> I note there is a Linux user binary emulation and X11 available. Is it > sufficient > to set up a Linux environment on Plan 9 including all the niceties offered by > Linux modern distribution? Does this completely defeat the purpose of using > Plan9 in the first place ? If it makes sense, I'd appreciate some guidance in > this regard. If not, some suggestions on how to best live with *nix ugliness > would be welcome.
Linuxemu is capable of running a full Linux environment, but performance is short of optimal. Currently, tls is not fully implemented, so pre-tls versions of Linux libraries are required. The example mroot[1] linked at the linuxemu wiki page[2] is based on an old version of Debian. My own mroot[3] includes Opera 9.50 and some other pre-installed packages. Note: the snarf/copy/paste buffer is not accessible interchangeably between equis and Plan 9 proper. The best way to get an idea of whether or not you find this method tolerable is to try it out on your hardware. The faster your system, and the more RAM you have available, the better equis/linuxemu will perform. In many cases, I find a laptop running Plan 9 native with equis/linuxemu to be sufficient for short sessions of casual browsing. For daily use I tend to do web browsing/multimedia in OpenBSD and drawterm to a Thinkpad running Plan 9 native. Basically, all of my text file processing (programming, web development, IRC, etc.) takes place in Plan 9. OpenBSD is my firmware layer to take advantage of my hardware and a platform for reasonably snappy web browsing in Chromium. Since I've yet to stumble across a video card that can tackle 1920x1080 with DVI or HDMI output (VGA or VESA mode), I've been reluctant to attempt using equis/linuxemu full-time on my primary desktop system. -sl [1] http://9hal.ath.cx/usr/cinap_lenrek/mroot-linuxemu.tbz [2] http://www.plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Linux_emulation/index.html [3] http://plan9.stanleylieber.com/linuxemu/mroot.tgz
