[HN Gopher] I quit my job to focus on SerenityOS full time
___________________________________________________________________
I quit my job to focus on SerenityOS full time
Author : there
Score : 818 points
Date : 2021-05-28 16:47 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (awesomekling.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (awesomekling.github.io)
| nightowl_games wrote:
| Andreas is the best part about this project. He's just _nice_.
| He's a good person. It makes me want to contribute and work with
| him because I feel like I'll learn from him.
|
| Too many elite programmers are total jerks!
| llaolleh wrote:
| Kindness goes a long way. One kind thing someone does stays
| with you for a very long time.
| airhead969 wrote:
| OMG. That reminds me of the Xen dude, of a potential hire at a
| startup who demanded "make it a big number" salary, and
| countless people who know some about one domain assuming their
| ex-food doesn't emanate odor.
|
| Also, there's the sociological fallacy of assuming the biggest
| jerk must be the most talented, when it may well be a facade to
| impress people. There are some talented jerks, but all the
| talent in the world doesn't matter if no one will work with
| you.
|
| PS: Shout-out to Steve Kablink for being awesome.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| <3
| [deleted]
| gardaani wrote:
| He has a lot of happy commits! :^) https://happy-
| serenityos.linus.dev
| andrey-g wrote:
| Love his videos. Helped me get back into coding and c++.
| barrenko wrote:
| Serenity now!
|
| (Sorry, had to)
| thelastinuit wrote:
| CHIMICHANGA!
| faraaz98 wrote:
| Been following him and this project for a while. Son of a gun
| (and the awesome community) finally did it
| bitigchi wrote:
| Kudos to Andreas! I will definitely try Serenity.
|
| Hopefully this activity going on will help make alternative
| operating systems popular like Haiku popular among developers.
| l9i wrote:
| If you find Andreas' work inspiring and/or useful, you may
| consider supporting him in pursuing his passion:
|
| - https://github.com/sponsors/awesomekling/
|
| - https://www.patreon.com/serenityos
|
| - https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/awesomekling
|
| (source: https://awesomekling.github.io/about/)
| leg100 wrote:
| Windows NT/9x/2000 represented the high point for aesthetics.
|
| Light grey, rectilinear, clear delineation, all contributed to
| being easy on the eye and functional.
|
| Glad to see it make a comeback.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| That style is a bit too brutalist for my tastes. I prefer a
| splash of color, like with BeOS or something like that.
| slver wrote:
| Windows did have color accents, like the dark blue selection,
| it's just a bit muted and stale by modern standards.
|
| It's a good idea to keep the chrome be chrome-like so color
| can be reserved for meaningful elements (like red for
| warning, green for safe, blue for selection etc.).
|
| Notice that although end-user apps are all colorful and fancy
| these days, that most pro apps have remained very
| conservative, erring to light or dark gray and using color
| semantically only (think photoshop, 3dsmax, autocad etc.).
| This tells us something.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Except programming apps and IDE's?
| jagger27 wrote:
| Check out the included themes! There are throwback themes for
| various 90s operating systems.
| einpoklum wrote:
| I also like those a lot, especially, Windows 2000, but the
| thing is that their aesthetic is also tied up in my memory with
| the period in my life when I was exposed to that interface,
| things I went through, hopes and aspirations and challenges and
| feelings... people didn't live through the 1990s or early 2000s
| don't have any of that emotional overlay; it's just another UI
| style for them.
| zem wrote:
| i think it was specifically win2k that got it right. the 9x
| series still felt a bit clunky, even at the time.
| auxym wrote:
| Rebooting everytime you changed a setting in 9X got annoying
| pretty fast.
|
| Win2k brought the NT kernel to the masses, which was a huge
| improvement. True multi-user support, for starters.
| ncmncm wrote:
| What a great little project! Each bit adds to what came before.
|
| Just don't be reluctant to delete code when its time has come,
| and it can continue improving indefinitely.
| elisee wrote:
| Bit by bit indeed! The birthday posts here give a nice overview
| of how much the system has evolved over its couple years of
| existence: https://www.serenityos.org/happy/
|
| The monthly progress videos are also nice in that regard.
| o_p wrote:
| >I chose the name SerenityOS because I wanted to always remember
| the Serenity Prayer.
|
| Whats with operating systems and religion
| supernintendo wrote:
| The majority of the human population is religious. Software is
| generally created by humans so it doesn't seem unlikely that
| some of that influence would rub off on their work (same as any
| other work of art really).
| pengaru wrote:
| > Whats with operating systems and religion
|
| Confirmation bias; religion is _everywhere_ , no reason to
| expect it to be exceptionally absent from
| computing/programming/operating systems etc.
| sbarre wrote:
| Have you never been in a debate about vim vs. emacs?
| hedberg10 wrote:
| There is no debate.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I think Vim won by virtue of already being installed.
| jraph wrote:
| Ehhh. Vi is already installed, and it is often not Vim.
|
| Nano, on the other hand...
| dwrowe wrote:
| He opened with the explanation of doing this after coming out
| of rehab for drug addiction - I wouldn't say it is related to
| "religion", rather a nod/reminder for himself in why he's doing
| it. Nothing beyond that it seems.
| phaemon wrote:
| You need to be pretty smart to write an OS, and only dumb
| people and smart people are religious. Atheism is the belief
| for mediocre minds. ;)
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Just like yhe midwit meme:
| https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2054904-iq-bell-curve-midwit
| phaemon wrote:
| I'd not heard of that but it seems fairly accurate. It
| seems related to pg's idea of middle-brow dismissal.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, let alone
| religious flamewar god help us.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| phaemon wrote:
| Fair enough Dan. I do have a tendency to walk the line but
| I like to think I'm reasonable enough to know when to
| backpedal. Apologies to yourself and Jagger. I'll try and
| be nicer.
| jagger27 wrote:
| Care to expand on those bold assertions?
| phaemon wrote:
| I'm not sure what you consider bold about the assertions so
| it's difficult to expand. I am certainly not the sharpest
| tool in the shed, and I'm religious, so that provides at
| least circumstantial evidence for my initial statement.
|
| Do you think I should consider that atheists could be dumb
| too? Most of the ones I've spoken to seem fairly convinced
| that they're reasonably smart.
| jagger27 wrote:
| Alright it's clear you're only here to rile people up.
| Not sure why you think that's appropriate here.
| phaemon wrote:
| It's appropriate because it will improve your thinking to
| consider that I might just be right.
|
| Edit: I happened to see your response since deleted.
| Don't worry, I'm not offended. I will say that HN at its
| best invites intellectual exploration. Take all your
| comments in this thread and look at them. What thoughts
| did you provoke? What did you add?
| [deleted]
| jagger27 wrote:
| I'm sorry, do you think you're being "intellectually
| explorative" with unsubstantiated statements like
| "atheism is for the mediocre mind"?.
| dang wrote:
| Please do not respond to a bad comment by breaking the
| site guidelines yourself. It only makes everything worse.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| phaemon wrote:
| My apologies for upsetting you. Please see upthread for
| my apology to yourself and Dan.
| slackfan wrote:
| Proper software development is indistinguishable from
| mysticism.
| nwsm wrote:
| I suspect you have 1 other example. How many can you come up
| with that have nothing to do with religion?
| whatshisface wrote:
| The one other example is obviously either FreeBSD, whose
| mascot is a demon, or OSX, which itself is a religion. ;)
| krapp wrote:
| Also, for better or worse, TempleOS.
| nwsm wrote:
| This is what I was referencing. Though I think the other
| poster may know and was making a joke.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| Edit: unfortunately it looks like that's basically all you've
| been posting to HN. We ban such accounts, so I've banned this
| one. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email
| hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll
| follow the rules in the future.
| [deleted]
| dotcommand wrote:
| > Whats with operating systems and religion
|
| Many daemons lurk in OSes. Sometimes religion provides the
| comfort and safety you need to face the horrors hiding in
| operating systems.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I'm a relatively vocal atheist, but Serenity Prayer is a pretty
| useful/accepted creed to live by if you can get over the very
| first word, so I can't say it bothers me much; and while I
| realize there's one other OS that's much more explicitly
| religion-oriented, I'm not sure it's quite a significant
| pattern yet... "(God), give me grace to
| accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed,
| Courage to change the things which should be changed,
| and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other."
| jagger27 wrote:
| This is the version I'm familiar with: God,
| grant me the Serenity To accept the things I cannot
| change... Courage to change the things I can,
| And Wisdom to know the difference.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's basically "should I use sudo or not" as a prayer.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Don't go hating on my boy Terry (pbuh):
|
| "The got rid of CD/DVD. they are coming for our guns."
| Cyberdog wrote:
| "You know the secret? The difference between heaven and hell?
| It's, like, doing your work. You feel really shitty if you
| don't do your work. If you do your work, it's fucking
| awesome."
| jcelerier wrote:
| And yet some people say that C++ is not a productive language :)
| pjmlp wrote:
| In the 90's we had all desktop OSes going C++, even if the
| kernel was mostly C or C subset from C++.
|
| OS/2 with C/Set++, Motif++ on UNIX, BeOS, Symbian, Windows with
| OWL/VCL/MFC, Mac OS with MPW/PowerPlant, Copland (granted this
| one went nowhere).
|
| Then FOSS UNIX with C everywhere as part of GNU manifesto, the
| Java million dollar push happened, and the rest is history.
| ffhhj wrote:
| SerenityOS looks impressive.
|
| Programming in assembly is like playing with Legos. Last year I
| started creating my own pet OS in a Bochs virtual machine,
| compiling with nasm. Created the boot loader and UI, but then
| realized what I really wanted to implement wasn't the low level
| layer.
|
| For that reason I placed the project aside and moved to the
| highest level, creating a distributed command-line console in
| Javascript that connects to Node.js based servers. If I ever
| complete my dreamed OS then I can either translate it into
| assembly, or build a JS interpreter.
|
| At this point the console allows creating programs with UI
| controls, launch processes without blocking the console, and
| terminating them just clicking a button, as well as connecting to
| other servers to perform tasks.
| colesantiago wrote:
| Brilliant, hopefully Rust can come to SerenityOS quicker than we
| thought.
|
| Huzzah!
| gigatexal wrote:
| The OS work is fantastic, and a feat for sure. But his personal
| story of triumph over vices is more compelling to me. I recall
| his interview on the C++ podcast, he's got an amazing story.
| imiric wrote:
| It's so refreshing to see a from-the-ground-up built hobby
| project like this. We need more operating systems that don't
| track users, show ads, or have decades of accumulated ~~cruft~~
| backwards compatibility. The design goals will appeal to anyone
| who was into computers back then. Well done. Doing all this in 3
| years is impressive and inspiring. I think you won't have to
| worry about sustaining your family much longer ;)
|
| Running this on real hardware would be great. Future weekend
| project...
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| This sounds great. I'm a big believer in "do what you love."
|
| It's nice to hear the positive feedback on this guy. Sounds like
| he's doing well.
| ExcavateGrandMa wrote:
| Oh my god! awesomekling on drugz...
|
| I was unaware you were doing bad thing with your body and
| mind...(drugz) :D
|
| you looked very rational and intelligent on footages...
| FranchuFranchu wrote:
| Wow, that must be a really big milestone for SerenityOS. Not many
| hobby OSs end up making enough money for the developer to sustain
| himself.
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| Not many hobby projects of any kind for that matter. IMO he
| gets this kind of support not just because of the value added
| by SerenityOS itself, but because of the value he adds by
| making YouTube streams and other content. People feel like they
| can learn a lot about programming from him.
| arduinomancer wrote:
| Haven't heard of this project till seeing this post.
|
| Checked out his youtube channel and the video on porting Diablo
| to SerenityOS in an hour is pretty interesting to watch if you've
| ever wondered what its like to port software.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOzZ8R4gphE
| codetrotter wrote:
| I've been following Andreas and SerenityOS since the very
| beginning and this is absolutely very cool news. I am so psyched
| to see where SerenityOS will go!!
| mythz wrote:
| Thrilled Andreas has managed to receive enough community support
| to be able to take this big step and is able to focus on Serenity
| OS fulltime.
|
| SerenityOS is an inspiring from scratch grassroots OS effort
| which plans to build the entire POSIX OS, Kernel and core Apps
| from scratch, one of the Apps their is their LibWeb browser
| engine complete with their own LibJS JS VM which already passes
| the ECMAScript test suite. One of its USPs is that the entire OS
| is contained within its single source tree where anyone can make
| changes to its code-base and instantly reboot the OS in seconds
| with the changes, never seen this done for an OS before, the turn
| around time allows for some impressive dev iteration speed.
|
| A good preview of this hackability is in his Diablo port, whether
| it's missing C++ APIs, unsupported lang features, missing SDL
| port impl, toggling kernel features - it all gets done in 1 sit
| down session to produce a shiny new Diablo port:
|
| https://youtu.be/ZOzZ8R4gphE
|
| Andreas videos on developing LibWeb/LibJS is one of the best
| resources I've found explaining how to implement a multi-process
| web browser, e.g. in this video he goes through the HTML Specs
| which have enough info in them to develop a HTML spec parser
| whose behavior is the same across all browser engines:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZdKlyXV2vw
|
| It's been awesome to see LibWeb/LibJS evolve over time, every
| time he sits down it gets a bit more capable. Typically it's to
| implement features for rendering a different website. Here's a
| nice example where LibWeb gains missing JS APIs (including eval)
| to render "Canvas Cycle" JS demos:
|
| https://youtu.be/b3a5V45LLss which he optimizes in his next video
| https://youtu.be/tGmaO8agfY4
|
| With full control over the entire OS, Kernel, GUI, etc. It's got
| lots of tightly integrated innovative features like its GUI GML
| language for creating native UIs where he creates a GML
| Playground in this video https://youtu.be/1QYBvTy9QKE then uses
| it to be build the OS's new Font UI Picker dialog in the next
| https://youtu.be/Fa9SwYfH2NI which is now so sophisticated that
| the WidgetGallery has been converted to using it
| https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/5741
|
| Since Andreas is so productive he's the only developer who I'm
| able to watch live coding which makes for an inspirational
| background score whilst coding, his commentary explaining his
| thoughts whilst he codes is so informative that they're basically
| HowTo's on how to implement each OS/App/Browser feature.
| ksec wrote:
| >SerenityOS [1]
|
| _Graphical Unix-like operating system for x86 computers.
|
| SerenityOS is a love letter to '90s user interfaces with a custom
| Unix-like core. It flatters with sincerity by stealing beautiful
| ideas from various other systems.
|
| Roughly speaking, the goal is a marriage between the aesthetic of
| late-1990s productivity software and the power-user accessibility
| of late-2000s *nix. This is a system by us, for us, based on the
| things we like._
|
| [1] https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| It seems very interesting. Anyone has an idea whet the minimal
| system requirements are?
| jagger27 wrote:
| It runs pretty well on a Pentium 4. I wrote the Starfield
| screensaver for Serenity (poorly) and it pegs the P4, for
| what it's worth. It's runs great in QEMU on any modern CPU.
| genezeta wrote:
| It's generally aimed at being run on QEMU. But it can be
| installed on bare metal at your own risk. This [1] mentions:
|
| > Current hardware support is extremely limited. [...] x86
| [...] Most successful hard disk installations have been on
| Pentium 4 era hardware [...] 2 GB parallel ATA or SATA IDE
| disk [...] no support for USB but some machines will emulate
| PS/2 keyboards and mice in the BIOS via USB [...] having real
| PS/2 input devices is recommended [...] A minimum of 128 MB
| RAM and a Pentium III class CPU [...] No GPU suport [...]
| VESA BIOS [...] No wifi [...] only three network card chipset
| [...] The sole sound card supported is the SoundBlaster 16
| ISA
|
| The HW compatibility list [2] is pretty short also.
|
| [1] https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Docume
| nta...
|
| [2] https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Docume
| nta...
| [deleted]
| boricj wrote:
| I've netbooted it on my ASUS A7N8X Deluxe motherboard with an
| Athlon XP processor and 1 GiB of RAM (~2003 era). I haven't
| tried older museum pieces, but the unofficial CPU requirement
| is a Pentium III-class CPU or better.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| > SerenityOS is a love letter to '90s user interfaces with a
| custom Unix-like core.
|
| More like a love letter to Windows 95 :) It doesn't really have
| much in common with the Unix GUIs available around that time,
| which were mostly Motif-based (think FVWM, CDE etc).
|
| In fact it looks so Windows-like (including the applications)
| that my first impression was that this was another go at making
| something like ReactOS. But clearly it isn't.
|
| It looks nice though I was never a big fan of the W95 UI. I'm
| interested to see what it's about. I'll give it a spin.
|
| PS: Fair play for being so open about your addiction. It will
| help other people face the problem too.
| jacobmischka wrote:
| Congratulations Andreas, I've been working my way through your
| entire history of videos and loving it. I just doubled my monthly
| sponsorship, can't wait to see what's to come!
| 5tefan wrote:
| Don't know if I am hacker minded enough to take a look. But he
| has a point though... no-nonsense and a straight forward GUI back
| on the menu would be great. I hate how I am held hostage by
| shitty designer ideas. I am a power user.
| shadykiller wrote:
| Good luck with everything !
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Looks like the main relevant past threads are:
|
| _SerenityOS: Writing a Full Chain Exploit_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26115141 - Feb 2021 (9
| comments)
|
| _Introduction to SerenityOS Programming_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22479132 - March 2020 (43
| comments)
|
| _Pledge() and Unveil() in SerenityOS_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22116914 - Jan 2020 (28
| comments)
|
| _SerenityOS: From Zero to HTML in a Year_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21212294 - Oct 2019 (52
| comments)
|
| _SerenityOS - a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s
| aesthetics_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19986126 - May
| 2019 (179 comments)
| Koshkin wrote:
| > _SerenityOS is a love letter to '90s user interfaces_
|
| Indeed, the desktop theme looks very similar to Windows 95 or
| ReactOS.
| devit wrote:
| I'm surprised that either anyone actually uses such an OS (beyond
| toying with it), or that there are enough people willing to pay
| without using the OS.
|
| What's the explanation for this?
| mythz wrote:
| Personally I want to encourage a very talented developers
| continued development of his ambitious SerenityOS vision whose
| journey is thoroughly documented in his YouTube channel which
| is an amazing treasure resource for learning how different
| parts of the OS/Kernel/GUI/Browser/JS VM/x86 Emulator/etc are
| implemented.
|
| At first I never expected SerenityOS would ever be advanced
| enough to use, but seeing how much it has progressed and the
| active community that's garnered around it has made me a
| believer.
|
| Up until now he's been developing as a side project, I'm
| excited to see where he can take it working on it full-time.
| elisee wrote:
| Andreas has been making videos
| (https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreasKling/videos) sharing his
| journey: technical ones working on some part of the system, as
| well as more personal ones talking about his philosophy,
| struggles and moments of joy.
|
| I'm just one of many but I'm guessing his sincerity combined
| with his technical abilities make it all very compelling to
| watch and contribute with money or code, even though the system
| isn't at a point where you would want to use it.
|
| Basically: it's a fun, open, ambitious project whose story is
| being told mainly through videos, with a kind and interesting
| person behind it.
| reacharavindh wrote:
| It warms my heart to see someone that is skilled, passionate and
| patient to pursue a project like this full time. True hacker
| spirit lives on.
|
| The only other effort like that has been on my mind for a long
| time is bcachefs that is mostly churned on by a single developer
| slowly making progress and aiming high.
|
| I could only wish the very best to people and projects like
| this!!
| billconan wrote:
| I'm curious, how can someone implement device drivers (without
| knowing hardware details.) for a self-made OS like this?
| raggi wrote:
| It seems to only target very commonly ported and generally
| understood hardware, and not many things. 32bit Intel, no arm.
| Bochs VBE and Intel graphics, e1000 and rtl8192 nics. They're
| very sensible targets as they'll let you run with event
| performance on most virtual machine platforms as they're
| commonly emulated and mature.
| jhgb wrote:
| It would be cool to have something similar but specifically
| targeting Raspberry Pi these days. There you don't have a lot
| of variability either, and it might even turn out useful
| relative to its "bigger" (or "bloated"?) competitors.
| breckinloggins wrote:
| General tips:
|
| 1. Start with a QEMU emulated device. QEMU is more forgiving
| than real hardware and you can study, understand, and debug the
| "hardware impersonation side" of the QEMU code to see what
| happens when you set a bit in some register.
|
| 2. Pick a simple device. Don't start with the USB stack or
| Ethernet. Maybe try to reimplement the UART driver first.
|
| 3. Don't freak out about "device driver architecture" stuff
| like whether you need lock-free queues or allocation-free
| algorithms or ring buffers or... whatever. Just get it working.
|
| 4. Write a userspace program that uses the driver you'd like to
| see working. That'll motivate you to finish it.
|
| 5. Repeat. Until eventually you know how to write device
| drivers. :)
| FranchuFranchu wrote:
| Usually hobby OS developers only write drivers for well
| documented hardware like the e2k
| boricj wrote:
| Here's an example with the NE2000 network card (PCI only). I've
| tested it both on QEMU and with a real RTL8029AS card. Probably
| the most important thing is quality, RTL-level reference
| documentation. When you hit a dead-end, having a battle-tested
| Linux or BSD driver to peek at helps a lot, because hardware
| has quirks and the documentation might not tell the whole
| story.
|
| SerenityOS currently doesn't have a lot of tooling to help
| debugging drivers aside from kprintf() and kubsan. Other
| operating systems may offer more advanced capabilities, such as
| NetBSD's rump kernel where you can run drivers in userland for
| example.
|
| https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/5191
| adam12 wrote:
| "Hello friends" I can hear his voice. That's a great opener.
| squarefoot wrote:
| The more I see those small graphical OSes like this one, Kolibri,
| etc. the more I wish they were ported (or better conceived from
| the beginning) to be run on ARM systems. Those small cheap boards
| with video output would find the best possible companion when
| bare metal programming is too hard and a full fledged Linux
| distro would be overkill. Give me a compiler, then libraries for
| gpio and hardware, GUI, low level networking, etc. and I can
| choose between a huge load of cheap boards to build a lab
| instrument panel, my new home IoT dashboard, a portable
| communication device, a music synthesizer, etc. It looks to me as
| those two worlds are in need of each other but they don't know
| that yet.
| xyproto wrote:
| There's always Arch Linux ARM, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and
| RiscOS. They all run on a Raspberry Pi 4.
|
| What are you looking for that those aren't covering?
| stuaxo wrote:
| Linux had all sorts of 386isms at the beginning.
|
| Having watched this project for a bit it probably will gain an
| ARM port in the next year or two.
|
| Since there is already a emulator, it will probably gain the
| ability to run x86 serenity OS apps at some point after that.
| barbarbar wrote:
| From 3 months rehab to build an os and more. That is just
| outright incredible. Maybe the boring day job before lead to the
| addiction. Anyway an insane comeback.
| slver wrote:
| While I'm hit heavily by nostalgia looking at this UI and I
| actually appreciate the simplicity and utility of it, I think it
| would've been nice to bring it in the 21-st century by making it
| vector-based and scalable, so it works on modern displays. Gone
| are the days when all displays had the same DPI around 100, and
| we could craft things out of single pixel bevels.
|
| We just need good, legible displays. And modern tech delivers.
| But the software needs to match.
| elisee wrote:
| For what it's worth it does support 2x density
| (https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/4966) and there's
| a design doc about High-DPI:
| https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Documenta...
| wespiser_2018 wrote:
| Awesome project! Keep it up!
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Wow that's freaking awesome. First time I saw this project was
| years ago on 4chan's technology board. I remember the progress
| reports and videos on the Daily Programming Thread. Now it's here
| and has become a full time job for the developer. Must be awesome
| to be able to work on stuff like this.
| darig wrote:
| Can't wait for your live-streams from the back of your car before
| you leap in front of a train.
| la6471 wrote:
| Keep it up Andreas and don't give up ever , your story is
| inspiring to many.
| ketanhwr wrote:
| Following this for almost 3 years now, it really is an amazing
| achievement. His YouTube streams are very helpful in learning a
| lot about Systems, Unix and good programming methodologies.
| Cheers to him for taking the leap of faith!
| paintstripper wrote:
| That sounds super interesting, is there a link you can share?
| lawl wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreasKling/videos
| T3RMINATED wrote:
| big mistake
| digitalsin wrote:
| Really excited to see this! I've been following the project for a
| while and seeing the progress that is being made is just mind
| blowing.
| thelastinuit wrote:
| I should quit my job and work on embedded systems and satellites
| but i guess i don't have the courage. Best of things to this
| dude.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Hey Andreas (assuming you're still reading these threads) I'm so
| happy to see you reach this point with Serenity. I remember
| seeing your project pop up here (early 2019 I think?) and just
| being absolutely blown away by the undertaking. What I love most
| about the project after following it since though is you've
| really shown it's absolutely doable, not only by you or superstar
| programmers but by folks willing to put the time in, and along
| the way made so many others realize this whether they contribute
| to Serenity or not. Your YouTube videos are absolutely great and
| there is just something about it all (probably the "under one
| roof" philosophy) that makes showing the "adding/fixing this
| little piece" so much more consumable. In short, thank you for
| doing all of this for not only yourself but everyone else now
| involved with the project.
|
| Anyways I always told myself I should chip in for all of the
| great content over the years and so now I've joined your Patreon
| - here's to hoping more are able to as well and you can continue
| living the dream!
| winter_blue wrote:
| Wow, Andreas Kling is really inspiring.
|
| I need to get my mental space together (from the ADHD mess that
| it currently is), and start working on some of software
| engineering projects/goals.
|
| I really hope I can.
| truth_seeker wrote:
| > While at Apple, I really enjoyed how most of the software was
| made under one roof. Not only did this enable super tight
| integrations, but it made the system extremely hackable for its
| developers, and you could always find the experts somewhere
| nearby. I thought I could try bringing that same feeling to the
| open source world, so I decided that SerenityOS wasn't going to
| be a patchwork of packages - no, we're building everything
| ourselves! From kernel to web browser, and everything in between.
|
| I love it. Good luck.
| haskellandchill wrote:
| Hi Andreas, I'd love to interview you sometime about addiction.
| Sounds like you have a strong perspective and are comfortable
| sharing your story. I'm still rebuilding things so I won't be
| launching my media production company for another year or so but
| I'll probably reach out on Twitter someday ;)
| xacky wrote:
| What's more is that it also has a full web browser that is not
| based on webkit/blink/gecko but its own independent engine.
| DC-3 wrote:
| Unless anyone can name a counter example it's probably the most
| advanced open source browser engine except for the WebKit
| family, the Gecko family, and NetSurf. Never mind the whole OS
| - that alone is worthy of Andreas being able to work full time
| on the project!
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| Don't know about SerenityOS' but Dillo (predating even
| NetSurf) is pretty nice minimal browser with independent
| layout engine and there's Abaco (for Plan 9) which supports
| most of HTML4. That said from your list you miss KHTML
| (WebKit's parent; have diverged significantly since),
| Trident, EdgeHTML, Presto, and of course, Servo. All without
| doubt advanced engines. It's disappointing that both
| Microsoft and Opera didn't open sourced their own after
| retiring them.
|
| Edit: Oops, didn't see the "open source" clause. So Trident,
| EdgeHTML, and Presto don't count.
| DC-3 wrote:
| I daresay Serenity might have the edge on Abaco and perhaps
| even Dillo. Servo I totally forgot. I didn't realise KHTML
| was still a thing.
| asddubs wrote:
| KHTML is dead since 2016 though
| zamadatix wrote:
| Not to make it sound any less impressive (because it truly is
| an amazing effort) but it's basically first place there
| simply because the criteria excludes every other like engine
| better and there is no remaining option that's worse. Well
| technically (the now deprecated) KHTML is missing many of the
| things now supported but that spawned the "WebKit Family" so
| I don't think that counts (and it supports other things
| Serenity's doesn't). Well Lynx might actually be behind in
| compliance... but it's not exactly aiming for the same
| goalpost.
| DC-3 wrote:
| I see your point. I guess I was trying to make the point
| (that perhaps everyone on HN is already aware of) that
| there really is an incredibly limited number of active
| browser projects even marginally capable of being used for
| the modern web so any new one deserves huge support.
| fanick wrote:
| Arachne
| sanxiyn wrote:
| Servo is miles ahead.
| roywashere wrote:
| I just backed his Patreon just because of this!
| krapp wrote:
| But I've been told by Hacker News multiple times that
| developing an independent browser is impossible without the
| means of a multi-million dollar corporation.
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| I mean, it kind of is. You can make a basic browser, sure,
| but you'll have a hard time implementing video playback,
| canvas, JavaScript and everything else, while also delivering
| good performance and rendering everything accurately. Yes, I
| know his browser has JS support, but the performance is
| likely at least an order of magnitude slower than V8 or
| Firefox... And then there's CSS, and the fact that HTML, JS
| and CSS keep growing and having more functionality added
| every month. That's not to minimize his accomplishments,
| browsers are just immensely complex pieces of software.
| Complex enough that Opera killed their own browser engine
| because they didn't have the manpower to maintain it anymore,
| and are now using WebKit.
|
| All of that being said, it all depends on your expectations.
| You can totally make a browser that is capable of going to
| web forums and posting on Hacker News, browsing the
| SerenityOS website and maybe even Wikipedia for instance. If
| you want to build something that supports pre-2005 HTML/JS,
| that's probably quite feasible.
| adenozine wrote:
| Just a nitpick, but I'm pretty sure Opera was gutted of
| engineers as well after their acquisition fiasco with that
| Chinese outfit. I don't think they had as much manpower as
| the good ol days AND not enough manpower to compete with
| the old engine.
|
| I'm on mobile or I'd go find a source, but I'm fairly
| certain some key people left before all that went down.
|
| Not that maintaining a web browser is easy, but they WERE
| doing it, to varying success.
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| It's not just Opera though. Microsoft Edge is using also
| Webkit. I'm legit worried that if Mozilla ever tanks, we
| could have a complete WebKit browser monoculture.
| adenozine wrote:
| Sure, I wasn't addressing that though. I just meant that
| it's a little inaccurate to say Opera couldn't do it
| because of the turmoil and turnover, and that's on top of
| the fact that browser engines are immensely technical
| projects.
|
| I'm worried about that as well, but it's not really fair
| to attribute blame to most people at Opera, especially
| prior to the China thing. Things were okay there for a
| long time before that.
| krapp wrote:
| >I'm legit worried that if Mozilla ever tanks, we could
| have a complete WebKit browser monoculture.
|
| Does that really matter much, if it's open source? A lot
| of software converges on one or a few standard libraries
| or applications.
| insulanus wrote:
| Yes, it matters a lot. One of the reasons people want
| open source is to be able to "fork away" from a popular
| project, if the leadership team of that project takes a
| direction that people disagree with. Obviously this goal
| is impossible to meet, if the project is closed-source,
| or has an onerous license.
|
| There is another cost that people don't talk about as
| much, and that is the cost to understand a large, alien
| codebase enough to be able to understand and change it.
| If the effort to contribute is too high, you can't get a
| second group of programmers to rally around the fork, and
| the new project will fizzle.
|
| As an example, Google understands the economics of code
| very well. They know that there is little threat to
| market dominance for them to release Android or Chromium
| as open source.
| OJFord wrote:
| It'd be quite a huge and significant step in the web
| becoming a single stack or implementation, rather than a
| set of open standards with various interoperable
| implementations.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Like telecomm, wifi, and USB standards, web browsing
| protocol standards are deliberately overcomplicated as a
| way to legally fend off competition. Anytime a big
| corporation gets its hooks into a Standard, one can expect
| its complexity to grow forever unless an individual at said
| corporation prevents it.
| jeofken wrote:
| Truly, while the web also now being better than at the
| time of activex and flash etc. I'd wager the only rescue
| for a new free non-WebKit would be simple ways to use
| external programs - maybe yet a challenge for language
| design.
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| IMO, it's more that the standards are overcomplicated as
| a result of (unhealthy) competition. This is maybe less
| true now, but my impression has been that until recently,
| Firefox and Chrome were both always racing to implement
| some new proprietary feature before the other browsers
| could design an equivalent. There were no standards. In
| fact, even before that, the way JavaScript was created is
| that Brendan Eich, at NetScape, implemented it in two
| weeks. The same was true of many other browser features,
| they were rushed into production in order to outdo other
| browsers and have this new feature first, and then
| everyone was kind of stuck having to support every half-
| baked feature because some websites made use of them.
| Siira wrote:
| It's probably not so much deliberate complexification, as
| reluctant simplification. The system will become complex
| all by itself when there is little pressure to streamline
| it.
| rogerclark wrote:
| In the span of about 2 years, the Serenity browser has gone
| from nothing to where it is now. It already supports
| JavaScript and the canvas API.
|
| Do you think you could build this in 2 years? The answer is
| yes, you could.
| badthingfactory wrote:
| I think this is where the ninety-ninety rule is typically
| invoked.
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| Sure, but like I said, having some JS support is one
| thing, building a fast JS engine is another. The same
| goes for canvas, I mean, you have to realize, there is
| WebGL support on the web now, but also the Web Audio API,
| WASM, etc. It never stops growing. There's even talk
| about adding machine learning features to WASM.
|
| Again, this isn't to minimize the accomplishment, this is
| great, it's just to say, while building a hobbyist
| browser must be fun for sure, and I'm sure this browser
| can be useful to browse many websites out there,
| particularly if said websites intentionally restrict
| which HTML features they use. However, it's probably not
| realistic to think you could compete with the commercial
| browsers. They have dozens of people who have been
| working full-time on those projects for two decades and
| they are constantly adding new features.
|
| I think if Andreas Kling was here, he would probably
| agree. I'm sure his goal was never to replace
| Chrome/Firefox or compete with them, but rather to learn,
| educate, and have fun. I congratulate him on his success
| and for reaching the milestone of being able to sustain
| himself from his passion project.
| DC-3 wrote:
| Eh, it kinda is. The Serenity browser has seen a huge amount
| of grassroots development work that most projects couldn't
| dream of and it's still quite a way off usable for what most
| people consider every-day browsing tasks.
| typon wrote:
| Every time I hear V8 mentioned, people talk about it like
| it's some sort of sacred tablet given to us mortals by Lord
| Google. It's good, but its just another interpreter/compiler.
| EvilEy3 wrote:
| Just because you don't like cult around it, doesn't mean
| you have downplay V8. No, it's not just another
| interpreter/compiler. V8 is an incredible feat of
| engineering.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| Even if you somehow manage to fully implement all of JS with
| decent performance, you will finally hit the wall with video
| DRM - your users will never be able to watch Netflix, for
| example.
| roywashere wrote:
| Widevine is the first DRM to be really open to be ported.
| They suck the least of all DRM systems. This is the DRM
| used in the Chrome browser and Firefox. I think it would be
| _possible_ (not easy, or logical, but possible) that
| Serenity Browser gets Widevine at some point.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| I don't think so. See "I tried creating a web browser,
| and Google blocked me" [0] and the related HN discussion
| [1].
|
| [0] https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/google-widevine-
| blocked...
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25849800
| coldtea wrote:
| Don't the content companies need to trust your project
| with some secret key at some point for this to work?
| Thaxll wrote:
| That's the 80/20, for day to day it probably does not work.
| So indeed creating an independent browser is pretty much
| impossible.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| Depends on what is meant by "browser". Browsing HTML is not
| too difficult.
|
| There is no rule that says a "browser" must match Google's
| in-house Chrome or its outsourced Firefox (all salaries of
| Firefox developers are currently paid with money from a deal
| with Google).
|
| Look at how many browsers exist already for Gemini. How many
| were funded by advertising. Probably zero. The multi-million
| dollar corporations have a vested interest in keeping the
| notion of "browser" so complex that independent authors
| cannot even contemplate it.
| dpbriggs wrote:
| I highly recommend checking out his YouTube channel [0]. He's an
| _incredibly_ thoughtful person and provides good lessons in
| staying focused and keeping scope down.
|
| I consider him a mentor and his approach to software is something
| I really resonate with. He has a keen focus on software quality
| but understands he can't make everything perfect in one sitting.
| This approach helped me get away from decision paralysis in my
| projects and at work.
|
| This isn't even mentioning how much I've learned about software
| in general from his videos. Whether it's debugging kernel
| bootstrap assembly, porting doom, writing a live feedback GUI
| editor, implementing syscalls, to messing around with the dynamic
| loader. He's really got a video for it all.
|
| And he tackles each video with such clarity and careful
| consideration. I really can't speak higher of the man.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreasKling/videos
| LeonM wrote:
| +1 on this! The game porting series is what got me into
| watching his videos.
|
| Normally, I can't focus longer than 5 minutes on programming
| videos, but Andreas's are fantastic to watch! Porting Diablo
| was just inspiring to see, missing a syscall? No worries, we'll
| just implement it!
| brodo wrote:
| I don't know much about OS development or C++ but I still watch
| his videos because of his thoughts on life as a software
| engineer.
| thn-gap wrote:
| Any specific video you would recommend that highlights his
| thoughts on life as a software engineer?
| dpbriggs wrote:
| Not the person you're replying too, but I think you might
| find this video [0] interesting. He's describing his
| motivations and worries around making a web browser for
| SerenityOS.
|
| A quote from that video (3:25) really stuck with me. He
| describes how he saw people joking online that the web-
| standards are so insane that it's impossible to build a new
| web-browser:
|
| "The way I respond to that type of energy is to just really
| want show people that this is silly, not too complicated...
| mythologizing something that humans have done and humans
| will do again"
|
| He clarified with a reflection on the hubris of it - new
| browsers can be made; not impossible; just takes an
| incredible amount of work taken a step at a time [1]. I
| really respect that.
|
| Not exactly his thoughts on life _as_ a software engineer,
| but contains some thoughts on software engineering.
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/-YlVex4nbfw
|
| [1] http://serenityos.org/
| smcnally wrote:
| These are high praises and more than enough impetus to
| watch Andreas' videos and check out SerenityOS. Thank
| you, all.
|
| From tfa:
|
| > With no drugs or other vices to pass the time, the days
| seemed impossibly long.
|
| Is honest, resonant, and bodes well, but it'll be work to
| convince myself this [0] is more like ol' skool X than
| ~WinNT circa 2000 -- it's not making me serene atm.
|
| [0] https://awesomekling.github.io/assets/writing-this-
| post.png
| ficklepickle wrote:
| As someone who also traded drugs for programming, I find this
| incredibly inspiring.
|
| Programming has become my purpose and the thing that brings me
| joy. Unfortunately, they way I have to program at work really
| sucks the joy out of it. I would gladly take a pay cut to be able
| to work on things and in a manner that bring me joy again.
| breckinloggins wrote:
| I was hoping to see this announcement someday, and I'm thrilled
| that today is the day. Congrats, Andreas! Extremely well-
| deserved.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I'm unlikely to ever use this project, follow it closely or
| interact with the creator but it still makes me extremely happy
| to see someone working on a project like this, with the goals,
| motivations and context that Andreas discusses. Thank you for
| making the world a little bit better at a time when it feels so
| crazy.
| [deleted]
| tomcooks wrote:
| Thanks for having the courage to explain your story and keep
| steady in front of discomfort. A true inspiration, balls of steel
| as they say.
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