Re: [9fans] GSoC 2021 project ideas (WAS: Re: Plan 9 Applying to GSoC 2021)
Here is some earlier work by Tim Newsham using a styx library by Charles/Vita Nuova: https://github.com/9nut/styxbrowser > Android-related: > > (a) An Android "app" that presents an Android phone's telephone and SMS > messaging facilities as a 9P filesystem. This would enable Plan 9 > and Inferno applications to place/receive voice calls and > send/receive text messages across a network. This could be done by > extending bhgv's existing Android port of Inferno, or as a > separtate, stand-alone server app. > > -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T1c300cdbd9941edb-Mbaf214bbeb535d12a87c4c5b Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] GSoC 2021 project ideas (WAS: Re: Plan 9 Applying to GSoC 2021)
On Tue, Jan 19, 2021, at 11:08 AM, pouya+lists.9f...@nohup.io wrote: > [eeke...@fastmail.fm] > > I specifically say "more popular" because popularity affects the > number of developers available. > > Off-topic and perhaps unpopular view, but I *like* the fact that Plan > 9 is not (significantly) more popular. Popularity has ruined many a > promising creation. Of course. I was talking about driver development only. > Although please do not take this to mean that I don't value all the > work that has been going into developing the community and continuing > to evolve and move forward. Luddites like me also greatly benefit > from it. Me too. :D -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T1c300cdbd9941edb-Mff1d12674d60daf45f2d Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] GSoC 2021 project ideas (WAS: Re: Plan 9 Applying to GSoC 2021)
> > 1. Project ideas. One of the key parts of the application is the > > project ideas page. If you’ve got ideas that seem like they’d be a > > Plan 9-related: > > (1) Porting the Plan 9 kernel to a microkernel architecture, such as > Mach. This would give Plan 9 instant access to the whole range of > hardware supported by the underlying microkernel. I'm not aware of any freely available microkernels that support a whole range of hardware. Gnu Mach doesn't appear to support XHCI, which would leave my cpu server and one of my laptops with no plugs for my keyboard. seL4 seems to have a similar level of support. Which did you have in mind, and what unsupported hardware would they have? > (2) A Zoom/video conferencing application for Plan 9. Enough said. :) I'm not sure enough was said. Can you talk a little bit about the moving parts for this proposal? Two main things I'm wondering: - how stable and well documented the proposed protocols are; can you link to the relevant documentation? will the work done still be useful 6 months after it's written, or will it be a churn treadmill? - what video codecs would be needed, and what are the steps needed to port them? > (3) Happauge/Brooktree BTTV/video capture drivers. AFAIK, Plan 9 can > only use USB Web cams. Driver support should definitely be on the list, though this is somewhat niche hardware, especially in the days of video streaming. > (4) Port SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) tools as a Plan 9 file system. > That would give Plan 9 instant access to a huge range of flatbed & > sheet-fed document scanners. I took a peek at the code -- there's a lot of direct calls to opening the devices; it may be more expedient to implement TWAIN natively, rather than porting. > (5) An NFS sever for Plan 9. Unix machines have a lot of trouble > handling edge cases encountered on 9P filesystems (such as the > number of hard links to directories). An NFS server would make it > much easier for Unix/Linux and Plan 9 to get along happily. Can you describe the problems you ran into when you tried nfsserver(8), and what changes you'd expect a student to make to fix them? -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T1c300cdbd9941edb-M216325788941f5dd4704684a Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] GSoC 2021 project ideas (WAS: Re: Plan 9 Applying to GSoC 2021)
[eeke...@fastmail.fm] > I specifically say "more popular" because popularity affects the number of developers available. Off-topic and perhaps unpopular view, but I *like* the fact that Plan 9 is not (significantly) more popular. Popularity has ruined many a promising creation. Although please do not take this to mean that I don't value all the work that has been going into developing the community and continuing to evolve and move forward. Luddites like me also greatly benefit from it. Pouya -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T1c300cdbd9941edb-Mcb25b9921961b686f430f7dc Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] GSoC 2021 project ideas (WAS: Re: Plan 9 Applying to GSoC 2021)
On Tue, Feb 2, 2021, at 8:29 AM, tlaro...@polynum.com wrote: > > > > Plan 9-related: > > > > (1) Porting the Plan 9 kernel to a microkernel architecture, such as > > Mach. This would give Plan 9 instant access to the whole range of > > hardware supported by the underlying microkernel. Apple's Mach is not a microkernel. The first pure microkernel version of the Mach architecture was 3.0. Apple have stuck with 2.5 all these years. The ability to use drivers from some more popular OS would be nice for users if it works, but there are a host of possible integration and maintenance problems. In fact, I know there are problems I don't quite understand related to differing OS designs. The parts I do understand indicate there could be a huge performance penalty in using drivers in OSs for which they were not designed. I specifically say "more popular" because popularity affects the number of developers available. In those terms, 9front is already in the rarified stratosphere of well-developed hobby OSs. I'd put only 2 or 3 other OSs as its equal. In the next level up, (orbital space? ;) and not counting the BSDs, Haiku is the only one I can think of off the top of my head (but I have just woken up). We might yet see other OSs implementing 9p so they can use our drivers. :) > No. One should re-read the initial papers about Plan9. When Plan9 was > designed, microkernels were "fashionable". If one reads carefully the > paper, it's clear that there is a pun intended against microkernels that > didn't achieve what they were supposed to do---disastrous efficiency > leading to the rewrite of the microkernels as assembly---a very low > signal/noise ratio. And a hint: "micro" kernels are usually _huge_, a > clear sign that something went wrong. Uh... these arguments are kind-of obsolete. Plan 9 is a hybrid on the macro-micro kernel scale. So are mainstream OSs, having arrived at that point by various routes from whatever their origin was. Microkernel QNX is tiny and, if I understand right, makes service development easier than Plan 9 does. I suggest the huge "microkernels" are really hybrids, but I'll omit reasoning on why. > As drivers are concerned, there was once a kit supposed to give a wide > range of kernels, drivers code---I don't know where it is now; I suppose > it has vanished. And now probably UEFI drivers is a "better than nothing" > solution. Uh... UEFI boot services are typically available, but UEFI run-time services are a different thing. A long-time OS dev I know does not expect UEFI runtime services to ever be available on commercial-grade hardware. He is a terrible cynic and I can't remember quite how that debate ended, but in general, it looks like UEFI isn't significantly better than the old PC BIOS for compatibility. As they say on osdev.net, "Writing a bootloader which works on one computer is easy. Writing a bootloader which works on many computers is hard." Note this statement is only about features necessary for booting an OS, whether BIOS or UEFI. If those are bad, features not necessary for booting will be worse. And performance of the kind needed at run-time is hardly a consideration when booting. (I appologise for my poor sentence construction. I've just woken up.) > My 2 cents, Ain't the Internet wonderful? You get 2 cents back with a lot of interest! XD Much of what I've posted here is condensed from osdev.net, especialy the forums. I'd suggest lurking there if you're interested in the difficulties (or otherwise) of driver development. It's not perfect by a long shot, but it is a better place for it than this list. -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T1c300cdbd9941edb-M1b3c27671fcffae2e5ffa604 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] GSoC 2021 project ideas (WAS: Re: Plan 9 Applying to GSoC 2021)
On Mon, Feb 1, 2021, at 8:46 PM, Steve Simon wrote: > > Inferno-related: These should be posted to inferno-os too, but some are there already. (It's on Google Groups.) Note that they're starting work on a 64-bit DIS; Charles has just announced a fork for working on it. -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T1c300cdbd9941edb-M45dd636d66c8f4568519f90c Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] GSoC 2021 project ideas
On Mon, Feb 1, 2021, at 9:47 PM, sirjofri wrote: > > (a) An Android "app" that presents an Android phone's telephone and SMS > > messaging facilities as a 9P filesystem. This would enable Plan 9 > > and Inferno applications to place/receive voice calls and > > send/receive text messages across a network. This could be done by > > extending bhgv's existing Android port of Inferno, or as a > > separtate, stand-alone server app. Yes. I recall some users of IoS Drawterm very much appreciated /dev/gps > Also hellaphone might be interesting (maybe just for comparison). Afaik > they removed the whole java stuff from android and replaced it with dis. > They were able to do phone calls and I think they got rudimentary text > messages working, too, but both directly on the phone using inferno. They did. Unfortunately, Linux is so bad at abstracting hardware interfaces that it only ever ran on one or two phones. Also, they never figured out how to make it ring. They did have /dev interfaces for sms and dialing. http://jfloren.net/b/2015/8/18/2 (Should I be blaming Android hardware vendors for Linux interface inconsistency? I don't think so. I remember sysfs going from about 3 to over 10 files just to represent battery state.) > A native 9p interface for Android might also be a nice project. Android > supports adding new protocols like ftp or smb to its native filesystem > pool. I don't know the details. Awesome! -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T39aec8f3f9d8503d-Mb7a4db08efa189a058ad48aa Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
