I certainly hope so.

In all seriousness, it seems to me that interest in Plan 9 will continue to grow from here, especially with 9front taking the lead and actually moving ahead with real development.

Oh sure, lots of things are "inconvenient" on Plan 9.

Of note for most would-be users: if you rely on a modern web browser like Firefox/Chrome, forget about it. Never going to happen.

It's important to remember that Plan 9 is fundamentally a research operating system; it's not really a "typical" environment by any stretch, and that stems largely from it being entirely network-based and distributed. A single Plan 9 system in isolation can only be so interesting. Using it on a laptop like this can be an entirely different set of problems.

If you'd like some examples of things you may face:

• booting can be slow

• can be intimidating to set up for some of the more important features – factotum(4) and secstore(1), new users and directories under /, etc.

• cwfs is slow

• hjfs is really slow

• no multi-monitor support

• only recently did we get a filesystem that specifically aims to be crash-safe

• poor documentation, though it's been getting better

• reading research papers is basically a requirement for understanding the system

• security is not a priority

For me, though? I genuinely don't need much more than what's available in the base system.

I guess that depends on if you consider doing basically all of my day-to-day computing as doing anything "real".

I use it for writing, email, programming, browsing, drawing, games... pretty much everything I would do on any other machine. Anything that I can't do directly in Plan 9 is done by accessing from Plan 9.

• machine: ThinkPad T420

• os: ⑨front

  • auth+cpu+file on encrypted cwfs

• wm: rio + riow

• programs:

  • aux/statusmsg

  • bar

  • clock

  • faces

  • stats

  • zuke

• wallpaper

For those interested in learning more about Plan 9 and trying it out in a public environment: SDF Public Access UNIX System is hosting their seasonal Plan 9 Boot Camp starting June 20th. Feel free to drop into com and say hello!

I use it for all of my day-to-day computing tasks. Writing, email, browsing, programming, drawing, games... the works.

Anything I can't do directly in 9 is covered by a combination of ssh(1), vt(1), and vnc(1) — with just a touch of vmx(1) if I'm feeling dangerous.

Plan 9 is a research operating system developed by Bell Labs as a successor to UNIX.

I would suggest starting somewhere like here to get an idea of what it's about, as well as checking out this video from one of 9front's core contributors.

Indeed.

9front comes with two browsers out of the box: abaco and mothra. There is also a port of NetSurf as well as both gopher and gemini browsers.

It's an email indicator. See faces(1) for details.

But of course! Real hardware or bust.

This particular machine has been my daily driver for months now, so I would say it is faring quite well.

• machine: ThinkPad T420

• os: ⑨front

  • auth+cpu+file on encrypted cwfs

• wm: rio + riow

• programs:

  • aux/statusmsg

  • bar

  • clock

  • faces

  • stats

  • zuke

• wallpaper

For those interested in learning more about Plan 9 and trying it out in a public environment: SDF Public Access UNIX System is hosting their seasonal Plan 9 Boot Camp starting June 20th. Feel free to drop into com and say hello!

Firstly, don't go out of your way to try and convince or force people, but TL;DR – if you have an opportunity and want to give someone a solid start, my recommendation is always Linux Mint.

My mother asked me to switch her in September 2022. Some bad Windows Defender definitions update started triggering warnings every 5 minutes starting at 2AM or something riduculous. I got a frantic call to come over because of "someone hacking her computer" fully expecting to just fix whatever was busted and move on with my day.

After a conversation, I installed LMDE for her and set up automatic updates plus Timeshift. She has had exactly two problems since then:

• she forgets that the scanner isn't accessed by right-clicking the printer's tray icon and messing with settings

• she didn't like that she can't move desktop icons to wherever she wants

She was also just about the easiest switch there could have been. Like many older folks, her primary use for her desktop is web/email and she has already been using Firefox/Thunderbird since the '00s.

It sounds like Gentoo is literally exactly what you want.

I am currently not using gentoo, and because the packages in its default repos are only updated when necessary, and the break-my-gentoo repo is more of a joke than an actual replacement for arch.

I'm sorry, but I am genuinely confused here.

Gentoo can be both stable and bleeding edge and allows you to mix and match on a per-package basis.

Does setting ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~amd64" globally not make things bleeding edge enough for you? Grab *-9999 packages instead.