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JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

bellard.org

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Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#61

Post by stavros »

bakugo wrote: post #60
stavros wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you, but he wasn't telling us about his agent, he was saying "this is a cool technology and I've been wanting to use it to make a thing". The thing just happened to be LLM-adjacent.

Almost all of his comments "just happen" to be LLM-adjacent. At some point it stops "just happening" and it becomes clear that certain people (or their AI bots) are frequenting discussion spaces for the sole purpose of seeking out opportunities to bring up AI and self-promote.

Simon has been here since way before LLMs were a thing, and it's fairly obvious (to me, at least) that he's genuinely excited about LLMs, he's not just spamming sales or anything.

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#62

Post by yokoprime »

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.

What topics are allowed in your opinion? I very much enjoyed Simon’s comment as it is a use case I also was thinking of.

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#63

Post by grimgrin »

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.

a bit cute that you interacted with the 1 AI thread. there are other threads!

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#64

Post by yokoprime »

stavros wrote: post #59
purerandomness wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't been around here in the Blockchain/NFT/Smart Contract dark ages, have you?

Naw man I just signed up.

I chuckled. Everything on earth is recent if you look at it from a cosmic timeframe I guess

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#65

Post by iamjackg »

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]

Nobody is promoting a product. Simon is just sharing an experiment he attempted. No products being sold here.

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#66

Post by zitterbewegung »

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…

While this may be a better sandbox, actually having a separate computer dedicated to the task seems like a better solution still and you will get better performance.

Besides, prompt injection or simpler exploits should be addressed first than making a virtual computer in a browser and if you are simulating a whole computer you have a huge performance hit as another trade off.

On the other hand using the browser sandbox that also offers a UI / UX that the foundation models have in their apps would ease their own development time and be an easy win for them.

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#68

Post by yokoprime »

bakugo wrote: post #60
stavros wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you, but he wasn't telling us about his agent, he was saying "this is a cool technology and I've been wanting to use it to make a thing". The thing just happened to be LLM-adjacent.

Almost all of his comments "just happen" to be LLM-adjacent. At some point it stops "just happening" and it becomes clear that certain people (or their AI bots) are frequenting discussion spaces for the sole purpose of seeking out opportunities to bring up AI and self-promote.

You are not reading his material i suppose? It’s really one of the better sources for informed takes on llms

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#69

Post by brucehoult »

Out of interest I tried running my Primes benchmark [1] on both the x86_64 and x86 Alpine and the riscv64 Buildroot, both in Chrome on M1 Mac Mini. Both are 2nd run so that all needed code is already cached locally.

x86_64:

    localhost:~# time gcc -O primes.c -o primes
    real    0m 3.18s
    user    0m 1.30s
    sys     0m 1.47s
    localhost:~# time ./primes
    Starting run
    3713160 primes found in 456995 ms
    245 bytes of code in countPrimes()
    real    7m 37.97s
    user    7m 36.98s
    sys     0m 0.00s
    localhost:~# uname -a
    Linux localhost 6.19.3 #17 PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon Mar  9 17:12:35 CET 2026 x86_64 Linux
x86 (i.e. 32 bit):

    localhost:~# time gcc -O primes.c -o primes
    real    0m 2.08s
    user    0m 1.43s
    sys     0m 0.64s
    localhost:~# time ./primes
    Starting run
    3713160 primes found in 348424 ms
    301 bytes of code in countPrimes()
    real    5m 48.46s
    user    5m 37.55s
    sys     0m 10.86s
    localhost:~# uname -a
    Linux localhost 4.12.0-rc6-g48ec1f0-dirty #21 Fri Aug 4 21:02:28 CEST 2017 i586 Linux
riscv64:

    [root@localhost ~]# time gcc -O primes.c -o primes
    real    0m 2.08s
    user    0m 1.13s
    sys     0m 0.93s
    [root@localhost ~]# time ./primes
    Starting run
    3713160 primes found in 180893 ms
    216 bytes of code in countPrimes()
    real    3m 0.90s
    user    3m 0.89s
    sys     0m 0.00s
    [root@localhost ~]# uname -a
    Linux localhost 4.15.0-00049-ga3b1e7a-dirty #11 Thu Nov 8 20:30:26 CET 2018 riscv64 GNU/Linux
Conclusion: as seen also in QEMU (also started by Bellard!), RISC-V is a *lot* easier to emulate than x86. If you're building code specifically to run in emulation, use RISC-V: builds faster, smaller code, runs faster.

Note: quite different gcc versions, with x86_64 being 15.2.0, x86 9.3.0, and riscv64 7.3.0.

[1] http://hoult..rg/primes.txt

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#70

Post by pelcg »

iamjackg wrote: post #65
bakugo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Nobody is promoting a product. Simon is just sharing an experiment he attempted. No products being sold here.

Maybe not, but in the past some here see that the blog is the product that is being promoted here.

Even in this thread alone https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47314929 some commenters here are clearly annoyed with the way AI is being shoved in each place where they do not want it.

I don't care, but I can see why many here are getting tired of it.

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