Oh sure, lots of things are “inconvenient” on Plan 9.

Of note for most would-be users: if you rely on a modern web browser like Firefox/Chrome, forget about it. Never going to happen.

It’s important to remember that Plan 9 is fundamentally a research operating system; it’s not really a “typical” environment by any stretch, and that stems largely from it being entirely network-based and distributed. A single Plan 9 system in isolation can only be so interesting. Using it on a laptop like this can be an entirely different set of problems.

If you’d like some examples of things you may face:

• booting can be slow

• can be intimidating to set up for some of the more important features – factotum(4) and secstore(1), new users and directories under /, etc.

• cwfs is slow

• hjfs is really slow

• no multi-monitor support

• only recently did we get a filesystem that specifically aims to be crash-safe

• poor documentation, though it’s been getting better

• reading research papers is basically a requirement for understanding the system

• security is not a priority

For me, though? I genuinely don’t need much more than what’s available in the base system.