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Show HN: 3 years and 1M users later, I just open-sourced my "Internet OS"

cushpush
24 replies
18h35m

When I was young I dreamed on having a USB stick (not yet invented) I could take with me to different kiosks and have a standard OS load my specific instances thanks to my custom key. This approaches that functionality and I think it's pure brilliance that you've included such thorough a demo for us to enjoy that you spent so much time and enthusiastic effort into creating and making manifest. So, I applaud you there and thank you for making it open-source that's super cool, and might inspire someone to make a kiosk that, by default, loads your site.

DustinBrett
14 replies
18h31m

Nearly 20 years ago when I was in IT, I had something like this using a tool called BartPE which allowed you to make a custom WinPE environment that could be booted from a USB drive. As someone who went on to make one of these "web desktops", maybe things like BartPE were a partial inspiration.

mikewarot
6 replies
17h36m

About 30 years ago when I was a programmer and support guy all in one, I had an MS-DOS boot disk and a 300 Megabyte Backpack portable hard drive. It was awesome. I had all of the source code, backups of the customer sites data and my programming environment with me no matter where I went.

Great stuff!

peteradio
4 replies
16h48m

His name was Max Harddrive and he did kickflips on his keyboard. Nobody could beat his quarter mile downloads.

ldp01
3 replies
15h47m

Hahaha, I need to go watch Hackers right now!

pmarreck
1 replies
15h5m

I randomly watched a scene from it on YouTube based on this comment, and in the background was a poster I never saw before that said "Trust Your Technolust", and just like that, I have my new life motto LOL

rnts08
0 replies
10h59m

I unironically watched Hackers last night.

raffraffraff
0 replies
10h20m

These two posts have awoken old memories for me, because I used BartPE and I had a "magic" bootable MSDOS diskette.

I remember I also created a custom Windows NT build for a company I worked for around 1999. They had about 6 different models of Compaq workstation, and a dozen different departments. They had a disk imaging solution, rather than implement automated pxe builds. That's fine, except that nobody in the team had any "craft". Because NT isn't plug and play and each department had different software, we had about 20+ NT images, each with its own personality (ie major flaws, like hard-coded WINS servers, being already joined to a domain, old user profiles, broken software installations, old drivers). The day I joined the team, the phone rang constantly from 8am to closing time. If you walked around the building to do a desk visit, 20 people would shout at you, "hey IT guy, take a look at this PC, will you?". Coming from a hardware support background I had installed MS stuff thousands of times and got my MCSE, but Lotus Notes, Sunguard, Bloomberg and their awful VB6 apps (unpackaged collecting of dlls and instructions) had a short learning curve. After I figured that stuff out I created a single NT build with everything working perfectly. I cleaned up, defragged, ran sysprep. It used NT's hardware profiles to make the build work on any model of desktop (which just required imaging a new model, creating a profile for it and installing all the drivers. Rinse and repeat 6 times). Then I burned the highly compressed NT image along with ghost.exe onto a CD, and handed copies to the other 2 helpdesk guys. Anyone who called IT over the few weeks, regardless of their issue, got a rebuild. Result? Immediate reduction in workload. So we proactively worked through the whole company. Things were so tranquil afterwards, we could go around to department heads asking if there was any "real" IT work that needed to be done.

That one disk, man.

anthk
3 replies
16h33m

20 years ago knoppix did far more.

int_19h
1 replies
12h50m

20 years ago mounting NTFS read/write on Linux was a risky proposition.

anthk
0 replies
6h54m

You could use ntfs.sys with some wrapper, can't remember. It was almost safe.

airspresso
0 replies
11h12m

fond memories of Knoppix! Was so useful to boot into that to debug, investigate, fix.

pdntspa
0 replies
15h21m

BartPE was my god as a computer repair tech. I had a custom build with everything I ever needed on there!

Data recovery... virus removal... diagnostic tools... the works.

cuSetanta
0 replies
8h8m

For me it was Hirens BootCD. Seems like a slightly different implementation but we swore by it to fix the most awkward of issues.

cipehr
0 replies
12h56m

Oh man I remember BartPE and customizing the apps bundled with it… thanks for the memories.

fennecbutt
3 replies
16h7m

Samsung DeX.

digdugdirk
2 replies
15h30m

Is Samsung Dex able to boot/load to a standard Linux environment? Initial look at it seems interesting, but I've never really heard/seen much about it.

danlugo92
0 replies
12h25m

You can also ssh into a linux vps fwiw

vel0city
1 replies
16h39m

What I'd really love is a net boot image and remote storage that can be mounted on the fly on any computer. All I'd need is my yubikey or whatever secure identifier to connect all the pieces.l and plenty of internet.

I'm partially there with VDI tools like Parsec, but being able to leverage local hardware would also be neat.

orev
0 replies
13h43m

Bootable USB that loads iPXE, with a custom boot config that downloads the kernel and initrd from your own cloud server?

whalesalad
0 replies
12h39m

Slax

petesergeant
0 replies
16h49m

For some reason I'd assumed this was the kind of thing that the original Mac Mini would morph into, but of course I was wrong. Searching for "PC Stick" shows up some interesting options.

I would dearly love to find a use-case for this[0], which with a USB-HDMI might work almost as well

0: https://store.planetcom.co.uk/collections/gemini-pda/product...

mavili
22 replies
18h39m

This is insanely cool! Looks really slick too, even in a mobile screen.

jQuery?? I cannot imagine how difficult it is to not break this when you make the slightest change, hats off for managing with vanilla Javascript and jQuery! The best thing about React for me is to not have to worry about breaking the DOM or messing up with event handlers because some jQuery line, somewhere obscure is probably doing something funky that is really difficult to track down!

tambourine_man
14 replies
15h29m

You can easily shoot yourself in the foot with jQuery (or direct DOM manipulation for that matter), but it's not that hard not to. It just requires some discipline, like most things. React is also far from foolproof and not worth the added complexity in most cases, IMO.

smaudet
13 replies
13h36m

Convention over Configuration.

That and types. The only framework that's useful to JS is a better static type check system (and none of this lets-make-the-whole-damn-runtime-slow to support X feature, looking at you TypeScript).

devjab
5 replies
11h11m

We use a lot of typescript with a very opinionated setup on coding style and conventions, but that only goes so far when you’re dealing directly with the dom.

Because the dom is notoriously hard to work with. The internet is full of blog posts and articles talking about how slow it is as an example, but in reality adding or removing a dom node is swapping a pointers which is extremely fast. What is slow is things like “layout”. When Javascript changes something and hands control back to the browser it invokes its CSS recalc, layout, repaint and finally recomposition algorithms to redraw the screen. The layout algorithm is quite complex and it's synchronous, which makes it stupidly easy to make thing slow.

This is why the virtual dom of react “won”. Not because you can’t fuck up with it, but because it’s much harder to do so.

codethief
4 replies
9h24m

When Javascript changes something and hands control back to the browser it invokes its CSS recalc, layout, repaint and finally recomposition algorithms to redraw the screen. The layout algorithm is quite complex and it's synchronous, which makes it stupidly easy to make thing slow.

Wait, you're saying it's synchronous but what exactly is being blocked here (since you also said the JS hands back control to the browser first)?

pjc50
2 replies
9h1m

Re-layout has to complete before any more JS runs. So if you want to change two things, you get update-layout-update-layout.

wizzwizz4
1 replies
5h8m

Only if you yield to the layout engine (e.g. `await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 0))`) in between. Which, if you know you want to change two things, why would you?

devjab
0 replies
4h22m

I’m not quite sure what it is that you’re asking. When you want to show something in a browser, you go through this process: JavaScript -> style -> layout -> paint -> composite.

The browser will construct a render tree and then calculate the layout position of each element/node in a process where it’s extremely easy to run into performance issues. And since the rest of the render pipeline waits for this to conclude, it’ll lead to very poor performance. You can look into layout trashing if you’re curious.

My point is more along the lines of how you can ask a lot of frontend engineers what the render pipeline is and how it works and many won’t be able to answer. Which isn’t a huge issue, because almost everyone who does complicated frontends either use a virtual dom or exclusive hire people who do know. But for the most part, you won’t be fine with just JavaScript for massive UI projects as the person I was replying to suggested.

Dylan16807
4 replies
12h0m

and none of this lets-make-the-whole-damn-runtime-slow to support X feature, looking at you TypeScript

TypeScript runtime? I don't think the deprecated code that sets up enum objects affects anything else...

smaudet
1 replies
11h25m

Not enums. But you don't need a runtime or function mutation for that...

Particularly egregious was (is?) async/await. Upgrade your browser/runtime/don't use it you say? Sure, but first two weren't always possible, and the third isn't possible unless you thoroughly vet your dependencies (easier said than done).

"Compiling to javascript" is all well and good if you actually just compile to normal javascript, as soon as you have any code that simulates other features (classes/objects/what-have-you) you are no longer "compiling to javascript". I mean yeah sure as a sort of intermediary assembly language you are but the performance is not the same. You have a new language with a runtime overhead, that now requires you modify the "core" language to bring in new features, which results in the underlying execution engines (browsers/cpus) becoming more complicated, power hungry, etc....

Anyways, type caching is not all bad. While the TS overhead is likely responsible for the performance wins for javascript in the following chart: https://programming-language-benchmarks.vercel.app/typescrip...

The performance wins for typescript likely source from the ability of the runtime to pre-allocate and avoid type checking.

Providing the type checks without using any non-JS features (and possibly providing the runtime some heads up regarding checks to safely drop) is the ideal.

Dylan16807
0 replies
11h2m

You can disable those fallback implementations if you don't want to use them. Just use the javascript version you have available as the basis for your typescript. The option to look into the future shouldn't be treated as a negative.

And I still don't see how they make "the whole damn runtime" slow. You don't pay the cost for code that isn't using it.

Also I'm pretty sure the class implementation doesn't slow things down. It's a very simple transformation.

You have a new language with a runtime overhead, that now requires you modify the "core" language to bring in new features, which results in the underlying execution engines (browsers/cpus) becoming more complicated, power hungry, etc....

I think you have this backwards. Typescript doesn't implement new Javascript features until their addition to Javascript itself is imminent.

The only feature Typescript wants to push onto Javascript is a syntax for type annotations, because then you can remove the compilation step entirely. At which point there couldn't even be a runtime overhead.

non-JS features

To first approximation, there aren't any. The main one is the old enum syntax, which is why I brought them up.

codethief
1 replies
9h20m

I don't think the deprecated code that sets up enum objects affects anything else...

TypeScript enums are deprecated now? I mean, yeah, they aren't great and should best be avoided but the deprecation would be news to me.

See also https://stackoverflow.com/questions/70661260/are-typescript-...

Dylan16807
0 replies
8h17m

I accidentally exaggerated because it's an easy word for a legacy feature you're supposed to avoid.

solumunus
1 replies
12h26m

Curious which TS features you’re referring to?

horacemorace
0 replies
12h13m

The level of easy facilitated in part by ts on synchronous is too damn high, for one.

Intralexical
6 replies
18h24m

Oh, wow. When this came up before, I don't know if I looked at the DOM, because I assumed you would do this type of thing by drawing pixels on a Canvas. It's actually made of HTML elements? That's impressive.

Aaronmacaron
5 replies
17h44m

I too think it's very impressive but wouldn't it be even more impressive if it was made using canvas? It would mean that you would need to implement your own rendering loop and layout engine. You'd need to reimplement a lot of elements such as input fields or buttons. You get all of this for free when building on top of HTML/CSS.

MatthiasPortzel
0 replies
3h34m

It’s not performant if you’re using JavaScript APIs. But it’s also possible to write to a canvas with WebGL, which is hardware accelerated and is much faster than jQuery. I believe (although I can’t find a source for it now), that xterm.js used this strategy.

noduerme
0 replies
16h7m

You do get a lot of UI elements for free, but styling them consistently and getting them to layout properly becomes a lot more difficult.

mrBurger
0 replies
11h50m

I dunno, once you write the renderer, you essentially have no limits to worry about.

Working within the confines of HTML is way more impressive to me.

Intralexical
0 replies
16h6m

I think it would likely be more technically involved and complicated if it were made with `canvas`.

But large blobs drawing to `canvas` aren't anything new at this point. The part that impressed me is doing it the simple way, using what the browser already provides, and getting it to work this well.

divbzero
9 replies
15h21m

I guess “React makes sense for more complex UIs” is not hard-and-fast rule. jQuery, apparently, is more than enough for clean working frontend code.

omeid2
8 replies
15h11m

It is not about complex UI per se, it is about complex state. With jQuery, the State is duplicated in the DOM instead of mirrored and is very hard to keep in sync.

FpUser
3 replies
14h49m

"State is duplicated in the DOM instead of mirrored"

And the difference between duplicated and mirrored is ...

omeid2
2 replies
13h15m

Fair question.

Mirrored means when you update state, your changes are reflected in the DOM, automagically.

Duplicated means when you change state, you also have to make the changes to the DOM, yourself.

divbzero
1 replies
12h22m

Clear (mostly one-way) data binding is definitely one of React’s strengths.

It appears that Puter handles templating with a pattern like:

  let h = ``
  h += `<div>${exampleContent}</div>`
  h += `<div>${moreExampleContent}</div>`
  $(targetEl).append(h)
And handles events in the traditional way:

  $(targetEl).on('click', function () { /* do stuff */ });
Searching for “React” or “jQuery” in this thread, there are several other conversations with thoughtful comments about pros and cons. One curious tidbit that I learned is that Visual Studio Code doesn’t use a framework either and, like Puter, updates the DOM directly.

omeid2
0 replies
12h0m

The main issue is that "$(targetEl).append(h)" is not idempotent.

This might seem like a small issue on the surface but as your application grows, this either becomes a big problem or you have reinvented React, Vue, or something similar, but without the extensive testing and developer/community availability. Which is essentially what VSCode does for example, using some sort of MVP* pattern.

djbusby
1 replies
14h5m

Write state to DOM, read state from DOM.

omeid2
0 replies
13h14m

In sounds nice in theory, but in practice, it doesn't work out. The example linked is a good one, a popover, the underlying DOM disappears, but the "state" behind it remains at least a bit longer.

xorcist
0 replies
10h46m

There is no sync if the state is the DOM.

rtcoms
0 replies
12h12m

Why not use a state management library like xstate with jQuery ?

ashishb
5 replies
16h6m

The JSX syntax makes React hard to read due to multiple layers of nesting.

IMHO, Vue is superior for both maintainability and readability than React. Especially because CSS, JS anda HTML are largely in separate blocks of the same file.

benatkin
2 replies
15h35m

You can see this in that Flutter didn't copy JSX and its usability seems better.

Not that I'm confident Flutter is worth the trade-offs.

pmarreck
0 replies
15h34m

narrator:

It's not.

mightyham
0 replies
15h10m

I'm confused about what you mean by this. There's nothing about Flutter's API that encourages less nesting, In fact, it's the exact opposite. Plenty of layout and styling that takes a number of nested widgets in Flutter can be achieved using a single div in React.

noduerme
0 replies
15h31m

Arguably they should all be in external files. HTML in one, CSS in another, and Javascript to load and cache them without any embedded strings. That's how I prefer to write. For one thing, it lets me choose which things I want to cache and which I don't. I can compile from SCSS and deploy without changing any JS or HTML files. Usually my rollups are just the JS.

CharlieDigital
0 replies
15h34m

I can understand some of the benefits of JSX, but compared to Vue SFC's, it's a mess to read.

React CSS modules feel so unwieldy compared to Vue SFC's inline `scoped` CSS.

Vue's approach to templating using `v-for` and `v-if` means that you won't end up with a big block of logic mixed in with the template (you can still do it, but Vue's nature steers you away from it).

ent101
1 replies
15h55m

I'm sorry XD

pcloadletter_
0 replies
15h49m

Ha, I am not criticizing your work at all. It's nothing short of jaw-dropping.

raggi
0 replies
13h58m

Despite being asynchronous it contains a single linear schedule and two callbacks. The obvious outcome is two layered constructors, and a single top level API object with two custom events.

You couldn't describe what was going on in an equivalent functional construction of a react version unless you first head off on a diatribe about signals/hooks/state-management-disaster-du-jour, the choice of use of which would have implications to both the event handlers in some way - though they likely couldn't be in-place here, they'd have to be passed down from parent context in a giant dance of inversion of control. At runtime the outcome would likely get parsed twice (once for shadow, once for insertion) if not more times under certain compositions. Here the jquery is almost incidental, and could be quickly replaced by something else - for example want to swap out htmx here, well, just add the markers to the DOM, delete the jquery lines and you're done. You'd probably need to spend at least an hour figuring out if you could fit something independent and platform-native into your react code base, hell I've seen people burn weeks on it.

jahewson
0 replies
15h57m

Because it’s trivial?

blackoil
0 replies
15h0m

This component has no state, no data fetch or transitions. It doesn't even have any dynamic part.

isoprophlex
12 replies
11h17m

This looks amazing. Also;

Why isn't Puter built with React, Angular, Vue, etc.?

For performance reasons, Puter is built with vanilla JavaScript and jQuery. Additionally, we'd like to avoid complex abstractions and to remain in control of the entire stack, as much as possible.

Absolute boss level.

theK
11 replies
10h21m

Does this argument really still stand nowadays, with all the virtual DOM and whatnot that those frameworks bring OOB?

trashburger
5 replies
10h8m

Not sure why you're downvoted, it's a valid question (the downvote isn't an "I disagree" button). I believe the answer the Puter author came up with is that the VDOM takes away too much of the control from the author. They do make life easier but they have an abstraction cost (mental overhead) and in case of some of them performance issues (execution overhead).

zarathustreal
3 replies
9h32m

the downvote isn’t an “I disagree” button

Take it from a guy that regularly posts unpopular truths: people vote based on the way they feel after reading. It has almost nothing to do with the content.

Edit: for example, try posting a personal opinion about a controversial topic and you’ll still have people downvoting to disagree as if it’s possible to tell someone that they are in fact wrong about a statement of what their opinion on a topic is.

It’s a bit sad if you think about what voting like that means, as content is often amplified or suppressed based on votes. Echo chambers seem inevitable

isoprophlex
2 replies
9h18m

Hello! Would you like to post any opinion at all, or in any possible way mention anything about, the humanitarian situation in Gaza?

zarathustreal
0 replies
7h37m

I try to minimize posting (edit: and having) opinions most of the time, they don’t tend to generate interesting discussion (edit: and are highly limited by perspective). Kinda hard to come to a conclusion when the assertions all boil down to “this is my experience”

sam_goody
0 replies
8h24m

There is a flag button as well as the downvote.

Throwing in something about Gaza here would be off topic, political, and against HN guidelines.

sam_goody
0 replies
8h26m

the downvote isn't an "I disagree" button

Would that it were so. HN has a down/up pair, which is definitely used to express agreement and disagreement.

IMO, HN would gain a lot by allowing for more flexibility in down votes - eg. being like SO that a downvote is only a quarter of a vote.

lopis
2 replies
10h8m

I thought we're moving away from virtual DOM?

trashburger
1 replies
10h5m

Who's "we"? React is still by far the most popular framework. I personally like Solid better but I'm just one person vs. many who actively write React code.

monsieurbanana
0 replies
9h42m

With the new React 19 that changes everything once again™, I wouldn't be surprised if by React 20 or 21 they completely move away from the vdom.

Getting a compiler step seems like a first step towards that.

rakoo
0 replies
9h42m

Virtual DOM has always been about ease of programming, never about performance. Since this model has existed, all the work has been made to gain more performance but still not fast enough compared to direct DOM access.

isoprophlex
0 replies
9h49m

I'm not really writing that to stir up js framework shit, mostly just commenting on the insane dedication to ideals needed to go "fuck it i'll just use jQuery" on a project of this scope. At least, from my brainlet dev perspective, a move like this is 100% boss level.

tambourine_man
10 replies
19h5m

That warms my heart:

“ - Why isn't Puter built with React, Angular, Vue, etc.?

For performance reasons, Puter is built with vanilla JavaScript and jQuery. Additionally, we'd like to avoid complex abstractions and to remain in control of the entire stack, as much as possible.

Also partly inspired by some of our favorite projects that are not built with frameworks: VSCode, Photopea, and OnlyOffice.

- Why jQuery?

Puter interacts directly with the DOM and jQuery provides an elegant yet powerful API to manipulate the DOM, handle events, and much more. It's also fast, mature, and battle-tested.”

enriquec
8 replies
17h49m

This just tells me they don't understand why any of those things were created and how to actually use them. It won't get traction and it'll wallow and get stale since it'll be an unmaintainable project. Also, VSCode is built on Electron while Photopea and OnlyOffice are straight up painful to use.

simondotau
3 replies
17h25m

That’s a lot of smack talk for someone who didn’t provide a link to their own, even more impressive project.

This kind of reaction reminds me of people who can’t fathom why anyone would use a database without an ORM. (And meanwhile I’m confused because nearly everything I do with a database would be twice as difficult and ten times slower with an ORM in the way.)

enriquec
1 replies
15h24m

Must not be doing anything very complicated. Wheres your impressive link if thats a prerequisite for discussion? Some ORMs suck, I’ll give you that.

simondotau
0 replies
13h8m

It’s only a prerequisite if you want to belittle people and accuse them of making ignorant technology choices. (If the discussion was ORMs, I’d be delighted to have an excuse to share and promote my public projects. But my earlier aside doesn’t constitute a change of topic for this thread.)

aurareturn
0 replies
15h7m

I use Prisma and the TS typings in generates automatically have saved me countless times.

I used to hate ORMs like you. But auto generated types were the killer feature.

gertop
1 replies
15h16m

I don't know what's your benchmark to say those things?

OnlyOffice works better than LibreOffice, which is a native app.

Photopea works better than GIMP, which is a native app.

These devs clearly know what they're doing.

React and all the packages you champion were created to foster job security by introducing needless complexity and performance issues.

It would be a better world if we had more Photopeas and less Enriques

tambourine_man
0 replies
7h33m

I agree with you, but there’s no need for ad hominem

smarkov
0 replies
15h38m

Also, VSCode is built on Electron

That's not the point. The point is that it doesn't use a framework like React, Vue, etc., it instead directly creates and manipulates DOM elements, somewhat like Puter.

sgbeal
0 replies
8h57m

This just tells me they don't understand why any of those things were created...

Like very nearly all FOSS, they were created to scratch their own developers' personal itches.

... and how to actually use them.

Their itches are not the same as everyone else's itches.

tony_cannistra
0 replies
18h40m

Hell Yeah.

splatzone
3 replies
8h5m

I can't get past the menu, is it just me?

samieljabali
0 replies
7h47m

Got to use the keyboard to navigate the menu.

TrackerFF
0 replies
6h4m

worked fin here, launched a multiplayer game - everything seemed smooth.

RobotToaster
0 replies
4h5m

Not working on firefox for me.

kgeist
2 replies
11h27m

I wonder what are the security implications. I just opened a random URL and an arbitrary application was launched inside my Internet OS desktop. What if someone gives me a link to a malicious password stealer, for example? I think a permission system would be nice.

evere
0 replies
10h56m

Maybe it could be "sandboxed" in an iframe?

Intralexical
0 replies
11h9m

There is a permission system I think. It's described in the developer docs:

[…] your app will get a few things by default: […] An app directory in the user's cloud storage […] A key-value store in the user's space […]

> Apps are sandboxed by default! Apps are not able to access any […]

https://docs.puter.com/security/

I guess that refers to the cloud storage/backend. Clientside apps seem to run as IFrames, so should be subjected to normal browser sandboxing (…and actually, I guess, multiprocessing too), with only explicit message-passing.

Honestly I think the developer API could have been better highlighted by this HN post. Puter's actually doing a bit more than the Desktop Environment mockup that's visually apparent, and not featuring that seems like a wasted opportunity to pick up some app developers.

LeonM
0 replies
5h23m

Honestly blown away by this. Graphics, audio, everything just works (tm).

I've seen many 'desktop in browser' type demos over the years, but never anything like this. This is impressive on so many levels.

elwell
7 replies
17h1m

Beautiful execution! Though I'm crestfallen it has no Browser app with which to view an inception of Puter within.

pcloadletter_
2 replies
15h43m

You can do this on daedalOS https://dustinbrett.com/

edit: and obviously you can play Doom on it

smaudet
1 replies
13h30m

Are the changing colors on purpose? Noticed it has some issues browsing in firefox (so it might be broken).

DustinBrett
0 replies
2h35m

If you are referring to the background, indeed the colors change on purpose. It would be cool if that wasn't on purpose. As for browsing issues in Firefox, could you clarify the issue? If it's around using the Browser app, it is just an iframe so many sites will not load in it.

lagniappe
1 replies
16h43m

what about just a browser in general?

keepamovin
0 replies
16h13m

I want to add BrowserBox to it, which is a web browser you can embed in any web app haha! :). It will require a backend tho but it should work.

https://github.com/BrowserBox/BrowserBox

keepamovin
0 replies
16h9m

Technically you could fake it with an iframe if puter is served with the correct frame-src CSP rules. But for a full browser experience you’d need a backend and a remote browser.

OJFord
7 replies
17h44m

Super slick demo, I'm on mobile and it's impressively fast nevermind functional.

But it is 'just' a DE webapp right? From 'internet OS' here (which actually I don't think you use at TFA repo) I expected to be able to boot to it. I guess there is some other solution that would allow that, but not a package deal?

I suppose I'm just saying be careful/manage expectations with 'OS', but for what it actually is it's really cool.

lphnull
2 replies
15h3m

This reminds me of something I made once in "Macromedia" Flash back when I was 16 in like 2001ish or so.

It wasn't really an actual OS, but I managed to get a working desktop with a file browser, fake non functional web browser, and a task bar and start menu.

My flash application didn't accomplish anything, but I felt immensely proud of having been able to create a mock up of a UI, even though it was extremely kludgy and wasn't even able to read or write files in the fake applications.

...No offense to the creator though. I don't mean to compare my high school project to this one. This project is indeed very cool!

I too dream of one day inventing my own kind of spreadsheet and terminal hackery OS, so I salute this person for creating a proof of concept that looks good.

Intralexical
0 replies
13h43m

Scratch OS is where it was at.

mattl
1 replies
16h44m

Yeah “OS” really overused.

baudaux
0 replies
10h14m

But it is a great project. For a real (Unix-like) OS you can have a look to https://exaequOS.com (I am the creator)

klyrs
0 replies
15h12m

Super slick demo, I'm on mobile and it's impressively fast nevermind functional.

No kidding. As far as I've seen, it's the best open paint app on android

Intralexical
0 replies
13h44m

It's got an app store, and it seems to implement embedding, windowing, and a virtual filesystem for arbitrary apps that have been built for it. I.E., When you open "Polotno" (a graphics editor), or what appears to be VSCode, it opens in a windowed IFrame, but then going to "Save" pops up a file selection dialog controlled by Puter, which lets you create a "file" which can then be accessed by the "Open" button in any other app.

It looks like there are other integrations between the DE/OS and its apps as well, like applications being able to set their window title dynamically (E.G. based on open file/tab), and an API allowing robust support for third-party apps. If you open one of the games like Doom, you'll see that it's usually hosted on a third-party site like DOS.Zone, but according to the query string using a custom build for Puter, which presumably has modifications to integrate with the desktop environment and filesystem. Other apps are hosted on Puter.site, .

So if you treat the browser as the "hardware" (and maybe also the backend services hosting a lot of the apps), maybe you could call it an "OS" in that it abstracts and manages a single environment for multiple other programs to run simultaneously and share information with each other.

I suppose `puter.js` is what passes for its LIBC, or the syscall interface:

https://docs.puter.com/

To OP: The information on publishing third-party apps doesn't seem very discoverable. The only mention I saw is in the popup that shows the first time you launch Dev Center, and after closing that I can neither find it again nor find anything else about it on Google (other than the linked terms, and the app IFrame source, which I presume is from GoogleBot's temporary account):

https://puter.com/incentive-program-terms

whalesalad
6 replies
18h36m

This is one of the cool elements of the Synology operating system. Would be neat to see this extended further into other areas, using this as a base.

I setup a TrueNAS box for my dad recently and he was yearning for some kind of very light desktop environment for simple maintenance tasks. In hindsight I should have gotten him a Synology device.

ghostly_s
3 replies
18h32m

Are you saying Synology's DSM is based on this Puter project?

usefulcat
1 replies
17h9m

Probably not but they have had a similar web-based interface going back at least twelve years

jayknight
0 replies
15h53m

This is was more responsive than the Synology UI.

Renaud
0 replies
16h9m

DSM apparently uses Ext.js, not sure exactly which version though.

whalesalad
0 replies
12h42m

Sorry - “this” being the concept not the literal codebase.

globular-toast
0 replies
7h2m

What kind of maintenance tasks? I always found the Synology interface a bit of a pointless gimmick.

gorkaerana
6 replies
10h1m

A slightly unfortunate name for Spanish speakers, I'm afraid: "putero" can mean either "brothel" or "man who maintains sexual relations with prostitutes" [1].

Fun fact: the Mitsubishi Pajero had to be marketed as Montero in Spanish speaking markets as "pajero" is Spanish for "wanker" [2].

[1] https://dle.rae.es/putero

[2] https://dle.rae.es/pajero

Beijinger
3 replies
9h46m

Wanker is a family name in Austria. I knew a scientist who started every talk with the origins of his family name....

gorkaerana
1 replies
9h39m

Spanish also delights us with unlucky surnames. E.g., three acquaintances of my father have the family names "Feo", "Bastardo", and "Gay"; which translate, respectively, to "ugly", "bastard", and, of course, "gay".

Beijinger
0 replies
9h29m

Well, I know European Companies that wanted to expand into the US market.

One was named PMS LLC and one had a product that was named xfriend.

Both names are very memorable, but not the best choice.

Xfriend was actually a pretty good software: https://xfriend.soft112.com/

(only description, not for download anymore)

ClikeX
0 replies
9h39m

We've got Dutch people that are literally called Dick Cock.

pantulis
0 replies
3h38m

Not forgetting the case of the Seat Málaga that had to be marketed in Greece as Seat Gredos because Málaga sounded too similar to "Malaka". I'll let any fellow greek readers explain the meaning ;)

henryackerman
0 replies
9h31m

Similary, the Hyundai Kona is called the Hyundai Kauai in Portugal as "cona" literally translates to "pussy".

Languages are fun :)

1attice
6 replies
18h51m

One of the things I find curious here is that there's no mobile story to speak of. Drag the window narrow, and all that happens is that the taskbar icons look squished.

Is there a mobile mode coming?

This would be dope af if I could get a mobile-esque UI on mobile-like devices, or opt into one on tablet-like devices.

In all honesty, this is perfect for people like me (who are rarely away from a keyboard) but less than ideal for people who live a more 21st century computing lifestyle.

If this thing had a mobile mode it would be revolutionary.

As it stands, it's still definitely revolution-friendly :)

ametrau
1 replies
15h48m

What is a “mobile story”? Can you deliver some messaging in a comment story?

1attice
0 replies
12h52m

Charming.

What I mean is:

- there are strong, empirically tested usability reasons why a desktop-style UI is the pits on a mobile device

- generally, the move to mobile devices inclines to a different UI paradigm -- something finger-friendly and un-windowed (think iOS, Android, etc.)

- if there was a way that Puter could look kind of like a phone with some of the de-facto standard UI motifs and paradigms when it's on a phone, you could do cool shit like replace the Android shell with Puter, and have a pure web UI for your phone that runs web apps

- next step would be to add e.g. the ability to run Puter apps when offline, when reception is going in and out, etc. Sort of like Google Apps used to be (in Chrome)

- now you've got a cross-platform one-UI-to-rule-them-all breakout industry moment.

As it stands, Puter is already really cool, but if it turned into something that behaved a bit less like MacOS and a bit more like iOS at narrow resolutions, you'd have something that would make a lot of people very upset (and this is a good thing, they deserve to be upset)

NikolaNovak
1 replies
15h46m

Did you try it on mobile? Seems to work fine on my iPhone.

1attice
0 replies
12h57m

Yes, it works, but it looks the same.

Remember Windows CE? We've been down this road -- a windowing desktop on a phone is... hard to use, actually.

kerneldeimos
0 replies
5h58m

A proper mobile UI is something we're looking towards adding. It's been coming up in conversation more frequently lately and we'll probably announce on Discord when we start developing that.

anon373839
0 replies
11h35m

I was a little surprised to see that it doesn't have the few extra tweaks necessary to work as a PWA in fullscreen mode: a manifest, some tags in the <head>, and CSS to lock down the body to prevent unwanted pinch zooming, scrolling and other gestures (which would also benefit the in-browser use case as well).

But still, really incredible work.

peterleiser
5 replies
14h59m

Looks very cool. Am I correct that this is more like a client and that the persistence (user storage, sessions, etc) is handled by the proprietary non-open source cloud backend? Not a criticism, just trying to understand.

kerneldeimos
2 replies
6h10m

Hi, I maintain that backend (which we call a "kernel"). For now, yes this is correct. Our goal is to open-source a kernel as well. We have a couple hurdles: we need to ensure the code architecture makes productive contributions possible, and we need to make it possible to run without complex cloud infrastructure setup so that it's relatively accessible.

Seeing the reception of the newly-open-sourced desktop environment, releasing the open-source kernel is going to be a major priority. I'm personally very excited about that, and I'm happy to see that's how other people want to use Puter too.

garyrob
1 replies
1h5m

So, the cloud storage isn't a decentralized system where all users contribute disk space; rather you are providing the cloud storage in boxes you control? It seems like you must have some storage limits to prevent abuse, yes? Could you say what they are?

Also, I ran your hosting example and ended up with a static site at https://quiet-morning-9156.puter.site/. How long will that site be there? I assume not forever?

kerneldeimos
0 replies
39m

isn't a decentralized system

That's right, logically centralized and physically distributed (on our cloud infrastructure). The open-source kernel will likely include a filesystem driver for local disk instead of cloud storage (which is more convenient for self-hosting) with the option to also use cloud storage provided by puter.com.

Storage limits for puter.com start at 500MB for new users, with the ability to gain 1GB of storage by referring users (you and the user referred each get +1GB).

Static sites will be available until you decide to remove them.

willi59549879
0 replies
10h16m

it is basically a webserver written in javascript. you can clone the git repository and run the server on your pc

asveikau
0 replies
14h44m

It would be cool to self host the backend. I wouldn't want to put files on some guy's server, both from the eavesdropping angle and from the perspective that it could be abruptly shut down and lost.

pdntspa
5 replies
15h22m

I hate that these guys have to justify using jQuery. Too many of you have been seduced by all these bullshit javascript stacks that just add a seemingly infinite amount of complexity to something that is already almost too complicated.

saidinesh5
0 replies
13h48m

Does jQuery by itself offer any value these days compared to plain Javascript though?

I was under the impression jQuery was for the IE5 days where not all browsers provided the same javascript APIs and doing an xmlhttprequest was more clunky than doing a fetch() call these days.

At least for my personal Jekyll based blog, I was able to replace 40-45 lines of jQuery with 50 lines of plain Javascript and was able to get rid of 33kb of jquery dependency.

niels_bom
0 replies
9h37m

I think there are valuable positions to take in between “let’s manipulate the DOM by hand” and “React Server Components, NextJS and the kitchen sink”.

I personally think there’s great value in the pattern of reactivity where parts of your DOM update based on bits of data. Developing, designing and testing components like this becomes way simpler.

ent101
0 replies
14h1m

Yes, I've been asked why we use jQuery many times so I had to put it in the FAQ. I think we have solid reasons for it but it is controversial sometimes.

dartos
0 replies
14h1m

Ah, jQuery, that cute little artifact from web development's stone age, where manipulating the DOM directly was the height of innovation. How quaint it seems now, in the shining era of React, where state management is not just a task but, once it gets its hooks in you, evolves to a transcendent experience. To cling to jQuery is like insisting on using a typewriter in a world of voice-to-text AI, but adorably obsolete. React, with its majestic state orchestration, makes jQuery's efforts look like child's play. It's like comparing the glow of a firefly to the brilliance of a laser beam. Truly, we React devotees can only chuckle at the notion of jQuery, for we have tasted the future, and its name has and always will be React.

/s

danielovichdk
0 replies
14h6m

Amen!

RGamma
5 replies
6h32m

The circle is finally complete! Now of course you want to use a browser within puter as well: Browser in browser OS in OS in virtual machine...

It's mind boggling how far one can torture the concept of markup documents to eventually arrive at something like this... just so users don't have to install software.

oblio
2 replies
5h49m

Millions of people have been killed so that other people wouldn't have to wear itchy clothes.

Convenience is the most powerful force in humanity.

projektfu
0 replies
5h10m

Was that the merino massacre of 1887?

lukas099
0 replies
1h26m

Something to do with the Silk Road?

RobotToaster
0 replies
4h35m

Can the browser on puter run puter though?

theogravity
4 replies
19h19m

We also do a desktop in a browser, but some core differences are you can launch real browsers in our environment and essentially load any web-based app you want collaboratively. It also does screen sharing and has A/V for meetings (we are not open source though, and have a paid product):

https://www.switchboard.app/

Knowing how difficult it is to build something like this, Puter definitely deserves praise.

orliesaurus
1 replies
18h45m

what's the reason you built it?

theogravity
0 replies
18h19m

I believe the original reason was the founder wanted a way to have his guitar teacher share tabs and give A/V feedback on his guitar playing. It was originally a product for teaching with limited sharing features, then the founder realized it could be used for many other use-cases and expanded to be much more collaborative and became essentially a multi-room collaborative virtual desktop-like experience.

We use it daily for things like standups, sprint planning, all hands, operations dashboards, product roadmap discussions, dungeons and dragons sessions, watching videos together and more.

haswell
1 replies
16h50m

Was curious to check this out, but no Firefox support is a non-starter, unfortunately.

theogravity
0 replies
16h47m

Sorry about that. It should hopefully be fixed once we change our A/V stack in a few months. I unfortunately do not have specific details on why the A/V stack only works with Chrome-based browsers.

ent101
3 replies
19h5m

Welcome to my annual HN roast :')

DustinBrett
2 replies
18h42m

Is it that time of the year again already?

ent101
1 replies
18h39m

haha you feel me. We're united in vision and the roasting lol

lavrton
4 replies
11h5m

To me, Puter platform has a huge potential. And as a developer, I already have large value from it.

Using puter.js I was able to add full cloud storage for my design editor https://studio.polotno.com/ without messing up with auth, backend and databases.

samsquire
0 replies
7h20m

I like this thinking.

If someone could combine Supabase + Postgrest or Hasura with an easy visual admin dashboard for them inside this, this could be a complete easy to access, easy to deploy platform.

genuine_smiles
0 replies
6h41m

Could you elaborate on how Puter helped?

ent101
0 replies
11h2m

Thank you, Anton! Polotno is incredible. I recommend everybody to check it out!

dwilding
0 replies
5h5m

I agree, this opens up really interesting possibilities.

Here's my understanding of how it works, based on the puter.js docs [1]:

If I'm developing a frontend app that could benefit from cloud storage, I can load in puter.js as my "backend". I don't need to worry about user auth because puter.js will automatically ask the user to create an account or log in. I also don't need to worry about managing & paying for cloud storage because puter.js will take care of that on a user-by-user basis - including asking the user for payment if they go over their free limits.

I haven't actually used puter.js yet. But if I understand correctly, this could be a really powerful model. As the developer of a niche app whose purpose is not to bring in revenue, puter.js seems like a very reasonable way to pass on cloud storage costs to end users, while also reducing development effort!

[1] https://docs.puter.com/

throwaway11460
3 replies
8h55m

Anybody remembers the original (not Apple) iCloud web desktop?

Or EyeOS?

1oooqooq
1 replies
8h39m

this is more in line with webOS, from palm. still lives in LG tvs. i mean, the front end of it.

the back end of it would be a much better option than eletron apps btw. but they were too early to the container age, since the paradigm was syscalls proxies

throwaway11460
0 replies
5h29m

Why do you think so? It seems to be exactly what eyeOS was - especially given the enterprise use cases the author listed.

nhanhi
0 replies
4h8m

I used to mess with EyeOS a lot back in the day - same thing, and although I enjoyed it, I suspect the utility will be just as limited.

blintz
3 replies
18h27m

This is such a neat idea, and you get the gist of it from just the screenshot. I wonder what kinds of 'integration' you could do (clipboard, opening links, drag-and-drop, etc). I could see this as an educational tool for doing development on a Chromebook, because of the (emulated) terminal + filesystem.

AlexCoventry
1 replies
17h46m

Chrome OS has a developer mode which runs debian in a virtual machine, FWIW.

danans
0 replies
11h55m

Technically it's not developer mode , it's just a regular feature of the OS. "Developer Mode" on ChromeOS is when you remove boot verification for ChromeOS itself.

DustinBrett
0 replies
18h22m

Indeed the modern Web API's can do all that and more. One of my favorites is dragging out of the browser onto the desktop. Another is ctrl+c'ing a file on the real desktop and then ctrl+v'ing it into the "fake" one. Some super powers sadly are locked away in the need for a PWA, but I think they could one day just be part of what any site can do.

willguest
2 replies
19h17m

I've been looking an OS for a VR computer (i.e. simulated but functional workstation). This should work very well :)

ent101
1 replies
19h12m

I've tested Puter on Oculus, seems to work pretty well; however, I think very soon I'm going to do very specific optimizations for XR, it's a new, emerging form factor that deserves its own design.

willguest
0 replies
18h42m

I don't mean in a browser on a VR headset, I mean on a texture on a game asset in a Unity scene in a Webxr space in a browser on a headset.

This way you have the experience of sitting in front of your computer while wearing a VR headset anywhere in the world.

koukides
2 replies
14h30m

Love it!! I own the domain internet.inc that would be perfect for this - want to use it??

MH15
1 replies
14h29m

Woah that's a crazy domain. Worth a lot. Love your parking page!

koukides
0 replies
14h14m

It's for sale, email me :)

firstbabylonian
2 replies
19h33m

For performance reasons, Puter is built with vanilla JavaScript and jQuery.

jQuery is overdue for a comeback.

noduerme
0 replies
15h40m

It never really went away for me. I still reach for it in every web app. Over time, I've stopped using some parts of it that used to be timesavers... e.g. shifting away from $.ajax calls to fetch, but it's a good base for rolling your own responsive frameworks if that's what you want to do. And it's what I want to do, because I dislike the paradigms for react and vue, and have no interest in relying on those projects.

enriquec
0 replies
17h53m

could not disagree more. That statement alone makes me completely lose any consideration for this entire project.

boomskats
2 replies
18h53m

I got carried away for ages with this. I was installing extensions in VSCode and got confused when it wouldn't open a link to a repo in a little browserception, because by that point I was fully expecting it to.

Really nicely done.

ent101
1 replies
17h55m

Thank you! As a side note, we're open-sourcing the VSCode integration soon. Building an integration with VSCode takes quite a bit of work so hopefully the community will benefit.

mjburgess
0 replies
10h48m

Are you aware of Theia IDE?

I've been using this as a way of quickly putting a UI over an EC2 instance.

Could you advise on how you'd do the equivalent here? Eg., say I want to provide an EC2 machine with various packages installed (python, node,...) -- or, the equivalent docker image -- is there a way of using your UI to provide access to this?

Consider, eg., using an iPad with your UI in a browser. Could you advise a way that this could provide a complete development experience for datasci/seng? (As above, i'm using theia to do this in a quick-and-disposable way).

arcastroe
2 replies
14h18m

Inside the OS, there's a game called Danger Cross, which seems very similar to crossy roads. Did the Puter developer essentially reimplement crossy road? Or was there some open source version already existing could somehow run on this "OS" ? Briefly searching google for Danger Cross didn't yield any results.

kerneldeimos
0 replies
45m

Many of the apps are user-submitted apps from puter.com

diggan
0 replies
6h21m

Never played Crossy Roads so I don't know the full extent of what gameplay features there are, but from looking at screenshots, looks like the gameplay code could be done relatively quickly (like some days at max), so doesn't seem out of the question that it's a full re-implementation.

Crossy Roads looks like another clone of Frogger, and clones of that game have been done since the 80s.

yu3zhou4
1 replies
19h38m

Really nice execution! Thanks for sharing

ent101
0 replies
19h35m

Thank you very much! Glad you liked it :)

thomasfl
1 replies
4h52m

If anyone was in doubt; jQuery is not dead. For anyone who wants to write minimalistic and efficient vanilla javascript, jQuery is still being maintained and used by many.

kilroy123
0 replies
4h16m

Can confirm. I just started down the long, arduous journey of building a complex browser extension.

For the first time in like a decade, I added and am using jQuery.

Honestly, I only thought to do after reading about the upcoming version 4.

sn0n
1 replies
13h44m

Are you the MS guy with a YouTube channel who's website is basically this? Can't recall the channel right now though.

DustinBrett
0 replies
2h33m

That would be me, the other guy in Vancouver making a web desktop. :-)

Thanks for the mention https://www.youtube.com/@DustinBrett

simon_acca
1 replies
19h5m

The experience of making and publishing websites and apps from within puter is sobering for how simple it is. Something to aspire to

danlugo92
0 replies
12h23m

Can you post a tldr here please...?

sgbeal
1 replies
9h5m

It's all fun and games until we reflexively hit ctrl-w to close a virtual window and end up closing the browser tab that window is running in :/.

diggan
0 replies
6h24m

Definitely a `window.onbeforeunload = () => "Are you sure you want to close this browser tab"` missing, or override the keyboard input completely, so it doesn't try to close the tab.

Same problem exists for all browser shortcuts inside the OS.

redbell
1 replies
18h39m

Ah, Puter! That fascinating project surfaced on HN about a year ago, claiming the top spot for most of the day. I'm delighted to witness its transition to open source, allowing us to glean insights from the creator. Gracias for sharing!

The emergence of such front-end projects provides a profound glimpse into the maturation of front-end development and showcasing the incredible possibilities it offers today.

Another really cool project, somehow related, is DaedalOS [2].

Honorable mention, Windows 11 in Svelte [3]

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33838179

2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38830132 & https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29779753

3.https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35896505

DustinBrett
0 replies
18h36m

Thanks for the mention for daedalOS! I agree that when done well these projects can help demonstrate the maturity of the web as a platform. For anyone interested in checking out mine, it's on my personal website @ https://dustinbrett.com/

lovestaco
1 replies
11h23m

Pretty slick

geek_at
0 replies
11h15m

Kind of reminds me of EyeOS [1] I was using it heavily in 2005. Mindblowing experience at the age of Windows XP

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

jaequery
1 replies
9h7m

jQuery? :D

it's true, coding was easy with jQuery ...

ent101
0 replies
9h7m

username checks out :D

dlivingston
1 replies
1h31m

I just want to point out how clean and pleasant to read this codebase is. I'm starting to learn JavaScript, coming from a background of systems programming, and I bookmarked this codebase just as a benchmark example of what good JS code looks like.

ent101
0 replies
1h23m

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it. Follow along on Github, we're a friendly community and open to contributors with all levels of JS experience :)

Razengan
1 replies
13h52m

Not to detract from the coolness of this, but I wish new OSes dabbled in new GUIs as well.

Experimental operating systems seem to be dime a dozen by now, but we almost never see experimental GUIs or entirely new "desktop environments".

Just as how almost every "new" programming language is still stuck with semicolons and other C-isms that were ancient back when the Egyptians were laying down the pyramids, we're still stuck with either imitating the macOS GUI or the Windows GUI, or some weird Frankenstein's bastard of the two.

iOS, Android, consoles, and most recently the Vision Pro have proven that eschewing longstanding conventions can be successful — for example the vast majority of people on this planet don't need or care about scrollbars (or even menubars) anymore.

So why aren't the creators of experimental OSes being more experimental with the frontend? Come on guys, none but the nerds among us will be impressed with how it's made behind the scenes. The first impression that most people will get is that's just Yet Another WinMac-Looklike.

kerneldeimos
0 replies
5h26m

As an avid user of i3wm, the "YAWML" that you described isn't my favorite. The good news is we're working on architectural changes that will make it easier to develop alternative desktop environments that use the same APIs. I have a daily video chat with the author and the topic of custom guis is something that comes up pretty often.

Kalanos
1 replies
5h39m

Love it!

It would be nice if `~` was mapped to home directory (e.g. `cd ~/Desktop`)

Hard to resize windows. If I want to grab the right edge there is only 1 pixel to work with.

When printing with `cat` from terminal, it would be nice if there was a new line at the end of the text. The prompt shows up on the same line as cat's output.

Copy-paste from clipboard into puter instance.

How do I get python on here?

kerneldeimos
0 replies
4h55m

We have a separate repo where you can submit issues related to the shell: https://github.com/HeyPuter/phoenix/issues

If a file doesn't have a newline at the end then `cat` will immediately start writing the prompt after the last line; this is the same behavior you'd expect from sh or bash. We might later improve this by having a "no newline"-indicator in the promptline instead.

waldrews
0 replies
15h30m

Curious how AGPL would apply for something like this. This seems like a tool to put a nice front end on a complex app, but would that trigger copyleft for the the overall backend?

ulrischa
0 replies
9h21m

Make JQuery great again

thatgerhard
0 replies
8h52m

What is this used for?

tcgv
0 replies
3h38m

Interesting to see that it's written more "low level": vanilla JS and jQuery (nostalgia kicks in). I guess it's analogous to why linux/windows kernels are still written in C language.

stochastimus
0 replies
3h14m

Thanks for this, OP. This is why I come here.

soloknight
0 replies
12h4m

This is soo freaking amazing !! What a legend

qiqitori
0 replies
18h41m

Love it! I liked the Solitaire implementation. The terminal seems very lacking, "ls" worked but e.g. "ls *" or the "find" command didn't work.

mouzogu
0 replies
10h49m

"Puter is built with vanilla JavaScript and jQuery"

respect.

mixmastamyk
0 replies
19h27m

Looks awesome. I'm thinking about building a niche CMS soon, could this be an interface to it? Mentions cloud applications.

Seems like it might confuse normal folks though—a desktop in a browser. What do y'all think?

maxloh
0 replies
15h51m

In case you wonder about the purpose of the project like I did, here's the explanation in README:

It can be used to build remote desktop environments or serve as an interface for cloud storage services, remote servers, web hosting platforms, and more.
mattl
0 replies
19h21m

Congrats on getting this out there. Looks slick. I’ll take a look tomorrow when I’m back at a computer with a larger screen.

marcinioski
0 replies
6h30m

I've spent whole yesterday evening for finding something like this. Great work!

kwhitefoot
0 replies
7h43m

I tried running it locally and connecting to it with Firefox but it just gives me a log in dialog and trying to create an account fails. With Vivaldi creating an account works.

But where is this account created? Ah,just got an email that includes a link to puter.com so this created an account on a remote server. So it's not quite as local as advertised.

jethro_tell
0 replies
19h29m

The docs say a this can be used for remote access to servers and workstations.

How does it handle things like privilege escalation and sandboxing?

I'm assuming you mean remote access for a user account like a terminal server as opposed to server management.

Is that the case?

indigodaddy
0 replies
17h17m

What’s the “publish as website” thingy/functionality all about?

ijxjdffnkkpp
0 replies
18h33m

You used the AGPL! Glorious! I commend and salute your efforts. Thank you for your contribution!

eisbaw
0 replies
5h46m

I still don't get the appeal. Why would you want this again?

codeonline
0 replies
14h13m

I just wanted to say well done. I wish other eco systems were this open, hackable and understandable.

anonzzzies
0 replies
9h28m

Possible to write our own window manager? I guess just diving into the code, but that would make it very hackable of course. And fun.

Th3Alt3r
0 replies
14h44m

Very cool, LFG!!!!!!

Solvency
0 replies
18h5m

I love how this is done with jQuery. And it'll be obvious to literally anyone whose ever used jQuery (and is a good designer) how perfectly suitable and in many ways superior jQuery would be for something like this. But 98% of developers will absolutely balk at this in horror/confusion/wonder, despite the fact that the React/Angular DIYs they'd make would be bloated and outrageously slow.

Jemm
0 replies
4h54m

Been looking for something like this for use with a VR headset for coding.

GMoromisato
0 replies
17h20m

This is really cool--I've played with a lot of these online desktops, but this is by far the slickest.

As someone who is doing something similar (https://gridwhale.com), I'd love to know what your goals were. Did you ever try to commercialize it? If not, why not? If yes, what happened?

FpUser
0 replies
14h51m

Beautiful work. Much appreciated

DustinBrett
0 replies
18h39m

Great to see you finally got it open sourced, congrats!

BMSR
0 replies
4h57m

First thing I tried was checking if I could use it to share images. Which would be a nice way to organize what I share in folders. But apparently it can only be opened inside Puter itself, and it asks the user if they want to download it.

0xDeveloper
0 replies
5h44m

I used it, I loved it!

But why would someone use it?