
Node OS - steveklabnik
http://node-os.com/
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jlawer
So a quick look through the github repo, it appears that Node OS is : 1.) New
Init Process 2.) New Shell 3.) NPM as a package manager

Not really an "OS" in the traditional terms, but not just a distro. It uses
glibc like most other distros. I would consider it half way between a
traditional debian derivative and android in the sense that the environment
could be completely different from traditional linux.

That said, there is a reason Debian and Fedora (and most other linux distros)
look like they do, and thats to be comparable with software.

If this was to stay under active development it could be interesting, however
I would seriously be questioning if they are able to package, patch and
support the literally hundreds of packages needed to make an effective Linux
OS.

Looking back on the great cambrian explosion of linux distributions of the
early 2000s, its really not surprising today to find most distros are based on
either debian/ubuntu, SLES, Fedora/RedHat, Gentoo or Slackware. The effort to
maintain such a number of packages saps such resources that its almost worth
delaying using a different package manager until you have dealt with
everything else.

Even now I would think the sanest way to do this project would be to build a
abstraction layer and use .rpm or .deb packages until you could completely
replace it.

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tomhschmidt
Could you elaborate on the some of the benefits of having a dedicated OS for
Node projects? I'm confused by the website

 _Linux Kernel_ _NodeOS is a full OS built on top of the Linux kernel_

As are many other operating systems...

 _NodeJS Runtime_ _Node is the primary runtime — no bash here_

 _NPM Packages_ _NodeOS uses NPM as its primary package manager_

You can change both of these on other OSes, no? Also, are these really large
pain points?

 _Hosted on Github_ _Open and easy to contribute to — pull request friendly_

Not really a feature

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jevinskie
All of these are features if you're looking for a fun hacking project. Think
of the opinionated Haiku OS.

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jlawer
Haiku actually seems to be trying to be something very different.

The BeFS filesystem's use of metadata / extended attributes for one, very
multi-threaded core libraries and GUI for others. The kernel is also different
giving the OS a very different feel.

The goals for Haiku have always seemed around desktop performance unlike most
*nix derivatives which either balance other workloads or focus on servers.

NodeOS could offer something different, but what they have mentioned so far
doesn't seem that interesting (then again I am not a Node or javascript
developer).

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cwisecarver
You're drunk JavaScript, go home.

~~~
axman6
My first thought was "Whis is a joke, right?"

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rch
Seriously - what?

Isn't this taking things a bit too far??

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ratbeard
I think this would be cloud ready as it seems supremely easy to scale a node
webapp within the OS. I prefer express-apps currently, thought I'm looking for
something a bit more minimal, e.g. follows the UNIX philosophy - do one thing,
and do it well. Would love to use Go for this.

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fit2rule
I'm digging the trend of pushing things out of the way and using packaging to
solve the big OS hairball .. Just today I booted a small Linux image straight
to lua-jit. A delightful platform!

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fineline
It does beg the question - why? Would this be a good base image for deployment
of Node apps onto a Docker host, for example?

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nickstinemates
That sounds like a blast. I'd love to provide guidance (but unfortunately busy
with other work) to make that happen.

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otterley
What problem does this project seek to solve? What pain points does it
address?

