[mdlug] Plan 9 from Bell Labs

[Michael Corral]

2009-11-20, Monsieur David Relson a ecrit:
> On Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:28:52 -0400
> Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
>> I ran Plan 9 once, went "Huh, Ok?", and that was pretty much it.  If
>> someone really wants a blast-from-the-past that is interesting find a
>> copy of NextSTEP/OpenSTEP [and hardware that can run it].  WOW!  Was
>> that ahead of its time (and *glacially* slow).
>
> NextSTEP/OpenSTEP ran on several hardware platforms, including x86.

I have NeXTSTEP 3.3 for Intel on one of my PCs (AMD K6-III 500MHz),
and it runs very fast, faster than Linux on the same box. There was
some comparison of OSes done about 12 years ago that showed NeXTSTEP
being the fastest OS. I can believe it, from what I've seen. I should
install it on one of my newer boxes to see how it does.

I also have NS 3.3 for SPARC on an old lunchbox-style Sun LX, and
I have NS 3.3 for PA-PISC on an HP 9000/735. In both cases it runs
faster than the "native" OS for those machines.

> Perhaps the early 68000 systems were slow -- I don't know 'cause I
> never used a NeXT 68000 pizza box.

I have a 68025 NeXTStation running NS 3.3, with a 17" grayscale NeXT
monitor and a NeXT laser printer (the one that talks - a woman's voice
lets you know when the toner is low or if you're out of paper). It's
a bit slow at only 25MHz, but no more so than a comparable 486 PC of
that time.

> If you're interested in experimenting, GNUstep provides the UI (and
> more) for Linux.

I use GNUstep on my main Fedora system, it's really nice. It implements
most of the Cocoa API (formerly OpenStep), so Cocoa apps that compile
under Mac OS X can be compiled and run under Linux (e.g. GNUMail, which
is kind of a replacement for Apple's Mail.app). Run GNUstep apps in
WindowMaker and you'll have a pretty good NeXT-ish clone in Linux.

Michael