Re: Distributed filesystems: Plan 9 vs. Linux

> occurred to me that Plan 9 has already solved this problem by being able to
> (securely) mount remote filesystems and do a union on directories. 
> (Correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC creating a file in a unioned folder
> would add the file to the original folder location.)

If I remember my reading of the documentation, I thought that when adding a 
file to a unioned directory, that file is placed within the first directory 
that was unioned and is writable. Otherwise the write fails completely. Am I 
wrong on this or not up to date? If I am wrong, is it now possible to select 
which directory you want to place your file into? 

-James Horey

Re: imap4d and Outlook

I use outlook with our imap4d all the time and haven't noticed such
a swap.  Perhaps its because both are using US style dates?

From: Lucio De Re <lucio <at> proxima.alt.za>
Subject: [9fans] imap4d and Outlook
Date: 2004-02-29 17:43:38 GMT

It seems to me that imap4d and Outlook disagree on the interpretation
of dates.  As displayed, the year and day are interchanged.

The fact that changing the date representation in the regional
settings (NT-4, Settings/Regional Settings/Date) causes Outlook to
crash rather dramatically (maybe it can't cope with the representation
of an inverted date) does nothing to reassure me that the problem
is in imap4d.

But it doesn't hurt to ask.  I have very little intention of reading
the IMAP RFCs, if you'll forgive me.

++L

PS: If it helps, I _can_ try Mozilla's mailer as comparison, but
not immediately.

Re: Distributed filesystems: Plan 9 vs. Linux

files are created in the first directory in the union that's creatable
(i.e.  was bound with -c).  if that attempt fails, the create fails.

Re: ndb/cs pcauth pcf

Here's what I finally did for setting sysname on my 9grid cluster, with 9 
nodes and a frontend all of which run cpurc.

sysname=`{ndb/query ether `{cat /net/ether0/addr} sys}

I forget but probably stole this one from Andrey.

ron

a sure easy way to try out kernel stuff

I think I sent this before, but it's so nice I am sending it again. 

Scenario: an EPIA with linuxbios and plan 9 in flash. cpu is named cpu50.

You want to muck with the kernel and debug it. Easy.

. bind_test_namespace
cd /sys/src/9/pc
mk 'CONF=whatever'
cpu -h cpu50
echo 'reboot /path/to/9whatever' > /dev/reboot

boom. 9 boots 9. takes 5 seconds. If it blows up, cpu is back in 10 
seconds. 

Add this to the 20 seconds build time (MAX!) for plan 9, and kernel 
hackery is now as easy as normal program hackery -- almost.

Very very nice. Hats off to /dev/reboot.

ron

Re: ghostscript

AFPL Ghostscript-8.13 can be find on our web site:
	http://basalt.cias.osakafu-u.ac.jp/plan9/gs-8.13.tgz
	http://basalt.cias.osakafu-u.ac.jp/plan9/gs-data.tgz.

Why they were removed from sources?  Because none is maintaining
it anymore.   As you know Russ has been doing it, but he is a graduate
student at MIT which means he must be very busy for his own Ph.D
thema etc.   Furthermore, maintaining Ghostscript is not any creative
work which is neccessary to those students.   We need Ghostscript for
every day use of Plan 9, and that's all.    Ghostscript is not in the main
stream of Plan 9 design way, it uses UTF-8, but Ghostscript(8.x) uses
CID-keyd character etc.   To maintain Ghostscript is easy enough even
for like me, which don't need Russ, Dave, Jim, Sape, and of course Rob.
I think that's the reason.

Kenji

From: AFPL Ghostscript-8.13 can be find on our web site: http://basalt.cias.osakafu-u.ac.jp/plan9/gs-8.13.tgz http://basalt.cias.osakafu-u.ac.jp/plan9/gs-data.tgz. Why they were removed from sources? Because none is maintaining it anymore. As you know Russ has been doing it, but he is a graduate student at MIT which means he must be very busy for his own Ph.D thema etc. Furthermore, maintaining Ghostscript is not any creative work which is neccessary to those students. We need Ghostscript for (Continue reading)

Re: Threads: Sewing badges of honor onto a Kernel

By the way, it took half a day for me to read plenty of mails during
these three days while I was knocked down by flu...  Yeah, it was
interesting to read those.

Kenji

Re: imap4d and Outlook

On Sun, Feb 29, 2004 at 09:00:18PM -0500, David Presotto wrote:
> 
> I use outlook with our imap4d all the time and haven't noticed such
> a swap.  Perhaps its because both are using US style dates?

More likely because of the locality, South Africa.  I only picked
it up because I could not get the messages in a sensible date
sequence.

As I mentioned, if I adjust the date display settings, I crash
Outlook, presumably because of some invalid date value, so it's
hard to tell.

It seemed such an obvious fault, I thought someone else would have
picked on it.  I'll try and find some time to dig deeper.

++L

Re: ghostscript

> To maintain Ghostscript is easy enough even
> for like me, which don't need Russ, Dave, Jim, Sape, and of course Rob.

I meant they should use their power for more basic ones of Plan 9.

Kenji

Re: Re: Threads: Sewing badges of honor onto a Kernel

>>i think it was rob, but i'm not sure, who said:
>    linear is programming is hard enough, but
>    concurrent programming is beyond the
>    'average' programmer.

actually, i'd say that programming generally is hard enough, and not
just for the average programmer,
and concurrent programming is just a special case within that.

more seriously, some things are more clearly expressed and more easily implemented
using concurrent processes or perhaps coroutines, so concurrency ought to be taught,
and learned, and well.

in contrast to the quote above, in an ancient usenet article,
in the context of concurrent programming, i am reasonably certain that
rob made the observation that as a discipline, we can learn.  he
used the example of fork(), which was considered `difficult' when it
first appeared, compared to existing notions such as `jobs', but after
being studied and taught in advanced programming for a time, it become
familiar enough that it was suitable to be taught/used much earlier.
that seems to me to be a better quote to use.

i'd say from my experience that unless people insist on pronouncing themselves `full' and
incapable of accepting any new ideas, which certainly does happen, they can typically
learn.    (otherwise, they end up saying things such as ``in every other X i've
ever seen i could always do Y in this particular way''.)
i think in many ways concurrent programming is more general
than (say) object-oriented programming, and certainly the language
constructions can be much simpler than some object-oriented ones.