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.

Other websites

• Inferno at vitanuova.com