9 ms·

Emacs standing alone on a Linux Kernel

198 points by stevekemp 12y ago

AeroNotix 12y ago
Quite possibly the greatest human achievement ever made.
math0ne 12y ago
I put my shell in your shell so I can shell while you shell.
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  Y'know, that's kind of the point as well. A number of "BBC" bootable business cards used a /bin/sh script as init. This worked pretty well. Though, now that I think of it, while I've never had /bin/init itself fail on me, the BBCs would occasionally crash due to a shell hang (either the script or /bin/sh itself, I'm not sure which).
fdsary 12y ago
A lisp machine!
xg15 12y ago
Now it only needs a decent editor. (I'm sorry)
- jgrahamc 12y ago
  I laughed even though I'm a dedicated emacs user.
- jfb 12y ago
  An old joke, but a good one.
- jsmthrowaway 12y ago
  Nah. Luckily it can shell out, and /bin/cat is a decent editor in comparison.
  - danielweber 12y ago
    ed
    - LanceH 12y ago
      It is the standard.
      - jsilence 12y ago
        M-x butterfly
  - gpvos 12y ago
    And you get extra points if you set your terminal to raw mode.
- Crito 12y ago
  http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil ;)
- codemac 12y ago
  M-x evil-mode
  - cies 12y ago
    Yups! Even that issue can be closed now.
izietto 12y ago
King Vim is not amused :P
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  Consider it a challenge. No real reason you couldn't implement it as well, though AFAIR there's no internal shell mode in vim (you shell out).
  - emidln 12y ago
    You could probably make due with the python plugin, vim-conque, and ipython.
  - mercurial 12y ago
    It's not really the vim way, though. Vim doesn't have web browsers, email client, and the like. Maybe the terribleness of vimscript is a blessing in disguise?
    - dredmorbius 12y ago
      Fair point that. But it's got syntax highlighting for most of the content types you'd be likely to encounter.
  - mdewinter 12y ago
    Challenge done: https://raymii.org/s/blog/Vim_as_PID_1_Boot_to_Vim.html https://raymii.org/s/blog/Vim_as_PID_1_Boot_to_Vim.html
    - dredmorbius 12y ago
      Submitted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8335226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8335226
- izietto 12y ago
  Why all these downvotes... I was just joking :/
abdullahkhalids 12y ago
If I can get a laptop with a e-ink display (or build one using a raspberry pi) this is my dream setup for when I am writing.
- Someone1234 12y ago
  e-Ink is one of the worlds most underutilized technologies. I wonder why that is?
  - sho_hn 12y ago
    Because it's not very nice to use. It feels unfinished and wonky. I do enjoy using my (high-end and fairly recent, Kobo Aura HD) reader, but fast path page turns degrade the rendition quality of type so quickly that I've set it to do a full refresh every two turns, and so get to put up with how slow and violent they are. It's the sort of tech that would send a cartoon Steve Jobs into a raging fit. e-Ink feels like a prototype we're putting up with because it has some intrinsic conceptual advantages, but it never feels like it's fully there yet. It's probably the most utilized such technology I can think of (though perhaps I've just gotten more used to other tech's flaws). I'm happy we're willing to do that, really, but e-Ink is unsatisfying and needs to be better.
    - snogglethorpe 12y ago
      Yeah, eink is a great idea, but it feels like it's been just languishing in the "zone of OK" for quite a while, while 99% of industry research dollars are focused on fast-update vivid color light-emitting displays. Unfortunately the latter are arguably more widely applicable, and vivid color displays are reallly easy to sell to consumers, while the charms of something like eink are more subtle up front (even if very apparent in the long term). Eink-type displays, that emphasize long-period eye comfort and texture over vivacity and color, are probably a smaller niche. Niches don't really get the money... and subtlety doesn't sell. Oh well.
      - derekp7 12y ago
kazinator 12y ago
Just the fact alone that there is no systemd makes this an awesome distro!
rikkus 12y ago
Only one step left before it's truly a OS in its own right!
- bane 12y ago
  2017: emacs renamed "GNU Hurd".
daveloyall 12y ago
Hm, the author really does mean 'standing alone'. I'd always assumed that when someone does this, they'd make emacs perform the usual init duties, and that the rest of the system would be available. And you want the rest of the system to be available, to use emacs properly... hobbes@metalbaby:~$ find /usr/share/emacs -type f -name \*.el -exec grep '/bin/' {} +|wc -l 62 hobbes@metalbaby:~$ find /usr/share/emacs -type f -name \*.el -exec grep call-process {} +|wc -l 44 ...For some reason I thought those numbers would be much larger. I'm probably searching for the wrong strings.
- LukeShu 12y ago
  Most of the .el files are compressed as .el.gz files; also /sbin/. $ find /usr/share/emacs/24.3/ \ > -name '*.el' -exec grep -E '/s?bin/' {} + -o \ > -name '*.el.gz' -exec zgrep -E '/s?bin/' {} + | wc -l 212 $ find /usr/share/emacs/24.3/ \ > -name '*.el' -exec grep call-process {} + -o \ > -name '*.el.gz' -exec zgrep call-process {} + | wc -l 400
- mercurial 12y ago
  emacs-systemd, coming soon to your system.
  - daveloyall 12y ago
    Yes! But, we're 0.2 seconds away from the old emacs threading conversation here... :)
microtherion 12y ago
Now that's what I call "GNU/Linux"
influx 12y ago
Shit, I did that years ago: --- main.c Sun Jun 3 22:02:34 2001 +++ main.c~ Tue Jul 10 16:05:26 2001 @@ -789,9 +789,9 @@ if (execute_command) execve(execute_command,argv_init,envp_init); - execve("/sbin/init",argv_init,envp_init); - execve("/etc/init",argv_init,envp_init); - execve("/bin/init",argv_init,envp_init); - execve("/bin/sh",argv_init,envp_init); - panic("No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel."); + execve("/usr/bin/emacs",argv_init,envp_init); + execve("/usr/local/bin/emacs",argv_init,envp_init) ; + execve("/bin/emacs",argv_init,envp_init); + execve("/usr/bin/xemacs",argv_init,envp_init); + panic("No emacs found. Are you sure this is GNU/Linux?"); }
- mike_ivanov 12y ago
  ln -sf /usr/bin/emacs /sbin/init
  - scott_karana 12y ago
    Where would you find ln, though? ;)
    - digisign 12y ago
      That's pre reboot.
    - pyre 12y ago
      Where would you find gcc to patch the kernel? :P
    - daveloyall 12y ago
      make-symbolic-link is an interactive built-in function in `C source code'. (make-symbolic-link FILENAME LINKNAME &optional OK-IF-ALREADY-EXISTS) Make a symbolic link to FILENAME, named LINKNAME. Both args must be strings. Signals a `file-already-exists' error if a file LINKNAME already exists unless optional third argument OK-IF-ALREADY-EXISTS is non-nil. A number as third arg means request confirmation if LINKNAME already exists. This happens for interactive use with M-x. or... dired-do-symlink is an interactive autoloaded compiled Lisp function in `dired-aux.el'. (dired-do-symlink &optional ARG) Make symbolic links to current file or all marked (or next ARG) files. When operating on just the current file, you specify the new name. When operating on multiple or marked files, you specify a directory and new symbolic links are made in that directory with the same names that the files currently have. The default suggested for the target directory depends on the value of `dired-dwim-target', which see. For relative symlinks, use M-x dired-do-relsymlink. ...It doesn't seem to depend on an external `ln`. http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/tree/src/fileio.c#n2444 http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/tree/src/fileio.c...
postit 12y ago
I always told that Emacs was designed with the fear that some day the OS won't be there. This day is coming
- KC8ZKF 12y ago
  (replace-regexp-in-string "fear" "hope")
ejr 12y ago
I imagine there are a number of authors who don't want to be bothered by the extraneous bells and whistles on a new system. It reminds me of this clip of George R.R. Martin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5REM-3nWHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5REM-3nWHg
hardwaresofton 12y ago
One of these days I'm going to get "All you need is Emacs" on a T-Shirt and teespring it.
- hardwaresofton 12y ago
  http://teespring.com/all-you-need-is-emacs http://teespring.com/all-you-need-is-emacs Pretty impressed with the interface of teespring, it was literally a breeze. Amazing UX and UI design on that site
cryptos 12y ago
I was thinking that the Emacs operating system already had a kernel! ;-)
spain 12y ago
Sometimes I really do wish GNU Emacs could work as a window manager too. I'm currently using StumpWM but it feels wrong that it's separated from Emacs. Most of the time on my laptop I just have a bunch of emacsclient -c's running, Firefox, and a PDF viewer (though I'm sure Emacs has several browsers, I'm still not willing to give up Firefox).
- daveloyall 12y ago
  You and I use our computers in a similar manner, right down to the bunch of emacsclient -c's. Throw a deluge and a vlc in there... I have never quite got emacs integrated into my window manager satisfactorily. Here are some things I've tried: * stumpwm without integration * i3wm with https://github.com/vava/i3-emacs https://github.com/vava/i3-emacs * Various incarnations of http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/OneOnOneEmacs http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/OneOnOneEmacs with i3wm, awesomewm Things I have considered trying: * talking to clfswm via an inferior lisp process The next thing I'm going to try: * xmonad (via hackage) Let's face it, the end goal here is for ALL keys to go through emacs, and then have emacs tell the WM what to do, yeah? Once that is done, regardless of which wm it gets done to, a bunch of people are going to flock to it, AMIRITE? :)
gpvos 12y ago
> The only external tool needed is mount. It looks like emacs is missing functionality. Get to it!
teddyh 12y ago
> (global-set-key "^\" 'keyboard-quit) ;; strangely, C-g does not work. That is probably because Emacs remaps the Unix terminal interrupt character from Ctrl-C to Ctrl-G, and then detects the actual interrupt signal. If Emacs is run standalone, then probably the terminal has not been set up correctly, and this needs to be adjusted. I’m sure it could be made to work with a few careful calls to (call-process "/bin/stty" …) or so.
hardwaresofton 12y ago
"All you need is Emacs" T-Shirt: http://teespring.com/all-you-need-is-emacs http://teespring.com/all-you-need-is-emacs (Seemed to be against guidelines to post as it's own thing)

198 points by stevekemp 12y ago

AeroNotix 12y ago

Quite possibly the greatest human achievement ever made.

math0ne 12y ago

I put my shell in your shell so I can shell while you shell.

dredmorbius 12y ago
Y'know, that's kind of the point as well. A number of "BBC" bootable business cards used a /bin/sh script as init. This worked pretty well. Though, now that I think of it, while I've never had /bin/init itself fail on me, the BBCs would occasionally crash due to a shell hang (either the script or /bin/sh itself, I'm not sure which).

fdsary 12y ago

A lisp machine!

xg15 12y ago

Now it only needs a decent editor. (I'm sorry)

jgrahamc 12y ago
I laughed even though I'm a dedicated emacs user.
jfb 12y ago
An old joke, but a good one.
jsmthrowaway 12y ago
Nah. Luckily it can shell out, and /bin/cat is a decent editor in comparison.
- danielweber 12y ago
  ed
  - LanceH 12y ago
    It is the standard.
    - jsilence 12y ago
      M-x butterfly
- gpvos 12y ago
  And you get extra points if you set your terminal to raw mode.
Crito 12y ago
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil ;)
codemac 12y ago
M-x evil-mode
- cies 12y ago
  Yups! Even that issue can be closed now.

izietto 12y ago

King Vim is not amused :P

dredmorbius 12y ago
Consider it a challenge. No real reason you couldn't implement it as well, though AFAIR there's no internal shell mode in vim (you shell out).
- emidln 12y ago
  You could probably make due with the python plugin, vim-conque, and ipython.
- mercurial 12y ago
  It's not really the vim way, though. Vim doesn't have web browsers, email client, and the like. Maybe the terribleness of vimscript is a blessing in disguise?
  - dredmorbius 12y ago
    Fair point that. But it's got syntax highlighting for most of the content types you'd be likely to encounter.
- mdewinter 12y ago
  Challenge done: https://raymii.org/s/blog/Vim_as_PID_1_Boot_to_Vim.html https://raymii.org/s/blog/Vim_as_PID_1_Boot_to_Vim.html
  - dredmorbius 12y ago
    Submitted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8335226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8335226
izietto 12y ago
Why all these downvotes... I was just joking :/

abdullahkhalids 12y ago

If I can get a laptop with a e-ink display (or build one using a raspberry pi) this is my dream setup for when I am writing.

Someone1234 12y ago
e-Ink is one of the worlds most underutilized technologies. I wonder why that is?
- sho_hn 12y ago
  Because it's not very nice to use. It feels unfinished and wonky. I do enjoy using my (high-end and fairly recent, Kobo Aura HD) reader, but fast path page turns degrade the rendition quality of type so quickly that I've set it to do a full refresh every two turns, and so get to put up with how slow and violent they are. It's the sort of tech that would send a cartoon Steve Jobs into a raging fit. e-Ink feels like a prototype we're putting up with because it has some intrinsic conceptual advantages, but it never feels like it's fully there yet. It's probably the most utilized such technology I can think of (though perhaps I've just gotten more used to other tech's flaws). I'm happy we're willing to do that, really, but e-Ink is unsatisfying and needs to be better.
  - snogglethorpe 12y ago
    Yeah, eink is a great idea, but it feels like it's been just languishing in the "zone of OK" for quite a while, while 99% of industry research dollars are focused on fast-update vivid color light-emitting displays. Unfortunately the latter are arguably more widely applicable, and vivid color displays are reallly easy to sell to consumers, while the charms of something like eink are more subtle up front (even if very apparent in the long term). Eink-type displays, that emphasize long-period eye comfort and texture over vivacity and color, are probably a smaller niche. Niches don't really get the money... and subtlety doesn't sell. Oh well.
    - derekp7 12y ago

kazinator 12y ago

Just the fact alone that there is no systemd makes this an awesome distro!

rikkus 12y ago

Only one step left before it's truly a OS in its own right!

bane 12y ago
2017: emacs renamed "GNU Hurd".

daveloyall 12y ago

Hm, the author really does mean 'standing alone'. I'd always assumed that when someone does this, they'd make emacs perform the usual init duties, and that the rest of the system would be available. And you want the rest of the system to be available, to use emacs properly... hobbes@metalbaby:~$ find /usr/share/emacs -type f -name \*.el -exec grep '/bin/' {} +|wc -l 62 hobbes@metalbaby:~$ find /usr/share/emacs -type f -name \*.el -exec grep call-process {} +|wc -l 44 ...For some reason I thought those numbers would be much larger. I'm probably searching for the wrong strings.

LukeShu 12y ago
Most of the .el files are compressed as .el.gz files; also /sbin/. $ find /usr/share/emacs/24.3/ \ > -name '*.el' -exec grep -E '/s?bin/' {} + -o \ > -name '*.el.gz' -exec zgrep -E '/s?bin/' {} + | wc -l 212 $ find /usr/share/emacs/24.3/ \ > -name '*.el' -exec grep call-process {} + -o \ > -name '*.el.gz' -exec zgrep call-process {} + | wc -l 400
mercurial 12y ago
emacs-systemd, coming soon to your system.
- daveloyall 12y ago
  Yes! But, we're 0.2 seconds away from the old emacs threading conversation here... :)

microtherion 12y ago

Now that's what I call "GNU/Linux"

influx 12y ago

Shit, I did that years ago: --- main.c Sun Jun 3 22:02:34 2001 +++ main.c~ Tue Jul 10 16:05:26 2001 @@ -789,9 +789,9 @@ if (execute_command) execve(execute_command,argv_init,envp_init); - execve("/sbin/init",argv_init,envp_init); - execve("/etc/init",argv_init,envp_init); - execve("/bin/init",argv_init,envp_init); - execve("/bin/sh",argv_init,envp_init); - panic("No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel."); + execve("/usr/bin/emacs",argv_init,envp_init); + execve("/usr/local/bin/emacs",argv_init,envp_init) ; + execve("/bin/emacs",argv_init,envp_init); + execve("/usr/bin/xemacs",argv_init,envp_init); + panic("No emacs found. Are you sure this is GNU/Linux?"); }

mike_ivanov 12y ago
ln -sf /usr/bin/emacs /sbin/init
- scott_karana 12y ago
  Where would you find ln, though? ;)
  - digisign 12y ago
    That's pre reboot.
  - pyre 12y ago
    Where would you find gcc to patch the kernel? :P
  - daveloyall 12y ago
    make-symbolic-link is an interactive built-in function in `C source code'. (make-symbolic-link FILENAME LINKNAME &optional OK-IF-ALREADY-EXISTS) Make a symbolic link to FILENAME, named LINKNAME. Both args must be strings. Signals a `file-already-exists' error if a file LINKNAME already exists unless optional third argument OK-IF-ALREADY-EXISTS is non-nil. A number as third arg means request confirmation if LINKNAME already exists. This happens for interactive use with M-x. or... dired-do-symlink is an interactive autoloaded compiled Lisp function in `dired-aux.el'. (dired-do-symlink &optional ARG) Make symbolic links to current file or all marked (or next ARG) files. When operating on just the current file, you specify the new name. When operating on multiple or marked files, you specify a directory and new symbolic links are made in that directory with the same names that the files currently have. The default suggested for the target directory depends on the value of `dired-dwim-target', which see. For relative symlinks, use M-x dired-do-relsymlink. ...It doesn't seem to depend on an external `ln`. http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/tree/src/fileio.c#n2444 http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/tree/src/fileio.c...

postit 12y ago

I always told that Emacs was designed with the fear that some day the OS won't be there. This day is coming

KC8ZKF 12y ago
(replace-regexp-in-string "fear" "hope")

ejr 12y ago

I imagine there are a number of authors who don't want to be bothered by the extraneous bells and whistles on a new system. It reminds me of this clip of George R.R. Martin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5REM-3nWHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5REM-3nWHg

hardwaresofton 12y ago

One of these days I'm going to get "All you need is Emacs" on a T-Shirt and teespring it.

hardwaresofton 12y ago
http://teespring.com/all-you-need-is-emacs http://teespring.com/all-you-need-is-emacs Pretty impressed with the interface of teespring, it was literally a breeze. Amazing UX and UI design on that site

cryptos 12y ago

I was thinking that the Emacs operating system already had a kernel! ;-)

spain 12y ago

Sometimes I really do wish GNU Emacs could work as a window manager too. I'm currently using StumpWM but it feels wrong that it's separated from Emacs. Most of the time on my laptop I just have a bunch of emacsclient -c's running, Firefox, and a PDF viewer (though I'm sure Emacs has several browsers, I'm still not willing to give up Firefox).

daveloyall 12y ago
You and I use our computers in a similar manner, right down to the bunch of emacsclient -c's. Throw a deluge and a vlc in there... I have never quite got emacs integrated into my window manager satisfactorily. Here are some things I've tried: * stumpwm without integration * i3wm with https://github.com/vava/i3-emacs https://github.com/vava/i3-emacs * Various incarnations of http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/OneOnOneEmacs http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/OneOnOneEmacs with i3wm, awesomewm Things I have considered trying: * talking to clfswm via an inferior lisp process The next thing I'm going to try: * xmonad (via hackage) Let's face it, the end goal here is for ALL keys to go through emacs, and then have emacs tell the WM what to do, yeah? Once that is done, regardless of which wm it gets done to, a bunch of people are going to flock to it, AMIRITE? :)

gpvos 12y ago

> The only external tool needed is mount. It looks like emacs is missing functionality. Get to it!

teddyh 12y ago

> (global-set-key "^\" 'keyboard-quit) ;; strangely, C-g does not work. That is probably because Emacs remaps the Unix terminal interrupt character from Ctrl-C to Ctrl-G, and then detects the actual interrupt signal. If Emacs is run standalone, then probably the terminal has not been set up correctly, and this needs to be adjusted. I’m sure it could be made to work with a few careful calls to (call-process "/bin/stty" …) or so.

hardwaresofton 12y ago

"All you need is Emacs" T-Shirt: http://teespring.com/all-you-need-is-emacs http://teespring.com/all-you-need-is-emacs (Seemed to be against guidelines to post as it's own thing)