Commoditising Hardware - An idea for an operating system on the SAFE Network

So, the idea is basically to decouple the hardware from the users files and software? that offers some powerfull implications for user safety, never again will you be able to loose work due to hardware failure. I would be interested in if the idea of one day bringing processes themselves on to the network would be feasible? such that a user with inferior hardware is able to run a more complex process in a shorter time by utilising the nodes on the network to distribute the work?

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Yeah thats what David said at the Devcon, emphasizing that Safe is not an Internet replacement. How do you meme that, weve been largely talking Safe in the light of new internet etc…but this is much more scifi, decoupling data from machine even though the data is on the machines.

I still reckon data centers are going to play a big role seeding this network.

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This is really interesting point! So how to meme it? How to understand it? What analogies we have?

Like language is decoupled from human bodies, even though it needs humans to exist.

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Wouldn’t it be simplest just to call it a cloud operating system, since people already often have some of their files decoupled and already use that language?

Anyway, great idea, this is probably the thing I would most like to see built for the safe network.

We could call it a decentralised operating system, or DOS :joy:

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OR decentralised disk operating system - DDOS :slight_smile:

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Or even MS-DOS

20 char

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Just wondering how these ideas never came up in the rebranding thread…

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It is good to see this thread being posted. I think that a multi phase approach is exactly right. Even having you home directory as a SAFENetwork mount would give immediate value and would be very cool. Others would likely dive in to help after they have something to play with too.

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Hahaha good one. You could probably get away with it too, by only using the full name yourself and letting the users naturally call it DOS for short.

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I always thought that the best OS framework to build a SafeOS was Genode OS, and they are aware of the SafeNetwork:
https://genode.org/about/challenges

They launched their general purpose OS “Sculpt”:
https://genode.org/news/sculpt-for-early-adopters

When the main selling points of the SafeNetwork are privacy and security, I think a system like Genode would be the perfect marriage.

Here is the last talk of the team:

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Another option I’ve heard floated by both povilas and Pierre here at maidsafe was NixOS. I’m not yet very clued up on either, other than knowing they exist, so I’ll need to do more reading first.

Thanks for posting the video @piluso, I just watched that Genode talk all the way through - that guy was very courageous. For those interested, to show how Genode works he starts with a laptop with a bare-bones static Genode (ROM) system - almost no drivers - and step-by-step configures it using VIM to edit XML configs and add the various drivers all the way to mounting a disk it can boot the custom config from!

I can imagine we could have Genode on SAFE by just writing two or three drivers:

  1. connection and authentication (maybe two drivers)
  2. virtual file system (mounts SAFE NFS as a virtual drive)

You would boot the static-Genode, it would offer to boot from SAFE. You log-into your account and give it access to your Genode drive, it mounts that and boots the soft part of the system from it (config, drivers, window manger, package manager and applications).

Those guys even have a roadmap :wink:

Whatever route you take @connor good luck. Its great to see you ready to work on this. :slight_smile:

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Thank you all for the words of encouragement and wonderful ideas, it’s great that everyone’s so enthusiastic about my idea.

I’ve done some preliminary digging into both NixOS and Genode while on my train back from Stansted Airport, which I’ve integrated above. Both seem like really nifty ideas as bases for SafeOS. I’ll dig a little deeper into both when I have more time to, and integrate all of the information into that ever-growing OP up there.

If I get any details wrong, by the way, and this is especially in reference to NixOS and Geode, please don’t hesitate to correct me. This is all technology I’ve not really toyed with, and I’m learning on the fly, so it’s probable I’ll miss some crucial detail.

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The c2 wiki has some interesting articles on operating systems (and many other things). Perhaps some useful ideas there, or at least some fun articles, here’s a couple of them that leads into strange rabbit holes

http://wiki.c2.com/?LanguagesAreOperatingSystems
http://wiki.c2.com/?OperatingSystem
http://wiki.c2.com/?PurelyFunctionalOperatingSystem
http://wiki.c2.com/?KillerOperatingSystem
http://wiki.c2.com/?PerfectSystem

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I think Linux as a starting point is the correct thing to do as well, @anon41664782. I’ll not rule out the other options though, and will definitely make a note of them.

As I’ve said before, this shouldn’t need to be kernel dependent. By that logic, one can integrate this with other bases later on. Perhaps post stable, I’m not sure yet :stuck_out_tongue:

Wondering why at Devcon you stated that Safe is not an Internet replacement (a new internet) and yet the video marketing is indeed calling it the new internet.

This might be a metaquestion :slight_smile:

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I think it’s a Metaquestion for that Datachains bloke :wink:

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I suppose a new one is not like the old one :wink: I was really trying to have devs create different experiences for people on a new foundation. I think this new internet should be very differnt from the old one, at least I hope so.

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Yes, Here is the kinbd of thing I was talking about DevCon talk Supercharging the SAFE Network with Project Solid - #19 by dirvine

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