DistOS 2019F 2019-10-09

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Note there will be no small group discussions today (or group reports). First half of class will be a lecture on the readings, second half of class will be a review for the midterm.

Readings

Plan 9 & Inferno (no group report)

Discussion Questions

  • Why did the creators of UNIX make Plan 9? What was their key inspiration?
  • How does Plan 9 differ from UNIX originally? How has that line been blurred over time?
  • Why was Inferno created? Was there any external simulus?
  • What are the key ideas behind Styx?

Midterm Review

See Discord for a capture of today's lecture.

What were the key themes of this semester (so far)?

  • network transparency via RPC, DSM
  • history - how things evolved
  • UNIX semantics & compatibility
  • (caching)
  • distributed filesystems

Why network transparency?

  • user/developer experience - easier to use, understand
  • ultimate form of "resource sharing"

Side note: log-structured fs in sprite