Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[Adriano Verardo]

Prof Brucee wrote:


Have you run inst/start after booting from iso?


Yes. Follwed the ~usual install procedure. All ok till bootsetup included.
Confirmed the "finish" step, unsolicited reboot, restart from .iso
Hiding the CD, boot fails saying that there is no OS on the HD.
adriano



On 02/09/2016 12:59 PM, "Adriano Verardo" > wrote:


Julius Schmidt wrote:

9front works fine in vmware. I've never had a problem
(including a very recent install at work).
How exactly does it fail in your case?

Install seem to complete regularly subsequent boots are from the .iso
Tried to unlink the .iso, revove the virtal CD etc etc
Where is my mistake. The installer is the +/- the same I used many
many times.
Using VMware 9.0.4 - Win7-32 (Win7-32 is mandatory).
adriano


aiju

On Thu, 1 Sep 2016, Adriano Verardo wrote:

In the last two years I've very little used Plan9.
All appls I made for clients work, solved all problem
thanks to 9fans help, clients don't ask for improvements, ...

Now I must install Plan9 in a VM. I'm testing VMware, but
it is not a constraint.
The Bell distro work fine, all others I tried fail during
install.
And, worse than this, I see just now that Bell non longer
support Plan9 since Jan 2015.

So, what's the best Win7-32/64 VM product for Plan9 ? What
Plan9 ?

Thanks in advance

Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[Prof Brucee]

Have you run inst/start after booting from iso?

On 02/09/2016 12:59 PM, "Adriano Verardo"  wrote:

Julius Schmidt wrote:

> 9front works fine in vmware. I've never had a problem (including a very
> recent install at work).
> How exactly does it fail in your case?
>
Install seem to complete regularly subsequent boots are from the .iso
Tried to unlink the .iso, revove the virtal CD etc etc
Where is my mistake. The installer is the +/- the same I used many many
times.
Using VMware 9.0.4 - Win7-32 (Win7-32 is mandatory).
adriano


> aiju
>
> On Thu, 1 Sep 2016, Adriano Verardo wrote:
>
> In the last two years I've very little used Plan9.
>> All appls I made for clients work, solved all problem thanks to 9fans
>> help, clients don't ask for improvements, ...
>>
>> Now I must install Plan9 in a VM. I'm testing VMware, but it is not a
>> constraint.
>> The Bell distro work fine, all others I tried fail during install.
>> And, worse than this, I see just now that Bell non longer support Plan9
>> since Jan 2015.
>>
>> So, what's the best Win7-32/64 VM product for Plan9 ? What Plan9 ?
>>
>> Thanks in advance
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>

Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[Adriano Verardo]

Julius Schmidt wrote:
9front works fine in vmware. I've never had a problem (including a 
very recent install at work).

How exactly does it fail in your case?

Install seem to complete regularly subsequent boots are from the .iso
Tried to unlink the .iso, revove the virtal CD etc etc
Where is my mistake. The installer is the +/- the same I used many many 
times.

Using VMware 9.0.4 - Win7-32 (Win7-32 is mandatory).
adriano


aiju

On Thu, 1 Sep 2016, Adriano Verardo wrote:


In the last two years I've very little used Plan9.
All appls I made for clients work, solved all problem thanks to 9fans 
help, clients don't ask for improvements, ...


Now I must install Plan9 in a VM. I'm testing VMware, but it is not a 
constraint.

The Bell distro work fine, all others I tried fail during install.
And, worse than this, I see just now that Bell non longer support 
Plan9 since Jan 2015.


So, what's the best Win7-32/64 VM product for Plan9 ? What Plan9 ?

Thanks in advance

Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[Adriano Verardo]

Julius Schmidt wrote:
9front works fine in vmware. I've never had a problem (including a 
very recent install at work).

How exactly does it fail in your case?

Install seems to finish regularly, but reboot is from the .iso again.
Tried to unlink the .iso, as usual on physical boxes etc etc
I'm sure it's a my mistake but I dont see where/what.
Using vmware 9.0.4 (free to change) under Win7-32 bit (constrain)
adriano


aiju

On Thu, 1 Sep 2016, Adriano Verardo wrote:


In the last two years I've very little used Plan9.
All appls I made for clients work, solved all problem thanks to 9fans 
help, clients don't ask for improvements, ...


Now I must install Plan9 in a VM. I'm testing VMware, but it is not a 
constraint.

The Bell distro work fine, all others I tried fail during install.
And, worse than this, I see just now that Bell non longer support 
Plan9 since Jan 2015.


So, what's the best Win7-32/64 VM product for Plan9 ? What Plan9 ?

Thanks in advance

[9fans] Linker and duplicate symbols

[Chris McGee]

Hi All,

I have recently run into a problem when compiling the kernel where the linker 
complains about duplicate symbols and fails. The symbol is sleep(), which is 
exported in libc.a but is also exported in another file in port, but with 
different parameters (both number and type).

It's my understanding that C doesn't support overloading. So, why is it that 
the kernel links when there are two different sleep functions?

Thanks,
Chris

Re: [9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[Winston Kodogo]

What I mean is, all I want to do (tm pjp) is to open a new file by
selecting File/Open, as in every other application I use, not type a series
of arcane commands into the small window at the top.And then use the Sam
command language in the open file. And yes, I'm whining, and yes I have the
source. Where is Boyd to threaten you with assault weapons when you need
him?

On 2 September 2016 at 10:56, Winston Kodogo  wrote:

> Thanks to Brantley for his thoughtful musings. Me, I love many things
> about Sam, but I just can't use it as my everyday editor. The structural
> regular expression stuff is a work of genius, but I still find, such are my
> limitations, that the user interface is just too clunky and retro.
>
> On 2 September 2016 at 02:42, Brantley Coile  wrote:
>
>> I think I’ve been a member of 9fans for its entire history. The earliest
>> saved 9fans email in my /mail/box/bwc is dated 2001. But most of the time I
>> have not said much. Given that the list isn’t very busy these days, and
>> that I’m doing a lot of thinking about Plan 9, I thought I would post some
>> of my seemingly random musings.
>>
>> Today I’m thinking about Plan 9’s interfaces.
>>
>> The reason for thinking about those is that I’ve just switch back to
>> sam(1) from acme(1). No real reason, except for the old adage, a change is
>> as good as a rest. I’ve been working 10 to 12 hour days, six days a week
>> lately. I just wanted to change things a bit. Nothing against acme. I’ve
>> been using it for many years and it is a great tool.
>>
>> The one time that Ken Thompson visited my office, when I had an office in
>> Redwood City, he noticed that I was using acme and made a comment to the
>> effect that “you are one of those.” He uses sam as do many of the folks who
>> created Plan 9. Many of the original folks also use acme. I had did a poll
>> years ago but can’t seem to find the results. As did I for many years, even
>> after acme make its appearance. I had gotten a version of it working on my
>> Unix using an Teletype 630 terminal, downloading the samterm and all. It
>> was the main Plan 9 editor during my very brief tenure at Bell Labs in
>> 1990. Acme came after I left with the arrival of Phil Winterbottom and his
>> Alef language. The window manager was 8 1/2, which is like rio(1) without
>> the bumpers one can use to move and resize the window.
>>
>> I must say that it is refreshing to be back with the older editor. I did
>> have modify rio to look for an environmental variable that tells it not to
>> do acme chording. I kept trying to use chording in sam and realized that
>> part of the problem was that I could still use it in rio. So, I added a
>> shell variable that turned that feature of rio off. After that subconscious
>> chording stopped.
>>
>> I don’t think that sam is better than acme, or even the other way around.
>> Both do a good job of getting the job done. They are different. And that
>> difference has an affect on the way one used the system. When I use acme, I
>> mostly stay in acme, using the win program for my shell access. It becomes
>> a kind of integrated environment. With sam, I seem to use tools like sed
>> and awk in the rio windows, like sed and awk more than when I was using
>> acme. I had a similar thing happen when in the 1980’s I dropped vi for ed.
>> I used ed until the 1990’s when I was able to switch to sam full time.
>>
>> But my use of edit commands in sam is the biggest difference between it
>> and acme.
>>
>> In sam, I think more about how to modify things using the command window
>> rather than moving the mouse around and clicking on things. The command
>> language in acme using the Edit command is the same, but somehow it feels
>> different. There is something to be said for the convenience of the command
>> windows in sam.
>>
>> If I thought of the change as an experiment, one result would be the time
>> it took me to not have to think about which editor I was using while
>> working. Our tools should be, for the most part, transparent. It took about
>> a week to switch back to sam from acme. That time is certainly a function
>> of how much I used sam in the past.
>>
>> I’m very grateful to still be using these tools. It’s a very personal
>> thing but for someone who first used 6th Edition Unix, ed and the old
>> shell, and used all the versions of Unix that followed, these tools, both
>> acme and sam, rio and 8 1/2, are an improvement to all that proceeded them
>> and followed them.
>>
>>   Brantley Coile
>>
>>
>>
>

Re: [9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[Travis Moore]

9front's sam also has chording, as well as ^B to switch to the command
window without reaching for the mouse, which I find very useful.
Occasionally I wish for scroll-select but ' and k do the trick, and
keep my head in the structure of the document.

Travis

Re: [9fans] Is 9Fans dead or alive

[Winston Kodogo]

"Unless you count mobile devices, UIs in 2016 still function largely like
Windows 95."

Oddly, that's not true. Mind you, I've always been a Mac user. But I've
recently been spending some time in Excel VBA under Windows 10, and the
interface in the editor is still pure Windows 95,and boy does it ever show.

But yeah, the ribbon is a disaster. To the extent that people make money
selling add-ins to restore the classic menus.

On 1 September 2016 at 19:54, Julius Schmidt  wrote:

> Personally, I don't use Plan9, or even p9p, to get stuff done. I just like
>> to look at the code from time to time. I'm with Carmack on Plan9 circa
>> 1997:
>> " It has an achingly elegant internal structure, but a user interface that
>> has been asleep for the past decade." Add a couple of decades to that.
>>
>
> Two more decades of what?
>
> Unless you count mobile devices, UIs in 2016 still function largely like
> Windows 95.
> Incremental improvements, but no major innovations.
> Some bad mistakes (ribbons...).
>
> The best part is web interfaces, which continue to poorly imitate what
> Win95 could do 20 years ago.
>
> I'd rather stick to rio.
>
> aiju
>
>

Re: [9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[Winston Kodogo]

Thanks to Brantley for his thoughtful musings. Me, I love many things about
Sam, but I just can't use it as my everyday editor. The structural regular
expression stuff is a work of genius, but I still find, such are my
limitations, that the user interface is just too clunky and retro.

On 2 September 2016 at 02:42, Brantley Coile  wrote:

> I think I’ve been a member of 9fans for its entire history. The earliest
> saved 9fans email in my /mail/box/bwc is dated 2001. But most of the time I
> have not said much. Given that the list isn’t very busy these days, and
> that I’m doing a lot of thinking about Plan 9, I thought I would post some
> of my seemingly random musings.
>
> Today I’m thinking about Plan 9’s interfaces.
>
> The reason for thinking about those is that I’ve just switch back to
> sam(1) from acme(1). No real reason, except for the old adage, a change is
> as good as a rest. I’ve been working 10 to 12 hour days, six days a week
> lately. I just wanted to change things a bit. Nothing against acme. I’ve
> been using it for many years and it is a great tool.
>
> The one time that Ken Thompson visited my office, when I had an office in
> Redwood City, he noticed that I was using acme and made a comment to the
> effect that “you are one of those.” He uses sam as do many of the folks who
> created Plan 9. Many of the original folks also use acme. I had did a poll
> years ago but can’t seem to find the results. As did I for many years, even
> after acme make its appearance. I had gotten a version of it working on my
> Unix using an Teletype 630 terminal, downloading the samterm and all. It
> was the main Plan 9 editor during my very brief tenure at Bell Labs in
> 1990. Acme came after I left with the arrival of Phil Winterbottom and his
> Alef language. The window manager was 8 1/2, which is like rio(1) without
> the bumpers one can use to move and resize the window.
>
> I must say that it is refreshing to be back with the older editor. I did
> have modify rio to look for an environmental variable that tells it not to
> do acme chording. I kept trying to use chording in sam and realized that
> part of the problem was that I could still use it in rio. So, I added a
> shell variable that turned that feature of rio off. After that subconscious
> chording stopped.
>
> I don’t think that sam is better than acme, or even the other way around.
> Both do a good job of getting the job done. They are different. And that
> difference has an affect on the way one used the system. When I use acme, I
> mostly stay in acme, using the win program for my shell access. It becomes
> a kind of integrated environment. With sam, I seem to use tools like sed
> and awk in the rio windows, like sed and awk more than when I was using
> acme. I had a similar thing happen when in the 1980’s I dropped vi for ed.
> I used ed until the 1990’s when I was able to switch to sam full time.
>
> But my use of edit commands in sam is the biggest difference between it
> and acme.
>
> In sam, I think more about how to modify things using the command window
> rather than moving the mouse around and clicking on things. The command
> language in acme using the Edit command is the same, but somehow it feels
> different. There is something to be said for the convenience of the command
> windows in sam.
>
> If I thought of the change as an experiment, one result would be the time
> it took me to not have to think about which editor I was using while
> working. Our tools should be, for the most part, transparent. It took about
> a week to switch back to sam from acme. That time is certainly a function
> of how much I used sam in the past.
>
> I’m very grateful to still be using these tools. It’s a very personal
> thing but for someone who first used 6th Edition Unix, ed and the old
> shell, and used all the versions of Unix that followed, these tools, both
> acme and sam, rio and 8 1/2, are an improvement to all that proceeded them
> and followed them.
>
>   Brantley Coile
>
>
>

Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[Nickolas Peter]

Sorry, just now seeing the Windows part at the end of your email. I've had
no issues with VMware.

On Thursday, September 1, 2016, Nickolas Peter 
wrote:

> I've had a lot of success with qemu/libvirt on Linux. I have a separate
> network on libvirt on its own subnet with a fs/auth and cpu server that's
> accessible from the outside (via drawterm). I only had to play with it a
> little bit to get it working well. It might be quicker and easier with
> VMWare, though.
>
> On Thursday, September 1, 2016, Julius Schmidt  > wrote:
>
>> 9front works fine in vmware. I've never had a problem (including a very
>> recent install at work).
>> How exactly does it fail in your case?
>>
>> aiju
>>
>> On Thu, 1 Sep 2016, Adriano Verardo wrote:
>>
>> In the last two years I've very little used Plan9.
>>> All appls I made for clients work, solved all problem thanks to 9fans
>>> help, clients don't ask for improvements, ...
>>>
>>> Now I must install Plan9 in a VM. I'm testing VMware, but it is not a
>>> constraint.
>>> The Bell distro work fine, all others I tried fail during install.
>>> And, worse than this, I see just now that Bell non longer support Plan9
>>> since Jan 2015.
>>>
>>> So, what's the best Win7-32/64 VM product for Plan9 ? What Plan9 ?
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>

Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[Nickolas Peter]

I've had a lot of success with qemu/libvirt on Linux. I have a separate
network on libvirt on its own subnet with a fs/auth and cpu server that's
accessible from the outside (via drawterm). I only had to play with it a
little bit to get it working well. It might be quicker and easier with
VMWare, though.

On Thursday, September 1, 2016, Julius Schmidt  wrote:

> 9front works fine in vmware. I've never had a problem (including a very
> recent install at work).
> How exactly does it fail in your case?
>
> aiju
>
> On Thu, 1 Sep 2016, Adriano Verardo wrote:
>
> In the last two years I've very little used Plan9.
>> All appls I made for clients work, solved all problem thanks to 9fans
>> help, clients don't ask for improvements, ...
>>
>> Now I must install Plan9 in a VM. I'm testing VMware, but it is not a
>> constraint.
>> The Bell distro work fine, all others I tried fail during install.
>> And, worse than this, I see just now that Bell non longer support Plan9
>> since Jan 2015.
>>
>> So, what's the best Win7-32/64 VM product for Plan9 ? What Plan9 ?
>>
>> Thanks in advance
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

Re: [9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[Julius Schmidt]

9front works fine in vmware. I've never had a problem (including a very 
recent install at work).

How exactly does it fail in your case?

aiju

On Thu, 1 Sep 2016, Adriano Verardo wrote:


In the last two years I've very little used Plan9.
All appls I made for clients work, solved all problem thanks to 9fans help, 
clients don't ask for improvements, ...


Now I must install Plan9 in a VM. I'm testing VMware, but it is not a 
constraint.

The Bell distro work fine, all others I tried fail during install.
And, worse than this, I see just now that Bell non longer support Plan9 since 
Jan 2015.


So, what's the best Win7-32/64 VM product for Plan9 ? What Plan9 ?

Thanks in advance

[9fans] Plan9 and VMs

[Adriano Verardo]

In the last two years I've very little used Plan9.
All appls I made for clients work, solved all problem thanks to 9fans 
help, clients don't ask for improvements, ...


Now I must install Plan9 in a VM. I'm testing VMware, but it is not a 
constraint.

The Bell distro work fine, all others I tried fail during install.
And, worse than this, I see just now that Bell non longer support Plan9 
since Jan 2015.


So, what's the best Win7-32/64 VM product for Plan9 ? What Plan9 ?

Thanks in advance

Re: [9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[Mark van Atten]

On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 7:20 PM, James A. Robinson  wrote:

> So you couldn't do something like clicking on the start and typing in a
> .,// where  holds the last few words of the text range you
> wanted to select?  I understand not having regular markup like a program,
> but if a few words could be used to identify the end point I would have
> assumed you could use that?

That is convenient in cases where I recall a pattern that otherwise
would require
scrolling to see. Or where I have zeroxed the window and the other one
shows the end of the passage in question.

But otherwise I may as well use k and '.

And of course k and ' (and snarf and paste) work well enough. It is
just that acme's scroll-select
(and chording) is so much more convenient! Chording as such is
possible in p9p sam with one
simple modification in the source, but it is the combination with
scroll-select that counts here.

Mark.

Re: [9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[arnold]

Steve was borrowing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALGOL :

C. A. R. Hoare remarked: "Here is a language so far ahead of its
time that it was not only an improvement on its predecessors but
also on nearly all its successors."

(This one is also mostly true. :-)

Arnold

Brantley Coile  wrote:

> Steve Bourne said it about 7th Edition.  I just asked him. He also said it 
> turned out to be mostly true.
>  
> > On Sep 1, 2016, at 12:36 PM, Adriano Verardo  wrote:
> > 
> > Brantley Coile wrote:
> >> 
> >> I’m very grateful to still be using these tools. It’s a very personal 
> >> thing but for someone who first used 6th Edition Unix, ed and the old 
> >> shell, and used all the versions of Unix that followed, these tools, both 
> >> acme and sam, rio and 8 1/2, are an improvement to all that proceeded them 
> >> and followed them.
> > Cool.
> > Who said "Unix v7 (or 6 ?) is the major improvement of all subsequent 
> > releases" ?
> > (or something similar, sorry for my poor spoken english)
> >>   Brantley Coile
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> > 
> > 
>
>

Re: [9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[Brantley Coile]

Steve Bourne said it about 7th Edition.  I just asked him. He also said it 
turned out to be mostly true.
 
> On Sep 1, 2016, at 12:36 PM, Adriano Verardo  wrote:
> 
> Brantley Coile wrote:
>> 
>> I’m very grateful to still be using these tools. It’s a very personal thing 
>> but for someone who first used 6th Edition Unix, ed and the old shell, and 
>> used all the versions of Unix that followed, these tools, both acme and sam, 
>> rio and 8 1/2, are an improvement to all that proceeded them and followed 
>> them.
> Cool.
> Who said "Unix v7 (or 6 ?) is the major improvement of all subsequent 
> releases" ?
> (or something similar, sorry for my poor spoken english)
>>   Brantley Coile
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 

Re: [9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[James A. Robinson]

On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 9:05 AM, Mark van Atten 
wrote:

> The one regret I have about sam is that it doesn't do scroll-select. I
> write papers rather than programs, and often want to select and
> quickly move around large chunks of text whose boundaries are usually
> not marked syntactically, even though I use LaTeX.


​So you couldn't do something like clicking on the start and typing in a
.,// where  holds the last few words of the text range
you wanted to select?  I understand not having regular markup like a
program, but if a few words could be used to identify the end point I would
have assumed you could use that?

Jim

Re: [9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[Adriano Verardo]

Brantley Coile wrote:


I’m very grateful to still be using these tools. It’s a very personal thing but 
for someone who first used 6th Edition Unix, ed and the old shell, and used all 
the versions of Unix that followed, these tools, both acme and sam, rio and 8 
1/2, are an improvement to all that proceeded them and followed them.

Cool.
Who said "Unix v7 (or 6 ?) is the major improvement of all subsequent 
releases" ?

(or something similar, sorry for my poor spoken english)

   Brantley Coile

Re: [9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[Mark van Atten]

The one regret I have about sam is that it doesn't do scroll-select. I
write papers rather than programs, and often want to select and
quickly move around large chunks of text whose boundaries are usually
not marked syntactically, even though I use LaTeX.

On the other hand, I find sam a more quiet experience than acme. In
acme it helps to let windows take over the whole column (B3) often.

Mark.

Re: [9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[James A. Robinson]

I used to use sam exclusively on my Linux machine.  I had to stop after I
switched to Mac OS X many years ago.

A few years later I picked up acme, and have been using it since.  I also
find that, for some reason I can't explain, I have rarely reached for the
Edit X// command in a scratch window.   I really ought to use it more
often, it's not *that* much different than the sam command window, and I
naturally made very heavy use of the sam command language when I was using
sam(1) all the time.  For some reason in my head there is a tiny barrier
between using Edit X// vs. selecting a window in sam and then using the
command window.

The one thing I  always miss from sam is the remote editor ability.  Given
sam + ssh it was really a joy to be able to remote edit files, much nicer
than using the remote editing capability of emacs.  I had plumber rules set
up so that I could use a remote 'B' command to trigger opening the files
from the remote machine, and it was very nice to seamlessly navigate and
edit w/o really thinking about where the file was.

Jim

Re: [9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[Bakul Shah]

Yesterday someone asked me how come the two 24" monitors on my desk @ work were 
turned off and I was using the laptop exclusively. Apart from having to be in 
meetings, the main reason is that acme on a hires "retina" display is more than 
good enough for programming. I still switch to vi for certain things (mainly 
because vi has become "transparent"  through decades of use). And occasionally 
notepad for Unicode requiring complex text layout. 3-4 column layout in acme 
works about right for me.

> On Sep 1, 2016, at 7:42 AM, Brantley Coile  wrote:
> 
> I think I’ve been a member of 9fans for its entire history. The earliest 
> saved 9fans email in my /mail/box/bwc is dated 2001. But most of the time I 
> have not said much. Given that the list isn’t very busy these days, and that 
> I’m doing a lot of thinking about Plan 9, I thought I would post some of my 
> seemingly random musings. 
> 
> Today I’m thinking about Plan 9’s interfaces. 
> 
> The reason for thinking about those is that I’ve just switch back to sam(1) 
> from acme(1). No real reason, except for the old adage, a change is as good 
> as a rest. I’ve been working 10 to 12 hour days, six days a week lately. I 
> just wanted to change things a bit. Nothing against acme. I’ve been using it 
> for many years and it is a great tool. 
> 
> The one time that Ken Thompson visited my office, when I had an office in 
> Redwood City, he noticed that I was using acme and made a comment to the 
> effect that “you are one of those.” He uses sam as do many of the folks who 
> created Plan 9. Many of the original folks also use acme. I had did a poll 
> years ago but can’t seem to find the results. As did I for many years, even 
> after acme make its appearance. I had gotten a version of it working on my 
> Unix using an Teletype 630 terminal, downloading the samterm and all. It was 
> the main Plan 9 editor during my very brief tenure at Bell Labs in 1990. Acme 
> came after I left with the arrival of Phil Winterbottom and his Alef 
> language. The window manager was 8 1/2, which is like rio(1) without the 
> bumpers one can use to move and resize the window.
> 
> I must say that it is refreshing to be back with the older editor. I did have 
> modify rio to look for an environmental variable that tells it not to do acme 
> chording. I kept trying to use chording in sam and realized that part of the 
> problem was that I could still use it in rio. So, I added a shell variable 
> that turned that feature of rio off. After that subconscious chording 
> stopped. 
> 
> I don’t think that sam is better than acme, or even the other way around. 
> Both do a good job of getting the job done. They are different. And that 
> difference has an affect on the way one used the system. When I use acme, I 
> mostly stay in acme, using the win program for my shell access. It becomes a 
> kind of integrated environment. With sam, I seem to use tools like sed and 
> awk in the rio windows, like sed and awk more than when I was using acme. I 
> had a similar thing happen when in the 1980’s I dropped vi for ed. I used ed 
> until the 1990’s when I was able to switch to sam full time. 
> 
> But my use of edit commands in sam is the biggest difference between it and 
> acme.
> 
> In sam, I think more about how to modify things using the command window 
> rather than moving the mouse around and clicking on things. The command 
> language in acme using the Edit command is the same, but somehow it feels 
> different. There is something to be said for the convenience of the command 
> windows in sam. 
> 
> If I thought of the change as an experiment, one result would be the time it 
> took me to not have to think about which editor I was using while working. 
> Our tools should be, for the most part, transparent. It took about a week to 
> switch back to sam from acme. That time is certainly a function of how much I 
> used sam in the past.
> 
> I’m very grateful to still be using these tools. It’s a very personal thing 
> but for someone who first used 6th Edition Unix, ed and the old shell, and 
> used all the versions of Unix that followed, these tools, both acme and sam, 
> rio and 8 1/2, are an improvement to all that proceeded them and followed 
> them.
> 
>  Brantley Coile
> 
> 

[9fans] Musings on Interfaces

[Brantley Coile]

I think I’ve been a member of 9fans for its entire history. The earliest saved 
9fans email in my /mail/box/bwc is dated 2001. But most of the time I have not 
said much. Given that the list isn’t very busy these days, and that I’m doing a 
lot of thinking about Plan 9, I thought I would post some of my seemingly 
random musings. 

Today I’m thinking about Plan 9’s interfaces. 

The reason for thinking about those is that I’ve just switch back to sam(1) 
from acme(1). No real reason, except for the old adage, a change is as good as 
a rest. I’ve been working 10 to 12 hour days, six days a week lately. I just 
wanted to change things a bit. Nothing against acme. I’ve been using it for 
many years and it is a great tool. 

The one time that Ken Thompson visited my office, when I had an office in 
Redwood City, he noticed that I was using acme and made a comment to the effect 
that “you are one of those.” He uses sam as do many of the folks who created 
Plan 9. Many of the original folks also use acme. I had did a poll years ago 
but can’t seem to find the results. As did I for many years, even after acme 
make its appearance. I had gotten a version of it working on my Unix using an 
Teletype 630 terminal, downloading the samterm and all. It was the main Plan 9 
editor during my very brief tenure at Bell Labs in 1990. Acme came after I left 
with the arrival of Phil Winterbottom and his Alef language. The window manager 
was 8 1/2, which is like rio(1) without the bumpers one can use to move and 
resize the window.

I must say that it is refreshing to be back with the older editor. I did have 
modify rio to look for an environmental variable that tells it not to do acme 
chording. I kept trying to use chording in sam and realized that part of the 
problem was that I could still use it in rio. So, I added a shell variable that 
turned that feature of rio off. After that subconscious chording stopped. 

I don’t think that sam is better than acme, or even the other way around. Both 
do a good job of getting the job done. They are different. And that difference 
has an affect on the way one used the system. When I use acme, I mostly stay in 
acme, using the win program for my shell access. It becomes a kind of 
integrated environment. With sam, I seem to use tools like sed and awk in the 
rio windows, like sed and awk more than when I was using acme. I had a similar 
thing happen when in the 1980’s I dropped vi for ed. I used ed until the 1990’s 
when I was able to switch to sam full time. 

But my use of edit commands in sam is the biggest difference between it and 
acme.

In sam, I think more about how to modify things using the command window rather 
than moving the mouse around and clicking on things. The command language in 
acme using the Edit command is the same, but somehow it feels different. There 
is something to be said for the convenience of the command windows in sam. 

If I thought of the change as an experiment, one result would be the time it 
took me to not have to think about which editor I was using while working. Our 
tools should be, for the most part, transparent. It took about a week to switch 
back to sam from acme. That time is certainly a function of how much I used sam 
in the past.

I’m very grateful to still be using these tools. It’s a very personal thing but 
for someone who first used 6th Edition Unix, ed and the old shell, and used all 
the versions of Unix that followed, these tools, both acme and sam, rio and 8 
1/2, are an improvement to all that proceeded them and followed them.

  Brantley Coile

Re: [9fans] Is 9Fans dead or alive

[fgergo]

"the internet has a long memory"
for the record:
for the last ~20 years on 9fans and during the few iwp9s I could join,
I've always received helpful answers and insights.
Thanks to everybody who could help! (Richard, Skip, Charles, Brucee,
Brantley too many to list.)
I plan to stay for the next 20.

On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 10:59 PM, Skip Tavakkolian
 wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 11:43 AM stanley lieber  wrote:
>>
>> Steven Stallion  wrote:
>>
>> >On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 1:40 AM, Kurt H Maier  wrote:
>> >> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 10:52:31PM -0700, Skip Tavakkolian wrote:
>> >>> > plan 9 as more than a masturbatory aid.
>> >>>
>> >>> put up or shut up:
>> >> ...
>> >> Congratulations on your accomplishments!
>> >
>> >% fn ck { grep $* /n/sources/patch/*/email /n/sources/patch/^(applied
>> >maybe saved sorry)^/*/email >[2]/dev/null |wc -l}
>> >% ck sstall...@gmail.com
>> > 28
>> >% ck k...@sciops.net
>> >  0
>> >
>> >Perhaps it's better to be known for the occasional masturbatory
>> >session than for being an incorrigible troll.
>> >
>> >Steve
>>
>> What's incorrigible is the way you people consistently reply to questions
>> from newbs with claims that it is trivial to do various tasks on Plan 9
>> without ever quite revealing that 1.) it isn't, and 2.) you aren't really
>> referring to the task they suggested, anyway. Skip does this, Every. Single.
>> Time. What is the point?
>
>
> you're assuming a person who is new to Plan 9, is new to computing, system
> admin or programming.
>
> easy means: "no different than setting up a cpu once you've configured your
> fs and auth".  adding entries for 8 rpi's in /lib/ndb/local and /cfg/pxe is
> as easy as cutting and pasting after the first one. they all run the same
> kernel.
>
> please take the hyperbole down a bit or provide instances for what you claim
> i did. the internet has a long memory; http links would be sufficient.
>
> regarding pi cluster, it was related to a work-in-progress i talked about at
> IWP9 2010.  i've shared as much detail as i could.
>
>>
>> What do you use that rpi "cluster" for, Skip? Do you mean to imply some
>> the availability of some facility for process migration? You know none
>> exists.
>>
>> The latest amusing evolution is a parade of replies from the usual
>> suspects where it's never quite clear which of them are promoting or
>> denigrating the degraded web-centric nature of modern computing. First
>> various ribbons and medals associated with historic Plan 9 campaigns are
>> displayed and then the same noble campaigners suggest that Plan 9 users are
>> cave men clinging to stone tools. I think the quips are so clever precisely
>> because their target is indeterminate. Great, you're funny, but again, what
>> is the point?
>>
>> How does any of this clarify matters for interested newbs?
>>
>> My personal favorite aspect of this tiresome dance is the eventual
>> denunciation of trolls. Here, in the spiritual home of Mark V Shaney!
>>
>> The problem is not trolling. The problem is low to medium quality
>> trolling, performed by armchair quarterbacks who want credit for being Plan
>> 9 Gandalfs but who are unwilling to provide the simple service of speaking
>> in words that make sense. Mothra forbid any should cast aspersions upon the
>> sacred world wide web,
>> bringer of the paycheck and dresser of the tongue.
>
>
> and yet, it is you and your ilk who claim the mantle of the true keepers of
> the faith, beating back the evildoers.
>
>>
>>
>> Kurt provides free hosting for the 9front mercurial repository, after
>> Google found better things to do with their time. Thanks, Kurt.
>>
>> sl
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

Re: [9fans] Is 9Fans dead or alive

[Julius Schmidt]

Personally, I don't use Plan9, or even p9p, to get stuff done. I just like
to look at the code from time to time. I'm with Carmack on Plan9 circa 1997:
" It has an achingly elegant internal structure, but a user interface that
has been asleep for the past decade." Add a couple of decades to that.


Two more decades of what?

Unless you count mobile devices, UIs in 2016 still function largely like
Windows 95.
Incremental improvements, but no major innovations.
Some bad mistakes (ribbons...).

The best part is web interfaces, which continue to poorly imitate what
Win95 could do 20 years ago.

I'd rather stick to rio.

aiju