On Wed, Jun 04, 2025 at 06:05:26PM +0200, Daniel Maslowski via 9fans wrote:
> I am still trying to get a working 9front setup so I can work on the port.

It's not hard: just dd the iso to a usb stick, boot with it, and see how
much luck you have with getting the right video mode and a working network
interface (reading the fqa about that), on whatever spare PC you want to
try, before attempting to install. Don't like it? try another machine. ;-)
And https://luksamuk.codes/posts/plan9-setup-rpi.html is a decent
walkthrough of the next steps to get drawterm working etc., regardless
whether you are using a raspberry pi or not.  A Pi 4 is actually a nice
enough substitute for a PC, except for having to trust an SD card with the
filesystem.

> We used Shawn's setup; I am not there yet.
> 
> The workflow was as follows:
> On a Linux machine, QEMU is set up, and another machine running 9front with
> Acme et al serves 9p.
> Editing and recompiling in 9front and then (re)running in QEMU works fine
> that way, but debugging was tedious.
> On the Linux machine, we stepped through instructions via gdb, and had to
> reverse lookup the corresponding function.
> With acid on 9front, we could see the counterpart and come to conclusions.
> Not ideal, but a start.

Yep that's how it was.  I recorded some of the gdb work in a typescript
and took a few notes, so as not to forget everything.

My wife took me to visit her family for a couple of weeks, I only brought
along one laptop (the Acer with 9front that I took to IWP9, but now
dual-booting Arch as well) and I doubt I will have time for much hacking
until after I get back on the 16th. I also don't know what I'm doing, but
figured it might do me some good to learn the risc-v architecture a bit.

> So I have done a few related things now to help along:
> 
> - https://github.com/platform-system-interface/p9aout2elf a tool to convert
> Plan 9 a.out to ELF (*with* symbols!); so far amd64 only, I'm working on
> RISC-V 64
> - https://github.com/radareorg/radare2/pull/24261 WIP support for Plan 9
> RISC-V kernels in radare2
> 
> Those tools significantly help with debugging, so one gets to see the
> symbols in gdb and radare2.

Cool.

It was educational working with you guys that day. Thanks.


------------------------------------------
9fans: 9fans
Permalink: 
https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T2fa5d9bbce09411d-M99d1ecac8bd7b53a29738112
Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription

Reply via email to