Thanks to everyone for all the information and ideas! At first I was going to try to make Plan 9 my all-purpose system on this laptop, but for now it looks like I'll just be using it to learn more about networking and distributed systems. I've tried using virtual machines in Windows before to run other operating systems, and I've always ended up installing them independently in their own partitions, but I may have to use Plan 9 on a virtual machine if that's the only way I can connect to our family network.
First I just want to get comfortable and develop some skills in the Plan 9 environment, then experiment with distributing it between computers or virtual machines. Zhilkin, my wireless card is Atheros AR5001X+. Is there anything like a diswrapper in Plan 9? Pietro, thanks for the beginner's guide. I'm not sure I'll be able to connect to the Internet with Plan 9 on its own partition, the way I'm using it now. I might have to run it on a virtual machine, and it might take some time for me to decide which one to use, and learn how to do it. Meanwhile I'll have to learn to download and install applications manually. I'll download them to my shared fat partition in some other system, and install them into my Plan 9 system from there. My Internet socializing now is mostly: - email - calling people with Skype - reading and commenting in blogs - posting in my own blogs - reading and posting in the Linux Questions forums - reading and posting on this list - Facebook Devon, thanks for the links. I had started to read the network configuration doc earlier, but I got stuck at the part where my card is not supported. If I can't get around that, I might try using Plan 9 on a virtual machine in XP or Slackware or Debian. Pros and cons would be welcome. Andrés, thanks for the suggestion. I've tried to run systems on virtual machines before, but I didn't like all the complications involved and I always ended up installing them independently on their own partitions. Maybe I won't be able to avoid virtual machines this time. I might consider it an opportunity to enrich my knowledge and experience, along with learning to use Plan 9.
