[Gualdrapo]

Not an expert in OS development whatsoever but I do know that it's not intended for common usage, so how its UI looks is not something devs would take much care of.

Though I do know that it puts some strong emphasis on mouse usage, something that for someone that grew to use the keyboard a lot like me (ironically, as a graphic designer) seems to be really awkward, to say the less. Its strengths seem to be its overlaying concepts and that it intended to be "the next gen Unix" - alas it won't take over for a myriad of reasons, and some would argue Unix-es have already borrowed some of its concepts for themselves.

[DaiPlusPlus]

Forgive my naïvety, but couldn’t X and CDE be ported over?

[yjftsjthsd-h]

I thought there was an X server for Plan 9 (edit: yes; https://plan9.io/wiki/plan9/x11_installation/index.html ), but it kinda defeats the point unless you use something like https://github.com/gerstner-hub/xwmfs on it. CDE... something like CDE probably, but actual CDE would be painful and really defeat the point unless you ported its IPC to a Plan 9 native version.

[ori_b]

You could, but if you want Unix, you already know where to find it.

[nrr]

Not trivially. There's a lot in how Plan 9 is put together that makes this a monumental effort.

(That said, there may have been an X server brought in at some point, but don't quote me on that. That's the least of anyone's problems in undertaking a CDE port though.)