>> Well, I use vx32 as a terminal for both lguest and remote machines. No >> real need for venfi/fossil. For edit, I import; to build etc. I cpu in >> an acme window so i get the error stuff. > > what's the advantage over drawterm in this configuration?
In the case you quote, you'd have many of the advantages of a standalone Plan 9 terminal, like local handling of graphics and the mouse, the ability to connect to many machines simultaneously, the ability to withstand those machines rebooting, and so on. It depends a lot on what you're doing. Here's another example. For about seven years I had the luxury of running Plan 9 as my day-to-day system, but I couldn't easily keep doing that and work with the people around me at MIT; around 2003, I gave it up and switched to FreeBSD and Linux. (You'll note that's when the p9p CVS logs begin.) I haven't booted an actual Plan 9 terminal in a couple of years. Since then, I've had the smaller luxury of running Plan 9 as a venti server, now atop some nice hardware we bought from Coraid. The Coraid box has a tiny, slow IDE flash disk for a root file system, fine for holding a few binaries but not really usable as a general file system. To build the binaries, I have a second Plan 9 server with a bigger, faster root disk. I've used drawterm to connect to it, edit and compile venti, and submit patches. As I look forward to finishing at MIT, I can't leave Plan 9 boxes for others to deal with. A few months ago, I converted the main venti server (the Coraid hw) to run FreeBSD, which is what all our other servers run. That leaves the second Plan 9 server, which I still use for the occasional drawterm session to submit a patch to sources. But when I leave MIT, I can't reasonably keep using that machine as my own personal server. It'll have to be a group server running FreeBSD. The advantage of 9vx over drawterm, for me, is that 9vx doesn't require a cpu server. 9vx is how I'm going to deal with not having my own personal Plan 9 cpu server to drawterm into. Having a local Plan 9 install, stored right in my non-Plan 9 home directory, lets me keep using and occasionally contributing to Plan 9 without having to maintain and house a server. I haven't spent quite enough time setting up a comfortable 9vx that I could stop using drawterm today, but maybe tomorrow. Russ
