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> 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.

Simon, this HN post didn't need to be about Gen AI.

This thing is really inescapable those days.

Check out Jeff Lindsay's Apptron (https://github.com/tractordev/apptron), comes very close to this, and is some great tech all on its own.

This is not the technical solution you want, but I think it provides the result that you want: https://github.com/devcontainers

tldr; devcontainers let you completely containerize your development environment. You can run them on Linux natively, or you can run them on rented computers (there are some providers, such as GitHub Codespaces) or you can also run them in a VM (which is what you will be stuck with on a Mac anyways - but reportedly performance is still great).

All CLI dev tools (including things like Neovim) work out of the box, but also many/most GUI IDEs support working with devcontainers (in this case, the GUI is usually not containerized, or at least does not live in the same container. Although on Linux you can do that also with Flatpak. And for instance GitHub Codespaces runs a VsCode fully in the browser for you which is another way to sandbox it on both ends).

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

Can I PLEASE click on ONE post on the front page of HN without immediately being met by some grifter trying to derail it to promote their AI product?

Please? I'm begging here.

My god that interface feels like home.

win2000 brings back so many good memories.

Yeah. Microsoft really went downhill UI-wise.

Is that even remotely relevant to JSLinux?

https://github.com/copy/v86 might be a more 1:1 fully open sourced alternative.

From the "Technical notes" page:

> Access to Internet is possible inside the emulator. It uses the websocket VPN offered by Benjamin Burns (see his blog). The bandwidth is capped to 40 kB/s and at most two connections are allowed per public IP address. Please don't abuse the service.

https://bellard.org/jslinux/tech.html

Wow, thanks for this, this is exactly what v86 was missing! Runs faster than my demo: https://zb3.me/qemu-wasm-test/jspi-noffi/

Even though it has no JIT. Truly magic :)

We are a playful species. People enjoy play. If we didn't have to work for a living but still enjoyed food security that is all most of us would do. But we are also a very exploitative species, some more than others. Companies have made billions of dollars on top of Fabrice Bellard's works, qemu, ffmpeg etc.

These companies don't have any imagination. Their management has no vision. They could not create anything new and wonderful if they tried. People like Fabrice do and we are all richer for it. If your asking about the practical use you are likely in the exploitative mindset which is understandable on HN. The hacker/geek mindset enjoys this for what it is.

I use bellard.org/jslinux to test compilation of strange code sometimes[1], since it came with compilers that are different versions from what I have installed locally, and it's easier to open up a browser than starting a VM.

[1] For example:

https://www.ioccc.org/2020/yang/index.html#:~:text=tcc%200.9...

https://www.ioccc.org/2018/yang/index.html#:~:text=tcc%200.9...

I use a similar emulator (v86) as a way to share my hobby OS. Approximately zero people, even my friends, are going to boot my hobby OS on real hardware; I did manage to convince some of them to run it in qemu, but it's difficult. A browser environment shows the thing quite well; and easy networking is cool too.

My hobby OS itself is not very useful, but it's fun if you're in the right mood.

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

Most such emulators have Internet access on the IP level. Therefore, this is a very cheap way to test anything on the Internet.

    apk add nmap
    nmap your.domain.com

It can also be used as a very cheap way to provide a complete build environment on a single website, for example to teach C/C++. Or to learn the shell. You don't have to install anything.

Agentic workloads create and then run code. You don't want to just run that code in a "normal" environment like a container, or even a very well protected VM. There are other options, ofc - eg. gvisor, crossvm, firecracker, etc, but this one is uncommon enough to have a small number of attackers trying to hack it.

Maybe if you’ve got some ancient software that’s missing source code and only runs with X Y and Z conditions, you could continue to offer it on the web and build around it like that? Not sure if that would be practical at all, but could be interesting

My college professor used it to teach us the Linux command line

We have Windows PCs in the classroom.