Ask HN: Would a web technology only Linux Desktop UI be feasible? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Would a web technology only Linux Desktop UI be feasible?

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Whether you like it or not, I think we're in the middle of a transition of cross-platform software to the web stack.

Electron apps have enabled Linux as a desktop platform for many use cases. And while they have drawbacks, I think this trend will only gain momentum in the future.

I see web technologies pretty much as the remaining subset of tech that is not (yet) controlled by a single entity with commercial interests and monopolistic tendencies.

Wouldn't it make sense to go all in with what we have now and create a new kind of desktop OS that is web first (or only) in terms of UI?

An Electron app could easily be retrofitted to run in an environment like this and web content could become a first class citizen in a desktop environment. This would also eliminate one of the primary concerns with Electron, namely that each app has to carry its own instance of Chrome with it. The browser engine could pretty much be standardized and there wouldn't be a need for this anymore. Backends could run securely, in a containerized environment.

I know there's Chrome OS, but what I am talking about is more like an open alternative that doesn't rely on the cloud so much and still allows you to build full-blown native backends. Just the frontend and window server would be HTML5 only and embrace modern web technologies.

It actually already exists. It's called Jadesktop. It runs the whole UI in a webkit process I belive.

https://github.com/codesardine/Jadesktop

It’s good reasoning, I think. Would love to see an experimental prototype.

At the same time, I feel like the DOM presents us with some hard to overcome performance problems (like single-threadedness), and the current batch of declarative view libraries is actually making things worse (in terms of performance).

I think these hurdles will be overcome eventually – but I feel at this point, the stars are not aligned yet…

ChromeOS can now run full-blown Linux apps thanks to Crostini, and alongside Android apps. If you haven't taken a close look lately, I'd recommend trying again. This is without "jailbreaking" the device too mind you. ChromeOS devices can be put into developer mode to gain local root and allow for Linux apps natively rather than via a VM.

Regardless, that implies Google believes your thesis (at least until they shut it down) - that web UIs are far along enough to support a whole operating system.

ChromeOS "system UI" is not written using web technologies so I do not think this is a good example.

Firefox OS[1] and now KaiOS[2] might be of interest to you.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS

Depends on what you want to do on your desktop. If that includes running a DAW or doing high-end video rendering or editing, good luck doing that in such an environment. Or, for that matter, effective large scale software development (not the IDEs as much as the compilers).

It's not that the (G)UI can't be done with web tech, it's that the backend has to be native to be fast enough (or rather, not to get users cursing that the software stack is stealing 10% of their system horsepower). That means non-interpreted, non-sandboxed code running on the bare iron.

Both Qt and Gkt have js based stacks already, more interesting is that we could get some unifying milieu on Linux/BSD for local apps build with Wasm https://webassembly.org

Current GTK-based desktops like GNOME are already configured with JS and CSS. They are just not fully browser-compatible.

given how inefficient electron apps tend to be, a better question would be “how many organs are you willing to sell for memory in this dystopian web desktop future”?

I don't think you would need Electron in the situation OP is describing...

> Just the frontend and window server would be HTML5 only and embrace modern web technologies.

My point is that this would then be just a bigger electron.

I don’t see how that would be a problem, if each app didn’t have to bundle a browser, and could instead just use the system.

Like Windows 95?

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