Plan 9 from Bell Labs is one of the more interesting operating systems out there. I’ve always found it interesting to find software, that is in some way inspired by Plan 9 on other operating systems. So, to document what I find on this, I decided to make a list of Plan 9 inspired Linux programs.

Ports

This category gets the straight-up ports of Plan9 programs to Linux/Unix out of the way, before going further. All the software listed here shares a significant amount of code with their ancenstors. If it doesn’t, I don’t count it as port, but as inspired.

• Plan 9 from User Space (plan9port): A port of most of the Plan 9 userland.
• 9base: Based on plan9port, but seems to be more minimal (and less maintained).
• frontbase: Based on 9base, but uses the Plan 9 distribution 9front as a source.
• mk: A port of just mk and the libraries needed for it.
• sam: An updated port of the sam text editor.
• acme2k: An updated port of the acme programming environment.
• rc: A independent port of the rc command line shell.

Inspired programs

This category lists all the software I could find, that is more or less explicitly inspired by Plan 9.

window management:

• 9wm: X11 window manager inspired by rio.
• w9wm: An improved version of 9wm.
• larswm: Rewrite of 9wm featuring automatic tiling, virtual dektops and more.
• windowlab: Based on larswm, an window manager »of novel design«.
• riosh: Emulates some rio behaviour on X11.
• ryudo: Fork of plan9port’s rio, adding keyboard shortcuts, customizable colors and better support for URxvt.
• Mux: Plan9-like window environment for your shell.
• pRio: Rio-like window manager for the Arcan desktop engine.
• wio: Rio-like wayland compositor.
• wmii: X11 window manager with a 9p interface and acme-like layout.

text editing

• Wily: Implementation of acme for *NIX operating systems.
• Edwood: Go reimplementation of acme.
• yacco: Go reimplementation of acme.
• A: Text editor inspired by sam and acme.
• Editor: Text editor inspired by acme.
• T: Text editor inspired by acme.
• Edit: Tries to mix acme and vi.
• vis: Modal editor (like vi) using structural regular expressions (like sam).

plugins

• kak-plumb: Kakoune integration with the plan9port plumber.
• sink.el: Emacs integration with the plan9port plumber.
• Plan 9 for vimspace: Plan 9 inspired utilities for vim.

shell

• nash: Shell inspired by rc.
• rwsh: Shell based around structural regular expressions.
• es: Extensible shell, derived from rc.
• desh: Extended version of es.
• XS: Extended version of es.
• nxes: Extended version of es.

shell utils

• usam: sam commands as unix commands.
• edit: Stand-alone implementation of the acme command language.
• goblin: Go reimplementation of the Plan 9 userland.
• Torgo: Command line toolkit inspired by Plan 9.

make

• mk: »Reboot« of Plan 9 mk.
• hmk: Pure haskell clone of mk.

plumber related

• xdg-open: Basically the native Linux implementation of the plumber. This article details how it can be used.
• plumber: Plan 9 inspired script to open programs based on a string.
• xplumb: Integrating the plumber with X11.

9p related

• u9fs: 9p server.
• v9fs: File system driver for the Linux kernel.
• c9: Low level 9p client and server.
• 9pfuse: FUSE-based 9p client.
• 9mount: 9p mounting tools.
• 9pfs: FUSE-based 9p client.

See more.

misc

• Go: Programming language.
• werc: Web anti-framework.
• frame: Graphics toolkit.
• tanna: Font converter.