6 ms·

Interview of Robert Shingledecker, Tiny Core Linux and DSL Developer (2009)

90 points by transpute 2y ago

ghjfrdghibt 2y ago
Prior to my knowledge of Firefox profiles and multiaccount containers, I used tiny core to isolate my banking, shopping, general browsing, etc; from both each other and my base OS, in virtualbox. I preferred it to other small distros like slitaz and puppy because it was really bare bones and easy to add to. Now you'd likely just use docker, or like me profile and containers for compartmentalisation; aka super paranoia.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  To be fair, VMs are a better isolation mechanism; sort of like qubes but less extreme.
  - nonrandomstring 2y ago
    It's a bit of a mindset change, but yeah, you can start to think of operating systems not as big frameworks to run lots of applications, but as thin wrappers around single applications in an ecosystem like qemu+virsh. Clone a fresh template, install something in it, talk to it with sockets/tcp whatever.
  - eduction 2y ago
    I think one qubes feature that could be profitably extracted are the disposable VMs, particularly for web browsing but also as a sort of default jail for potentially dodgy software. Like a right click “run this in a disposable vm” option in mainstream OSes. And run the built in web browser like that by default. Apple could probably come up with some spiffy branding. “Run this on an islandTM” or something like that. Call the feature “Archipelago.”
    - fishgoesblub 2y ago
      Introducing: Apple Iceberg™ Isolate your apps for enhanced security through Secure Containers™ on all MacOS™ systems
    - wishfish 2y ago
      Wouldn't Windows Sandbox come close? Easy to fire up and it all vanishes on exit.
    - LeFantome 2y ago
      You mean, like a Docker container?
      - ElectricalUnion 2y ago
        Namespaces and jails share the host OS kernel. Assuming malicious applications, you don't want to expose your kernel, so those aren't safe enough.
    - transpute 2y ago
      > one qubes feature that could be profitably extracted are the disposable VMs, particularly for web browsing but also as a sort of default jail for potentially dodgy software A similar feature ships on HP business PCs as HP SureClick based on uXen, derived from Bromium micro VMs, derived from Xen, which is used by Qubes. Also cloned by Microsoft in Windows as Application Defender Guard. Bromium isolated each tab of a web browser in a separate Windows VM with copy-on-write memory, and even individual network connections could be isolated in a micro-VM. A similar architecture has evolved on mobile phones as Android Virtualization Framework (AVF) with pKVM nested virt. Apple has taken baby steps in this direction, adding hardware nested virt on M2+ silicon, M3+ macOS and M4+ iPad Pro "Secure eXclave" micro-VM for camera LED indicator. While the underlying infrastructure is slowly being built to enable disposable VMs and other security improvements based on micro-VMs, one challenge is high-performance graphics composition of display output from the VM with the main desktop. Google has blazed an OSS trail with virtio and CrosVM on ChromeOS, which will hopefully be ported to Android with external display output. Since Apple controls both hardware and OS, they could add GPU hardware support for virtualization, removing any perceptible UX slowdown from micro VMs. Intel already added SR-IOV virtualization to Xe iGPUs.
      - eduction 2y ago
        Thanks, this is great overview of the space, I had no idea about all this. Maybe I should play with other OSes more beyond Mac and Qubes and Linux but configuring Qubes tends to take up all my extra OS time :-)
- mikedelfino 2y ago
  > I used tiny core to isolate my banking (...) in virtualbox. A few years ago, I tried something similar—not out of fear that malware might steal money from my bank account, but because my bank required me to install some kind of security software to access their internet banking on a PC. It turned out they don't like customers running their software in VMs. My account was completely blocked, including my debit card and ATM access. I had to visit a physical branch to resolve the issue. So I gave up on using internet banking on a PC and switched to their mobile app instead.
  - matsz 2y ago
    Random question but why would you not switch banks? I wouldn't want to be a customer of a business that clearly doesn't respect me.
    - LargoLasskhyfv 2y ago
      Opportunity costs of changing stuff, lack of alternatives, and if there are, they are probably doing the same shit anyways...
    - mikedelfino 2y ago
      They're otherwise not terrible, and the limited banking I do works fine on the phone, so it didn’t bother me too much.
      - penguin_booze 2y ago
        I would have taken the opportunity to "educate" them that that your use case is a legitimate one, and why they should teach their systems not to block users like that.
    - fragmede 2y ago
      Because mapping a very understandable security concern from the computer security department to the human concept of respect is nonsense.
  - 2y ago
egberts1 2y ago
Latest Tiny Core Linux is at kernel v6.6.8 now!
0xbadcafebee 2y ago
What a fun time that was in the aughts for distros. Hardware was rapidly changing and made a lot of new stuff possible. I wonder if there are still emerging hardware platforms to inspire kids today. I had the most fun when I could combine software with hardware, like trying to fit a distro on a floppy, or using the business card CDs to boot a distro into RAM, creating thin terminal clients, routers, firewalls. Feels more real when there's something physical involved. Also worth noting that the concept Robert discusses of avoiding "system rot" is an early example of immutable infrastructure, a game-changing design used to automate fixing state and entropy failures in modern systems. Had no idea that's where it would lead.
- einpoklum 2y ago
  > I wonder if there are still emerging hardware platforms to inspire kids today. I should think so. There are all sorts of interesting SoC's with widening capabilities but still always with vastly different tradeoffs; and where once you could apply very limited programmed control to all sorts of objects, today you can run them using a full-fledged computer. There are also more "smart" devices which smart people may want to reverse-engineers and make generic and customizable - from TVs to vaccuum cleaners.
  - Cumpiler69 2y ago
    >I should think so. There are all sorts of interesting SoC Why would kids want to play with such things? I got into computers because that's where "the internet" was, where pirated video games were, pirated mp3s and movies, so learning some technical stuff came with the territory. But today kids have all that one touch away. They don't have to leave that comfort zone. Back then there were no comfort zones. If you wanted (free) entertainment on the PC you had to put in the work.
    - LeFantome 2y ago
      I am old, so this comment is pretty hilarious. You got into computers “because that’s where the Internet was”. I got into computers two decades before that and had to create stuff myself because I could not afford everything. I had to save up for Z80 books and wait for a family road-trip to buy them. When “the Internet” came along, suddenly everything was everywhere and free. Why would anybody need to learn anymore? It was all just “one touch” away. Except you did learn. And the “kids today”’still are. Except they are building a Proxmox homelab running Linux containers and Tailscale networking so they can host a Minecraft server. And they are using CAD to design their own custom fit ( to their finger-length ) macropad and programming the microcontroller themselves. They are running Jellyfin to stream the content their parents don’t subscribe to. They are doing video editing and 3D rendering that would have been Science fiction in the 90’s and learning about audio and video codecs to do it. They may be running Steam on Linux. They are also jail breaking their phones and overclocking their hardware. Hardware much more complex than what we grew up with. Some of them are even learning a bit of Python or Typescript and creating virtual AI assistants from free APIs or Open Source models. Trust me. Kids are still putting in the work. They are just putting it into different things.
bastloing 2y ago
That's back during the evolution of the operating system, I remember getting CDs of DSL with our console switches. What a great time to be building out our massive server rooms! Lots of fun back then!
devinfo 2y ago
Wow I rememeber this!
JaDogg 2y ago
I remember making my own distro with TCL :)

90 points by transpute 2y ago

Prior to my knowledge of Firefox profiles and multiaccount containers, I used tiny core to isolate my banking, shopping, general browsing, etc; from both each other and my base OS, in virtualbox. I preferred it to other small distros like slitaz and puppy because it was really bare bones and easy to add to. Now you'd likely just use docker, or like me profile and containers for compartmentalisation; aka super paranoia.

yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
To be fair, VMs are a better isolation mechanism; sort of like qubes but less extreme.
- nonrandomstring 2y ago
  It's a bit of a mindset change, but yeah, you can start to think of operating systems not as big frameworks to run lots of applications, but as thin wrappers around single applications in an ecosystem like qemu+virsh. Clone a fresh template, install something in it, talk to it with sockets/tcp whatever.
- eduction 2y ago
  I think one qubes feature that could be profitably extracted are the disposable VMs, particularly for web browsing but also as a sort of default jail for potentially dodgy software. Like a right click “run this in a disposable vm” option in mainstream OSes. And run the built in web browser like that by default. Apple could probably come up with some spiffy branding. “Run this on an islandTM” or something like that. Call the feature “Archipelago.”
  - fishgoesblub 2y ago
    Introducing: Apple Iceberg™ Isolate your apps for enhanced security through Secure Containers™ on all MacOS™ systems
  - wishfish 2y ago
    Wouldn't Windows Sandbox come close? Easy to fire up and it all vanishes on exit.
  - LeFantome 2y ago
    You mean, like a Docker container?
    - ElectricalUnion 2y ago
      Namespaces and jails share the host OS kernel. Assuming malicious applications, you don't want to expose your kernel, so those aren't safe enough.
  - transpute 2y ago
    > one qubes feature that could be profitably extracted are the disposable VMs, particularly for web browsing but also as a sort of default jail for potentially dodgy software A similar feature ships on HP business PCs as HP SureClick based on uXen, derived from Bromium micro VMs, derived from Xen, which is used by Qubes. Also cloned by Microsoft in Windows as Application Defender Guard. Bromium isolated each tab of a web browser in a separate Windows VM with copy-on-write memory, and even individual network connections could be isolated in a micro-VM. A similar architecture has evolved on mobile phones as Android Virtualization Framework (AVF) with pKVM nested virt. Apple has taken baby steps in this direction, adding hardware nested virt on M2+ silicon, M3+ macOS and M4+ iPad Pro "Secure eXclave" micro-VM for camera LED indicator. While the underlying infrastructure is slowly being built to enable disposable VMs and other security improvements based on micro-VMs, one challenge is high-performance graphics composition of display output from the VM with the main desktop. Google has blazed an OSS trail with virtio and CrosVM on ChromeOS, which will hopefully be ported to Android with external display output. Since Apple controls both hardware and OS, they could add GPU hardware support for virtualization, removing any perceptible UX slowdown from micro VMs. Intel already added SR-IOV virtualization to Xe iGPUs.
    - eduction 2y ago
      Thanks, this is great overview of the space, I had no idea about all this. Maybe I should play with other OSes more beyond Mac and Qubes and Linux but configuring Qubes tends to take up all my extra OS time :-)
mikedelfino 2y ago
> I used tiny core to isolate my banking (...) in virtualbox. A few years ago, I tried something similar—not out of fear that malware might steal money from my bank account, but because my bank required me to install some kind of security software to access their internet banking on a PC. It turned out they don't like customers running their software in VMs. My account was completely blocked, including my debit card and ATM access. I had to visit a physical branch to resolve the issue. So I gave up on using internet banking on a PC and switched to their mobile app instead.
- matsz 2y ago
  Random question but why would you not switch banks? I wouldn't want to be a customer of a business that clearly doesn't respect me.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 2y ago
    Opportunity costs of changing stuff, lack of alternatives, and if there are, they are probably doing the same shit anyways...
  - mikedelfino 2y ago
    They're otherwise not terrible, and the limited banking I do works fine on the phone, so it didn’t bother me too much.
    - penguin_booze 2y ago
      I would have taken the opportunity to "educate" them that that your use case is a legitimate one, and why they should teach their systems not to block users like that.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    Because mapping a very understandable security concern from the computer security department to the human concept of respect is nonsense.
- 2y ago

egberts1 2y ago

Latest Tiny Core Linux is at kernel v6.6.8 now!

0xbadcafebee 2y ago

What a fun time that was in the aughts for distros. Hardware was rapidly changing and made a lot of new stuff possible. I wonder if there are still emerging hardware platforms to inspire kids today. I had the most fun when I could combine software with hardware, like trying to fit a distro on a floppy, or using the business card CDs to boot a distro into RAM, creating thin terminal clients, routers, firewalls. Feels more real when there's something physical involved. Also worth noting that the concept Robert discusses of avoiding "system rot" is an early example of immutable infrastructure, a game-changing design used to automate fixing state and entropy failures in modern systems. Had no idea that's where it would lead.

einpoklum 2y ago
> I wonder if there are still emerging hardware platforms to inspire kids today. I should think so. There are all sorts of interesting SoC's with widening capabilities but still always with vastly different tradeoffs; and where once you could apply very limited programmed control to all sorts of objects, today you can run them using a full-fledged computer. There are also more "smart" devices which smart people may want to reverse-engineers and make generic and customizable - from TVs to vaccuum cleaners.
- Cumpiler69 2y ago
  >I should think so. There are all sorts of interesting SoC Why would kids want to play with such things? I got into computers because that's where "the internet" was, where pirated video games were, pirated mp3s and movies, so learning some technical stuff came with the territory. But today kids have all that one touch away. They don't have to leave that comfort zone. Back then there were no comfort zones. If you wanted (free) entertainment on the PC you had to put in the work.
  - LeFantome 2y ago
    I am old, so this comment is pretty hilarious. You got into computers “because that’s where the Internet was”. I got into computers two decades before that and had to create stuff myself because I could not afford everything. I had to save up for Z80 books and wait for a family road-trip to buy them. When “the Internet” came along, suddenly everything was everywhere and free. Why would anybody need to learn anymore? It was all just “one touch” away. Except you did learn. And the “kids today”’still are. Except they are building a Proxmox homelab running Linux containers and Tailscale networking so they can host a Minecraft server. And they are using CAD to design their own custom fit ( to their finger-length ) macropad and programming the microcontroller themselves. They are running Jellyfin to stream the content their parents don’t subscribe to. They are doing video editing and 3D rendering that would have been Science fiction in the 90’s and learning about audio and video codecs to do it. They may be running Steam on Linux. They are also jail breaking their phones and overclocking their hardware. Hardware much more complex than what we grew up with. Some of them are even learning a bit of Python or Typescript and creating virtual AI assistants from free APIs or Open Source models. Trust me. Kids are still putting in the work. They are just putting it into different things.

bastloing 2y ago

That's back during the evolution of the operating system, I remember getting CDs of DSL with our console switches. What a great time to be building out our massive server rooms! Lots of fun back then!

devinfo 2y ago

Wow I rememeber this!

JaDogg 2y ago

I remember making my own distro with TCL :)