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DaedalOS: Desktop Environment in the Browser
- IronWolve 5y agohttps://github.com/DustinBrett/daedalOS https://github.com/DustinBrett/daedalOS
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks for the shout out! Indeed I tried to keep it all open source. Feel free to post any issues on that repo.
- c7DJTLrn 5y agoReally impressive. With work I could easily see this being a product with big customers.
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks! I did try and polish it a bit, but with so many different features and apps, there is for sure some rough spots still. And I mostly focused on Chrome/Windows experience on Desktop.
- acqbu 5y agoAmazing! Wondering how much work must've gone into this...
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks! Ya it took a long time, a year for this v2 one.
- ModernMech 5y agoSuper cool, although I would not use the Windows logo for the "Start" menu. Definitely change that and call it something else! I'd imagine Microsoft jealously defends that sort of thing.
- Kwpolska 5y agoIf you look around the filesystem and find the author’s résumé in the Documents folder, you’ll find out he works for Microsoft. So I’d guess Microsoft doesn’t mind as much.
- DustinBrett 5y agoHehe ya I actually just started there last month. They don't know much about my project but atm at least I am confident that it's ok.
- ModernMech 5y agoOh good, that's a relief!
- kroltan 5y agoIt uses Windows design and icons for everything else, too. Would require a complete visual overhaul to divorce from MS.
- DustinBrett 5y agoI've attempted to isolate things enough where it should be a mostly easy process to change "themes". But ya it would require a lot of new stuff/gfx.
- xattt 5y agoI feel that direct mimicry of UIs and designs is a shibboleth of someone just starting out and starting to getting a good handle on tools. Another is enthusiasm to share your own work with the world. Neither is bad, but just something to be aware of. I saw this in my own early work before I reached an equilibrium of spontaneous original designs.
- FpUser 5y ago>"I feel that direct mimicry of UIs and designs" Unless the unique design is the goal on its own why waste time?
- andwaal 5y agoWow, I did not expect it to be this smooth. Really well done! Also amazing to see that the creator has made this over 52x streams in the last year.
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks! Smooth was for sure a goal of mine, although from the feedback I've seen I think Chrome+Windows is the only certain way to keep it smooth. Thanks about the streams too, I enjoyed making them and they motivated me to keep going.
- NKosmatos 5y agoReally nice and fluid interface, if you liked the animated background you can generate more from https://www.vantajs.com/ https://www.vantajs.com/
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks! Ya VantaJS has some really cool ones. I ended up doing some tweaks to this one to allow it to change colors and work with the latest Three.js.
- codetrotter 5y agoName seemed familiar. It’s a play on the name of a guy from Greek mythology. Daedalus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daedalus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daedalus Father of Icarus. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus > Icarus and Daedalus attempt to escape from Crete by means of wings that Daedalus constructed from feathers and wax. Daedalus warns Icarus first of complacency and then of hubris, instructing him to fly neither too low nor too high, lest the sea's dampness clog his wings or the sun's heat melt them. Icarus ignores Daedalus’s instructions not to fly too close to the sun, causing the wax in his wings to melt. He tumbles out of the sky, falls into the sea, and drowns. The myth gave rise to the idiom "don't fly too close to the sun".
- DustinBrett 5y agoIndeed! I liked that Wikipedia said "Daedalus was a skillful architect and craftsman, seen as a symbol of wisdom, knowledge and power". Not to suggest I am that, but the name seemed cool anyway.
- Daegalus 5y agomy username is based on Daedalus. I wanted to make something not used by anyone so I changed the 2nd D to a G and monopolized the username. I have yet to never have it work for me, and if it's taken, it usually means I already have an account.
- diegoperini 5y agoGreat project! By launching Doom and Blog Posts simultaneously, I caused some kind of deadlock on Firefox 96.0b10 (64-bit) Developer Edition on Windows 10.
- ochrist 5y agoI just opened it in a new tab, and it crashed my computer (Firefox 95.0.1 (64-bit) on Ubuntu).
- DustinBrett 5y agoAh darn. Some of the libs are less stable than others. I will attempt to recreate that. My main test browser has been Chrome.
- tux 5y agoIncredible! Good Job Dustin. Now you can create a software store where you sell different tools that run on this OS and you have yourself a OSasS (Operating System As A Service).
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks! Haha ya that is the next step.
- antris 5y agoCould open the browser and run DaedalOS on it, but the browser inside that DaedalOS wouldn't run another DaedalOS anymore. Hee hee.
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks for the feedback. I have actually heard of other people doing this without an issue and the Browser is indeed just an iframe, so I am not sure why it didn't work for you.
- AaronAdams 5y agoSome browsers I've used prevent you from loading the same page within itself -- likely some kind of recursion protection. I've tended to get around this by adding a query to the URL bar -- seems to trick whatever browser it was that I encountered this behavior on.
- laurent92 5y agoDid they not implement it as an iframe?
- DustinBrett 5y agoIt is indeed using an iframe.
- mdtrooper 5y agoI know this project http://www.xpud.org/ http://www.xpud.org/ . And yes, this is really a desktop mixed with a browser.
- amaccuish 5y agoNice, even replicates the slowness of the start menu.
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks! I think the slowness, ideally is a cache thing. At least there is a case where it can be "snappy"-ish.
- deepstack 5y agoAppreciated what has being put into this effort. Quite slow on macbook pro with 16gb of ram. This makes me question the usability of React. Wouldn't something like this better written in something more lightweight such as Mithril or SolidJS, Vue, etc?
- Isthatablackgsd 5y agoI have Macbook Air M1 8GB, it ran smoothly on my side. The highest CPU usage I seen from that is 30%. Doom and Nuke Dukem 3D is running smooth in there as well. And my NUC (i7 8559U) have a tiny input delay but overall ran smoothly on it. I use Vivaldi for my Macbook and Firefox for my NUC.
- DustinBrett 5y agoGlad to hear it went well. I had this going on a 4th gen i7 and it also wasn't too slow, so I think it depends on a few factors as to how quick it is for others.
- dustymcp 5y agoThy would have the same problems past x amount of components
- endofreach 5y agoThis is my usual experience with react. Also i am just not liking the code… I really don‘t understand why it became so popular except for Facebook marketing it so much hence people bought into the hype. And now it has the big ecosystem, which is one of the main arguments to use react for many people…
- snowl 5y agoBecause it's amazing to develop in and if you are good at development it's not hard to make performant applications. Don't blame the framework for a lack of skill
- 5y ago
- mysterydip 5y agoI've always loved "desktop websites", but beyond novelty I haven't found a real use case. Maybe something like a thin client or "work anywhere" for a business?
- creativenolo 5y agoSynology DSM is a well executed example of a good "desktop website" use case. https://www.synology.com/en-uk/dsm https://www.synology.com/en-uk/dsm
- maushu 5y agoWould love a open source version of this for custom hardware. Sometimes I don't feel like using a shell for my local servers.
- mysterydip 5y agowebmin is the closest thing I've found in the past, but would love to hear of newer options
- dutchmartin 5y agoWell, you can run their os on your hardware or in a virtual machine using https://xpenology.org/ https://xpenology.org/
- boomskats 5y agoDSM may not still be, but last time I looked it was built using Sencha ExtJS. I'm not sure when the buyout happened, but a few years ago Sencha became the shadiest, nastiest organisation I've ever dealt with. I'm keen to see what Synology do / have done to displace it.
- pkhodiyar 5y agoYes, there are use cases, I too loved 'web-desktops' so made a comprehensive github repo listing 171 such webDesktops that people made. Please have a look here, you will love it : https://github.com/zriyans/awesome-OS https://github.com/zriyans/awesome-OS
- warpech 5y agoI love the fact that I can drag an mp3 from the "Music" folder to multiple apps - Webamp, Video Player, even Monaco Editor!
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks! I wanted to try and make things interactive enough where people could mix and match ideas.
- pkhodiyar 5y agoI love 'web-desktops' so made a comprehensive Github repo listing 171 such webDesktops that people made using react, angular, electron, or simple HTML. Please have a look here, you will love it : https://github.com/zriyans/awesome-OS https://github.com/zriyans/awesome-OS
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks for doing this pkhodiyar! It's an amazing list and I am honored to be on it!
- unixhero 5y agoIs is this a competitor to AaronOS then?
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks! I know AaronOS and no it's not competition! His OS did help inspire me though!
- AaronAdams 5y agoAaronOS dev here. I love the work he did on this, and that mine is considered a source of inspiration. One thing is certain when comparing the two - I have a LOT to learn from this project. The inspiration goes both ways.
- archerx 5y agoOn my test computer which is an i7 m620 and no GPU it is very slow and takes the CPU to 100% on all cores while idle. opening a window will just get stuck at "working on it". While it looks nice this has probably been the slowest and least efficient web desktop I have opened on this computer and I have looked at a lot because I am building my own.
- mushufasa 5y agoTo be fair, that is a 12 year old processor, so many modern websites are probably hard
- archerx 5y agoYou would be surprised, most sites work well actually. OPs site is probably one of the slowest sites I've visited with this laptop.
- DustinBrett 5y agoI would hope that is because of the wallpaper or CDN misses, because in general I hadn't had such issues. Thanks for the feedback. Perhaps you could try setting an image as the wallpaper to stop the animated one which can be a hog.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- DustinBrett 5y agoI indeed coded with modern computers/browsers in mind. It's unfortunate to hear someone is siting at "Working on it...", because at least for me on Chrome+Windows at home accessing my production website, it is very quick. I have heard some people also say it's quick, but it is starting to seem like 10% or so are having issues with performance. I could see the wallpaper being an issue. Or the CDN perhaps not having it cached as my web server is slow if it needs to grab from there. Thanks for the feedback!
- deleted 5y ago
- gjsman-1000 5y agoI wonder if someone will eventually make a desktop OS that is entirely web-based. No GTK or WinUI - everything is a web app. Except that the DE would also be, technically speaking, a web app itself that shows other web apps. Kind of like this, except imagine if the example apps ("File Explorer") were real web apps loading into the web app desktop environment. I think Firefox OS was the farthest that this got, but I think it has potential. Such an OS would basically just be Linux + Headless Chromium + web browser API abstractions for things like USB (WebUSB), etc.
- legrande 5y agoThese (online browser based) desktop environments work best when you hit F11 and go fullscreen, stripping the browser chrome away. Either the user does that, or we signal to the browser that this is a 'fullscreen only app and you must run it fullscreen' but that would be bad user experience, since most users would struggle to exit it.
- npteljes 5y agoHow far is ChromeOS / ChromiumOS from what you described?
- gjsman-1000 5y agoNot there yet, because ChromeOS's user interface is not written as a web app. (Think close, minimize, maximize, window frame, taskbar, etc.) Same for it's native user interface (Settings menu). I'm thinking of a desktop environment where everything was truly web - there was no native toolkit.
- srtjstjsj 5y ago
- carlesfe 5y agoThis was done in 2005 by eyeOS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EyeOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EyeOS Sadly, too advanced to its time, it was acquired but dismantled some time later.
- urban404 5y agoAmazing work!
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks!
- 1MachineElf 5y agoDustin live-coded every week for a full year while working on this project. Here's the video playlist on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLM88opVjBuU7xSRoHhs3hZBz3JmHHBMMN https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLM88opVjBuU7xSRoHhs3h...
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks for the shout out! Indeed it was a long year of weekly streams.
- xiamx 5y agoReminds me of a (personal) website I saw long time ago that replicates an earlier day OSX desktop, with functional itunes player. Does anyone remember what it was called?
- DustinBrett 5y agoI don't recall that exact one but I do love personal websites designed as OS's, not sure why, just my thing.
- legrande 5y agoThere's a few of these knocking around the web: https://winxp.vercel.app/ https://winxp.vercel.app/ https://windows96.net/ https://windows96.net/ https://www.windows93.net/ https://www.windows93.net/
- syx 5y agoI keep track of all these web desktops around the web here [1] if you’re interested in a even bigger list :) [1] https://simone.computer/#/webdesktops https://simone.computer/#/webdesktops
- quirino 5y agoIncredible website! Very functional for how experimental it is and full of neat surprises. Love that a screensaver comes on after it is inactive for a while. (I found the pizza recipe btw)
- syx 5y agoSo glad you explored it all the way down!! You might find some more Easter eggs here and there ;)
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks syx for the work you do! And that screensaver is awesome on your site, Hack the Planet!
- syx 5y agoThank you Dustin and congrats for your new release, definitely worth all the effort you put into it!!
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks! It's a total rewrite from scratch over a year and I really wanted to improve every aspect of what I had done the first time with v1. I still have a long way to go but my aspiration one day is to have near feature parity, within the confines of what can be done in a browser. Maybe in a decade or so I can redo it again when browsers support more stuff.
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks everyone for the feedback. This has been my passion project for all of 2021 and I am glad to see someone liked it enough to post it on HN.
- aidog 5y agoI like that this is useful, if you use an android system on a bigger screen and cannot open multiple browsers. This gives you multitasking in such a scenario. Github was a bit hard to find: https://github.com/DustinBrett/daedalOS https://github.com/DustinBrett/daedalOS
- DustinBrett 5y agoGood point. I am always wondering what kind of things it can be useful for, as when I made it usefullness was low on my list.
- tbuk-yt 5y agoA fun use I found is using it to emulate games in a browser on iOS. Doom runs surprisingly well, so long as you use Chrome and not Safari (doesn’t launch on Safari for iOS, probably due to Apple tricking the site into thinking you’re using a Mac).
- einpoklum 5y ago> Desktop Environment in the Browser You lost me at the title already. I suppose next they would want to integrate that web browser into of systemd and then I know I've fully arrived in hell.
- DustinBrett 5y agoOne day...
- xbar 5y agoAlso, congrats on the new gig Dustin.
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks! It's exciting.
- Daegalus 5y agowow, I was not expecting it to run buttery smooth on my phone of all things. it's a Pixel 6 Pro, so not old, but most JS apps work for shit regardless, this thing runs better than most native apps on my phone, amazing work. I hope you keep building and improving on this. I personally have a distaste for JS and would love to use this if it some day became a full desktop solution.
- DustinBrett 5y agoThanks! I do intend to keep improving and I have a huge list of to do's for 2022 and beyond. I am glad to hear it ran well for you and you liked it.