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Essence: Desktop operating system built from scratch

nakst.gitlab.io

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Re: Essence: Desktop operating system built from scratch

#161

Post by amelius »

Sunspark wrote: post #95
licnep wrote: post #45

This is insane, I can't imagine how much work went into it. I had a similar idea as a kid, I was pissed at all the bloat consuming my cpu and ram on windows so I wanted to build my own os that would run a single app taking advantage of 100% of the hardware. I learned some assembly and managed to create a bootable floppy disk, then quickly gave up, realizing how much work a functioning os would take...

It's a lot of work. One guy pulled it off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TempleOS

Does anyone use it?

Re: Essence: Desktop operating system built from scratch

#162

Post by foxfluff »

zoom6628 wrote: post #99
thom wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the state of the art for file systems in the age of M2 drives that are bonkers fast? I dunno about everyone else, but knowing hierarchically where my disk space is going is a really common concern.

Good point but likewise one has to wonder why the need for folder hierarchies anyway. With bonkers fast disks and cpus the organising of files should be able to be dynamic and driven by some form of metadata and tags rather than static tree structures. The web doesn’t first require you to define a structure before search so why should a desktop?

On a related note, why a filesystem and not a database? I get the feeling that a filesystem ultimately is just a .. poor man's database. Except that it's quite crappy and there are no proper transactions, many things are impossible without TOCTOUs, many a bug (including security ones) have been due to race conditions around filesystem operations.

I guess path->{metadata,data} with no transactions is a simple abstraction, as with so many other simple abstractions, it just bites you when you try to build anything nontrivial. Then you need to switch to a real solution. Just as people sometimes start with a bunch of shell scripts before they recoil in horror and realize that they should've started with a real programming language.

Re: Essence: Desktop operating system built from scratch

#163

Post by ksec »

nsonha wrote: post #138
codeonline wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a learning exercise As a labor of love To scratch an itch To explore an idea Many reasons

that is fine, but one these projects cross some point, the creators have the tendency to forget their motivation being selfish in the first place, and try to promote their creation as if what they had in mind was to solve problem for other people.

Selfish? Seriously, what are you talking about?

Re: Essence: Desktop operating system built from scratch

#164

Post by OJFord »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #158
reedciccio wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like beOS/Haiku does! Metadata and dynamic grouping of files + search is an amazing concept

Interesting. Sounds like Gmail’s labels vs everyone else’s folders. I wonder if it is a patent holding things back.

No, Fastmail uses labels, and is also the org behind JMAP, which uses them natively. Folders are so common in email because that's built-in to IMAP.

Re: Essence: Desktop operating system built from scratch

#165

Post by ksec »

abnercoimbre wrote: post #79

If you want a fleshed out demo [0], we had the author present at our conference recently. Worth a watch. [0] https://media.handmade-seattle.com/essence/

I just watched the video and noticed the whole Vector based UI.

I know there are Vector based icons and graphics set in other OS or Desktop Environment, but is this the first time the whole UI being Vector based? Lots of interesting thoughts and experiment in modern day Vector UI capabilities.

Re: Essence: Desktop operating system built from scratch

#166

Post by digitalsankhara »

squarefoot wrote: post #131
the_biot wrote: post #25

This is an amazing piece of work, but it's clearly a labor of love: this isn't going to have any real-world use any time soon. Where operating systems are headed is more towards security (process isolation, bulletproof input etc), not lightweight GUIs on top of thin kernels like this. Are there any passion (or other) projects that explore this? I know about Qubes, but that's more like a heavy layer on top of a heavy…

> this isn't going to have any real-world use any time soon. If it was ported to ARM and had a decent GUI interface builder, it could become a killer OS for making interface panels for appliances. Some manufacturers are repurposing Android for this task, however this forces them to use much powerful hardware, and their UX is still laggy.

Agreed. I do think there is plenty of real-world application for Essence. I have some professional experience in this space (forth, embedded SBCs, micros) and a number of times designs got rejected on production costs because of the need to have hardware specified to the needs of the OS/GUI and not the small control program running in tens of KB of memory.

On first glance, Essence looks like it makes efficient use of hardware resources and, as you say, an ARM port makes sense. I can visualise an OS version of web packer type tools where you rollup your app/gui and just enough OS to run them on the target. I can say that people who I've worked for would pay good money for that sort of kit. Not suggesting closed source, but in terms of the usual caveat to management - paid support, open source longevity etc.

Re: Essence: Desktop operating system built from scratch

#167

Post by Lammy »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #12

So first off: Very cool. Amazingly polished, and self-hosting! Especially since it looks to be an actually-independent project with POSIX as an optional compat layer. I feel like the features that are unique are mostly in 3 groups: 1. Features that shouldn't be unique to this system. Tabbed windows have occasionally happened on other systems, and probably should become more common, and there's no reason it shouldn't…

RE: tabbed windows, try Stardock's "Groupy" if you're on Windows: https://www.stardock.com/products/groupy/

This was going to be built in to Windows 10 v1903 as "Sets" but it got pulled: https://www.howtogeek.com/352109/how-to-use-sets-in-windows-...

Re: Essence: Desktop operating system built from scratch

#168

Post by kevincox »

jbverschoor wrote: post #87

Very cool. Nice that it runs without all the processes... But that will come at a certain point haha. I like that they implemented composing tabs between different applications. This is the way I try to organize work/projecta/projectb/personal use, but it never works with current osses. Spaces in macOS is actually kind of useless, because certain applications have windows across screens (finder, chrome). Tabbed Finde…

> Tabbed Finder windows are the most useless thing ever..

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I had to switch off of Nautilus because it kept trying to make me open things in new tabs instead of new windows. The thing is that I don't use the file manager much and 9/10 times I want to open directories is because I want to move files between them or less often visually compare which doesn't work well with tabs.

Re: Essence: Desktop operating system built from scratch

#170

Post by gjvc »

nsonha wrote: post #138
codeonline wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a learning exercise As a labor of love To scratch an itch To explore an idea Many reasons

that is fine, but one these projects cross some point, the creators have the tendency to forget their motivation being selfish in the first place, and try to promote their creation as if what they had in mind was to solve problem for other people.

That's exactly right -- they put the work in to fix the problem they had in mind.
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