What is Plan 9?
20 days ago
- #research
- #operating-systems
- #unix
- Plan 9 is a research operating system developed by the same group that created UNIX at Bell Labs.
- It emerged in the late 1980s as an attempt to push UNIX ideas further into networking and graphics.
- Plan 9 is described as a distributed computing environment with terminals, CPU servers, and file servers.
- Key ideas in Plan 9 include per-process namespaces and representing all resources as files.
- Plan 9 has several derivatives and forks, including Plan 9 from User Space, 9front, and Harvey.
- Plan 9 is not UNIX; it avoids past prejudices and explores new territory in operating system design.
- Plan 9 from User Space (plan9port) ports Plan 9 libraries and applications to UNIX-like systems.
- Inferno is a related distributed OS from Bell Labs, now maintained by Vita Nuova Holdings.
- Plan 9 has been released under various licenses, with recent versions under MIT License.
- Plan 9 continues to have a niche following, with active communities and forks like 9front.