On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 4:45 PM, ssecorp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > from wikipedia: > "Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a distributed operating system, primarily > used for research." > > but it doesnt say anything more about the distributed part. > > In what way does it make it easy?
Plan 9 makes it easy via 9p, its file system/resource sharing protocol. In plan 9, things like graphics and network drivers export a 9p interface (a filetree). Furthermore, 9p is network transparent which means accesses to remote resources look exactly like accesses to local resources, and this is the main trick - processes do not care whether the file they are interested in is being served by the kernel, a userspace process, or a machine half way across the world. -sqweek
