A lot of criticism for not being a "real" OS from a technical perspective - by "OS" the author likely means this is a graphical windowing system and application platform - the part of the OS that the user sees and interacts with. That it is written in nodejs is irrelevant - if this gains traction it would likely be rewritten and optimized for better efficiency.<p>Also bear in mind this is a single university students design project, he's not trying to be Linus or stallman just yet - Id love to see more people trying to rethink the desktop/workstation OS.<p>To the author - well done, this is far more than I would have been able to do in uni!
> eXtern is an Operating System that offers a unique user interface and user experiences compared to traditional systems. In addition, it is powered by JavaScript and takes advantage of the power of node modules making the possibilities of App development endless.<p>npm install bootloader? Please does anyone know anything about this? I highly doubt it is an "operating system".<p>EDIT:<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/4onxro/extern_os_a_new_way_of_computing/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/4onxro/extern_os_a_n...</a><p>It's not an OS.
30 seconds in to the video and all I've seen are some spinning computers and a message saying "these computers are just for show, they're not really running anything". Please, when you try to sell a product, start by TELLING US WHAT IT IS.
The author has some serious design and coding skills. I just wish they were more precise about what it is (a window manager? an gnome user theme?) rather than trying to brand it as a javascript-based operating system.
I'm confused. Is this a GUI that runs on top of a kernel (like Linux)? What part of it uses NW.js? Using JavaScript for a system like this is generally not a good idea. The garbage collector can interfere at any time and cause all sorts of problems in a kernel or OS environment. It'll also likely be incredibly slow.
Here's some more info: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/4onxro/extern_os_a_new_way_of_computing/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/4onxro/extern_os_a_n...</a>
Looks cool, I started making an electron based desktop environment like this a while ago but didn't see it through <a href="https://github.com/TrevorDev/niftyOS" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/TrevorDev/niftyOS</a>
If you looking for a way to develop apps for linux ( elementary os) with nodejs and vala,here is an example <a href="https://github.com/harisvsulaiman/Pushy" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/harisvsulaiman/Pushy</a>
I wouldn't get too hung up in it being an OS. My main question is about why you'd use something like this instead of the existing web-based "OS", ChromeOS.
Haven't seen a high-profile NW.js application in a little while now. What's the current state of the landscape between it and Electron? Fading, or still a very active project and viable option?
All I can say is that I certainly hope the browser application runs in a separate, sandboxed process from the rest of the, er, "OS". Imagine a world where clientside browser JS can interact directly with the desktop environment...
nodejs is the right choice for doing anything nowadays. The next step is not just operating systems, but airplane systems. I want to see autopilot programmed in nodejs.