I think there's been lots of good work done, and I did find the 9front FQA quite usable.
What I've had complaints about, and where I think the foundation can help, is to provide a central place to connect all these disparate efforts; provide "user journeys" (yes, I'm not fond of the term either) showing how people get going with Plan 9; and, the most interesting to me, providing a CI facility for installation to make sure instructions work. For the last 30 years, CI for Plan 9 has been "the most recent person to try it." This is not a good way to provide a reliable experience. When I worked in ChromeOS, we had a large room full of thousands (no exaggeration) of chromebooks, continuously running installs, all the way up to login (robots can run trackpads and keyboards; cameras verify screen images). Every checkin eventually ends up in a test boot. This is a very common test strategy. We're not going to go that far, of course. But I think it could be possible to have a CI for (e.g.) the 9front qemu install, up to and including a "headless drawterm" that connects via 17010 and verifies that drawterm would work. The CI could include a compile step for drawterm, as people keep having issues building it. If devdraw is needed, there should be a build of that too. It needs to be easier, for people coming from the unix world. Nothing in their experience prepares them for Plan 9, and no matter how good they are at this stuff, people find it difficult. It needs to be reliable and easy and, sadly, it can't require lots of reading. On Mon, Jun 2, 2025 at 3:05 AM Paul Lalonde <[email protected]> wrote: > When I started running and developing for Plan9 again I mostly did it > from the 9front fqa. It's a solid resource. > I would suggest one improvement: a very visible link to section 4 "9front > Installation Guide", above the fold, would ease many of the concerns of a > first time user. > > Paul > On Mon, Jun 2, 2025, 10:43 a.m. Jacob Moody <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 6/1/25 23:53, Cody Holliday wrote: >> > Hey Jacob, >> > >> > That is all really interesting! You have put a ton of work into >> > improving things. >> > I myself have been thankful for the qemu builds so I can skip all the >> > rigamarole. >> > >> > I think to Ron's point: why is this not clear and easy to find on the >> > 9front site? >> >> The qemu images are listed along with all the other release images, so >> I feel that's pretty out in the open. The nightly site is listed in the >> FQA as well. However I would still suggest that most users at least >> start with a release iso. We do a lot more testing leading up to a release >> then we have automated for the nightly releases. >> >> Most of these other things, the github mirrors and drawterm CI, are more >> of a developer convenience then anything else. To me it doesn't make much >> sense to advertise them as much. I shopped this stuff around local 9front >> watering holes at the time. The contributions and technical discussion >> happening about developing 9front code has not historically happened much >> on 9fans, don't get me wrong I am very pleased that it is, however it is >> not surprising that some newer changes take a bit of time to get around. >> >> > >> > Clearly if people are having the troubles in Ron's email, then this >> > information is >> > not as available or obvious as it should be. >> > >> > Not denigrating your message, just pointing out a usability problem. >> >> I have not seen the bug reports, so it is hard for me to say. >> When someone had issues were they directed to finding resources in the >> 9front FQA? Were they directed to reporting drawterm build bugs to us? >> >> Are there specific changes you would make to the FQA that would better >> communicate this information? >> >> > >> > I'll use your resources in the future :) >> > >> >> Please do. :) >> >> Thanks, >> Jacob > *9fans <https://9fans.topicbox.com/latest>* / 9fans / see discussions > <https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans> + participants > <https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/members> + delivery options > <https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription> Permalink > <https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/Tbe8e5fda6ae62f5c-M3a8e783aa1a10fbabca789ee> > > ------------------------------------------ 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/Tbe8e5fda6ae62f5c-M2eb6d35e0982bb9855ae0e3c Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
