How does one install that, and where?

Like any other operating system, really: by downloading the appropriate installation media and creating a bootable USB stick to install from. After reading the FQA and other documentation, of course.

rio is the window manager for Plan 9. People have created patches for other window managers like dwm that attempt to mimic some of rio’s key features such as window “swallowing” and the ability to draw new windows by simply clicking+dragging with the mouse.

If this is your first time ever encountering Plan 9, I would highly suggest watching some of the videos by adventuresin9; they’re a solid intro to what the whole deal is with Plan 9.

Is this in a VM or on actual hardware?

This is bare metal, specifically on a Thinkpad T420. It is my current daily driver.

It’s much faster locally or on bare metal.

I use all three web browsers in 9front at different times: abaco, mothra, and netsurf.

My favorite is probably mothra, but netsurf handles most sites in a way that people expect (read: it supports CSS and JS).

ETA: use cases

• abaco

  • pros: acts like acme and supports viewing multiple pages simultaneously, best for text-only browsing

  • cons: very basic, many sites just don’t work at all

• mothra

  • pros: simple, works for a wider variety of sites, can disable image loading entirely with a flag, moth mode is great

  • cons: no tabs, unfamiliar UI for most people, selecting text for snarfing is weird

• netsurf

  • pros: most “normal” web browser, supports CSS and JS, familiar UI

  • cons: no tabs, more bloated than other options, requires compiling a (small) web browser from source