(Named after the classically bad, exceptionally low-budget SF film “Plan 9 from Outer Space”) An operating system developed at Bell Labs by many researchers previously intimately involved with Unix.
Plan 9 is superficially Unix-like but features far finer control over the name-space (on a per-process basis) and is inherently distributed and scalable.
Plan 9 is divided according to service functions. CPU servers concentrate computing power into large multiprocessors; file servers provide repositories for storage and terminals give each user of the system a dedicated computer with bitmap screen and mouse on which to run a window system. The sharing of computing and file storage services provides a sense of community for a group of programmers, amortises costs and centralises and hence simplifies management and administration.
The pieces communicate by a single protocol, built above a reliable data transport layer offered by an appropriate network, that defines each service as a rooted tree of files. Even for services not usually considered as files, the unified design permits some simplification. Each process has a local file name space that contains attachments to all services the process is using and thereby to the files in those services. One of the most important jobs of a terminal is to support its user’s customised view of the entire system as represented by the services visible in the name space.
[pley-ner] /ˈpleɪ nər/ adjective 1. of or relating to a geometric . 2. flat or level. /ˈpleɪnə/ adjective 1. of or relating to a plane 2. lying in one plane; flat adj. 1850, from Latin planaris “level, flat,” from planum “plane” (see plane (n.1)).
- Planar process
noun 1. a method of producing diffused junctions in semiconductor devices. A pattern of holes is etched into an oxide layer formed on a silicon substrate, into which impurities are diffused through the holes
[pley-neyt] /ˈpleɪ neɪt/ adjective 1. having a or flat surface.
[pley-ney-shuh n, pluh-] /pleɪˈneɪ ʃən, plə-/ noun, Geology. 1. the process whereby an irregular land surface is made flat or level by erosion. /pleɪˈneɪʃən/ noun 1. the erosion of a land surface until it is basically flat