Swarthmore College Department of Computer Science

Talk by Vic Zandy

An Introduction to Plan 9
Monday, November 28
SCI 240, 11:30 am

Abstract

The Plan 9 operating system was created in the same lab as Unix by many of the same people. It departs from Unix by making networking, access to remote resources, and graphics the central features of the system. Almost all resources in Plan 9 look like files. Remote resources, regardless of their function, speak a common, simple protocol based on familiar file-like naming and access methods. Per-process name spaces enable programs and users to customize a private collection of local and remote resources of interest. Naming conventions make decisions about the location of resources transparent to programs. Traditional applications, including shells, windows, and editors, have been recast in this structure with new ideas for interactive usability and aesthetics. The result looks like Unix at first but gradually leads to new ways of thinking about the design and use of distributed systems.

In this talk I'll introduce and give examples of the main ideas of Plan 9, and discuss the influence of these ideas in other operating systems.

After his talk at 11:30, Vic will meet with students and faculty to talk about his work as a CS Research Scientist. Vic is a researcher at the IDA Center for Computing Sciences. Prior to that, he was a member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories where he worked on the Plan 9 operating system.