[HN Gopher] The 4th Year of SerenityOS ___________________________________________________________________ The 4th Year of SerenityOS Author : crecker Score : 317 points Date : 2022-10-10 14:12 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (serenityos.org) (TXT) w3m dump (serenityos.org) | [deleted] | nonbirithm wrote: | I think there is more behind SerenityOS that elevates it above | being just another OS project. They've attracted hundreds of | contributors and have instilled a unique sense of culture within | their community (as an example, going as far to devote an entire | GitHub repository to documenting a list of "yak-shaving" yak | emojis[1]). | | I think that kind of social endeavor isn't something a lot of | maintainers can accomplish, not even those with the skills to | work on such a project all by themselves. | | [1] https://github.com/SerenityOS/yaksplained | chillfox wrote: | Super welcoming community + a clear and strong vision to guide | the project. | | Other OS projects I have seen either lack vision (same as x, | but written in y), or they are just for the personal learning | of the developer who started it. | edgyquant wrote: | I think it's that most people are doomers and/or are defeated | by doomerism. Most people think it's impossible to build an OS | or a web browser (and are told this when they ask for help | building one.) | | In reality engineering is straightforward, you just need | someone to show you how to properly write data structures and | algorithms and to break problems down. | | Andreas showed these kids this, reinvigorating the web based | hacker culture I grew up in. Anything is possible and even if a | problem ends up being more than you can handle at least you | learned a ton along the way. | | Now days searching for how to code leads you to a ton of | tutorials about gluing modules together. I feel sorry for young | people with that thirst who won't be satisfied thanks to the | commoditization of learning to code. | systemvoltage wrote: | One of the comments on Kling's YT stream read: | | "Wish we could go back to 2004. Modern web has become toxic | af" which embodies the spirit of this community pretty well I | think. | | Andreas Kling is the messiah that is leading a group of | people that are fed up with modernity. | phist_mcgee wrote: | Ironically, by using modern tools. | jbirer wrote: | Modern tools are good, but the culture around it is | pretty toxic, and in my own opinion, cringy. 10 years ago | you would get booed for saying things like "Unused RAM is | wasted ram, so let's build this in Electron". I am happy | to see a pushback. | systemvoltage wrote: | I think revisiting vintage technologies with better | modern tools = Win. | | It takes advantage of sharp hindsight and correct what | was bad, and more importantly keep what worked. | beeman wrote: | I found out about SerenityOS because of the post about Ladybird | here on HN a few weeks back. | | I have since watched hours of his stream and found it super | inspiring. To the extend that I now want to learn some C++ and | make some contributions to the project. | | It's really refreshing to see people code for fun and build | whatever they feel like. | | I think a lot of profesional devs lose that when they go all in | on their work (which is understandable) so it's awesome to see | something like this! | | Congrats on the 4 years! Looking forward to what's next! | pjmlp wrote: | It is a great project and who knows, one day might come as | standard in some OEM system. | | Happy birthday. | phendrenad2 wrote: | Is this ever getting GPU acceleration? | cies wrote: | Not sure why downvoted... I searched Github for you and found | this: | | https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/tree/master/Userland/... | | See also LigGPU and LibSoftGPU in the same folder. | jeroenhd wrote: | LibGPU seems to load the soft GPU, doesn't seem to do all | that much. Which is perfectly understandable, GPUs are their | own special part of operating system programming (messing | with firmware, boot timings, etc.). | | If it'll ever get GPU support, I'd expect it to be based on | QEMU/libvirt GPU acceleration rather than any direct hardware | support. | | Unless someone knowledgeable and motivated enough has a crack | at it and writes a driver forttheir GPU, of course That's an | immense task, though, so I wouldn't expect it any time soon. | Maybe an Intel engineer will get bored or something. | cies wrote: | See this also from the birthday announcement: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yLESYN4_5w | asddubs wrote: | just to clarify potential misunderstandings: this is for | opengl compatibility using CPU rendering. although obviously | having this sort of thing will be useful for transitioning to | gpu support independently of having drivers written | bpye wrote: | I think all the BSDs got GPU acceleration by adding a compat | layer around Linux's DRM subsystem. I'm sure someone could do | that for SerenityOS if they were so motivated... | asddubs wrote: | my personal guess is probably, although andreas always insists | that there is no plan in response to these sort of questions, | so don't expect official confirmation or a timeline | adamrt wrote: | They don't plan ahead for features typically. They add stuff | when someone wants to do the work. | akling wrote: | Happy birthday, SerenityOS! :^) | codetrotter wrote: | Congrats Andreas, on building such a cool project and | community! SerenityOS is a wonderful project, and the world is | better for it existing :) | | And also all of your wonderful videos that you've made about | the development of the system over these years. That's the most | valuable part of it all for me. | Aaronstotle wrote: | What an amazing project, first heard about it here when it | launched. | gjsman-1000 wrote: | Fantastic progress. | | My only concern is looking at it... I can't help but worry | slightly about feature creep. We went from an OS, to an OS + Web | Browser, to an OS + Web Browser + Programming Language. Next year | it might add an Office Suite at this rate. | | Edit: I don't mean this as a bad thing, just that it would be a | shame to get so large that everything becomes half-baked and | overwhelming to finish. | BirAdam wrote: | Well, there's tons of room for improvement over that tools that | exist on other OSs/platforms, so why not? | forgotpwd16 wrote: | For many people a web browser and an office suite is all they | use a computer for. If anything an office suite should be | expected. | armchairhacker wrote: | this is actually mentioned in the article, by one of the quoted | people. | | It works out because of loose coupling + many contributors. | People will work on the web browser and others will work on the | main OS, and there aren't too many conflicts or places where | each team has to coordinate. | | It also works because making a basic OS or web browser or | programming language is not hard, 90% of the work goes into the | final 10% of perfection. You can a) make minor improvements to | the base OS, or b) create an entirely new program and a burst | of seemingly-rapid development; SerenityOS is a passion | project, so many people choose b. | | Furthermore, many of the people working on the OS are still | doing so, and some of the people working on the web browser may | not have joined without it. So maybe it's slowing down progress | on the main OS but not by too much, the main OS is still | improving. | | Honestly I kind of predict people will start to branch off and | work on a Serenity office, and Serenity painter and Serenity | DAW and Serenity calendar and Serenity game engine. This is | basically what KDE has done. | trashburger wrote: | Feature creep kinda defines the project. It's not a bug, it's a | feature. :^) | aliqot wrote: | while endearing, it does endanger the trajectory of the main | feature. 'how many paid FT devs are being added per feature' | is what should be asked. | | People asking "Is it fun" are missing the point. | | Don't 'fun' yourself into a job under terms you didn't get to | negotiate, state your requirements and adjust your work | funnel accordingly. I've witnessed a lot of 'fun' projects | manifest themselves into serious projects that fall apart | because this forethought was neglected. | bee_rider wrote: | I'm not sure what the financials of the SerentiyOS project | look like. It sounds like he streams the development. If | that's his primary source of income, then doing the fun | stuff seems like it enhances the revenue stream? | | (edit: based on other comments, it sounds like donations | rather than streaming revenue are the major source of | income, although I bet the goodwill from having such an | open development process help with the donations). | mynameisvlad wrote: | > how many paid FT devs are being added per feature | | Well, considering this is a fun project being worked on by | volunteers (some of whom are sponsored by the community), | I'm going to go out on a limb and say the answer to this | question will always be "zero". | Huh1337 wrote: | The only question that should be asked is "is this fun?" | wtetzner wrote: | > People asking "Is it fun" are missing the point. | | Are they? I thought the whole point of the entire project | was fun. | russtrotter wrote: | Absolutely agreed. I've watched lots of his long-form videos | on all those topics and initially I was always scratching my | head as to why he'd want to reinvent all these wheels from | the molecules up, but as I watched more, I realized that he's | a journey guy, not necessarily a destination guy. To his | credit, he's attracted a similarly-minded following of | contributors along the way. | chatterhead wrote: | Would it still be feature creep if the number of competent | volunteers/workers increases in equal measure? Couldn't we just | call that a more robust feature fulfillment pipeline? | esprehn wrote: | You missed GML, the compile time markup language for the UI: | | https://man.serenityos.org/man5/GML-Introduction.html | | Ex. | | https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Userland/... | | In general the scope creep is because Kling and co are all | about fun and code beauty. And to their credit, the code is | beautiful. :) | nurbel wrote: | Well, there's been a spreadsheet app for a while :^) | | https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/tree/master/Userland/... | emptyparadise wrote: | Just need a MacWrite-grade app that can export to PDF and | SerenityOffice can be sold in a nice big box with a pile of | floppies. | bombcar wrote: | An OS without a web browser is hardly an OS anymore; Microsoft | won on that regard (credit to Bill for recognizing that). | | But in general if you have something like this, it's often | better to let it go where it wanders, even if it never attains | the success of Linux, etc. Forcing a restricted scope often | leads to burnout which kills it even faster. | bornfreddy wrote: | > An OS without a web browser is hardly an OS anymore; | Microsoft won on that regard (credit to Bill for recognizing | that). | | Sorry, but no, just no. | | MS (correctly) recognized the threat that browser poses to OS | through webaps. They bundled IE with Windows, however their | bundling was a simple and effective (and monopolistic) | strategy to take away market share from the then-leading | browser, Netscape. | | Yes, OS needs a browser. No, MS and Bill had nothing to do | with that (and they artificially slowed down web the best | they could - hello IE6!). | | I do agree with the rest, but to credit MS that every OS | needs a browser nowadays... Just no. | moreira wrote: | It seems like you -are- crediting MS for bundling a browser | with an OS. | | Their reasons are irrelevant. | | OSs didn't come with browsers. Microsoft bundled IE with | Windows. Now every OS comes with a browser. | bornfreddy wrote: | Of course they did, or if they didn't, browser was one of | the first things installed. Windows was nothing new in | this regard. | | What was new was that OS was _deeply_ connected to | browser, so that uninstalling it was not an option. But | that is not what GP claimed, and that is of course not a | rule with newer OSs. | | But anyway, let's talk about this great new SerenityOS | instead. :) Over and out. | [deleted] | breckinloggins wrote: | Some of the comments demonstrate that there are a lot of people | here who have never encountered programming in an artistic | context before. | | That is a sad (though understandable) state of affairs. | rvense wrote: | Well, our prophet pg did write somewhere that the reason to | join a startup was to get rich. These people aren't coding for | the lambos? Seems immoral to me /s | fuckstick wrote: | Which comment specifically, because I didn't see one. | sph wrote: | Even though I agree with you, there are no such comments that I | can find, or not enough to warrant your knee jerk reaction. | | No need to build a straw man. | [deleted] | djbusby wrote: | Here http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html | | And here: http://www.paulgraham.com/richnow.html | | First DDG results for "Paul gramm get rich" | simonh wrote: | Neither of those are comments here. | openthc wrote: | Above reads "pg did write somewhere"; the links provided | are somewhere. | rvense wrote: | They weren't referring to my dumb joke, but to the claim | that there were negative comments. I thought I saw one or | two as well, maybe they were deleted. | breckinloggins wrote: | A couple look like they were, yes. | rewgs wrote: | This is just so cool and inspiring to me. I check out pretty much | everything Andreas puts out. | | I wonder if we're watching something comparable to the birth of | Linux. I'm not insinuating that Linux would go away or die or | anything -- that's absurd -- but I just mean perhaps over time | SerenityOS will become more and more used as a "real" OS. For | what purpose(s)? No idea. But the whole project really seems to | have staying power. | | That said, I'm fully with Andreas that having fun and simply | building something because you want it to exist are valid goals | in and of themselves. Couldn't be happier for him and everyone | who contributes to the project. | systemvoltage wrote: | He streams regularly, check it out and support if you can: | https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreasKling/videos | bee_rider wrote: | Where does the money for this project come from? | | I kinda wonder if "streamer who develops code" could be a | viable open source business model, haha. | forgotpwd16 wrote: | Mostly donations. See: | https://awesomekling.github.io/I-quit-my-job-to-focus-on- | Ser... | Huh1337 wrote: | Sponsorship via Github is the primary stream AFAIK | akling wrote: | That's right, as of May 2021 I'm working on SerenityOS | full time, supported by donations. :) | | I posted this about it at the time: | https://awesomekling.github.io/I-quit-my-job-to-focus-on- | Ser... | BirAdam wrote: | I think this is similar to the birth of Linux, but with two | very major differences. | | (1) we are in a world where open source is _the way_. | | (2) it's somewhat a reaction to the state of modern software, | both in UI paradigm and in increasing cartelization. | | To me, it's hope. | abiloe wrote: | > we are in a world where open source is the way. | | I think you're in a bubble. The world still runs primarily on | closed source and proprietary software and services. | BirAdam wrote: | Linux, Nginx, Apache, PHP, MySQL, WordPress, Chrome, | Firefox, various open source NoSQL DBs, NodeJS, Python, | RoR... most software is definitely open source. There are | the Oracles, z/OS, and MS products and some SaaS stuff, but | open source is eating the Earth. | layer8 wrote: | Most software that is written commercially is closed | source. | sneak wrote: | Is this a viable daily driver on bare metal or does everyone who | uses this run it in a VM? | vkoskiv wrote: | It's still in rapid development mode. Can be booted on bare | metal, but it's not ready for prime time yet. | timc3 wrote: | Congratulations to SerenityOS! Quite amazing seeing the progress | over this relatively short time. | miki123211 wrote: | I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point, some commercial | project adopts a part of Serenity and turns it into a huge hit, | even outside of tech. | | Such things have definitely happened in the past.. Not many | (average) people have heard of KDE or its web engine, KHTML, but | almost everybody these days uses Chrome, which, through Apple's | WebKit, is descended from KHTML itself. | | Serenity uses its own libraries everywhere, to the point of | replacing C++'s std with their own library, AK, which might make | stripping it for parts more difficult, but it's certainly not | unimaginable. | | If Serenity's web engine gets good enough, I can even imagine | some EU government sponsoring an independent competitor to the | Google / Apple browser duopoly. | varajelle wrote: | Fun fact: Andreas contributed to KHTML | https://github.com/KDE/khtml/blob/41057a9a8e491b72c8296bf5ed... | aeyes wrote: | I think he worked on the browser at Nokia before Apple took | over. | cardanome wrote: | Which is why I wish they would use a less liberal and more | copy-left license to keep the tech monopolists out. | | It is a huge problem that a certain tech monopolist controls | the most popular browser in the world and a shame that this | browser was build using the free labor of naive volunteer | contributors that just wanted to help out an open source | project. | | Linux would have never been so successful and kept being a free | operating system without its GPL license. And even that turned | out to be not enough protection, as the user-hostile Android | system proves. | zozbot234 wrote: | > Which is why I wish they would use a less liberal and more | copy-left license to stop this scenario from happening. | | Huh? You wish SerenityOS's browser engine was not a viable | competitor to the Google/Apple browser duopoly? Kind of a | weird POV, if you ask me. | andrepd wrote: | How on earth is that what you extract from that sentence?? | jbirer wrote: | Putting words in his mouth to try to save his argument. | cardanome wrote: | I am saying it can only be a viable (user-freedom | respecting) alternative to the browsers of the tech | monopolists if it enforces copy-left and manages to keep | the greedy hands of these and other monopolists out if it. | emptyparadise wrote: | I want to become powerful enough to contribute to SerenityOS. | cies wrote: | Shave a few Yaks :) | | No, kidding... But their Jakt[1] language will make it much | easier to contribute than in arcane reality of C++. | | [1]: https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt | thom wrote: | This will hopefully be true, but Serenity is nevertheless one | of the most pleasant C++ codebases to read that you're ever | likely to come across. | boricj wrote: | Just do it. | | Seriously, you don't even have to know programming to | contribute. Writing documentation, porting software, trying to | boot on real hardware, trying out websites with the web | browser, looking for bugs in the user interface... There's no | such thing as a barrier to entry with SerenityOS as long as | you're motivated to learn. | chatterhead wrote: | Thank you for saying this! | akling wrote: | You are already powerful enough! Some of our most active | developers today didn't even know C++ when they started. If | you're interested, look for something small that annoys you, | and then see if you can't figure out enough of the code to fix | it. :^) | kramerger wrote: | Andreas, you are underestimating the complexity of C++ for | mere mortals. | | Maybe you should take a break from SerenityOS and write a | book about the useful/practical subset of the C++ language?? | robryan wrote: | One nice thing for a new contributer is there is so much low | hanging fruit everywhere. | | Can just open any app and you will see little things that would | make for a good first PR. The codebase is also full of Fixmes, | many of which are very approachable for a beginner. | DustinBrett wrote: | Andreas and his project SerenityOS was a huge inspiration for me | to start my side project daedalOS | (https://github.com/DustinBrett/daedalOS) which I've almost been | doing for 2 years now. I really enjoy watching his monthly | updates on his channel. | ianbutler wrote: | I follow Andreas on twitter and he is a big inspiration for me | when I go look at more challenging problems now. | | I have an addictive personality, so far cigarettes are the only | thing that got me and only for 4 years, but I largely stay away | anything else now because I see how it effected members of my | family and how easily someone like myself could go the same way. | | Because of that I very much appreciate channeling yourself into | something as ambitious as an operating system instead. It's | actually the same way I've built any of my best work and how I've | gotten even this far in my career. The line I say is: programming | keeps me sane. | QuackyTheDuck wrote: | Thank you for writing this, I can heavily relate. | robbocodes wrote: | The vibes of SerenityOS, Andreas, and the community are | tremendous. I wish them many more years! | seti0Cha wrote: | > The original Jakt prototype was written in Rust by myself and | JT over a couple of weeks before we made it public. I wrote a | post introducing Jakt and the motivations behind it. And JT made | a video about the creation of Jakt as well. The Rust-based | compiler is now long-gone, and Jakt is fully self-hosted with the | Jakt compiler being written in Jakt itself. | | It's always humbling for me to read updates from SerenityOS :) | forgotpwd16 wrote: | This is good for Jakt but why another language? | rvense wrote: | Why another OS? Why does anyone ever do anything? | [deleted] | cardanome wrote: | I haven't yet used it but from what I can tell seamless | integration with existing C++ code might be quite a killer | feature. | | Plus everything immutable per default is pretty sweet. | | And no borrow checker, so simpler than Rust. | | Honestly I could see that language take off even outside of | SerenityOS. | kramerger wrote: | It's all part of Andreas' grand plan for serenity OS. | | Ask him about "the plan" next time he goes live :) | ndiddy wrote: | This post goes over his motivation: | https://awesomekling.github.io/Memory-safety-for-SerenityOS/ | forgotpwd16 wrote: | >I have nothing bad to say about other languages. This is | simply the option that makes the most sense for SerenityOS, | which is fundamentally about having fun and implementing | everything ourselves. | | Kinda was expecting this but would've also liked see some | critique of other languages. | zppln wrote: | I was a bit skeptical of Jakt at first. I thought using a new | language I'm not familiar with would add a layer of indirection | to my entertainment (i.e. watching the streams). But I've since | warmed up to the idea, and seeing how the existing community | deals with this if deployed widely in the codebase is one of | the more exiting aspects going forward. From my arm chair | perspective, that is. | rcarmo wrote: | I played around with this a few months back and really wished | they were targeting ARM. I wonder if that will ever be on the | cards... | efficax wrote: | I believe it works on aarch64, there's even a raspberry pi | target. Don't know the state though. | rcarmo wrote: | After reading this I clicked through to their Discord and | it's reached the point where it's crashing QEMU on the host, | and discussions are from October 1st. | | Would love to see this boot on a Pi. | danjoredd wrote: | If you have the time, that might be a good project! | robryan wrote: | There are a number of people actively pushing ARM support | forward. | low_tech_punk wrote: | This project embodies Donald Knuth's principle of being the | author of software, rather than just consumers of other's APIs. | | Yes, it takes patience and chutzpah, but I can also imagine how | satisfying it is to build something from scratch and see all the | pieces coming together into a working OS. And if you put your | heart (and time) to it, you can build anything from scratch. A | lesson the newer generation of developers still haven't fully | grasped. | | Congrats, good luck, and carry on! | stavros wrote: | > This project embodies Donald Knuth's principle of being the | author of software, rather than just consumers of other's APIs. | | I feel that this comment unfairly criticizes people who build | on other things. This OS runs on hardware, which is someone | else's API, and is a hobby project, as far as I can tell. | | If someone wants to build something cool that uses others' APIs | as a hobby project, more power to them. | yardshop wrote: | It's not criticizing anything at all, just suggesting an | alternative. We're all always using products that are other | people's work, why not ALSO work on something where you | author and build your own system? | stavros wrote: | Ah, I thought you were talking about projects that make | something novel vs projects that glue together APIs to | create something new. I see what you mean now, sorry. | [deleted] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-10-10 23:00 UTC)