/sys/doc/ Documentation archive

Plan 9 Volume 2 - The Documents

Introduction

Plan 9 From Bell Labs
Rob Pike, Dave Presotto, Sean Dorward, Bob Flandrena, Ken Thompson, Howard Trickey, and Phil Winterbottom
An overview of the system; read at least this paper before you install.
README
Brian W. Kernighan
A view of the system for those familiar with UNIX.
The Use of Name Spaces in Plan 9
Rob Pike, Dave Presotto, Ken Thompson, Howard Trickey, and Phil Winterbottom
What's in a name?
The Organization of Networks in Plan 9
Dave Presotto and Phil Winterbottom
Connecting the pieces.

Programming

How to Use the Plan 9 C Compiler
Rob Pike
The starting point for C programming under Plan 9.
APE - The ANSI/POSIX Environment
Howard Trickey
Moving C code between UNIX and Plan 9.
Alef User's Guide
Bob Flandrena
A tutorial introduction to the concurrent programming language Alef.
Alef Language Reference Manual
Phil Winterbottom
The definitive Alef document.
Acid: A Debugger Built From A Language
Phil Winterbottom
An overview paper about the Acid debugger.
Acid Manual
Phil Winterbottom
The reference manual for the language and its libraries.
Maintaining Files on Plan 9 with Mk
Andrew G. Hume and Bob Flandrena
An introduction to Plan 9's replacement for make.
Plan 9 Mkfiles
Bob Flandrena
The conventions for using mk in Plan 9.
A Manual for the Plan 9 assembler
Rob Pike
Things you'd rather not know.

User Interfaces

8½, the Plan 9 Window System
Rob Pike
An introduction to the window system and its unusual implementation.
Rc - The Plan 9 Shell
Tom Duff
An introduction to the new shell, complete with examples.
The Text Editor sam
Rob Pike
Sam is the standard editor on Plan 9.
Acme: A User Interface for Programmers
Rob Pike
A system with a more radical approach to programming and editing.

Implementation

Hello World
Rob Pike and Ken Thompson
The details about Plan 9's character set: the Unicode Standard plus an ASCII-compatible encoding.
Plan 9 C Compilers
Ken Thompson
The design and some internals of the compiler suite.
Adding Application Support for a New Architecture in Plan 9
Bob Flandrena
The procedures necessary to add a new instruction set to Plan 9's programming environment.
The Plan 9 File Server
Ken Thompson
The design of the central file server and its novel backup system.
The IL protocol
Dave Presotto and Phil Winterbottom
A description of the Internet protocol Plan 9 uses for internal communication.
Process Sleep and Wakeup on a Shared-memory Multiprocessor
Rob Pike, Dave Presotto, Ken Thompson, and Gerard Holzmann
A detailed study of a central issue in the Plan 9 kernel.

Miscellany

Raster Graphics in Plan 9
Tom Duff
The tools for playing with color images.
A Quick Introduction to the Panel Library
Tom Duff
A tour of a new toolkit for building graphical applications.
A Guide to the Lp Printer Spooler
Paul Glick
Adminstering the suite of tools to drive PostScript printers.
Troff User's Manual
Joseph F. Ossanna and Brian W. Kernighan
The old warhorse, updated for Unicode characters.
Using SPIN
Gerard Holzmann
An introduction to a tool for analyzing parallel and distributed programs.

Installation

The Various Ports

The hardware requirements for the Plan 9 compilers and kernels.
Installing the Plan 9 Distribution

Getting the system up and running, using a PC.


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