11 ms·

Russ Cox is an absolute legend for committing to this joke.

by mfro 2y ago

pbohun 2y ago
Someone needs to convince Russ that it would be hilarious to have a full featured web browser in Plan 9.
- fiddlerwoaroof 2y ago
  Doesn’t plan9 support frame buffers over 9p or something like that? You could probably write a wrapper that just forwards a Linux browser to a plan9 window
  - moody__ 2y ago
    This has been done already: https://github.com/aiju/jsdrawterm https://github.com/aiju/jsdrawterm
    - samtheprogram 2y ago
      This looks like the opposite -- accessing a plan9 system from a web browser?
      - moody__ 2y ago
        Yes you're correct, my apologies. There has been work on this going the other way as well: https://github.com/michaelforney/wl9 https://github.com/michaelforney/wl9. But there's still a lot more than can be done. There are vague plans to test the waters implementing something like this in to our vmx(1).
    - fiddlerwoaroof 2y ago
      I think this is the opposite direction?
  - adriangrigore 2y ago
    There are solutions, like VNC to some UNIX-ish machine, but, yeah, a native browser would be cool! 9front has a hypervisor, you could run something in there. https://man.9front.org/1/vmx https://man.9front.org/1/vmx
    - fiddlerwoaroof 2y ago
      So, something I’m thinking about here is that the 9p vision has always seemed really cool to me: expose all the resources in the network in a unified way that enables the whole network to be used as if it was a single computer. But, since this is a protocol-oriented vision of computing, it enables arbitrary implementers of the protocol to participate “natively”, even if they aren’t actually plan9 systems.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - facile3232 2y ago
    It's probably easier to just run a VM directly into a window.
  - numbsafari 2y ago
    Many years ago a roommate and I had an HPUX machine running IE on HPUX just so we could forward X session to our FreeBSD and Linux desktops and not have to use our Windows machine for anything other than PC games.
- adriangrigore 2y ago
  Yeah, convince Russ and some investors! :D I would laugh my ass off for years at this joke! Yeah, please do this next year's April Fools'!
  - lunarlull 2y ago
    > I would laugh my ass off for years at this joke! I don't really get the 'joke'? Porting a full web browser to Plan 9 would seem like a cool project - where's the humor?
    - adriangrigore 2y ago
      You're making me explain this whole post. :p Their April Fools' jokes are real and work as you can see in the submitted link. So basically, a Plan 9 web browser, would be a great April Fools' prank! (because, again, their "pranks" are real and work)
      - lunarlull 2y ago
        Ah thanks for explaining lol, got it!
- MisterTea 2y ago
  On 9 front there's vmx which is hardware virtualization. You can boot a Linux kernel with an nfs root from the local machine and use headless vnc to run a browser in a vnc client window. I'd also like to point out that most users of Plan 9 dislike web technology because it's a giant nightmare of code. No one human can even begin to comprehend the code base of Chrome, let alone Firefox - programs that are as big, if not bigger than the kernels they run on. That is an absurd state to be in - your runtime requires a billion dollar company to maintain. Even open source Firefox needs millions in funding. Whereas a single human can grasp plan 9 code from the kernel to user space. That's the runtime I want, something I can understand. The process is the container on plan 9 so you have everything you need to build distributed apps without a web browser. It's human scale distributed computing. I'd like a future without the "modern" corporate scale web.
  - pbohun 2y ago
    Oh yes I absolutely agree. I would definitely like to completely replace the web. It's just that in order to (currently) do my banking, pay my bills, book airline tickets, order from Amazon, etc. I must use a browser. If I could escape all that I would run Plan 9 exclusively without another OS or hacks to access a browser from another OS/virtual machine.
    - MisterTea 2y ago
      Totally get it. Vmx on 9front with a Linux or BSD VM is the way to go if you want to try to go 100% 9. If you like you can experiment with this on a used laptop with supported hardware, thinkpad best. It's not lightning fast at the moment (patches welcome) but it works well enough.
      - facile3232 2y ago
        > If you like you can experiment with this on a used laptop with supported hardware, thinkpad best. I would avoid laptops altogether, honestly. Not a great fit.
        2y ago
- facile3232 2y ago
  Atp it's probably easier to just smash firefox/linux into a vm

Russ Cox is an absolute legend for committing to this joke.

by mfro 2y ago

Russ Cox is an absolute legend for committing to this joke.

pbohun 2y ago

Someone needs to convince Russ that it would be hilarious to have a full featured web browser in Plan 9.

fiddlerwoaroof 2y ago
Doesn’t plan9 support frame buffers over 9p or something like that? You could probably write a wrapper that just forwards a Linux browser to a plan9 window
- moody__ 2y ago
  This has been done already: https://github.com/aiju/jsdrawterm https://github.com/aiju/jsdrawterm
  - samtheprogram 2y ago
    This looks like the opposite -- accessing a plan9 system from a web browser?
    - moody__ 2y ago
      Yes you're correct, my apologies. There has been work on this going the other way as well: https://github.com/michaelforney/wl9 https://github.com/michaelforney/wl9. But there's still a lot more than can be done. There are vague plans to test the waters implementing something like this in to our vmx(1).
  - fiddlerwoaroof 2y ago
    I think this is the opposite direction?
- adriangrigore 2y ago
  There are solutions, like VNC to some UNIX-ish machine, but, yeah, a native browser would be cool! 9front has a hypervisor, you could run something in there. https://man.9front.org/1/vmx https://man.9front.org/1/vmx
  - fiddlerwoaroof 2y ago
    So, something I’m thinking about here is that the 9p vision has always seemed really cool to me: expose all the resources in the network in a unified way that enables the whole network to be used as if it was a single computer. But, since this is a protocol-oriented vision of computing, it enables arbitrary implementers of the protocol to participate “natively”, even if they aren’t actually plan9 systems.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- facile3232 2y ago
  It's probably easier to just run a VM directly into a window.
- numbsafari 2y ago
  Many years ago a roommate and I had an HPUX machine running IE on HPUX just so we could forward X session to our FreeBSD and Linux desktops and not have to use our Windows machine for anything other than PC games.
adriangrigore 2y ago
Yeah, convince Russ and some investors! :D I would laugh my ass off for years at this joke! Yeah, please do this next year's April Fools'!
- lunarlull 2y ago
  > I would laugh my ass off for years at this joke! I don't really get the 'joke'? Porting a full web browser to Plan 9 would seem like a cool project - where's the humor?
  - adriangrigore 2y ago
    You're making me explain this whole post. :p Their April Fools' jokes are real and work as you can see in the submitted link. So basically, a Plan 9 web browser, would be a great April Fools' prank! (because, again, their "pranks" are real and work)
    - lunarlull 2y ago
      Ah thanks for explaining lol, got it!
MisterTea 2y ago
On 9 front there's vmx which is hardware virtualization. You can boot a Linux kernel with an nfs root from the local machine and use headless vnc to run a browser in a vnc client window. I'd also like to point out that most users of Plan 9 dislike web technology because it's a giant nightmare of code. No one human can even begin to comprehend the code base of Chrome, let alone Firefox - programs that are as big, if not bigger than the kernels they run on. That is an absurd state to be in - your runtime requires a billion dollar company to maintain. Even open source Firefox needs millions in funding. Whereas a single human can grasp plan 9 code from the kernel to user space. That's the runtime I want, something I can understand. The process is the container on plan 9 so you have everything you need to build distributed apps without a web browser. It's human scale distributed computing. I'd like a future without the "modern" corporate scale web.
- pbohun 2y ago
  Oh yes I absolutely agree. I would definitely like to completely replace the web. It's just that in order to (currently) do my banking, pay my bills, book airline tickets, order from Amazon, etc. I must use a browser. If I could escape all that I would run Plan 9 exclusively without another OS or hacks to access a browser from another OS/virtual machine.
  - MisterTea 2y ago
    Totally get it. Vmx on 9front with a Linux or BSD VM is the way to go if you want to try to go 100% 9. If you like you can experiment with this on a used laptop with supported hardware, thinkpad best. It's not lightning fast at the moment (patches welcome) but it works well enough.
    - facile3232 2y ago
      > If you like you can experiment with this on a used laptop with supported hardware, thinkpad best. I would avoid laptops altogether, honestly. Not a great fit.
      - 2y ago
facile3232 2y ago
Atp it's probably easier to just smash firefox/linux into a vm