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JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

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Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#71

Post by dmitrygr »

brucehoult wrote: post #69

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() re…

MIPS (the arch of which RISCV is mostly a copy) is even easier to emulate, unlike RV it does not scatter immediate bits al over the instruction word, making it easier for an emulator to get immediates. If you need emulated perf, MIPS is the easiest of all

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#72

Post by brucehoult »

dmitrygr wrote: post #71
brucehoult wrote: post #69

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() re…

MIPS (the arch of which RISCV is mostly a copy) is even easier to emulate, unlike RV it does not scatter immediate bits al over the instruction word, making it easier for an emulator to get immediates. If you need emulated perf, MIPS is the easiest of all

That's a very small effect in the overall decoding of an instruction even in a pure interpretive emulator, and undetectable in a JIT.

Also MIPS code is much larger.

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#73

Post by bakugo »

yokoprime wrote: post #68
bakugo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I just went and read one of his recent posts at: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Mar/5/chardet/

The entire thing is just quotes and a retelling of events. The closest thing to a "take" I could find is this:

> I have no idea how this one is going to play out. I’m personally leaning towards the idea that the rewrite is legitimate, but the arguments on both sides of this are entirely credible.

Which effectively says nothing. It doesn't add anything the discussion around the topic, informed or not, and the post doesn't seem to serve any purpose beyond existing as an excuse to be linked to and siphon attention away from the original discussion (I wonder if the sponsor banner at the top of the blog could have something to do with that...?)

This seems to be a pattern, at least in recent times. Here's another egregious example: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/21/claws/

Literally just a quote from his fellow member of the "never stops talking about AI" club, Karpathy. No substance, no elaboration, just something someone else said or did pasted on his blog followed by a short agreement. Again, doesn't add anything or serve any real purpose, but was for some reason submitted to HN[1], and I may be misremembering but I believe it had more upvotes/comments than the original[2] at one point.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47099160

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47096253

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#74

Post by vexnull »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #40
postalrat wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some sort of web based archive of applications/etc where you can boot them up in your browser.

That’s what I’d like to use it for as well, but it’s difficult to do so because there’s no way to edit the disk image. Any advice on how to create a JSLinux clone with a specific file pre-installed and auto-launching would be much appreciated!

[flagged]

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#75

Post by vexnull »

brucehoult wrote: post #69

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() re…

Interesting to see the gcc version gap between the targets. The x86_64 image shipping gcc 15.2.0 vs 7.3.0 on riscv64 makes the performance comparison less apples-to-apples than it looks - newer gcc versions have significantly better optimization passes, especially for register allocation.

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#76

Post by johnhenry »

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…

Are you describing bolt.new? (Unfortunately, it looks like their open source project is lagging behind https://github.com/stackblitz-labs/bolt.diy)

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#77

Post by stingraycharles »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #31
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…

> 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. That exists: https://github.com/container2wasm/container2wasm Unfortunately I found the performance to be enough of an issue that I did not look much further into it.

Did anyone expect anything different though, when running a full-blown OS in JavaScript?

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#78

Post by otterley »

apignotti wrote: post #27
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…

We are working on exactly this: https://browserpod.io For a full-stack demo see: https://vitedemo.browserpod.io/ To get an idea of our previous work: https://webvm.io

How’s performance relative to bare metal or hardware virtualization?

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#79

Post by [deleted] »

stingraycharles wrote: post #77
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #31

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. That exists: https://github.com/container2wasm/container2wasm Unfortunately I found the performance to be enough of an issue that I did not look much further into it.

Did anyone expect anything different though, when running a full-blown OS in JavaScript?

[deleted]

Re: JSLinux Now Supports x86_64

#80

Post by ZeWaka »

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…

It's relatively easy to spin up a busybox WASM v86 solution
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