Quoth Ron Minnich <[email protected]>:
> Jacob, re-reading, all the work you have done is quite impressive, and
> I'd like to find a way to link something on p9f.org to it. Further, I
> will now go try it myself. But, wow, that's very nice stuff :-)
>
> Looking at all the work people have done, my feeling is that we're
> missing "the last meter", in the sense that we're very close, but
> people are still having trouble, even very capable people.
>
> I don't want to see things like this:
Thanks for actually giving the specific dead ends. This is helpful.
> "
> I cannot connect using the plan9port drawterm, that gives me
> '/net/localhost' doesn't exist.
> I tried drawterm -a localhost!1337 -c localhost!1337 -u glenda.
I'm not entirely sure what the "plan9port drawterm" means. Assuming
that it's the rsc drawterm -- yes, it's going to fail with 9front.
We've disabled p9sk1 for reasons that we've repeated over and over.
I also have no idea where they got that dialstring; it's simply not
a valid dial string.
Whatever docs they found will need to be updated; I don't know where
they found that documentation, but it's almost certainly not something
anyone in 9front maintains, and therefore we have no way to correct
it.
You'd need to do some sleuthing, find the source of the bad docs, and
update it there.
> There is a 9front drawterm, but I cannot compile it. It cannot find
> the wlroots headers, No package 'wlr-protocols' found, no idea what to
> install.
>
> The prebuilt binaries are only for Windows... again, I am stuck.
> 1:31
> I'm putting it aside again, for "some other day", it's just a maze
> full of dead ends.
> "
They'll have to install the build dependencies, which include either the
wayland or X11 headers. The specific instructions will vary by distro, so
it's very difficult to document this comprehensively, unfortunately.
Building code on Linux is a mess, and a binary built for one distro
is unlikely to work on another.
I don't think plan9 is positioned to fix linux developer experience
issues; if you're on linux, this is the universal state of getting
unpackaged software to work. Building drawterm isn't uniquely bad.
The best option would be for people who maintain packages to make an
installable package for the latest 9front drawterm. For example, it
seems that ubuntu has a (somewhat outdated, but still usable) package
called 'drawterm-9front':
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/drawterm-9front
qbit maintains the drawterm package for openbsd, and does a good job
of keeping it out of date, and people who care to reduce overhead of
getting started on linux would probably get a decent amount of mileage
out of duplicating that effort on linux distros.
> I want people to have an easy path in, after which they can learn
> about the cool stuff.
Yeah, 'apt-install drawterm-9front' if you're on ubuntu will work
just fine; 'pkg_add drawterm' will do it on openbsd; I'm not sure
if you can make it easier than that. Maybe adding a 'Using linux?
check your package manager.' hint on the drawterm webpage.
> While I understand that rio is *the* window manager, for now, every
> time I demo'd Plan 9 in google/LANL/Sandia, I came to dread the point
> at which I swept out that first rio window, and people immediately
> ratholed into how it looked. They did not care about the cool bits,
> they focused on its lack of flair. The talks generally ended at that
> point; none of the people I was presenting to were going to give that
> interface a second chance. It would be easier with lola. That
> interface will look dated, but still relevant; and its ability to do
> tabs, and the window decorations, are something people are always
> asking for.
*shrugs* in my experience, it's been the opposite; people get interested
because they see me using Rio and the fact that it's obviously not the
usual Linux gets them curious. "Wait, did you just draw a window? that's
really cool! what are you using?"
> I have this picture in my head of a p9f.org web page, showing a
> desktop with lola, and a "try it in your web browser" button, and a
> "try it on qemu" button, and a "boot it on your laptop" button.
Sure, go for it!
------------------------------------------
9fans: 9fans
Permalink:
https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/Tbe8e5fda6ae62f5c-Mca76c123d493fabdc73f5acd
Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
