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JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

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Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#131

Post by dang »

bakugo wrote: post #52
simonw wrote: post #19

The thing I most want to use this (or some other WASM Linux engine) for is running a coding agent against a virtual operating system directly in my browser. Claude Code / Codex CLI / etc are all great because they know how to drive Bash and other Linux tools. The browser is probably the best sandbox we have. Being able to run an agent loop against a WebAssembly Linux would be a very cool trick. I had a play with v86…

[flagged]

Please don't cross into personal attack on this site. We ban accounts that do that, and you've unfortunately done it repeatedly in this thread. Current comment was the worst case of this by far, but https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47317411, for example, is also on the wrong side of the line.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#132

Post by dang »

jraph wrote: post #26
simonw wrote: post #19

The thing I most want to use this (or some other WASM Linux engine) for is running a coding agent against a virtual operating system directly in my browser. Claude Code / Codex CLI / etc are all great because they know how to drive Bash and other Linux tools. The browser is probably the best sandbox we have. Being able to run an agent loop against a WebAssembly Linux would be a very cool trick. I had a play with v86…

Simon, this HN post didn't need to be about Gen AI. This thing is really inescapable those days.

It's normal for HN to be preoccupied with the major technical trend of the moment, and this is unquestionably the biggest technical trend in many years.

People can argue about where to insert it in the list, but it is certainly in the top 5 of many decades (smartphones, web, PCs, etc.) That's why it's inescapable.

Your complaint isn't really about simonw's comment, but rather the fact that it was heavily upvoted - in other words, you were dissenting from the community reaction to the comment. That's understandable; in fact it's a fundamental problem with forums and upvoting systems: the same few massive topics suck in all the smaller ones until we get one big ball of topic mud: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#133

Post by latexr »

fsloth wrote: post #127
latexr wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean I don’t have to remember the horrible git command line anymore Every time I see a comment like this, I have to wonder what the heck other devs were doing. Don’t you know there were shell aliases, and snippet managers, and a ton of other tools already? I never had to commit special commands to memory, and I could always reference them faster than it takes to query any LLM.

You do realize it does not help _me_ at all if _you_ have found your perfect custom setup. Because it’s custom there is no standard curriculum you could point me to etc. So it’s great you’ve found a setup that works for you but I hope you realize it’s silly to become idignant I don’t share it.

The point I’m making is there are tons of solutions. Deterministic, fast, low-energy, customisable. Which is why I said “I have to wonder what the heck other devs were doing”. As in, have you never looked for a solution to your frustration? Hard to believe there was nothing out there before which wouldn’t have improved your Git command-line experience. Like, say, one of the myriad GUI tools which exist.

> Because it’s custom there is no standard curriculum you could point me to etc.

Not true. There are tons of resources out there not only explaining the solutions but even how different people use them and why.

If I sat with you for ten minutes and you explained me the exact difficulties you have, I doubt I couldn’t have suggested something.

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#134

Post by dang »

stavros wrote: post #55
simonw wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parallel thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47311484#47312829 - "I've always been fascinated by this, but I have never known what it would be useful for." I should have replied there instead, my mistake.

I don't know man, I didn't see anyone say "this post didn't need to be about ", HN has just become allergic to LLMs lately. I'm excited about them and I think discussion on how to combine two exciting technologies are exactly what I'd like to see here.

> HN has just become allergic to LLMs lately.

It's very much a bimodal distribution: an enthusiast subset and an allergic subset. It's impossible to satisfy both, but that's the dynamic of HN anyhow: guaranteed to dissatisfy everybody! It's a strange game; the only to win is to complain.

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#135

Post by fsloth »

latexr wrote: post #133
fsloth wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize it does not help _me_ at all if _you_ have found your perfect custom setup. Because it’s custom there is no standard curriculum you could point me to etc. So it’s great you’ve found a setup that works for you but I hope you realize it’s silly to become idignant I don’t share it.

The point I’m making is there are tons of solutions. Deterministic, fast, low-energy, customisable. Which is why I said “I have to wonder what the heck other devs were doing”. As in, have you never looked for a solution to your frustration? Hard to believe there was nothing out there before which wouldn’t have improved your Git command-line experience. Like, say, one of the myriad GUI tools which exist. > Because it’…

I use a git gui :)

So the only time I need terminal, it’s for something non-obvious.

”There are tons of resources”

This is not a standard curriculum as such though.

I’ve tried to come to terms with posix for 25 years and am so happy I don’t need to anymore. That’s just me!

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#136

Post by stavros »

dang wrote: post #134
stavros wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know man, I didn't see anyone say "this post didn't need to be about ", HN has just become allergic to LLMs lately. I'm excited about them and I think discussion on how to combine two exciting technologies are exactly what I'd like to see here.

> HN has just become allergic to LLMs lately. It's very much a bimodal distribution: an enthusiast subset and an allergic subset. It's impossible to satisfy both, but that's the dynamic of HN anyhow: guaranteed to dissatisfy everybody! It's a strange game; the only to win is to complain.

Yeah, but I don't know, a bit more intellectual curiosity would be good. Ah well, what can you do.

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#138

Post by repstosb »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #128
repstosb wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing I most want to use this (or some other WASM Linux engine) for is running a coding agent against a virtual operating system directly in my browser. Well, there it is, the dumbest thing I'll read on the internet all week. Most of the engineering in Linux revolves around efficiently managing hardware interfaces to build up higher-level primitives, upon which your browser builds even higher-level primitives,…

> I'll bet you can't name a single advantage such a system would have over cloud hosting or a local Docker instance. Cheaper than renting a server, more isolated than a container.

But Docker is free (unless you're a fairly large business, in which case containerd is still free, and you can either pay for the front-end license or figure out how to set up one of the free alternatives), and from what perspective are the isolations available for the containerd process inferior to those available for your browser process? The former was at least designed from the ground up with security, auditing, quotas etc. in mind, and offers better per-container granular control than your browser offers per-tab.

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#139

Post by repstosb »

simonw wrote: post #119
repstosb wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing I most want to use this (or some other WASM Linux engine) for is running a coding agent against a virtual operating system directly in my browser. Well, there it is, the dumbest thing I'll read on the internet all week. Most of the engineering in Linux revolves around efficiently managing hardware interfaces to build up higher-level primitives, upon which your browser builds even higher-level primitives,…

> Well, there it is, the dumbest thing I'll read on the internet all week. Rude. In case you're open to learning, here's why I think this is useful. The big lesson we've learned from Claude Code, Codex CLI et al over the past twelve months is that the most useful tool you can provide to an LLM is Bash. Last year there was enormous buzz around MCP - Model Context Protocol. The idea was to provide a standard for wiring…

I agree, bash, sed, etc. are great, but a VM running inside a browser seems like the least efficient way to access them. Even if you're stuck on Windows, Cygwin has been a thing for 30 years now, and WSL for ten or so? There should be plenty of ways to set up a sandbox without having the simulate an entire machine.

It sounds like what you're really trying to recreate is the Software Tools movement from 50 years ago, where there was a push to port the UNIX/BTL utilities to the widest possible variety of systems to establish a common programming and data manipulation environment. It was arguably successful in getting good ports available just about anywhere, evolving into GNU, etc., but it never really reached its apotheosis. That style of clear, easy-to-read-and-write software was still largely killed off by a few big industry players pushing a narrative that "enterprise" has to mean relational databases and distributed objects. It would be FASCINATING if AI coding agents are the force that brings it back.

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#140

Post by simonw »

repstosb wrote: post #139
simonw wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, there it is, the dumbest thing I'll read on the internet all week. Rude. In case you're open to learning, here's why I think this is useful. The big lesson we've learned from Claude Code, Codex CLI et al over the past twelve months is that the most useful tool you can provide to an LLM is Bash. Last year there was enormous buzz around MCP - Model Context Protocol. The idea was to provide a standard for wiring…

I agree, bash, sed, etc. are great, but a VM running inside a browser seems like the least efficient way to access them. Even if you're stuck on Windows, Cygwin has been a thing for 30 years now, and WSL for ten or so? There should be plenty of ways to set up a sandbox without having the simulate an entire machine. It sounds like what you're really trying to recreate is the Software Tools movement from 50 years ago,…

This isn't meant to be a daily driver. I'd like the option to build systems that occasionally run filesystem agent loops on an ad-hoc basis, for any user. A browser is a really good platform for that.
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