Working on an emulated-OS docker container

mhredox@lemmy.world to Selfhosted@lemmy.world – 164 points –

Decided I'd give a sneak peek at something I'm working on:

Since building my home server I've constantly been on the lookout for a decent frontend to manage my files, etc. I initially tried file browser, but it was always really buggy for me, and honestly I hated it.

Since my server is headless, a PiKVM and the like wouldn't really work for me the way I wanted, so I decided to just build what I was looking for on my own.

And with that, I'd like to introduce: redox_os TBD

It's an emulated OS built in react with a node+express backend. It's made to be as fully customizable as you want. You can create new "apps" for it very easily. Anything you can make in react/JavaScript can be loaded as an "app" with just a simple config file.

It's still very much a work in progress, but I figured it was complete enough for a little show and tell.

Current features:

  • a desktop with icons/etc
  • a file browser
  • text editor (complete with syntax highlighting)
  • a full featured terminal
  • a picture viewer
  • a music player
  • a video player (capable of live-transcoding to an html5 compatible format)
  • a file downloader (for downloading files to the server from the web)
  • full drag and drop capabilities (even drop files from outside your browser to upload)
  • downloading files from the server to local
  • full mobile/touch support

I'm also still very much deciding how to handle the release. It's mostly functional already, but I'd really want it to be polished before a proper release.

Since I also have a full time job, that may take a while. Contributors would definitely help, but I'm also a little split on whether I should make if FOSS. I'm definitely leaning so, but idk.

Definitely open to any feedback, suggestions, criticism, etc.

Edit: Thanks to everyone for the feedback! Looks like I'll definitely be going FOSS. Also I'll be changing the name 😄

Not sure what to call it now though. Maybe reDOS? Lol

I still wanna tidy everything up a bit before making the code public. Maybe go back and start adding some comments/documentation as currently there is none. I'm really terrible about that.

Also definitely a bit shy to open up my code to public scrutiny haha. I'm sure there are plenty of mistakes and bad practices.

41

You are viewing a single comment
View all comments

I think you will like: https://simone.computer/#/webdesktops

There are and have been many of these around for many years now!

Link doesn't work for me, but I'm starting to see what you mean.

Either way, this has been a fun project to work on and I've only been working on it since around October, so not like years of commitment or anything. I've learned a lot, even having been programming professionally for years, so overall I'd say it's been a worthwhile venture, especially considering I originally was only building this for myself.