On Sat, Mar 3, 2018, at 4:22 PM, Rudolf Sykora wrote: > Hello, > > I am not sure this email ever made it to the forum, > hence I decided to ask once more... > > Thanks for any comments... > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Rudolf Sykora <[email protected]> > Date: 16 June 2016 at 10:30 > Subject: ubiquitous environment? > To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <[email protected]> > > > Hello, everyone, > > I read the following some time ago and now got back to it. > It's from an interview with Russ Cox. > https://usesthis.com/interviews/russ.cox/ > > -------------- > The thing I miss most about Plan 9 was the way that no matter which > computer you sat down at, you had the same environment. Because we > were working off a shared file server - there were no local disks on > the Plan 9 workstations - you could go home and log in and all your > work was there waiting. Of course, it only worked because we had good, > fast connectivity to the file server, and only file state - not > application state - transferred, but it was still a huge win. > > Today it's taken for granted that everyone has local files on disk and > you need programs like Unison or Dropbox (or for the power users, > Mercurial or Git) to synchronize them, but what we had in Plan 9 was > completely effortless, and my dream is to return to that kind of > 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. > -------------- > > Has anyone tried a setup like that? -- Having a server at work and > working on it even from home/anywhere? And how is it set up? Does it mean > that wherever you sit you somehow mount the window system to get > to the exactly same state that you left the machine in? > (Ie. something like a screen/tmux but supplied by the system itself?) > > Thanks for any comments! > > Ruda >
Indeed. I liked this, although I always wished application state would transfer too. I imagined a sort of sam with multiple samterms, but I never did anything about it. I'm starting to now, but I expect it won't be ready for about a year, and I'm not working in C or (directly) for Plan 9. I've been thinking about phones and tablets too, so I was a little bit excited to see Inferno for Android. The person behind it seems enthusiastic, capable, and a hard worker. He'd like to work on Inferno full-time. https://github.com/bhgv/Inferno-OS_Android https://github.com/bhgv/Inferno-OS_Android/releases I haven't got involved myself for a few reasons: I don't like Limbo very much, I wasn't totally satisfied with Plan 9 and assume Inferno would have similar limits, and I'd just started my own major project before it was announced. I have hopes that retaining the principles of simple, unified, networkable interfaces with a different approach will yield better results, but I have a lot of exploration to do before I have anything concrete to say. -- The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. -- Chaucer
