I downloaded Russ's 9vx and vx32 source tree Ford's web page,
and build those on my Debian stable machine.
I also read the paper of vx32 last week.
Now, everything goes fine, and got a fun to play with
games/mahjongg on that virtual machine.
Thank you very much Russ!

However, I have somewhat confused mind.... Why it's not Linux vx for
Plan9? I have no intention to make it bad, however, if we believe
Plan 9 is better than Linux, then Linux vx for Plan9 should be more
neccessary, shouldn't ?

Kenji

I believe the reasoning is as such:

Linux has more drivers than Plan 9, therefore Plan 9 should run on linux.

Use Linux as your driver repository... this is an approach used by some
microkernel systems like L4.

Dave

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 8:28 AM, wrote:

if that's the argument, wouldn't it make sense to get
rid of plan 9?

in this model, all plan 9 does is add an extra layer of goo
on top of linux. it's not like you can avoid admining
linux by hiding on a vm running on linux.

i don't mean to use a broad brush. there are good reasons
for running plan 9 in a vm on linux -- like you want to use
a linux hosting company.

but linux didn't get where it is by using windows as
a device driver.

- erik

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 9:04 AM, erik quanstrom quanstro.net> wrote:

Think of 9vx and lguest and friends as "software tools". "Software
tools" did a lot to popularize the ideas of Unix, and made it easier
for people to consider using the real thing.

ron

yes, but that was when the underlying system was System 370, VMS, PRIME, GCOS, ...
which didn't do all that much for you. now the underlying system has all the fun.
(unless you need to program it.)

i'm not sure if this was the authors' intent, but making plan9 easily
accessible to a larger group (mac, linux and someday windows users)
will make plan9 more popular. vxlinux under plan9 will be useful,
but only to us 9fans.

I wrote 9vx for people like me, who would prefer to use
Plan 9 but, for various reasons, must use FreeBSD or
Linux or Mac OS X.

Linux vx for Plan 9 would help people who prefer to use
Linux but must use Plan 9. I am sure such people exist,
but I feel no sympathy toward them. ;-)

Russ

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 11:04 AM, erik quanstrom quanstro.net> wrote:

That's not entirely true depending on the virtualization layer used.
I'm not experienced yet with vx32, but for example, lguest/kvm/xen can
be setup to pass-through device access to network, disk, audio,
whatever. The logical partition running Plan 9 can be essentially
pinned to a processor (or processors) and on that processor it rules
the roost. Linux just deals with device access.

you didn't explain the part where you avoid admining the
linux host.

- erik