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Boot Linux (or OpenBSD Or Oberon Or FreeDOS) In Your Browser (copy.sh)

Long-time Slashdot reader DeQueue writes: Back in 2011 Fabrice Bellard, the initiator of the QEMU emulator, wrote a PC emulator in JavaScript that let you boot Linux in your browser. But he didn't stop there.

On his website he now has images that let you boot Oberon, Arch Linux, FreeDOS, OpenBSD, Solar OS and more recent versions of Linux such as 2.6 or 3.18 (the 3.18 image includes internet access). You can also boot to a CD image, or a floppy image, or a hard drive disk image on your local machine. And, if you don't need yet another operating system on your computer, you can even boot to Bootchess and play chess

18 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. I guess I'm the first to comment because by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Everybody is busy playing with it...

  2. Worthless by cerberusss · · Score: 5, Funny

    The first thing I tried to do, is launch Win98. That worked. Then with Internet Explorer, go to Fabrice Bellard's site again and launch Windows 98 inside the VM. But now IE wants to install a modem first :(

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    1. Re: Worthless by MayeulC · · Score: 2

      Actually, I installed a modern version of Firefox a couple (was it 4?) years ago on Win95. It required some patched system libraries, though, and was quite slow.

    2. Re:Worthless by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

      Tried
      $ wine windows10.exe
      Faster than the original!

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    3. Re:Worthless by Khyber · · Score: 3, Informative

      "You'd even struggle to download a modern Firefox that worked on '98."

      I guess someone doesn't know about OldVersion.

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      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  3. Fabrice Bellard is awesome. by queazocotal · · Score: 5, Informative

    Lzexe - exe file compression on the PC to fit more on your floppy.
    Qemu - emulate random processors on your PC.
    tccboot - boot linux using a live C compiler.
    Live broadcast of digital video using a VGA card. ...

    1. Re:Fabrice Bellard is awesome. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Plus he founded ffmpeg, which has become the standard tool in the industry since.

    2. Re:Fabrice Bellard is awesome. by Cajun+Hell · · Score: 3, Informative

      He is talking about a computer program called lzexe, not the compression algorithm that it used.

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    3. Re:Fabrice Bellard is awesome. by marcansoft · · Score: 4, Informative

      Too bad this isn't his.

      Fabian Hemmer (http://copy.sh/, copy@copy.sh)

      I have no idea where the submitter got Fabrice Bellard from. This is hosted on a completely different site and authored by a completely different person. Yes, more than one person is capable of implementing an x86 emulator in Javascript. Bellard wrote his and never released the (editable) source; this guy, OTOH, wrote a more compatible emulator of his own (runs more than Linux) and open sourced it.

      This is also old news, I remember seeing it quite some time ago. The site has been up since 2014. Slow news day much?

    4. Re:Fabrice Bellard is awesome. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      >> Lzexe - exe file compression on the PC to fit more on your floppy.
      Correct.

      > LZ compression was invented by Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv in 1977
      Correct.

      LZ compression mechanism was invented by Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv but lzexe, a dos utility using that algorithm to compress EXE files was created by Fabrice Bellard.

  4. Yes! by ledow · · Score: 3, Funny

    I beat my record!

    Run the Win98 one.

    Shut it down.

    It BSOD's with 0E exception in VXD VDD.

    That's got to be a world-record in terms of "number of instructions executed before a fatal error".

    1. Re:Yes! by JackieBrown · · Score: 2

      I've gotten the blue screen in 98 before it even finished booting.

  5. And you'll probably need a 4Ghz, 8 core CPU.. by Viol8 · · Score: 2

    ... to run an OS image 50% of the speed it would run on a 386.

    Also how exactly does the internet access bit work when browsers deliberately limit the net access they allow javascript?

  6. Re:Will it run systemd? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I want to see Trump and Clinton argue about SystemD in tonight's debate.

  7. Re:Will it run systemd? by amiga3D · · Score: 2

    Wouldn't that be a hoot. It'd probably make as much sense as anything else those two blather about. I'd rather watch Johnson and Stein debate. Sad!

  8. Re:Wow by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Where do you draw the line?

    Browsers use to just do text with hyperlinks, then we added formatted text and then pictures, additional text positional and formatting. Then we added input form features. After that we did some preserver checks to validate information before sending to the server so people didn't have to wait for a response. The types of checks got more complex and also needed better ways to show the validated info. Then we realized we didn't need to reload the whole page just send the data needed, based on the data the display can be changed...

    Once you give a programmer a tool, that can do IF, Loops and store variables it becomes a development platform.

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    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  9. This,kids, is what it was like back in the day. by hey! · · Score: 2

    The developer of this thing has thoughtfully provided a "hello.c" file and cc. Oh, yes, and emacs. So go ahead and type:

    cc -o hello hello.c

    and marvel at the speed.

    This environment is just like my first full-time, non-student programming job. There was no IDE, so we pretty much lived in emacs. I haven't used emacs in decades, but my fingers still remember the key bindings for the commands -- as long as I'm not trying to consciously remember them.

    It was on a 68020 running at 16 MHz which delivered a grand total of 2 MIPS at 16 MHz. We shared all that computing power among four programmers, which was luxury because the system was supposed to support 16 users (32 max).

    It seems almost inconceivable, but the funny thing is it was really just as fun programming back then as it is now with a supercomputer all to myself. Our office was next to a reservoir, and used to start a compile, wait five minutes for the parsing to catch any syntax error (about 75% of the time), then go for a walk on the 1.5 mile trail around the pond. Then I'd stop in at the convenience store to buy a cup of coffee, and head back to the office, and make would just be finishing up the linking. God forbid you got a link error though. That's why we had time to read the entire Unix manual (all eight sections) cover to cover. Many times.

    This has fed my conviction that user perceptions of system speed are as strongly affected by consistency as it is by absolute speed. If you're used to a build taking fifteen seconds,a sudden change to 30 seconds seems unbearable.

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  10. Re:Wow by Cajun+Hell · · Score: 2

    Once you give a programmer a tool, that can do IF, Loops and store variables it becomes a development platform.

    And once you give someone a piece of amber with velociraptor DNA inside it, and a way to embryonize it, it becomes a way to make a cool theme park.

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