I realize that Plan 9 is not a nix (or at least I dont think it is), but I was wondering if anyone here knows of a forum where Plan 9 users discuss the OS and help out others with installation and usage troubles?

you can try here if you wanted to ... https://lists.cse.psu.edu/mailman/listinfo/9fans ... and there are probably some others too ...

what exactly are your installation problems ... if only i came across some of them personally , probably i could give some hints or something but many of the questions could be answered within that mail-list ...


//good luck


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Thanks for the reply alred.
Im only a OS hobbyist at best. I enjoy the challenge of building the system and then getting it to run with whatever will run on it. With something like Plan 9 I realise Im probably jumping in way over my head ...but it looks interesting.
I have never had any luck in my attempts to install it... most likely hardware issues. But, I downloaded the newest release and I see that it is also a live CD...so i figured I'd give it another go. Looking at the hardware compatibility list, I think the system I use for such experiements should be perfect. Abit BX6 w/1ghz P3, Matrox g400 dual head, promise ultra Tx2, 3com etherlinkIII ISA... fairly basic stuff and I do believe all of it is listed.
The live CD, whether trying to boot from the CD or starting the install gets hung up right after it lists the cpu. Last output is "ELCR:0808" and just hangs. I tried it on a couple other systems and it hangs in different places.
Anyway... like I said, I am but a curious hobbyist... that is why I like forums specific to the subject because usually the info is already there and I dont have to waste peoples time with my dabble attempts.

>>"Im only a OS hobbyist"

well ... i'm not even that , i'm pretty much a "just curious" kind of man ^_^

yup ... at least your eth card is the same as mine and i think you can try going into your bios and "dumb" it down as far as you can ... and try also using the boot floppy cum cdrom method ...



//no harm being wasted and mocked in others dabble attempts ^_^
//good luck

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EDIT:: forget to mention ... if you havent done that , you can also try using a dos boot floppy with your 3com ether-card specific configuration ultility on it to resolve some possible resouce conflicts with your hardwares ...


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Ok, when I give it another go ...soon ...I will try using the floppy install disk. Also, I am going to strip the BX6 system down to the agp card only and pull back the slight OC that she is running at. As for "dumbing" it down, not much on this board when it comes to onboard hardware. Could disable USB, serials and printer port, but I would hope that these would not be the problem.

Thanks for you input

I also like using new Operating Systems (although I have not tested on a daily basis what may be my favorite: Mac OS X). Plan 9 looks promising and interesting, but I haven't installed it (I try it on VMware, the interface was buggy and the installation a failure). IMHO Plan 9 is too bleeding edge and experimental, better not to test it in the main computer.

Not exactly a forum, but this documents may be useful: http://cm.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/

Actually good timing.
I have been able to install it several times. (testing what it does to the partition table, boot methods, etc...)
I am not sure what was causing the problem before... may have to do with the hard drive I was trying to run and/or install it on.. ...confused, but that can be the nature of these things.
BTW aldimeneira, I too thought it buggy when I first got started, but soon I realized that its interface is not buggy...it is just insane. Or at least it will drive you insane if you try to use it while in the mind-set of windows, kde, macos, etc. Think of it as a brand new experience... maybe a puzzle... and the key to the puzzle is a 3 button mouse. If you dont have a 3 button mouse, you're screwed. (not enirely screwed...I think there are some key/mouse combos that will make up for that Steve Jobs moron mouse or a 2 button basic mouse ...not positive though.)
As for installing it to a drive with other OSs and/or data. Do so with caution and understanding. Much like BSD and solaris, it messes with the drives partition table CHS/LBA values. Unlike some nux flavors that do this, it seems to affect all partitions, not just its own. PQMagic (dos partition magic ver8) was able to fix this, but I will now not rely on pqmagic to do so...at least when I install it onto a drive which has other OSs and data that I care about. I suggest running PTEdit and jot down your partition table info before installing so you can fix things after the deed is done.
My third test install was on a drive that had a primary fat with no data, DRDOS enh., win9x and syllable on logicals and a 4th logical fat of which I installed plan9 to. Plan9s install has a simple 'fdisk' utility that allows you to delete partitions and add fossil partitions. Overall the Plan9 installer is simple ...yet very different compared to other installers. Took me a couple tries before I had that 'oh..yeah...I get it' moment.
Plan9 doesnt use a propriatory boot loader nor does it need grub/lilo or chain booting to boot. I love point and boot OSs. Using XOSL, I had no problem booting plan9.

Was hoping to figure this out enough to be able to install inferno so I can browse the web with charon ...or get anything installed for that matter. Though, my brain may implode trying.

It's buggy, that's a fact. But it's buggy only on VMware. I'm quite comfortable with my SuSE 10.0 install (it's the first time I tune a distro closer to my liking) and won't try to install it until I get another computer. The interface actually is interesting... no X11 But requiring a 3 button mouse... I don't know it reminds me of the 5+ or 7+ buttons of current consoles (as oposed to the Revolution controler for example).

Does plan 9 implement OpenGL in some way? cuss that's what I'm currently am interested in testing.