linkOS

Link to the video

Welcome to linkOS, a small Virtual Machine that lives entirely inside a URL - no server, installation or other dependencies needed.

Open dist/index.html in a browser while developing. The exported data:text/html URL is standalone and contains the application, virtual filesystem, and machine state; it does not depend on local project files.

The actual sources are in src/:

• src/index.template.html
• src/styles.css
• src/app.js

The default OS image is in src/rootfs/. Every file in that directory is packed into the virtual filesystem using its relative path:

• src/rootfs/workspace/main.js => /workspace/main.js
• src/rootfs/workspace/preview.html => /workspace/preview.html

Build artifacts are generated with:

• npm run build writes compressed/minified release artifacts to dist/index.html and dist/linkos.url
• npm run build:dev writes readable development artifacts
• npm run build:empty writes a release artifact without packing any rootfs files
• npm run build:rootfs -- path/to/rootfs packs a different root filesystem directory

dist/linkos.url is the copy-pasteable data URL artifact. There is also a sample url in samples/linkos.url.

The app boots into a small desktop with:

• a terminal with a small Unix-like command set
• a virtual filesystem
• an editor
• a worker-backed process monitor
• a lightweight Browser window
• Export URL and Reset buttons that handle (re-)generation of VM URLs.

The generated URL includes the current virtual filesystem and window state in its hash. When available, LinkOS compresses the state payload with CompressionStream. Paste the URL into a browser tab and it restores the machine from the hyperlink.

Useful terminal commands:

• help
• pwd
• cd /workspace
• ls -l
• grep worker main.js
• nano main.js
• xdg-open .
• xdg-open preview.html
• run main.js
• ps
• kill <pid>
• whoami
• setuser <name>
• diff <path-a> <path-b>
• export