Re: Hurd compared to Plan 9

[Richard Braun]

On Fri, Oct 13, 2006 at 08:41:39PM +1300, Shams wrote:
> What are the differences between Hurd and Plan 9.
> 
> 1. Does Hurd also maintain a namespace like structure?
> 2. Does it treat everything as a file just like Plan 9 eg. sockets?

I don't know Plan9, but the Hurd (actually Mach) maintains a port namespace,
a port being an object used for messaging (e.g. when using RPC). Each
task has a port namespace. Files are abstract objects (usable with the
io and file interfaces), but they're not mandatory (i.e. you can create
new objects with new interfaces). The problem is legacy support with
POSIX applications, which usually use a file interface, so many objects
in the Hurd, like sockets, implement the io and file interfaces (but not
only - for example, instead of using ioctl(), a client application can
directly use the object-specific interface).

You should really read documentations, we're not going to describe the
Hurd as you may wish on the mailing list. This should be a good start :

http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/doc/hurd_toc.html

-- 
Richard Braun

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