The operating system 9front has presented its new release, code named “Do Not Install,” with the release song available for download. The project, which has been in development since 2011, is a fork of the Bell Labs operating system PLAN 9. Installation assemblies are available for various architectures including i386, x86_64, and Raspberry Pi 1-4. The project code is distributed under the open Lucent Public License, which is based on the IBM Public License.
Some key features of 9front include additional protection mechanisms, expanded equipment support, improved wireless network functionality, new file systems, sound subsystem implementation, USB support, Mothra Web-Brahra creation, bootter replacement, data encryption on disk, Unicode support, real mode emulator, and support for AMD64 architecture with 64-bit address space.
The main concept behind PLAN 9 is to eliminate the distinction between local and remote resources by creating a distributed environment based on the principles of treating all resources as files, equal access to local and external resources, and each process having its own name space. The 9p protocol is used to create a unified distributed hierarchy of resource files.
In the new version of 9front, some notable updates include:
- Updated Ext4SRV driver implementing the EXT4 file system, replacing the previous Ext2 driver.
- Expanded support for sound adapters with USB interface, including different sampling frequencies.
- Added support for DNS Over TLS.
- Added Wi-Fi support for Raspberry Pi boards.
- Added support for I2C tire and improved UART support for MT7688.
- Introduced VDIFF program for viewing file differences in graphic mode.
- Enabled MixFS to switch between sound devices.
- Changed behavior of the IP stack to tie set routes to network interfaces and delete them when disconnected.