Plan9port is available in a lot of package managers. I've been using mk and rc for my build/task running and scripting needs for a while and have been very happy. rc in particular is such a concise scripting language that shaves off all the rough edges of sh (not to mention bash), I rarely need to reference docs.
Plan 9 is amazing. I just released my own ancient little operating system (see 'Show HN') which took some of Plan 9's ideas. Plan 9 was a massive inspiration at the time that it was released, I had it running on a really small machine for the time and I love the underlying concepts. It is a real pity that it never really took off.
Plan 9 is what Unix could have been, the whole idea that 'everything is a file' is so powerful that we ended up not believing it and the resulting hacks are all so ugly in comparison. Plan 9 does this so consistently that you can test a new version of the window manager in a window on the currently running window manager.
For fun I ran the Bell-Core window manager inside a Plan 9 window at some point just to see if it could be done.
5 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 21.6 ms ] threadPlan 9 is what Unix could have been, the whole idea that 'everything is a file' is so powerful that we ended up not believing it and the resulting hacks are all so ugly in comparison. Plan 9 does this so consistently that you can test a new version of the window manager in a window on the currently running window manager.
For fun I ran the Bell-Core window manager inside a Plan 9 window at some point just to see if it could be done.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ManaGeR
And yes, you could do it, and fairly easily so. This kind of structural coherency is a great feature for an operating system to have.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(operating_system)
[0] - as per what its creators worked on following it