A native graphical shell for SSH

#1

Post by mrcslws » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 3:42 PM UTC

A native graphical shell for SSH
probablymarcus.com

Re: A native graphical shell for SSH

#2

Post by toenail » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 4:36 PM UTC

Interesting, kind of like a more fancy web shell. Haven't really ever seen the need for those, mostly because terminals work better than browsers.

Re: A native graphical shell for SSH

#3

Post by supertroop » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 4:37 PM UTC

Defeats the purpose of the shell. The shell is for CLI interaction.

Re: A native graphical shell for SSH

#4

Post by akshayKMR » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

This is cool. Though I don't see why someone would want to do more work/design for the custom GUI rendering for a custom/renderer (your viewer app) ?

Re: A native graphical shell for SSH

#5

Post by metalliqaz » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

supertroop wrote: post #3

Defeats the purpose of the shell. The shell is for CLI interaction.

command line shell vs graphical shell. My first experience with a graphical shell was dosshell[1]. For a while we called the Windows 3.1 interface "the shell". I guess the terminology has changed since that time.

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

Re: A native graphical shell for SSH

#6

Post by arnefm » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

Heresy!

Re: A native graphical shell for SSH

#7

Post by hnlmorg » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

supertroop wrote: post #3

Defeats the purpose of the shell. The shell is for CLI interaction.

No. A shell is any user interface. Windows shell is explorer.exe and it used to be possible to change that via a config line in a system INI file.

SSH protocol also isn’t just for CLI work. It supports file transport (eg SFTP), TCP/IP forwarding and even SOCKS HTTP proxying.

You also used to be able to run GUI applications over SSH via X11.

Re: A native graphical shell for SSH

#8

Post by torm » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

I can’t make up my mind if I love it or hate it. On one hand this is like SSHapi on the other there’s no structure, no contract… i had similar doubts with Cockpit.

Re: A native graphical shell for SSH

#9

Post by supertroop » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

hnlmorg wrote: post #7

supertroop wrote: post #3

Defeats the purpose of the shell. The shell is for CLI interaction.

No. A shell is any user interface. Windows shell is explorer.exe and it used to be possible to change that via a config line in a system INI file. SSH protocol also isn’t just for CLI work. It supports file transport (eg SFTP), TCP/IP forwarding and even SOCKS HTTP proxying. You also used to be able to run GUI applications over SSH via X11.

You have a very loose definition of a shell that conflicts with about 40 years of history.

Re: A native graphical shell for SSH

#10

Post by tom1337890 » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 4:56 PM UTC

Lovely video and ingenious implementation. Kudos!

As someone managing various servers, both at home and at work, I see how this can be really useful. I see it not in the production space yet but rather in the experimenting, using a Linux machine as a second compute device!

So regarding your last point, I'm convinced. I think it is useful! The one fact that is bugging me is that now it requires a client specific app, with GUI, on my PC and I wonder if using ssh port forwarding could reduce the surface. I mean I wonder if either having a rich client that executes commands via ssh or a rich server (including Web Server) with ssh port wouldn't suffice, so that I can avoid installing stuff on the server AND on my computer.