Real Linux. In a browser tab. No install. No server. No Docker | Hacker News Reader

Real Linux. In a browser tab. No install. No server. No Docker

linuxontab.com

11 pointskilian-ai14 comments

As another commenter pointed out this is similar to our WebVM (https://webvm.io) , although this one is based on v86 so it will be less performant.

Although the x86 virtualization angle is powerful we think that native WebAssembly executables on top of a Linux-compatible kernel are more viable for the execution of full workloads in the browser.

BrowserPod is a newer project of ours that brings to vision to life, we have recently published a deep dive that might be interesting: https://labs.leaningtech.com/blog/browserpod-deep-dive

i like your work. i am also experimenting with a native webassembly linux core and the performance is incredible. i just had enormous trouble and work compiling packages for the wasm32-linux target. it would be a nice community effort to compile the open source world to this architecture. the browser tab as clean, secure, multi-platform and polyglot abstraction layer.

You've been posting this for awhile can you tell me more about how this works?

Probably a slop of https://bellard.org/jslinux/

This is a pretty harsh critique, while I see the agent related markdown the application seems measured and well applied. Hardly seems like slop; it's might be a one man show+ai agent but the direction and project composition feel like it's something that's logical and manageable.

I personally like the idea even as a p.o.c (inline with bellards work). I'd like to see how nostr & cloudflare workers providing out of band ops on what is effectively a container per tab.

I don't think that guesstimating that something is an AI slop is very harsh these days. It sure has the signs of one:

- HN User created 66 days ago

- In these 66 days it submitted 4 stories about this project

- The heavy lifting is all done by v86 project (not jslinux as initially suspected)

- The project is a "rebrand/fork" from another project by the same author - "traits.build".

- In the original project, the first commits that mention v86 seem to start at around 23rd of April.

To be clear, I don't really mind people vibing & slopping around. I just would want to have a disclosure about it.

Show dead and you see 23 posts about this exact same thing which gives me pause and makes me wonder, did this guy really post this 23 times?

Why? Or is there some program setup on a loop?

Either way,a legit Linux shell in a browser would be kinda powerful and even if this one isn't legit, Im intrested in adjacent projects...for instance this may be the only way to get a shell in a usable shell on iphone which would be neat and useful

i did. i am trying to get some traction on the project to hopefully collaborate on the development in the community.

thank you for this interesting analysis. however, i do disclose that it's agentic coding in yolo mode on my github page.

thank you!

Have to agree. Unsure why the page is comparing with docker/cloud shell instead of jslinux/webvm.

thanks for your question. so, i was trying to build a posix scriptable operating system in a browser tab to be sandboxed but still capable of communicating within nodes. i build the posix-based agent claw that is integrated to allow agentic development on this edge and share the result over the nostr protocol with other users that have the system open in a tab. the tab is used as modern platform-agnostic abstraction because it even works on a mobile phone. the emulation allows to use the complete alpine linux repository for all the tools that one want to use in the system with or without agent. i experimented with tunnels and bridges that allow to open ports on the tab system and expose them to fixed ips and ports through my relays workers. i successfully connected ssh, sftp and https from internet to my browser tab, i experimented with syncthing with the idea of being able to automatically sync files between the browser tabs essentially a sandboxed file network between tabs on any platform.

The entire project is complete low-effort slop. Even the user name of the person is AI and the title says it all.

This account has been posting the same site repeatedly and it makes me think that this is 100% a bot account or AI agent.

I think we need a higher quality bar for posts on HN given that the flood of low quality projects such as this just add additional noise.

The comment that you cannot see at the bottom violates the HN guide-lines of AI-generated text from: [0]

"Don't post generated text or AI-edited text. HN is for conversation between humans."

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

high-effort slop... ;) no, it is a serious attempt to sandbox a network capable linux system on a browser tab with built-in anonymous file-sharing and an integrated agent that can control the command-line.

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