Inferno (operating system)

Inferno is a distributed operating system made by Bells Labs and Vita Nuova Holdings based on ideas and technology from Plan 9 from Bell Labs. The three main principles behind Inferno's design are:[1]

  • Resources as files: all resources are represented as files within a hierarchical file system
  • Namespaces: the application view of the network is a single, coherent namespace that appears as a hierarchical file system but may represent physically separated (locally or remotely) resources
  • Standard communication protocol: a standard protocol 9P is used to access all resources, both local and remote

As a distributed operating system (i.e. an operating system working across and connecting multiple machines and devices together), Inferno is also designed to be able to operated on a variety of computer architectures. It can also be operated on top of other operating systems, such as Unix, Microsoft Windows, or Google's Android operating system.[2][3] In order to make Inferno applications as portable to other computer architectures as the Inferno operating system, Inferno applications are written in a programing language called Limbo and run inside Inferno's Dis virtual machine.[4]

References

  1. "Inferno Design Principles". vitanuova.com. Retrieved 2013-01-19.
  2. Fisher, Lawrence M. (1996-05-07). "Bell Labs Operating System To Be Offered for Networks". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-01-19.
  3. Paul, Ryan (2011-09-19). "“If it ain’t broke, break it”: Inferno environment ported to Android". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2013-01-19.
  4. "Inferno Application Programming". vitanuova.com. Retrieved 2013-01-19.

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