
Inferno OS for Raspberry Pi - rcarmo
https://bitbucket.org/infpi/inferno-rpi
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ZenoArrow
What are the major differences between (the latest versions of) Unix, Plan 9
and Inferno? Is there anything that Inferno and/or Plan 9 do that would be
harder to achieve with a Unix-based system?

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MaxBarraclough
Inferno OS is built around the Dis virtual machine, which is akin to a JVM.
Unix-like OSs are native-code oriented.

HN has previously discussed this question of where 'grand abstractions' should
reside - in the OS, or above?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9807777](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9807777)

To quote from that old thread (they discuss Taos not Inferno, but the
distinctions from Unix are similar):

> could you efficiently implement Taos abstractions on top of POSIX? (probably
> yes) Could you efficiently implement POSIX abstractions on top of Taos?
> (probably no)

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ZenoArrow
Thank you for your response, but I'm thinking perhaps I didn't explain the
reason why I was asking. I understand that Inferno has a different design
based on a VM, what I'm trying to ascertain is... why is it better than what
came before? The design decisions were more than likely based on a desire to
improve on what came before, my questions are about what the designers seeked
to improve. In other words, rather than knowing it's a different design, I'd
like to know why it's a better design (or to be more fair, what are its
strengths and weaknesses)?

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qubex
Plan9 (and Inferno, the virtualised descendent thereof) embody a single,
unifying abstraction: that everything is a file. This often stated in Unix but
(beyond the /dev and on Linux /proc & /sys filesystems) there’s lots of things
that _aren’t_ files (the framebuffer, network sockets...). In Plan9 and
Inferno if you want to do something to anything all you need to do is know
fopen & company.

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qubex
Delighted by this. I’ve always appreciated Plan 9 and its derivative Inferno.
It’s a pity they never gained much of a toehold.

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pjmlp
Me too, it also saddens me that many aren't aware of Inferno OS and always
think Plan 9 was the end of the line, when that status actually belongs to
Inferno OS.

Which implemented the original vision for Plan 9, regarding what Pike wanted
to do with Alef.

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shimon_e
Surprised someone didn't make an Android competitor with Inferno OS. It was
already part way there to being a mobile OS.

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yiyus
The Hellaphone was an idea in that direction. They substituted all the Java
bits in Android with Inferno:
[http://jfloren.net/b/2015/8/18/2](http://jfloren.net/b/2015/8/18/2)

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squarefoot
Too bad they didn't continue its development. Probably choosing a different
GUI than TK would have helped to spark more people's interest in the project.
There's a huge need for an alternative OS on Android phones, but most of the
people who would benefit from it don't know that, so that need doesn't
translate to actual demand.

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rcarmo
I don't see Tk as being a problem. Rio, however, and the continued reliance
upon 3-button mice, dates both Plan9 and Inferno and makes it quite hard to
use them on laptops with trackpads.

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walshemj
what's wrong with three button mice? virtualy all pc's outwith macs that use
mac mice use three button mouse's

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rcarmo
Emulating three buttons on a trackpad (or touchscreen) is hard to do right. I
don’t use mice on my laptops.

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walshemj
ah I see what you mean I mostly used desktops hadn't thought about ipads and
the like

