[gentoo-soc] Plan 9 From Gentoo: Final Report

[gentoo-soc] Plan 9 From Gentoo: Final Report

[Seaton, Robert]

Hi, all.

Plan 9 From Gentoo is a GSoC 2011 project to overlay a Plan 9-inspired userspace on top of a Gentoo base system.

So, things ended up looking a little different than I originally planned, but I think that is the case with any significant software project. By and large, I'm happy with the way things turned out and Plan 9 From Gentoo seems mostly true to my original proposal. It contains a little more Gentoo than I originally imagined it would, like Portage, and it also ships a mostly intact GNU userspace alongside the Plan 9 userspace, something I had not anticipated early on when envisioning what Plan 9 From Gentoo would look like.

Originally, in my proposal, I had planned to split plan9port into discrete components. However, when I delved deeper and queried the Plan 9 community if that was something they would be interested in, there didn't seem to be any interest. That, combined with a foreign build system and many inter-dependent parts, led me to abandon that part of my proposal. I think this was the right move, as it allowed me to focus on the actual Plan 9 From Gentoo liveCD image.

I did end up adding support for a couple things that I hadn't anticipated supporting when I wrote the original proposal, such as Firefox and the Go language environment. I also didn't anticipate any of my work on 'nine', which began when Greg k-h suggested that Glendix's functionality could be accomplished in userspace. 'nine' is still a work-in-progress, but I will continue tinkering with it during my free time now that GSoC is over.

After I finish this email, I'll fire off one to gentoo-dev announcing Plan 9 From Gentoo and then, other than submitting code samples to Google, Summer of Code will, for me, have ended.

Project page: http://soc.dev.gentoo.org/~rps/plan9/
LiveCD image: http://soc.dev.gentoo.org/~rps/plan9-download/plan9-from-gentoo-x86-minimal.iso

Anyways, I think that about sums things up,
rps

Re: [gentoo-soc] Plan 9 From Gentoo: Final Report

[EBo]

 Robert,

 This all looks cool!  As a note, I have some ebuilds for yy's patches 
 to 9vx which fixes a bunch of odd-ball problems in RSC's code base.  
 I've also got ebuilds for Ron's SYSFROMISO and other fun stuff.  If you 
 are interested, let me know and we can see about syncing up and adding 
 them to your overlay.

 As a further note, I for one would really welcome a portage style build 
 system for plan 9.  In fact I seriously looked into building one during 
 my GSoC project last year.  Portage is HUGE overkill for what is needed 
 on Plan 9, but on the other hand, there is *nothing* current which 
 allows you to even know what revision of a tool's source is currently 
 compiled.  Unfortunately, for my own work I need to know exactly the 
 revision, and be able to control what version/revison is currently being 
 run during a simulation.  It is absolutely necessary for the 
 verification, validation, and reproducibility of the simulation models I 
 run.

 If I decide to continue with Plan 9, I will likely develop something 
 that is basically a "portage lite" for managing my build system.  If 
 not, then I'll probably just use portage for this.

 Anyway, let me know if you are interested in yy's 9vx, etc. and we can 
 hack it in.

   Cheers, and good job!

   EBo --

 On Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:25:26 +0000, Seaton, Robert wrote:
> Hi, all.
>
> Plan 9 From Gentoo is a GSoC 2011 project to overlay a Plan
> 9-inspired userspace on top of a Gentoo base system.
>
> So, things ended up looking a little different than I originally
> planned, but I think that is the case with any significant software
> project. By and large, I'm happy with the way things turned out and
> Plan 9 From Gentoo seems mostly true to my original proposal. It
> contains a little more Gentoo than I originally imagined it would,
> like Portage, and it also ships a mostly intact GNU userspace
> alongside the Plan 9 userspace, something I had not anticipated early
> on when envisioning what Plan 9 From Gentoo would look like.
>
> Originally, in my proposal, I had planned to split plan9port into
> discrete components. However, when I delved deeper and queried the
> Plan 9 community if that was something they would be interested in,
> there didn't seem to be any interest. That, combined with a foreign
> build system and many inter-dependent parts, led me to abandon that
> part of my proposal. I think this was the right move, as it allowed 
> me
> to focus on the actual Plan 9 From Gentoo liveCD image.
>
> I did end up adding support for a couple things that I hadn't
> anticipated supporting when I wrote the original proposal, such as
> Firefox and the Go language environment. I also didn't anticipate any
> of my work on 'nine', which began when Greg k-h suggested that
> Glendix's functionality could be accomplished in userspace. 'nine' is
> still a work-in-progress, but I will continue tinkering with it 
> during
> my free time now that GSoC is over.
>
> After I finish this email, I'll fire off one to gentoo-dev announcing
> Plan 9 From Gentoo and then, other than submitting code samples to
> Google, Summer of Code will, for me, have ended.
>
> Project page: http://soc.dev.gentoo.org/~rps/plan9/
> LiveCD image:
> 
> http://soc.dev.gentoo.org/~rps/plan9-download/plan9-from-gentoo-x86-minimal.iso
>
> Anyways, I think that about sums things up,
> rps