There's probably some interesting stuff in here, but "operating system powered by node.js" is a little strong. They also say things like "NodeOS is an operating system built entirely in Javascript", which isn't true at all.
They basically replaced bash and some of the gnu utils with node.js scripts. The OS itself is just Linux.
I find the idea intriguing, but it's not clear to me from reading the site what is it for. What cool things one can do with this Node-OS that wouldn't be possible/easy with another Linux?
Also, what's the story for GUI applications? npm is mostly used for libraries, not full apps, so I'm not sure why that was a good pick for an OS. I guess it would be nice if there was a web view as the default GUI mechanism, so one could use web apps as if they were native without having to resort to things like Electron.
This is basically Node slapped on top of a Linux kernel.
I would find it way more interesting (to say, way more actually a 'Node OS') if they implemented a really lightweight kernel to drop into JS kernel modules as soon as possible, and implement all features in JS (paging, filesystems) etc.
It's an interesting idea, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't take advantage of the fact that all usermode code is sandboxed. You could potentially run everything in supervisor mode/ring 0 and remove a lot of the systemcall overhead.
FWIW, I don't think doing that will be a net win. I/O-bound applications might run slightly faster (I think gary bernhardt's number was 5%), but in exchange they'll take quite a bit more system resources, which mean increased power use and reduced lifespan.
So, imagine you have a given task. One option is it takes 60ms to execute and during that time it takes 50% cpu. Or, it takes 50ms to execute but takes 80% cpu. The second one takes less wallclock time but more cpu time.
They basically replaced bash and some of the gnu utils with node.js scripts. The OS itself is just Linux.