{"slug": "9front", "name": "9front", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 12, "warners": 1, "score": 4.505, "rising": 0.02, "first": "2025-11-25", "latest": "2026-10-15", "why": "I find 9front to be a really nice incubator for playing around with new ideas.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 7, "neutral": 8, "compare": 1, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 0, 2, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I find 9front to be a really nice incubator for playing around with new ideas.", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": "9front.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://9front.org/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["9front"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 786495936, "item_id": 49155996, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49155996", "by": "lproven", "date": "2026-08-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "one of the vastly underestimated aspects of Plan 9/9front is its simplified C", "excerpt": "I knew this about Pike, but not Ritchie. Thanks. I think, though, that one of the vastly underestimated aspects of Plan 9/9front is its simplified C. AIUI one of the biggest differences is that a file is not allowed to `#include` anything that has already been #included in a parent project. You are not allowed to nest #includes. The result is vastly reduced compile times. I have read claims of over 1000x fewer lines ", "context": "", "use_case": "Plan 9 OS fork", "switched_from": "", "story": "9front \"This Was Supposed to Be Fun\" Released"}, {"id": 782058832, "item_id": 48878677, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48878677", "by": "xelxebar", "date": "2026-07-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I daily drive 9front", "excerpt": "9front is a fork of Plan 9, the operating system that runs Jurassic Park[0]. Stanley Leiber is a prominent contributor, albeit whose existence is humourously-but-seriously-maybe debated. The whole community has a post-ironic humor that is very GenZ but before GenZ was cool or even born. The Plan 9 Foundation commissions local artists for it's swag at the annual workshops. I'm guessing this article is tangentially rel", "context": "", "use_case": "Daily-driver operating system", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Did Not Kill Stanley Lieber: How to Draw (With 9front)"}, {"id": 770570449, "item_id": 48160653, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48160653", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-05-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "LIke 9front.", "excerpt": "> legacy unsafe formats like PDF using safe managed languages, typically JavaScript. Are you ironic? If any JS and v8 have tons of CVE's. Stop being deluded with these hip languages. Rust? you wish. Maybe inferno with proper namespaces AND in-kernel namespace support. No, not like Linux. LIke 9front. https://app.opencve.io/cve/?product=v8&vendor=google", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "A 0-click exploit chain for the Pixel 10"}, {"id": 759699713, "item_id": 47481232, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47481232", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-03-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "my daily OS it's a netbook with 9front and I regret nothing.", "excerpt": "I used to use OpenBSD, but license wise I'm more pro-GNU. Hyperbola will rebase their OS from GNU/Linux to Hyperbola BSD. The thing is: - wifi blobs under OpenBSD = easy kernel panics. Atheros ath9k drivers were many times easier to debug - Ditto with nasty Radeon blobs. The more blobs you have, the less stuff you can understand. Again, these are a good source of kernel panics. - Blobs from sound SOCs are no better a", "context": "", "use_case": "daily OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Revert \"userdb: add birthDate field to JSON user records"}, {"id": 753139520, "item_id": 47071220, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47071220", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-02-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "9front ships an IRC client made with rc, awk and aux/trampoline to connect", "excerpt": "No Perl but there's rc, awk and aux/* helper tools which can do tons of stuff Perl does but without calling tons of CPAN modules. 9front ships an IRC client made with rc, awk and aux/trampoline to connect (and tlsclient for TLS connections). On horoscopes, there's 9ching and tarico at https://shithub.us =)", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Terminals should generate the 256-color palette"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 753002816, "item_id": 47062676, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47062676", "by": "cbm-vic-20", "date": "2026-02-18", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The 9front web site is certainly.. something.", "excerpt": "The 9front web site is certainly.. something. https://9front.org", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Terminals should generate the 256-color palette"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["daily os", "alternative build environment", "plan 9 os fork", "daily-driver operating system", "dhcp, dns, tftp server", "hacker-style os setup"], "compared": [{"slug": "linux", "name": "Linux", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "gefs", "name": "GEFS", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "plan-9", "name": "Plan 9", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "rio", "name": "Rio", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47057824", "title": "Terminals should generate the 256-color palette", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48846177", "title": "I Did Not Kill Stanley Lieber: How to Draw (With 9front)", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46667675", "title": "What is Plan 9?", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50102923", "title": "Libreboot 26.10 \"Ominous Olive\" released with UEFI, Chromebook support", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49154249", "title": "9front \"This Was Supposed to Be Fun\" Released", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48356741", "title": "Radxa Dragon Q8B: A Laptop Cosplaying as an SBC?", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"neutral": 2}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"compare": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 801734290, "item_id": 50108393, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50108393", "by": "yjftsjthsd-h", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "compare", "quote": "although illumos or 9front becoming the preferred build environment for libreboot would make my inner nerd happy", "excerpt": "So what OS are you building on and running on the machine? https://codeberg.org/ethical-foss/open-slopware#kernels doesn't seem to list anything I would consider a good alternative to Linux, although illumos or 9front becoming the preferred build environment for libreboot would make my inner nerd happy.", "context": "", "use_case": "alternative build environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Libreboot 26.10 \"Ominous Olive\" released with UEFI, Chromebook support"}, {"id": 786495936, "item_id": 49155996, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49155996", "by": "lproven", "date": "2026-08-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "one of the vastly underestimated aspects of Plan 9/9front is its simplified C", "excerpt": "I knew this about Pike, but not Ritchie. Thanks. I think, though, that one of the vastly underestimated aspects of Plan 9/9front is its simplified C. AIUI one of the biggest differences is that a file is not allowed to `#include` anything that has already been #included in a parent project. You are not allowed to nest #includes. The result is vastly reduced compile times. I have read claims of over 1000x fewer lines ", "context": "", "use_case": "Plan 9 OS fork", "switched_from": "", "story": "9front \"This Was Supposed to Be Fun\" Released"}, {"id": 782070432, "item_id": 48879402, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48879402", "by": "benj111", "date": "2026-07-12", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "they do have an interesting style", "excerpt": "Would the world be a better place if no one told any jokes that 'might' upset others? I'm an atheist too. I just gave a middle finger to the author and carried on reading. I haven't really delved that much onto 9front but they do have an interesting style, see for example https://9front.org/propaganda/ yes it's probably going to rub people up the wrong way, but at least it isn't more corporate bs.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Did Not Kill Stanley Lieber: How to Draw (With 9front)"}, {"id": 782058832, "item_id": 48878677, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48878677", "by": "xelxebar", "date": "2026-07-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I daily drive 9front", "excerpt": "9front is a fork of Plan 9, the operating system that runs Jurassic Park[0]. Stanley Leiber is a prominent contributor, albeit whose existence is humourously-but-seriously-maybe debated. The whole community has a post-ironic humor that is very GenZ but before GenZ was cool or even born. The Plan 9 Foundation commissions local artists for it's swag at the annual workshops. I'm guessing this article is tangentially rel", "context": "", "use_case": "Daily-driver operating system", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Did Not Kill Stanley Lieber: How to Draw (With 9front)"}, {"id": 773727456, "item_id": 48357966, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48357966", "by": "MisterTea", "date": "2026-06-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "9front is a rolling fork", "excerpt": "> What would it cost to fund swe and design professionals to write a 9front port with a haiku skinjob ... Patches welcome. The community is very small and most everyone involved has jobs. There is also a tendency to only support the most common *useful* hardware instead of Raspberry Pi clone du jor. As for a haiju skin job, see lola, a new window manager: https://shithub.us/aap/lola/HEAD/info.html I think it has a Be", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Radxa Dragon Q8B: A Laptop Cosplaying as an SBC?"}, {"id": 770570449, "item_id": 48160653, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48160653", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-05-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "LIke 9front.", "excerpt": "> legacy unsafe formats like PDF using safe managed languages, typically JavaScript. Are you ironic? If any JS and v8 have tons of CVE's. Stop being deluded with these hip languages. Rust? you wish. Maybe inferno with proper namespaces AND in-kernel namespace support. No, not like Linux. LIke 9front. https://app.opencve.io/cve/?product=v8&vendor=google", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "A 0-click exploit chain for the Pixel 10"}, {"id": 768821024, "item_id": 48051314, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48051314", "by": "MisterTea", "date": "2026-05-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I'm only running 9front for dhcp/dns/tftp", "excerpt": "This is what I followed: https://posixcafe.org/blogs/2024/01/04/0/ However, at the moment my network is in shambles so I'm only running 9front for dhcp/dns/tftp. Lots of life things so I haven't had time to properly setup everything. Wi-Fi is handled through a freebie unifi AP friend gave me. I run the controller in a docker manually when needed.", "context": "", "use_case": "DHCP, DNS, TFTP server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Diskless Linux boot using ZFS, iSCSI and PXE"}, {"id": 765666113, "item_id": 47854132, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47854132", "by": "MisterTea", "date": "2026-04-21", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I have toyed with the linked library on 9front", "excerpt": "The next level of this is serving the Arduino as files: https://github.com/echoline/NinePea then mounting that on your host OS. A friend wrote his own 9P server while doing embedded work on an ST Arm board by mounting the board under Linux. Files are just nodes to RPC calls that you the user decide so the file server can do anything. Your IO points can be individual files so you can 'echo 127 >/n/arduino/pwm0' to set", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ibuilt a tiny Unix\u2011like 'OS' with shell and filesystem for Arduino UNO (2KB RAM)"}, {"id": 760726833, "item_id": 47545427, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47545427", "by": "carlos256", "date": "2026-03-27", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Interesting, the decompressor in Jdeflate is around 4k LoC. https://github.com/Jpn666/jdeflate", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gzip decompression in 250 lines of Rust"}, {"id": 760014626, "item_id": 47500914, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47500914", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-03-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "audio/zuke in 9front", "excerpt": "I used to use mocp under Unix but nowadays it's just audio/zuke in 9front with plumber settings for playlists.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "A retro terminal music player inspired by Winamp"}, {"id": 759699713, "item_id": 47481232, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47481232", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-03-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "my daily OS it's a netbook with 9front and I regret nothing.", "excerpt": "I used to use OpenBSD, but license wise I'm more pro-GNU. Hyperbola will rebase their OS from GNU/Linux to Hyperbola BSD. The thing is: - wifi blobs under OpenBSD = easy kernel panics. Atheros ath9k drivers were many times easier to debug - Ditto with nasty Radeon blobs. The more blobs you have, the less stuff you can understand. Again, these are a good source of kernel panics. - Blobs from sound SOCs are no better a", "context": "", "use_case": "daily OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Revert \"userdb: add birthDate field to JSON user records"}, {"id": 753140914, "item_id": 47071307, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47071307", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-02-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": ">Android Drawterm, for sure. It should be under FDroid. On 9p itself, check termux. > When I use terminal emulators, SSH, and tmux, I can switch between different clients with different resolution, pixel density, and screen orientation and have the text display acceptably on each (minus text reflow for history, which is an issue) Oh, I understand. But you can set the font= environment variable before launching a tool", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Terminals should generate the 256-color palette"}, {"id": 753139520, "item_id": 47071220, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47071220", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-02-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "9front ships an IRC client made with rc, awk and aux/trampoline to connect", "excerpt": "No Perl but there's rc, awk and aux/* helper tools which can do tons of stuff Perl does but without calling tons of CPAN modules. 9front ships an IRC client made with rc, awk and aux/trampoline to connect (and tlsclient for TLS connections). On horoscopes, there's 9ching and tarico at https://shithub.us =)", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Terminals should generate the 256-color palette"}, {"id": 753002816, "item_id": 47062676, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47062676", "by": "cbm-vic-20", "date": "2026-02-18", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The 9front web site is certainly.. something.", "excerpt": "The 9front web site is certainly.. something. https://9front.org", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Terminals should generate the 256-color palette"}, {"id": 751126736, "item_id": 46945421, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46945421", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-02-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You can try 9front in a virtual machine safely.", "excerpt": "9front's manuals will teach you the basics, the actual basics of CS (plan9 intro if you know to adapt yourself, too). These are at /sys/doc. Begin with rc(1), keep upping the levels. You can try 9front in a virtual machine safely. There are instructions to get, download and set it up at https://9front.org . Write servers/clients with rc(1) and the tools at /bin/aux, such as aux/listen. They already are irc clients an", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Nobody knows how the whole system works"}, {"id": 750755456, "item_id": 46922216, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46922216", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-02-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it would be some 9front setup", "excerpt": "Indeed; music wise for actual hacking (old meaning) it would be some 9front setup (either themeless defaults or something bland with yellow background for terminal windows, as if they were mundane sticky notes) and Muzak; for cracking either industrial metal or some progresive Jazz which would still sound cool and elegant in some parts. For really odd hacks and cracks the music from Twin Peaks wuold be ideal. For the", "context": "", "use_case": "hacker-style OS setup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Hackers (1995) Animated Experience"}, {"id": 749124224, "item_id": 46820264, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46820264", "by": "xelxebar", "date": "2026-01-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I find 9front to be a really nice incubator for playing around with new ideas.", "excerpt": "The snapshot system in gefs is really quite nice. By default, you get snapshots every minute for the last hour, every hour for the last day, and every day into perpetuity. This is configurable. You can set as many cadences as you wish, with the ability to configure their frequency and lifetimes. Actually, snapshots are like btrfs volumes in many ways, meaning they can be mounted, read from, and written to as desired.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "9front OS"}, {"id": 746717345, "item_id": 46669834, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46669834", "by": "__turbobrew__", "date": "2026-01-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "https://git.9front.org/plan9front/9front/b18221b10c83d81a9eb4d5f896ad02e3b69095f5/commit.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "What is Plan 9?"}, {"id": 746707697, "item_id": 46669231, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46669231", "by": "ori_b", "date": "2026-01-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "9front averages several commits a day", "excerpt": "Plan 9 is still alive and kicking -- The next Plan 9 conference will be in Victoria, BC in Canada later this year. https://iwp9.org/ 9front averages several commits a day: https://git.9front.org/plan9front/9front/HEAD/log.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "What is Plan 9?"}, {"id": 736829072, "item_id": 46051817, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46051817", "by": "gbx9570", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "no, I use 9Front", "excerpt": "Linux is Unix, or at least Unix like enough that it can be called Unix. Anyway, no, I use 9Front", "context": "", "use_case": "daily OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: If Unix gets more popular would you use it instead of Linux?"}, {"id": 736764000, "item_id": 46047750, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46047750", "by": "tucnak", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "You seem to be involved with 9front.", "excerpt": "You seem to be involved with 9front. Are you trying to suggest there is a nontrivial community of people who cannot afford modern 64-bit Linux platforms, and opt for 9front on some ancient 32-bit hardware instead? Where are they coming from? Don't get me wrong, I love the 9 as much as the next guy, but you seem to paint it as some kind of affordability frontier...", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "APT Rust requirement raises questions"}]}