Wouldn't this be an awesome OS?

mrjiles · Post by **mrjiles** » Fri May 09, 2008 8:03 pm

I've downloaded quite a few hobby OS's recently and began thinking of an easy-to-develop for OS (besides a Java OS). What do you think about a webbrowser-based OS? I'm not talking about an OS that you load in IE or FireFox... I'm talking about a solid browser based kernal!

Boot up computer to full screen browser (without any buttons). All popular programming languages would be supported.

Apps would actually be web pages stored locally. Desktop would be stored in a file desktop.html. What do you think?

I wish I knew ASM!

Killswitch · Post by **Killswitch** » Sat May 10, 2008 1:48 am

It's been done

mrjiles · Post by **mrjiles** » Sat May 10, 2008 2:53 am

Cool, do you have a name or link?

Trond · Post by **Trond** » Sat May 10, 2008 10:33 am

Before writing a kernel, you need to know how to spell it.

And so for the question: How would the web pages actually do something? Like save a file to disk?

IceSoft · Post by **IceSoft** » Sat May 10, 2008 11:06 am

Trond wrote:Before writing a kernel, you need to know how to spell it.

LOL

DarkDragon · Post by **DarkDragon** » Sat May 10, 2008 12:51 pm

Trond wrote:Before writing a kernel, you need to know how to spell it. And so for the question: How would the web pages actually do something? Like save a file to disk?

Serverbased OS: filemanagement on server, client just controls I/O.

That would be cool, but slow. No usable harddisks on the user-computer (Or just so much that the networking and I/O part can be stored in there).

Trond · Post by **Trond** » Sat May 10, 2008 12:58 pm

DarkDragon wrote:
Trond wrote:Before writing a kernel, you need to know how to spell it. And so for the question: How would the web pages actually do something? Like save a file to disk?
Serverbased OS: filemanagement on server, client just controls I/O. That would be cool, but slow. No usable harddisks on the user-computer (Or just so much that the networking and I/O part can be stored in there).

And how is the server save things if it's based on a browser? Ah, so it's not really based on a browser after all, right?

mrjiles · Post by **mrjiles** » Sat May 10, 2008 1:26 pm

Obviously the browser couldn't be the only part of the OS. Sorry that I misspelled The Colonel (Sanders). j/k. I should have clarified a bit. BUT DarkDragon elaborated a bit.

Trond, like 99.999% of people out there, I have no clue what all goes into an OS.

DarkDragon · Post by **DarkDragon** » Sat May 10, 2008 1:33 pm

Trond wrote:
DarkDragon wrote:
Trond wrote:Before writing a kernel, you need to know how to spell it. And so for the question: How would the web pages actually do something? Like save a file to disk?
Serverbased OS: filemanagement on server, client just controls I/O. That would be cool, but slow. No usable harddisks on the user-computer (Or just so much that the networking and I/O part can be stored in there).
And how is the server save things if it's based on a browser? Ah, so it's not really based on a browser after all, right?

Sure, the server can run something different

. But that doesn't matter, because that's the easy part. The hardest part is the operating system on the client, because you need a program that can handle all WLAN cards, all Network adapters, all ... and the program has to interpret some code coming from the server and ... . The server can have a already known OS (Linux, Windows or even Mac OS). It just needs to run a server application receiving and sending the data from the clients.

Btw.: It's not the same idea of the original topic author because he want's the OS to be HTML, JS, VBS, Java, Flash, ... capable.

pdwyer · Post by **pdwyer** » Sat May 10, 2008 2:18 pm

mrjiles wrote:Trond, like 99.999% of people out there, I have no clue what all goes into an OS.

Sounds like a good place to start then

I strongly suspect that in a programing forum the % of people who have no clue about an OS is quite a bit lower

Since a browser is just an interface, maybe should just set your windows shell to be your browser and give your idea a go

mrjiles · Post by **mrjiles** » Sat May 10, 2008 2:35 pm

The Windows shell has IE deeply embedded within, so you don't need a custom one: set desktop to webpage.

Anyways, this was not meant to be a deep topic. Just a thought. And I'm not saying that the OS has to be written in a web language. The OS can be written in anything. The UI is web based with all programs presented through the browser with PHP/Java/etc. backends with a mini-server of some sort. Take a common browser-OS that are out on the Internet now (that can be used with any OS/browser) and write a foundation.

pdwyer, I meant it as writing their own. If this was true then there would be millions of OS's out there.

Trond · Post by **Trond** » Sat May 10, 2008 3:04 pm

But what use is it?

I am making a kernel. Currently it doesn't do much (it has exactly 1 thread, which it "switches" between). The thread can print stuff to the screen:

DarkDragon · Post by **DarkDragon** » Sat May 10, 2008 3:10 pm

Trond wrote:But what use is it?

I am making a kernel. Currently it doesn't do much (it has exactly 1 thread, which it "switches" between). The thread can print stuff to the screen:

Bradan OS!

http://www.bradan.eu/files/bradanos.png

.. how will you do networking?

Trond · Post by **Trond** » Sat May 10, 2008 4:02 pm

.. how will you do networking?

No idea, I need to get processes working first, as the network driver needs to run in one.

Num3 · Post by **Num3** » Sat May 10, 2008 4:11 pm

I would go for a custom made linux kernel with all the necessary drivers and only a web browser installed...

Then use google office online!