Plan 9 Volume 2 - The Documents

Plan 9 From Bell Labs: Rob Pike, Dave Presotto, Sean Dorward, Bob Flandrena, Ken Thompson, Howard Trickey, and Phil Winterbottom
An overview of the system; read at least this paper before you install.
README: Brian W. Kernighan
A view of the system for those familiar with UNIX.
The Use of Name Spaces in Plan 9: Rob Pike, Dave Presotto, Ken Thompson, Howard Trickey, and Phil Winterbottom
What's in a name?
The Organization of Networks in Plan 9: Dave Presotto and Phil Winterbottom
Connecting the pieces.

How to Use the Plan 9 C Compiler: Rob Pike
The starting point for C programming under Plan 9.
APE - The ANSI/POSIX Environment: Howard Trickey
Moving C code between UNIX and Plan 9.
Alef User's Guide: Bob Flandrena
A tutorial introduction to the concurrent programming language Alef.
Alef Language Reference Manual: Phil Winterbottom
The definitive Alef document.
Acid: A Debugger Built From A Language: Phil Winterbottom
An overview paper about the Acid debugger.
Acid Manual: Phil Winterbottom
The reference manual for the language and its libraries.
Maintaining Files on Plan 9 with Mk: Andrew G. Hume and Bob Flandrena
An introduction to Plan 9's replacement for make.
Plan 9 Mkfiles: Bob Flandrena
The conventions for using mk in Plan 9.
A Manual for the Plan 9 assembler: Rob Pike
Things you'd rather not know.

8½, the Plan 9 Window System: Rob Pike
An introduction to the window system and its unusual implementation.
Rc - The Plan 9 Shell: Tom Duff
An introduction to the new shell, complete with examples.
The Text Editor sam: Rob Pike
Sam is the standard editor on Plan 9.
Acme: A User Interface for Programmers: Rob Pike
A system with a more radical approach to programming and editing.

Hello World: Rob Pike and Ken Thompson
The details about Plan 9's character set: the Unicode Standard plus an ASCII-compatible encoding.
Plan 9 C Compilers: Ken Thompson
The design and some internals of the compiler suite.
Adding Application Support for a New Architecture in Plan 9: Bob Flandrena
The procedures necessary to add a new instruction set to Plan 9's programming environment.
The Plan 9 File Server: Ken Thompson
The design of the central file server and its novel backup system.
The IL protocol: Dave Presotto and Phil Winterbottom
A description of the Internet protocol Plan 9 uses for internal communication.
Process Sleep and Wakeup on a Shared-memory Multiprocessor: Rob Pike, Dave Presotto, Ken Thompson, and Gerard Holzmann
A detailed study of a central issue in the Plan 9 kernel.

Raster Graphics in Plan 9: Tom Duff
The tools for playing with color images.
A Quick Introduction to the Panel Library: Tom Duff
A tour of a new toolkit for building graphical applications.
A Guide to the Lp Printer Spooler: Paul Glick
Adminstering the suite of tools to drive PostScript printers.
Troff User's Manual: Joseph F. Ossanna and Brian W. Kernighan
The old warhorse, updated for Unicode characters.
Using SPIN: Gerard Holzmann
An introduction to a tool for analyzing parallel and distributed programs.

The Various Ports: The hardware requirements for the Plan 9 compilers and kernels.
Installing the Plan 9 Distribution: Getting the system up and running, using a PC.