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Inferno Plugin for IE - An OS In Your Browser

Posted by michael on from the toasty dept.

anothy writes: "Vita Nuova has released a preliminary version of their Inferno plug-in for Internet Explorer (other browsers and OSs pending). this embeds Inferno, a small OS built around good security, a virtual machine, and an extention of the Unix "everything is a file" model, right into your browser. The plugin itself is 719Kb (smaller than Flash or RealPlayer) and provides most general OS services, including I/O, text manipulation, floating point functions, and graphics, including a Tk (no, it's not Tcl/Tk) implementation. These are the exact same Dis files that run on native Inferno (on raw hardware) or emulated on various other OSs. They also provide additional info on the plugin, including a little info on writing Inferno applications. Inferno's originally from the same lab at Bell Labs that gave us Unix, C, and Plan 9." See our previous article.

3 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. it's all you say and more by DrSkwid · · Score: 5

    the usual moaners saying "what's the point of that" bore me

    The point really is that you get the write once use anywhere philosophy. Ok so java has been there before but surely that fact doesn'e preclude someone else trying it out.

    The plan9, Inferno system of distributed computing through namespace binding is the true gift of this project. Although I did notice some of the Styx functionality has been removed for security (Styx is the network).

    You implement services by mounting your service as a file system. You can then execute all of your machines capabilities through echo & cat!!

    "So what!" I here the unimaginative cry well you can bind services from remote computers and use their capabilities in exactly the same way.

    want to play audio on MY computer
    roughly

    bind MyComputer\audio \hisaudio
    cat music.pcm \hisaudio

    and the audio plays out on my machine

    You imagination should take you from there.


    .oO0Oo.

    --
    There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
  2. Is that me in the mirror in the mirror in the... by mantis78 · · Score: 5

    An OS.
    A browser in an OS.
    An OS in a browser in an OS.
    A browser in an OS in a browser in an OS.
    An OS in a browser in an OS in a browser in an OS.

    How many recursion before we run out of memory and CPU cycles?

    Just wondering.

  3. Doesn't look like an OS in a browser by Carnage4Life · · Score: 5

    After reading the information on the plugin, I fail to see how this is an OS in a browser.

    The plugin allows you to run applications written in a specific language(Limbo) for the Inferno OS on your browser but isn't an OS in your browser from what I can see.

    This is more akin to being able to run Java applets in your browser via the Java Virtual Machine than any OS in the browser crap.

    From the Inferno plugin page
    The Inferno Internet Explorer plug-in allows a Limbo program to run inside a web page when displayed by Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 or 5. The plug-in executes Dis within a sandbox in the Inferno Dis virtual machine which provides the execution environment for all programs running under the Inferno Operating System

    Grabel's Law