Note: Much, if not all of what is described below is yet to be implemented.
T9 is an experimental software distribution build kit based upon T2 SDE (https://t2sde.org) and inspired by Plan 9 philosophy. Some of the features implemented as part of it may be partially or completely implemented in upstream in the future.
Among the ideas for experiments are:
- replacing complex software with simpler equivalents
- being closer to POSIX, i.e. not requiring GNU extensions where not absolutely necessary
- reducing the amount of C code by replacing it with code in safer languages (Go, Rust)
- smarter optimization on various platforms (e.g. IA-64)
- better package build speed
- more flexible and optimized build system, more cross compiling (Perl, Python)
- possibly partly static builds
- and more
T9 is for experimenting only, it's not meant to be used as a daily driver. If you're looking for a distribution to install and use, see T2 SDE above.
The core of T9 is its build system, contained in this repository. Additionally T9 uses package definitions from upstream T2 SDE SVN/Git, these are separate from the rest.
There are two flavors of T9, represented by two different targets:
- generic target, aiming to stay close to T2 generic target
- t9 target, a Plan 9-inspired flavor with the goal of testing new OS concepts
If you wish to use T9 as a regular Linux distribution, we recommend you use the generic target.
t9 target replaces many of standard GNU utilities with either their alternatives
from Plan 9 or more modern replacements written in a different language than C.
To avoid breaking GNU compatibility, GNU versions of the replaced utilities are
available with the g prefix.
A predecessor of T9 is the lenticularis39/t2-ps3 repo, which was created to host a custom target of T2 SDE that would build correctly for the PS3. Fortunately that is no longer needed, since the quality of T2 SDE has improved significantly thanks to community efforts.
There are still some areas which would benefit from improvement, some of these can be implemented in the main repository, but some of them can't, either because they require testing or because they bring major changes. For this kind of experiments T9 was created.