Thanks to everyone again for all the information and ideas. I decided to try running Plan 9 with Qemu in Ubuntu. I can't use kvm because my processor doesn't support it. I resized my partitions to make room to install Ubuntu in its own partition. Before that it was running from a CD image on my XP partition.
I've decided to also try 9vx. It looks like it might be a lot simpler, and it might be good enough for this stage of my learning. After I get one of those working enough to practice the commands, and try out some of the ideas that have been posted, I might have some more questions.
