).  Looking
at the actual code, however, it also appears to support "rsa" (as used
by SSH) and "authquery" (whatever that is).  It doesn't appear to
support any of the other authentication protocols (such as apop, cram,
chap, mschap, etc.) available on Plan 9's factotum(4).  So, how is one
supposed to do things like APOP on Inferno?  Currently, it looks like
I'd have to run Inferno under emu, hosted on either Plan 9 or plan9port,
and import factotum(4) from the host OS.  (In other words, no APOP when
running Inferno on bare hardware.)

Lastly, I see that Inferno's factotum(4) supports an "infauth"
authentication protocol which (presumably) encapsulates Inferno's
auth(6) protocol.  But Keyring->auth (cf. keyring-auth(2)) doesn't
appear to have any option to delegate the Station-to-Station protocol to
factotum(4).  Yes, I see that the keyring module, which does the STS, is
implemented in C and hard-linked into the kernel/emu.  But I don't see
any place where "proto=infauth" keys in factotum(4) are actually used by
the system.  The factotum(4) in plan9port doesn't support the "infauth"
authentication protocol, either.  So, if nothing uses "proto=infauth",
then why is it there?

Any insights would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

Re: [9fans] Fwd: ubiquitous environment?

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Rudolf Sykora  writes:

> environment. I want to be working on my home desktop, realize what
> time it is, run out the door to catch my train, open my laptop on the
> train, continue right where I left off, close the laptop, hop off the
> train, sit down at work, and have all my state sitting there on the
> monitor on my desk, all without even thinking about it.

It sounds like you want to check out Nemo's work, over at LSUB, on the
Octopus, Olive, Omero, and Plan B:

http://lsub.org/export/oman.pdf
http://lsub.org/export/otut.pdf
http://lsub.org/ls/export/octopus.pdf
http://lsub.org/ls/export/omero.pdf
http://lsub.org/ls/export/uidemo.pdf
http://lsub.org/who/nemo

etc.

They seem to WRITE a lot about and demo their ideas, but I've never been
able to find anything from them that's actually usable.  (If anyone can
find actual code/documentation, please post so the rest of us can
benefit from it.  Thanks!)

Re: [9fans] Update APE

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Jens Staal  writes:

> If someone could backport apex from Harvey, that would be cool.

I've seen this "Harvey" thing mentioned here and there, but does it
really exist?  I tried subscribing to the "Harvey" mailing list, but my
subscription request was rejected.  So I just assumed it was a secret,
dark project hidden to all but a select inner circle of digital ninjas.

Re: [9fans] Job interview questions

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Kurt H Maier  writes:

> On Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 07:03:24PM +1300, Andrew Simmons wrote:
>> I’ve just been asked to respond to the following. Apart from number 8, where 
>> the answer is clearly “because they are clinically insane”, I am at a loss. 
>> Any hints from the group?
>> 
>
> Happy to help.

...

LMAO.  That's not just funny - it's smart-funny.  Perfect!

Come to think of it... if Andrew actually submitted those as answers to
the questions, it would certainly get the recruiter's attention.
Whether that would work for him, or against him, depends on the
particular circumstances.

Re: [9fans] Job interview questions

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Charles Forsyth  writes:

> In the newer ASP.NET Core, they've ramped it up by extensive use of
> reflection, so your program ends up trapped in a hall of mirrors,
> and you've no idea who calls anything, with what, when, and why.

Perhaps they're taking their lead from Ruby.

Re: [9fans] Fossil+Venti system memory requirements to be aware of?

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

"James A. Robinson"  writes:

> Anyone able to tell me whether or not there are
> disk size limits I should beware of given a limited
> amount of system memory in a file server?

Although there have been some replies on this thread, none of them have
really yet directly answered your question.  When setting up a venti
server, the size of the Bloom filter has a big impact on memory usage
and performance.  Details about computing Bloom filter size can be found
in the docs.  You could set up venti on a machine with very little
memory if you're happy with it constantly going out to check the index.

Re: [9fans] Fossil+Venti system memory requirements to be aware of?

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Steven Stallion  writes:

> Sizing venti is also simple.

I disagree with this.  The best way to configure venti depends largely
on how you plan to use it.  I have multiple venti servers configured for
different uses.  For example, I keep my DVD images on a different venti
server than I do for smaller, more frequently-used files such as mail.

Choosing a good arena size isn't trivial, either.  If you ever plan to
back-up your venti to optical media, 640 MiB is the ideal arena size.
There is a lot of math behind that determination, but its implications
can be summarized as follows: Whether you're burning to standard CD-Rs,
extended CD-Rs, DVDs, DVD DL, Blu-ray, flash media, or to another HDD,
the amount of "wasted" space will never exceed 5% of the media's total
capacity.  In other words, the archvie will always be a minimum of 95%
space-efficient.  (Caveat: when burning 640 MiB arenas to optical media,
you may need to turn off Joliet/Rock Rigde extensions in order to make
the ISO image fit.)

> and it's also relatively trivial to move your data between stores.

I don't know that to be true.  If the source and destination volumes are
the same size, yes, it's easy to just dd the arenas.  But if you're
relocating to a smaller/larger partition, what would be an easy way to
do that?

Re: [9fans] How Plan9 saved the world.

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Jules Merit  writes:

> James Holmes, San Diego Colorado.
> Font BOLD enough for lib-ja.
>
> HMS Ole, multi-passaway, Olga!
> Alice Michael
> U be illin "chicKen" "RobKen" Dallas, PoPo MacDonald KenTucky fried.
> /JamesColeM.S.Anderson

Is this Navajo-code steganographic e-mail?  Or... perhaps we finally
uncovered evidence that, in order to understand Plan 9, you really DO
have to be stoned out of your mind...!

Re: [9fans] How Plan9 saved the world.

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Jules Merit  writes:

> I installed plan9 on mafia systems.

Sorry, bud.  That font didn't even exist back in 1953.  And the JDs in
your chart are from the North Korean nuclear test that took place just a
few days ago.

I've installed Plan 9 on Endoterrestrial systems, though.  (Those are
the people who live inside the hollow Earth.)  Now, if I could just find
the vac for my photos of them... I know I have them in venti,
somewhere...

[9fans] OT: Ubiquitous data vs. Reality, WAS: Re: The Plan 9/"right" way to do Facebook

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Giacomo Tesio  writes:

> physical tool. Now, we "know that a programmable computer is no more and no
> less than an extremely handy device for realizing any conceivable mechanism
> without changing a single wire", but are we sure we really want to remove
> the awareness of the wires?

I don't think people are necessarily aware of the "wires", anymore.
Many millenials think of the Internet as a resource that just sort of
floats around in the air, kind of like oxygen.  (I once built a little,
"mini-Internet" for a cryptography demonstration I did for a group of
millenials.  One of them expressed to me his confusion that the network
actually contained a wired hub!)  When people use the Web, send a text,
or make a call, they assume that their information is private because
they can't see the radio waves.  They have little, if any, concern with
how the technology actually works, just that it somehow "magically" does
something useful.

> Google glasses scare me even more: we are going to look the world through
> some one else eyes. In the long run, our brain will start to accept the

That's one of the reasons why it's so important to maintain control and
ownership of OUR OWN data.  My data + my programs = my image of reality.

> some one else eyes. In the long run, our brain will start to accept the
> virtual baloons like the other physical entities that really exists.

I think we already have one foot planted firmly in that mine field.
People already mistake what they see on social media for reality.  A
little over a year ago, I attended a Mensa* meeting in Portsmouth, NH
(the same city that the treaty was signed in).  Our discussion focused
on how to get more people to join Mensa, and how to encourage existing
members to participate in chapter activities.  (Less than 1% of people
who qualify for Mensa are actually members, and the overwhelming
majority of those don't participate in any of our calendered events.)
As is wont to happen when discussing promotion of ANYTHING, these days,
someone offered the perennial suggestion of using social media.  I posed
this group the question, (paraphrasing) "If someone was invited to an
event by someone who they knew in real life, as opposed to someone they
only knew from Facebook, would they be more likely to attend?"  Another
member there answered my question by saying that she saw her friends on
Facebook as BEING real friends.  I was just blown away by that answer.
On social media, you have no idea who you're talking to, if what they
say is true, or if they're even a real person.  Not long ago, it was
revealed that the U.S. government has actually paid contractors to
create hundreds of fake social media profiles.  It had never before even
OCCURRED to me that people might acutally mistake what they see on
social media for reality.

I could probably list half a dozen other annecdotes that illustrate how
social media have distorted people's perceptions of reality.  But this
one is perhaps the most compelling, because it is so unexpected and so
foreboding.  If a member of Mensa (whose IQ must be at or above the 98th
percentile) can mistake social media for reaility, then that same
mistake can be (and most certainly is) made by the other 98% of the
population.  That's terrifying.

> We are already trained to be suspicious about the truth even when it's
> clearly evident, now we can even start to ignore the information from the
> physical world, while accepting the virtual information that someone else
> feed us.

Maintaining a strong sense of skepticism might be a healthy way to
engage with the dubious world of social media.  Whenever you listen to a
politician speak, for instance, you do so with a healthy dose of
skepticism.  Perhaps we could treat everything we see on social media
like we treat politicians.  If we were to adopt a popular predisposition
to consider anything on social media as "quite likely false", then the
damage to reality might be limited.  Earlier in this thread, ...

lu...@proxima.alt.za writes:

> to publish.  Stupidly, we still demand that people be consistent, but
> that will drift away over time, of that I'm pretty certain.

There is some creative merit in doing that.  Then again, an inability to
tell what's true at all could be an emerging trajedy of these commons.

*Mensa is a trade name, and Mensa does not necessarily agree with or
endorse any of my kooky views.  They should, though.  ;)

-- 
+--+
|   human   |
|Any sufficiently high intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity.|
+--+

Re: [9fans] The Plan 9/"right" way to do Facebook

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Staven  writes:

> It's not worth it.
>
> You'll probably think I'm just being flippant, but I'm not.
>
> It's just not worth it.

That's another interesting & novel way to re-think social networking:
just don't have anything to do with it!  Indeed, that's pretty much the
approach that I've ended up taking, myself.

Do you think it will eventually fizzle-out, kind of like pet rocks and
Usenet newsgroups?  Social networking is a logical extension of the
personal information management (PIM) apps that were so popular in the
late 20th century (and continue to be popular, today, on smartphones).
So, I suspect it probably won't just fizzle-out of its own accord.

Do you think that social networking will be overtaken and replaced by
something else?  Will the replacement be better or worse?  Keeping to
the topic, if social networking's successor could be predicted far
enough in advance, it could be designed and implemented to be
smart-compatible (i.e., with a file system interface) from the get go.
That way, when it finally catches on and becomes popular, it won't pose
a burden to us '9ers.  They say that the best way to predict the future
is to create it, right?  So, perhaps the best way to fix the present is
to create the future.

-- 
+--+
|   human   |
|Any sufficiently high intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity.|
+--+

Re: [9fans] The Plan 9/"right" way to do Facebook

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

lu...@proxima.alt.za writes:

> I don't even remember the name of the feature, but I used a tool way
> back in the very early days of a public Internet (it was called a MOO,

> Given a browser-style interface with 3D capabilities, it would address
> social networking considerably better than Facebook (with which I have

> For that is what social media provide: a world-wide stage on which you
> perform selections from your real life and any fantasy life you choose

Very interesting.  I was envisioning a system which would (at least on
its GUI side) present information in the form of a Web page, like
Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.  I hadn't thought of abandoning the Web page,
altogether, for some other kind of "social space" browser.  I wonder
what that might be like.

[Disclaimer: This is NOT a formal or serious proposal for a new Plan 9
file system.  (Not yet, at least.)  It's just an exploration of some
potentially possible possibilities.]

For a social network to be useful, it must provide some intuitive
mapping between information in the virtual world and its real-life
referents.  (In contemporary social networks, these take the form of
person/place names, mugshots, and interactive maps with balloon icons.)
The space which humans are most familiar with navigating, of course, is
meatspace - the physical, brick-and-mortar world.  It makes sense, then,
that the most intuitive interface would offer some kind of three-
dimensional virtual reality.  The simplest, most intuitive mapping
between virtual space and meatspace would probably be to visually
"overlay" information from the virtual space onto meatspace.  Technology
(mostly in the form of various head-mounted glasses or goggles) already
exists which allows a person to see what's around them, while projecting
information ontop of what they see.  A device such as this has generally
been called an "eye tap".  But it has a problem: when you turn your
head, the display turns with it.  In order for the UI to be as intuitive
as the physical world, it would have to maintain orientation with its
physical environment.  Tracking motion of the user's head could be done
using accellerometers, a la Oculus Rift.  Imagine a Rift with two video
cameras on its front (to provide a binocular view on the physical world)
that overlays a digital world ontop of the real world you see.  Virtual
arrows could guide you where you need to go without needing directions.
When you get near your favorite Chinese restaurant, a balloon could
appear in your view, giving you access to information about it.  When
GPS magic detects that a friend of yours is nearby, an friendly-looking
arrow appears, indicating the general direction and approximate distance
to him or her.

In order for a virtual world to be useful, however, simply mimicking the
physical world won't do; its physics must differ from the physics of the
real world in some useful way.  If your favorite restaurant is two miles
from your present location, for example, you won't want to walk two
miles to find its virtual balloon.  :) Navigating the virtual space
would require some way to stretch/pan space and time, allowing the user
to "fly" about and move forward/backward in time within the virtual
world, before restoring the overlay to match normal space/time.  You
would, for example, be able to hike the trail I hiked yesterday, even
after I got back from hiking it.  If I recorded GPS waypoints and/or
stereoscopic video along the way, you could hike right along with me,
having a conversation with my avatar about your favorite edible plants.
Then, I could "rewind" time and watch your hike & conversation as well
(assuming that you decided to share it with me).

An ability to stretch/shrink distances in virtual space enables use of
non-Euclidean volumes, as well.  Imagine "dimension compression"
technology as seen in the (sci-fi) movie Ultraviolet, or in the TARDIS
of Dr. Who.  ("It's bigger on the inside!")  You could stuff as many
files as you want into a single filing cabinet, have a filing cabinet
with a potentially infinite number of drawers, or stuff as many filing
cabinets as you want into a police call box which shrinks down and stows
neatly inside a virtual watch that you wear on your virtual wrist.  Want
to send a FAX?  Press a button on your virtual watch, and out pops your
personal TARDIS.  Reach inside it, grab your virtual FAX machine, grab
the document you want to send, and feed it through.  (You can fast-
forward time, if you like, so you don't have to wait for each page to
scan.)  When you're done, just hit the "poof" button on your virtual
watch, and everything neatly folds itself back inside.

Such a non-Euclidean 4-dimensional space full of nested objects could
certainly be represented as a file system.  Omero and Olive
(technically, o/mero and o/live) from the Octopus project over at LSUB
already allow one to represent a two-dimensional GUI as a file system.
(All or part of a GUI on one machine can be tar(1)ed up and 

Re: [9fans] The Plan 9/"right" way to do Facebook

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Winston Kodogo  writes:

> That's an awfully long troll.

Or "epic-length".  :) Perhaps your smartphone didn't display to you item
#9 in TOP.  What you (incorrectly) call a "troll" I call "prebuttle".
It makes discussion much more efficient if all the obvious issues/
questions/answers are gotten out of the way, up front.  With all the
obvious stuff out of the way, you can jump right into discussing the
interesting stuff, as Lucio has done...

Re: [9fans] The Plan 9/"right" way to do Facebook

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Kurt H Maier  writes:

> Your post advocates a
>
> (x) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
>
> approach to social networking. Your idea will not work. Here is why it 
> won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular 
> idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state
> before a bad federal law was passed.)

Hah, I like that.  Is that an rc script?  An m4 macro?  An Acme plug-in?
Where can I get that?

> Your post advocates a

TOP doesn't "advocate" anything; it poses a theoretical question and
explores the benefits/drawbacks of a few potential solutions.

> (x) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante

Every problem is ultimately a technical problem.  That's true whether
you're building an OS, running for president, or trying to reach
spiritual Nirvana.  If any of these boxes were to be checked, I'd sure
hope it'd be the "technical" one.  :)

> (x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money

Based on the boxes that you checked, I'm assuming your response was
intended in jest, not meant seriously.  :) So, I won't take time to
address each of your points.  If this assumption is incorrect, however,
and you really do have such concerns, let me know, and I'll post a brief
answer to each of the questions you raise.

> (x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
> ( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your 
> house down!

Well, I'm happy at least you didn't check that last box!  :D

Re: [9fans] Inferno (native)

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

G B  writes:

> How do I get Limbo, a C compiler, etc., in my native build?

Well, you have to mount a file system containing the rest of the
operating system.  :) Did you do that?  The floppy image that you built
contains enough to boot the kernel, but not much else - certainly not a
Limbo compiler!

[9fans] Fwd: Multiplexing Styx/9P2000 over TCP connections

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

I recently posted the following to the Inferno mailing list (but
received no response).  I'm re-posting here, as this applies to Plan 9
just as much as to Inferno, anyway...

> So, I've been looking at the source code of Inferno, and I've noticed
> that, when mount(1) wants to connect to a Styx/9P2000 server on a remote
> machine, it generally opens up a new TCP connection... one for each new
> mount... even if it's just an additional connection to the same service
> on the same remote host.
>
> Recalling the specification for 9P2000, the protocol supports the
> multiplexing of multiple 9P2000 clients/"sessions" onto a single,
> multiplexed, session with the server.  In theory, all a 9P2000
> multiplexer would have to do is map tags and fids so that different
> clients don't use the same values, and negotiate a common version and
> msize in the Tversion/Rversion transactions.  All the functionality of
> the protocol, including access control using afids, would be preserved.
> In fact, while complying fully with the 9P2000 specification, it should
> also be possible to multiplex sessions in the REVERSE direction
> (connections from clients on the remote "server" host BACK to servers
> listening on the local "client" host) over the same TCP connection used
> to carry the "forward" (local --> remote) sessions.
>
> I'd assumed, since the protocol allows for this, that this sort of
> multiplexing was done by the Plan 9 and Inferno kernels.  Is that not
> the case?  And if not, then why not?
>
> To take a stab at answering my own question, I suspect that it might
> have something to do with the Station to Station protocol and SSL setup
> done on a connection prior to exchanging Styx messages.  But it seems to
> me that S2S and SSL init could also be multiplexed by the kernel, or
> even transacted over a temporary TCP connection established solely for
> initializing the Styx session.  That is to suggest that a client could
> connect directly to a server, execute S2S, close that connection,
> provide the SSL parameters and shared secret to the kernel, then push
> the Styx messages (including any afid) through the kernel multiplexer.
> The kernel could then send the client's Styx messages over the
> multiplexed connection using the SSL parameters specified by the client.
>
> I'd imagine that there could be some latencey issues that might result
> from an approach like this, i.e. if an interactive session were
> conducted over the same connection as a large file transfer.  But
> there's nothing to stop a client from establishing its own TCP
> connection (or, at the very least, asking the kernel to allocate a
> second multiplexed connection).  Still, multiplexing Styx sessions could
> have some advantages, such as when traversing firewalls where there are
> limits on the number of simultaneous TCP connections or timeouts on
> individual connections.  Multiplexing sessions would help "keep alive"
> such TCP connections.  It would also help protect encrypted
> communication from traffic analysis.
>
> Now that I've been typing about this for a few paragraphs, it occurs to
> me that a multiplexer like this could probably be implemented as a
> system service running in userspace, without much (if any) extra support
> from the kernel.
>
> So, do Plan 9 or Inferno already do anything like this?  If not, do you
> think it would be a smart thing to implement?  I'm curious to hear other
> people's thoughts on this.

Re: [9fans] Why didn't anyone tell me about the new slogan?

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Anthony Sorace a...@9srv.net writes:

 http://t.co/qyvHkuP2m8

 Sounds a bit pollyanna to me, but who am I to judge?

For the benefit of those of us without Web access, what's behind that
link?

Re: [9fans] DigiLand DL701Q quad core tablet

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

cigar562hfsp952f...@icebubble.org writes:

 Yes, I figured it might require some new device drivers, but why would
 it require a new kernel?  I thought there was already a Plan 9 kernel
 for Arm Cortex-series processors.  That's one of the reasons why I
 developed such a crush on OMAP.  ;)

BTW, that was not intended as a rhetorical question; I really am curious
why the device would require a whole new kernel...

Re: [9fans] DigiLand DL701Q quad core tablet

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

erik quanstrom quans...@quanstro.net writes:

 In short, it's an Arm Cortex A7 with 512MB DDR3, 8GB NAND flash, 7
 touchscreen, uSD, uUSB AB (OTG), Bluetooth, GPS, and 802.11b/g/n.

 this will require a new kernel, and dealing with some new devices.  sounds 
 interesting, though.

Yes, I figured it might require some new device drivers, but why would
it require a new kernel?  I thought there was already a Plan 9 kernel
for Arm Cortex-series processors.  That's one of the reasons why I
developed such a crush on OMAP.  ;)

[9fans] DigiLand DL701Q quad core tablet

[cigar562hfsp952fans]

Does anybody know if Plan 9 can run on a DigiLand DL701Q quad core
tablet?  Details here:

  http://www.digi-land.net/Photo_Show.asp?InfoId=487ClassId=56Topid=53

In short, it's an Arm Cortex A7 with 512MB DDR3, 8GB NAND flash, 7
touchscreen, uSD, uUSB AB (OTG), Bluetooth, GPS, and 802.11b/g/n.