7 ms·

Show HN: My 5-year basement Plan 9 project

131 points by mycroftiv 14y ago

mycroftiv 14y ago
I'm trying to make Plan 9 easier and more fun for home hobby users to explore. Plan 9 is amazing and I think the possibilities created by the clean and consistent design are exciting. Advanced Namespace Tools try to make Plan 9 easy to jump into, and also have a more reliable architecture when used as a grid. One way to describe my software is as a Grateful Dead inspired approach to home clustering. Maybe it's even "outsider software art" or some ridiculous term like that. Anyway, it has no web/facebook/ecommerce anything aspect to it, so it may not match the prevailing concerns here, but I tried to make it easy to use by providing preinstalled virtual machines to play with. Use them on a private network because they have default passwords and listen for cpu service. The "ANTS farm" subsite (http://antfarm.9gridchan.org/tutorial http://antfarm.9gridchan.org/tutorial) has the VM/tutorial style documentation and walkthroughs. I'd be interested in any feedback.
- deleted 14y ago
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- kirbysayshi 14y ago
  I've heard of Plan 9, but I honestly have no idea what this is. But it sounds interesting... could you give a briefer to someone that is not familiar with Plan 9?
  - mycroftiv 14y ago
    It's free form clustering software. Standard Plan 9 tends to have a pretty rigid structure for how all the services on the grid are organized. This is an attempt to make things much more free-form, so the system can be set up more easily by home users, and everything is more reliable.
    - msutherl 14y ago
      One thing you could explain for the benefit of this thread is what "clustering" software is and what it's used for. Is it the same thing as a "distributed system"?
      - mycroftiv 14y ago
        Well "clustering" is a little loosely used here, ANTS isnt really mathematical cluster computation software at all, but it goes beyond the 'distributed os' of the basic Plan 9 design. It boils down to making multiple machines work together to create a good environment for the user that uses all of the resources of all the connected machines in a way where the user doesn't need to worry about which machine is which.
- 1337p337 14y ago
  It's interesting, but I can't tell from the documentation what it's actually for. It's apparently for clustering, but what does it do? I had downloaded the image a week or two back, but it just...booted Plan 9. A few examples that tie it together or explain some sort of use case would be great.
  - mycroftiv 14y ago
    Have you seen the tutorials at the ANTS farm subsite? They show a series of things you can do to explore the 9worker and 9queen in combination with live CDs, which show what I believe are new exciting features for Plan 9 that I have tried to add. There is also a full length paper explaining how I have tried to improve the design of Plan 9 and how I use ANTS on my systems.
    - mcartyem 14y ago
      Can you say in one sentence what it is that you built that doesn't already exist, and why it is important?
      - evolve2k 14y ago
        There is some interesting historical context here following the history and lessons learnt link in the article. http://www.9gridchan.org/9gridhistlatest.html http://www.9gridchan.org/9gridhistlatest.html Found a little more background via Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs "Plan 9 is a grid computing platform. It is an effort to provide a computing environment for geographically distributed clusters running on heterogeneous hardware, engineered for modern distributed environments and designed from the start to be a networked operating system.[12] It can be installed as a self-contained system and used on a single computer, but also has the capability to separate its components between separate computers. In a typical Plan 9 installation, users work at terminals running rio, and they access CPU servers which handle computation-intensive processes. Permanent data storage is provided by additional network hosts acting as file servers and archival storage.[13] Currently available desktop computers can emulate this architecture internally using multiple virtual machines." Anyone else care to explain the elements which make Plan 9 stuff awesome (in noob terms)?
serf 14y ago
a /g/ mention on a hn linked blog. end times.
- cturner 14y ago
  What do you mean?
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    From the op's blog- http://www.9gridchan.org/9gridhistlatest.html http://www.9gridchan.org/9gridhistlatest.html
- mappu 14y ago
  From the article: I hope most people know this already, but it needs to be said anyway. 4chan is a popular website with millions of users. Negative stereotypes about people who visit particular websites are just as silly as thinking that every person who lives in Chicago is a gangster or any other unfair assumption. P.S. install gentoo
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
mycroftiv 14y ago
While this is here and visible to the public, I would like to see if I can get someone connected to the EFF to tell John Perry Barlow that an old outsider hardcore Deadhead may have done something interesting in the world of computers. Also, I trolled IBM about a patent (see http://9fans.net/archive/2013/03/173 http://9fans.net/archive/2013/03/173) and there might be some matters of professional interest in terms of patent law. A very personal document that makes the connection between the psychedelic anarchism of the 60s and the software design of ANTS is found at http://9fans.net/archive/2013/03/206 http://9fans.net/archive/2013/03/206 Professional colleagues of the late University of Wisconsin Law Professor John Kidwell might also have a vague personal interest in knowing what his son has been up to in the world. I don't like facebook or any of those things, so I'm not well "networked" in the world. Kind of isolated actually. Me and a basement of Plan 9 machines. Figured I should reach out a bit.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- delano 14y ago
  Outsider art is an important part of the ecosystem. Nice work.
- switz 14y ago
  From one head to another, nice job.
  - mycroftiv 14y ago
    I have heard that we are everywhere. I'm having kind of a personal crisis after having brought this project to this stage, and I feel like my personal VW has overheated and is broken down by the side of the road on the way to the show, and I could use a little bit of that famous Deadhead community helping hand to keep myself from losing it. Thanks my friend.
    - switz 14y ago
      We are. If you ever want to share some old tour stories, please send me an email - I'd love to hear them. Bands like the Dead and Phish are so consistent with the hacker ethos. I wonder how most people miss it.
gregpilling 14y ago
I like your username. To those that have not read Heinlein's 1959 novel "Moon is a Harsh Mistress"(1), one of main characters is a computer ("High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV, Model L" - a HOLMES FOUR) that the narrating character has named Mycroft Holmes, or Mike for short. Mike is a supercomputer that has other computers added to it, until one day he woke up. It is my favorite novel. Plan 9 software appears to be software that would enable a person to make a HOLMES FOUR on their own. Pretty cool. 1. http://www.amazon.com/The-Moon-Is-Harsh-Mistress/dp/0312863551/ref=sr_1_1 http://www.amazon.com/The-Moon-Is-Harsh-Mistress/dp/03128635...
- mycroftiv 14y ago
  Yes you exactly have it. And the structure of the ANTS software is intended to bring the "non-disruptible mesh" concept of the revolutionary organization of the novel into the organization of plan 9 grids, which usually have a much less fail-proof chain of linear single-point of failure dependencies. Manuel said it was poorly engineered and used #3 arm to improve the boot namespace.
  - gregpilling 14y ago
    My wife works on statistical problems with large data sets. You can imagine her dislike of me the day I accidentally tripped a breaker and shut off her PC which had been running a large model for a couple of days. Would it be possible to use this software and cluster a bunch of old PCs I have from work into my own little Google-esque cloud? Perhaps that could keep me out of the doghouse next time if her models could converge quicker with more computing power.
    - mycroftiv 14y ago
      It depends a lot on definitions. Protecting and backing up your data against hardware failure is a big part of what I want this software to do, but it is not a drop in replacement for mathematical/scientific cluster computing solutions at all. It is more about backing up static data, providing multiple working environments at once, and allowing data to flow between machines in arbitrarily complex ways. I think this software is very interesting and does have real world uses, but it would need work to turn it into a math/science tool, and in general Plan 9 has a much smaller ecosystem built around these things. There are Plan 9 supercomputing projects like XCPU and if that is compatible with your wife's work it might be relevant to use XCPU top layer on top of ANTS architecture, - but I've never used XCPU personally. I would say my software at the moment is better suited to hobby and exploration at the moment, but if you were interested in the possibilities, it could have an application in this field.

131 points by mycroftiv 14y ago

I'm trying to make Plan 9 easier and more fun for home hobby users to explore. Plan 9 is amazing and I think the possibilities created by the clean and consistent design are exciting. Advanced Namespace Tools try to make Plan 9 easy to jump into, and also have a more reliable architecture when used as a grid. One way to describe my software is as a Grateful Dead inspired approach to home clustering. Maybe it's even "outsider software art" or some ridiculous term like that. Anyway, it has no web/facebook/ecommerce anything aspect to it, so it may not match the prevailing concerns here, but I tried to make it easy to use by providing preinstalled virtual machines to play with. Use them on a private network because they have default passwords and listen for cpu service. The "ANTS farm" subsite (http://antfarm.9gridchan.org/tutorial http://antfarm.9gridchan.org/tutorial) has the VM/tutorial style documentation and walkthroughs. I'd be interested in any feedback.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
kirbysayshi 14y ago
I've heard of Plan 9, but I honestly have no idea what this is. But it sounds interesting... could you give a briefer to someone that is not familiar with Plan 9?
- mycroftiv 14y ago
  It's free form clustering software. Standard Plan 9 tends to have a pretty rigid structure for how all the services on the grid are organized. This is an attempt to make things much more free-form, so the system can be set up more easily by home users, and everything is more reliable.
  - msutherl 14y ago
    One thing you could explain for the benefit of this thread is what "clustering" software is and what it's used for. Is it the same thing as a "distributed system"?
    - mycroftiv 14y ago
      Well "clustering" is a little loosely used here, ANTS isnt really mathematical cluster computation software at all, but it goes beyond the 'distributed os' of the basic Plan 9 design. It boils down to making multiple machines work together to create a good environment for the user that uses all of the resources of all the connected machines in a way where the user doesn't need to worry about which machine is which.
1337p337 14y ago
It's interesting, but I can't tell from the documentation what it's actually for. It's apparently for clustering, but what does it do? I had downloaded the image a week or two back, but it just...booted Plan 9. A few examples that tie it together or explain some sort of use case would be great.
- mycroftiv 14y ago
  Have you seen the tutorials at the ANTS farm subsite? They show a series of things you can do to explore the 9worker and 9queen in combination with live CDs, which show what I believe are new exciting features for Plan 9 that I have tried to add. There is also a full length paper explaining how I have tried to improve the design of Plan 9 and how I use ANTS on my systems.
  - mcartyem 14y ago
    Can you say in one sentence what it is that you built that doesn't already exist, and why it is important?
    - evolve2k 14y ago
      There is some interesting historical context here following the history and lessons learnt link in the article. http://www.9gridchan.org/9gridhistlatest.html http://www.9gridchan.org/9gridhistlatest.html Found a little more background via Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs "Plan 9 is a grid computing platform. It is an effort to provide a computing environment for geographically distributed clusters running on heterogeneous hardware, engineered for modern distributed environments and designed from the start to be a networked operating system.[12] It can be installed as a self-contained system and used on a single computer, but also has the capability to separate its components between separate computers. In a typical Plan 9 installation, users work at terminals running rio, and they access CPU servers which handle computation-intensive processes. Permanent data storage is provided by additional network hosts acting as file servers and archival storage.[13] Currently available desktop computers can emulate this architecture internally using multiple virtual machines." Anyone else care to explain the elements which make Plan 9 stuff awesome (in noob terms)?

serf 14y ago

a /g/ mention on a hn linked blog. end times.

cturner 14y ago
What do you mean?
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  From the op's blog- http://www.9gridchan.org/9gridhistlatest.html http://www.9gridchan.org/9gridhistlatest.html
mappu 14y ago
From the article: I hope most people know this already, but it needs to be said anyway. 4chan is a popular website with millions of users. Negative stereotypes about people who visit particular websites are just as silly as thinking that every person who lives in Chicago is a gangster or any other unfair assumption. P.S. install gentoo
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

mycroftiv 14y ago

While this is here and visible to the public, I would like to see if I can get someone connected to the EFF to tell John Perry Barlow that an old outsider hardcore Deadhead may have done something interesting in the world of computers. Also, I trolled IBM about a patent (see http://9fans.net/archive/2013/03/173 http://9fans.net/archive/2013/03/173) and there might be some matters of professional interest in terms of patent law. A very personal document that makes the connection between the psychedelic anarchism of the 60s and the software design of ANTS is found at http://9fans.net/archive/2013/03/206 http://9fans.net/archive/2013/03/206 Professional colleagues of the late University of Wisconsin Law Professor John Kidwell might also have a vague personal interest in knowing what his son has been up to in the world. I don't like facebook or any of those things, so I'm not well "networked" in the world. Kind of isolated actually. Me and a basement of Plan 9 machines. Figured I should reach out a bit.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
delano 14y ago
Outsider art is an important part of the ecosystem. Nice work.
switz 14y ago
From one head to another, nice job.
- mycroftiv 14y ago
  I have heard that we are everywhere. I'm having kind of a personal crisis after having brought this project to this stage, and I feel like my personal VW has overheated and is broken down by the side of the road on the way to the show, and I could use a little bit of that famous Deadhead community helping hand to keep myself from losing it. Thanks my friend.
  - switz 14y ago
    We are. If you ever want to share some old tour stories, please send me an email - I'd love to hear them. Bands like the Dead and Phish are so consistent with the hacker ethos. I wonder how most people miss it.

gregpilling 14y ago

I like your username. To those that have not read Heinlein's 1959 novel "Moon is a Harsh Mistress"(1), one of main characters is a computer ("High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV, Model L" - a HOLMES FOUR) that the narrating character has named Mycroft Holmes, or Mike for short. Mike is a supercomputer that has other computers added to it, until one day he woke up. It is my favorite novel. Plan 9 software appears to be software that would enable a person to make a HOLMES FOUR on their own. Pretty cool. 1. http://www.amazon.com/The-Moon-Is-Harsh-Mistress/dp/0312863551/ref=sr_1_1 http://www.amazon.com/The-Moon-Is-Harsh-Mistress/dp/03128635...

mycroftiv 14y ago
Yes you exactly have it. And the structure of the ANTS software is intended to bring the "non-disruptible mesh" concept of the revolutionary organization of the novel into the organization of plan 9 grids, which usually have a much less fail-proof chain of linear single-point of failure dependencies. Manuel said it was poorly engineered and used #3 arm to improve the boot namespace.
- gregpilling 14y ago
  My wife works on statistical problems with large data sets. You can imagine her dislike of me the day I accidentally tripped a breaker and shut off her PC which had been running a large model for a couple of days. Would it be possible to use this software and cluster a bunch of old PCs I have from work into my own little Google-esque cloud? Perhaps that could keep me out of the doghouse next time if her models could converge quicker with more computing power.
  - mycroftiv 14y ago
    It depends a lot on definitions. Protecting and backing up your data against hardware failure is a big part of what I want this software to do, but it is not a drop in replacement for mathematical/scientific cluster computing solutions at all. It is more about backing up static data, providing multiple working environments at once, and allowing data to flow between machines in arbitrarily complex ways. I think this software is very interesting and does have real world uses, but it would need work to turn it into a math/science tool, and in general Plan 9 has a much smaller ecosystem built around these things. There are Plan 9 supercomputing projects like XCPU and if that is compatible with your wife's work it might be relevant to use XCPU top layer on top of ANTS architecture, - but I've never used XCPU personally. I would say my software at the moment is better suited to hobby and exploration at the moment, but if you were interested in the possibilities, it could have an application in this field.