Emacs standing alone on a Linux Kernel

http://informatimago.free.fr/i/linux/emacs-on-user-mode-linux.html

by signa11 • 3 years ago

201 117 3 years ago

informatimago.free.fr

abudabi123• 3 years ago

Emacs on seL4kernel with Plan9userspace and remote desktop to disposable Mac or Linux shortlived desktopui should be very secure for the researcher.

hprotagonist• 3 years ago

unless you have a hankering for benson&hedges cigarettes.

froh• 3 years ago

/me (from outside the loop): "huh?"

bigdict5• 3 years ago

I don't get it. It's Emacs installed on Linux. So what?

photonbeam• 3 years ago

People joke about emacs being an operating system, here emacs is the whole userland

ihatepython• 3 years ago

Wouldn't that be kind of bloated?

JadedEngineer3• 3 years ago

IIRC a single-thread, slow userland that is. Emacs is the only CLI program I've ever run that would take a second or two to render when quickly switching tmux panes. I'll never get the "use emacs for everything" mantra.

pama4• 3 years ago

Other than emacs, the only available command on that Linux system is mount. Not even a shell.

bigdict5• 3 years ago

Then how are the commands in the code listings executed?

tenebrisalietum• 3 years ago

The Linux kernel, when it boots, will perform all its setup, then launch a program.

That program has traditionally been `/sbin/init` which launches all background things that need to be running, including your `getty`'s for console login, your `sshd` for SSH login, and your `gdm`'s or what not for GUI login.

Lately it's `systemd` which does the same in a less simple but more flexible/featureful manner.

Here, there is literally no other process running but Emacs - it's your "login shell."

This is the first step in replacing `systemd` with `emacs`, and it will take less space and be easier to use. /s

HeckFeck• 3 years ago

Finally, I get to write my init scripts in Emacs Lisp!

bigdict5• 3 years ago

This is the only actually helpful comment, thank you.

pjmlp• 3 years ago

I guess in such configuration 8 MB should be enough.

nasretdinov• 3 years ago

It would be constantly swapping though

teddyh3• 3 years ago

Before GRUB, (i.e. with LILO), you could easily do this at any time by just booting with the added kernel parameter “init=/usr/bin/emacs”.

ilyt• 3 years ago

I mean, that works and always worked, bootloader really have nothing to do with it (as commandline can be baked into kernel image even if bootloader wouldn't support setting it)

teddyh3• 3 years ago

True; what I was thinking of was not GRUB or LILO, but the fact that setting the init process from a kernel command line is less useful for hacks like these if the initial root file system is only an initramfs images from /boot, and does not contain Emacs.

planede• 3 years ago

You can configure additional kernel parameters just fine with GRUB.

teddyh3• 3 years ago

Yep, I was thinking of initramfs on /boot vs. direct root fs mounting, not GRUB vs. LILO.

pierpa• 3 years ago

Next: Emacs on bare metal.

dingosity2• 3 years ago

Or a CPU that executes e-lisp as it's machine code.

zie2• 3 years ago

We have had lisp machines, but I don't know of any that run e-lisp specifically.

UniverseHacker2• 3 years ago

I can't believe nobody posted this quote yet:

"Emacs is a great operating system, lacking only a decent text editor"

jb1991• 3 years ago

It probably was not posted because it’s untrue. No point in posting inaccuracies. Emacs is a great text editor.

smitty1e2• 3 years ago

Jokes are the unit tests of our understanding. Sure, the gag "fails", but it makes the point of the general usability of the infamous Lisp-machine-in-editor-drag.

UniverseHacker2• 3 years ago

"decent" or "great" are personal emotional responses, they cannot be true or false

js8• 3 years ago

As an Emacs user, I have always hated that joke. It's not funny, because, as you said, it is untrue. Emacs is not only a great editor, but it's also a terrible operating system, lacking multitasking and error recovery in particular (although it's getting better).

trabant00• 3 years ago

It's a joke, it doesn't need to be true, only to have a kernel of truth like all good jokes. And as a recent Emacs convert after years of vim I must say that kernel is there. The breadth and scope of Emacs is extreme. Talking seriously it's obviously not an OS, but it's not an editor either. It's a framework for people to build their editors on. While vim for example is a great editor right out of the box and even the best evil integrations are not 100% up there with it.

ravi-delia• 3 years ago

What are you talking about, I never use vim any other way!

aidenn0• 3 years ago

It has evil-mode now, so that problem is solved :)

pvaldes• 3 years ago

We need to upgrade this jokes

FullyFunctional2• 3 years ago

In 1989 when I was part-time IT staff at Århus University, CS. Dept. we had to turn down a professor who requested doing exactly this with his Sun workstation (it might have been possible, but we didn't have the resources to support it).

My only requirement for my first personal PC (T1800, 386/sx, 4 MiB, monochrome) was that it could run True Emacs (on Linux) - I could certainly have used this, but `exec emacs` achieves nearly the same.

Y_Y2• 3 years ago

Fortunately I don't work at universities much any more, but I found IT to be even less accommodating than at a megacorps. My department luckily realised this early on and classed all computers as "experiment equipment" and had our own techs to any necessary admin.

hestefisk2• 3 years ago

DAIMI! Did you code in TRINE?

tripleo12• 3 years ago

FullyFunctional2• 3 years ago

This is getting pretty off-topic, but for the record:

I think I was taught that 1st year, or perhaps the predecessor. It's was MIS' first year teaching. IIRC, Trine's array started at 1 and there was much debate over the merits of that vs. starting at zero like C but other than that it was a reasonable language for the time.

anthk3• 3 years ago

Well, back in the day you could run Emacs and a Scheme interpreter (MIT Scheme) as a textinfo format under an i386 just fine. No X, of course.

NoGravitas• 3 years ago

I used to run Emacs on a 386SX, not with X, but with OS/2 Presentation Manager. Had 8MB of RAM, though.

xorcist• 3 years ago

We had to add emacs to /etc/shells because we had users who really did chsh to it.

Y_Y2• 3 years ago

While this is a bit silly, I'd love to emacs as a DE option alongside KDE, Gnome etc.

bigfishrunning• 3 years ago

You can! https://github.com/ch11ng/exwm

hestefisk2• 3 years ago

Eight megabytes and constantly swapping

krylon• 3 years ago

That joke hasn't aged terribly well, emacs on my desktop is currently at 269MiB. "Eventually Mallocs All Computer Storage" still applies, though.

cleanchit• 3 years ago

it's now 8 gigabytes and constantly swapping (intellij)

Ruq• 3 years ago

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux, is in fact, Emacs/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, Emacs plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning Emacs system made useful by Emacs.

Many computer users run a modified version of the Emacs system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of Emacs which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the Emacs system, developed by the Emacs Project.

There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the Emacs operating system: the whole system is basically Emacs with Linux added, or Emacs/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of Emacs/Linux!

red_phone• 3 years ago

Absolutely genius.

anthk3• 3 years ago

You joke, but an Emacs with framebuffer support and with everything statically build would be Stallman's dream: a next-gen LISP Machine.

jamesgill• 3 years ago

2023 is finally the year of the Emacs operating system on the desktop.

ddalex• 3 years ago

Does it come with a text editor ?

m4633• 3 years ago

that's what I hird too

LanceH• 3 years ago

Whoa, desktop?

We're running these on refrigerators.

ppezaris• 3 years ago

sorry if i'm out of the loop, but i've heard what you describe as GNU/Linux, not Emacs/Linux. did emacs change to be the branding label of things like the compiler, the ----

just saw that you're probably making a joke, as i just found this :) https://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.en.html

tmtvl2• 3 years ago

The original joke has been discussed by RMS: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/incorrect-quotation.html

adalacelove• 3 years ago

Nice try but Emacs is actually GNU Emacs and so in the end it's GNU Emacs/Linux.

wkdneidbwf• 3 years ago

this is both cool and exactly why i don’t want to use emacs.

tripleo12• 3 years ago

Also, nobody wanted to run the old Firefox-based distro where the userspace (from X up) was in XUL.

trashface• 3 years ago

Been a long time since I used emacs (had to stop, it was hurting my pinky) but I did use M-x shell a lot, I always thought it ran bash but from this description I understand emacs has its own shell?!

excircul• 3 years ago

M-x shell does run bash (or whatever is your user’s shell)

M-x eshell is a shell implemented completely in Emacs Lisp and integrates with Emacs really nicely

dinom• 3 years ago

Did you try swapping or replacing capslock w/ ctrl? Something like this...

    setxkbmap -option ctrl:nocaps
    xmodmap -e "keycode 107 = Control_R"

I would occasionally experience some pinky pain until I did this. Losing capslock is mostly inconsequential (you can always use upcase-region).

kagevf• 3 years ago

This is a useful guide to the different shells in emacs:

https://www.masteringemacs.org/article/running-shells-in-ema...

(the whole site has lots of information about emacs)

zokier• 3 years ago

Do you actually need mounted rootfs to run emacs though?

lisper2• 3 years ago

Another, more realistic, alternative would be to use a Common-Lisp implementation with a FFI and portable Hemlock.

Now there is an intriguing idea...

tmtvl2• 3 years ago

Fortunately, FFI is fairly well supported in CL: https://cffi.common-lisp.dev/manual/html_node/Implementation...

lisper2• 3 years ago

Yes, using CL+Hemlock as the init process is very doable. That's what makes it an intriguing prospect!

1letterunixname• 3 years ago

RMS essentially uses emacs as his "OS", so this seems a natural conclusion.

ggm2• 3 years ago

What would be impressive would be exposing a mechanism to make sysctl() and ioctl() work, and control device driver dynamic load. Or, introspect the FS state from the binary.

"just install the command you need in /bin" is cheating.

phendrenad23• 3 years ago

Actually, you can embed emacs inside of the kernel binary itself.

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Custom_Initramfs

Then just drop the kernel image onto your EFI partition, and you have a single-binary Linux/emacs system!

ggm2• 3 years ago

Think lua in BSD kernels probably gets what people want

hulitu2• 3 years ago

Typically, an initramfs is not needed, but may be necessary for:

Mounting an encrypted, logical, or otherwise special root partition Providing a minimalistic rescue shell (if something goes wrong) Customize the boot process (e.g., print a welcome message) Load modules necessary to boot (e.g., third party storage drivers) Anything the kernel can't do that's usually handled in user space

So a lot of things which are not emacs.

jdblair• 3 years ago

Now do Linux standing alone on top of Emacs.

lynx23• 3 years ago

I had Emacs running as PID 1 inside of an initramfs roughly around 2010. Had a part of sysvinit reimplemented in Emacs Lisp, for things like ALSA and networking. Kernel + initramfs was roughly 200MB IIRC.

phendrenad23• 3 years ago

Yeesh, reading the top comments, HN really has become the Slashdot I remember. Good times ahead.

Anyway, one thing this brings to mind is how much of Linux is encapsulated within the kernel itself. This is why distros feel so... similar.

hulitu2• 3 years ago

Compile mount statically

This is cheating. Why not use also bash when you claim you only use emacs ?

Emacs standing alone on a Linux Kernel

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