Ersei, the developer behind this so-called Cloud Native Computer, says the project was primarily a “silly” pursuit. There is also a problem with booting from Google Drive currently being very slow. However, the dev also boasts that “the possibilities are endless” and would welcome any companies or individuals who wish to get in contact and discuss commercializing this project or something related to it.
Soo, booting your computer from someone else’s computer?
I mean we’ve had thin clients and PXE for ages?
And bootp before that, and tftp before that. So I think roughly… 35 years?
More being able to use cloud storage and not need a full physical secondary computer. In theory the cloud can be accessed anywhere, even if a portion is down, not the same for a single physical PC.
The cloud is many computers with a redundancy, you putting multiple PCs in remote locations so you can access when one goes down….?
One requires two physical computers, while one requires one and the cloud. Not a hard concept here or anything people.
Do thin clients and PXE require a server specifically configured to serve a boot image? (Genuinely asking.)
I’m not sure whether this project is doing something new by just accessing network resources that are nothing more than shared files, without any specific software running on the server (beyond just a server serving files).
Yes, they do. The novel thing here is serving the files out of Google Drive.
There are existing PXE servers that run over the Internet, like boot.netboot.xyz, so that you don’t have to run your own (assuming you trust everyone involved in that connection). Those are far more practical.
So it’s a thin client remote booting extremely slowly over a really high latency connection. Cool, the 1980s called and they want their tech back.
However, the dev also boasts that “the possibilities are endless” and would welcome any companies or individuals who wish to get in contact and discuss commercializing this project or something related to it.
“We’re looking for dumb investors that don’t understand technology so we can sell them a bridge.”
Bro forgot to liberally sprinkle blockchain and AI dust on his project before offering it to investors
It’s basically booting and running the OS from inside the AI in the cloud!! The system doesn’t “use” blockchain, it’s made of blockchain! Every file is an NFT by default which provides a built in system for profit for everything you do on the computer!
So they reinvented terminals, but worse
Wow this sounds useless. Congratulations or whatever.
This is different (and far less practical than Apple’s approach). This one doesn’t download the OS and store it, it pulls the files from Google drive every time they’re accessed, so it’s incredibly slow by comparison, but is technically running from the cloud. The Apple one downloads everything it needs and stores it, then pulls from that local copy.
So it’s like PXE booting without a permanent local disk. If you have enough RAM, that’s probably fine.
Or is it only downloading the kernel and loading literally everything else over the net with no RAM cache? If so, that’s terrifying.
Yeah I believe it’s loading everything over the net. I haven’t looked super closely into it. I’m not sure what, if any, practical applications there are for this. Seems like it’s just a fun impractical project. I’m here for it. But you’re right about it being terrifying lol.
I was also adding to the discussion. You commented something it reminded you of, I commented the difference between the two. This may be an important point for those who are not familiar with either of these technologies.
That’s not booting from the net that’s downloading an image and keeping it in RAM without sending any changed data back to the cloud, or needing to fetch anything once the image is downloaded.
