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Boot a linux kernel right inside your browser.

bellard.org

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Re: Boot a linux kernel right inside your browser.

#131

Post by ctdonath »

nl wrote: post #34
jbk wrote: post #16

After FFmpeg (used in all your TVs and gadgets, very likely), QEmu (used also by Xen and VBox and other), tcc and his IOCC entries, the DVB-T emission with an ATI card, Fabrice comes, once again with something crazy... He is really impressive...

Take a look at his IOCCC entry in 2001/02: OTCC is an Obfuscated Tiny C Compiler for i386-linux. It generates FAST! i386 32 bit code (no bytecode) and it is powerful enough to compile itself. OTCC supports a strict subset of C. This subset is compilable by a standard ANSI C compiler. OTCC compiles, assembles, links and runs C code without the need of any other program. http://www0.us.ioccc.org/2001/bellard.hint (Note…

Whatever happened to IOCCC? Last update was they announced an announcement due a year ago; nothing since.

Re: Boot a linux kernel right inside your browser.

#132

Post by ctdonath »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #77
jbk wrote: post #16

After FFmpeg (used in all your TVs and gadgets, very likely), QEmu (used also by Xen and VBox and other), tcc and his IOCC entries, the DVB-T emission with an ATI card, Fabrice comes, once again with something crazy... He is really impressive...

Searching for "tcc" and "tcc unix" returns nothing helpful. Searching for "IOCC" returns nothing, and "IOCC Fabrice" returns a site that is caching HN in realtime, and it's your post. Any help?

It's IOCCC. He's Bellard.

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:ioccc.org+bellard

Re: Boot a linux kernel right inside your browser.

#134

Post by cygwin98 »

shii wrote: post #57
jbk wrote: post #16

After FFmpeg (used in all your TVs and gadgets, very likely), QEmu (used also by Xen and VBox and other), tcc and his IOCC entries, the DVB-T emission with an ATI card, Fabrice comes, once again with something crazy... He is really impressive...

So pg was wrong, the greatest hackers don't use Lisp, they write in (and invent) obscure versions of C all day.

Great hackers can use whatever languages/tools they like. The fact that they're being great is not the consequence of the tools they chose, but of the masterpiece work they achieved.

I am always fond of such an analogy: in terms of efficiency, the greatest hackers has an algorithmic complexity of O(1); meanwhile, the majority of us may be O(n), if you can manage to get a O(log n) you can make into the club of good hackers. The tools, be it OS, programming languages, etc, are only a constant coefficient to that complexity, i.e., they can make you noticeably more efficient, but they won't improve your "greatness".

Re: Boot a linux kernel right inside your browser.

#135

Post by vixen99 »

StavrosK wrote: post #72
jbk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And still, he has normal job in a normal company... Not in a start-up or not in a mega-tech-corp...

I would think he'd be a patent office clerk...

But do you think he'd be passed over for promotion until he 'fully mastered machine technology'?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein

Re: Boot a linux kernel right inside your browser.

#136

Post by smallhands »

atakan_gurkan wrote: post #112
vessenes wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any Macarthur Grant folks floating around here? Take note! That's an impressive resume.

According to the Wikipedia page, you need to be a US citizen or resident to be eligible. He seems to be residing in France and I doubt he has a US citizenship. Otherwise, he definitely fits the bill.

damn it they should take mine and give it to this guy . i just can not believe what my browser can do . what the f k!

Re: Boot a linux kernel right inside your browser.

#137

Post by bhoung »

starwed wrote: post #96
wladimir wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, this is completely awesome. I first thought it was some remotely hosted virtual machine, but it really runs inside the browser. Insane! Especially considered how fast it is. When he adds X, we can run Firefox inside Linux inside Firefox inside Linux :') Edit: seems the terminal emulator supports ANSI escape codes such as the 16 Linux colors, but not the XTerm 256 color mode (\e[38;5;CCm) or Konsole 24 bit (\e…

Interestingly, you can run Firefox inside of Firefox... just enter the url: chrome://browser/content/browser.xul

why??

Re: Boot a linux kernel right inside your browser.

#138

Post by dcposch »

SomeIdiot wrote: post #109

So any interesting ideas for what this can be used for?

It might be useful for CS education.

I have a bit of experience with this as a course helper in the introductory (CS106 series) CS classes at Stanford.

I think it could be a very cool platform for assignments in CS107 (where students are introduced to Unix and C programming) or CS110/CS140 (the core OS classes).

Instead of ssh-ing into a locked-down cluster computer, students could boot a machine in their browser and get root access. No setup, no configuration. Everyone gets an identical setup, which would be really nice for the people making the assignments. The main thing people would need is a way to save files to a persistent disk. Maybe a filesystem driver could be added that uses HTML5 Local Storage, or talks to a web service running on the class website?

Incidentally, students in CS140 are already using Fabrice Bellard's software. You write most of a very simple Unix kernel, testing and running it in QEMU.

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