Dev boots a PC from Google Drive cloud storage — a storage-less laptop becomes a truly cloud-native computer

Comments

• jfx@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Soo, booting your computer from someone else’s computer?

  I mean we’ve had thin clients and PXE for ages?

  source

  • mox@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    And bootp before that, and tftp before that. So I think roughly… 35 years?

    source

    • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      PXE specifically uses tftp doesn’t it?

      source

      • -> View More Comments
  • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    More being able to use cloud storage and not need a physical computer. In theory the cloud can be accessed anywhere, even if a portion is down, not the same for a single physical PC.

    source

    • datelmd5sum@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      is the non physical cloud in the room right now?

      source

      • -> View More Comments
    • helenslunch@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      More being able to use cloud storage and not need a physical computer.

      Are you going to access The Cloud telepathically?

      source

      • -> View More Comments
  • GamingChairModel@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    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).

    source

    • catloaf@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      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.

      source
• seaQueue@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

  source

  • Dave@lemmy.nz ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    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.”

    source

    • seaQueue@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Bro forgot to liberally sprinkle blockchain and AI dust on his project before offering it to investors

      source

      • -> View More Comments
• rockSlayer@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  So they reinvented terminals, but worse

  source

  • sugartits@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Put a swap file on that bad boy boy and they’ve invented downloading ram!

    This is a revolution.

    source
  • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Aw yiss, all of my information on Google’s servers siiiiiicc

    source
• Fedizen@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Wow this sounds useless. Congratulations or whatever.

  source
• zelifcam@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  [deleted]

  source

  • R00bot@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    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.

    source

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      So it’s like PXE booting without a permanent local disk. If you have enough RAM, that’s probably fine.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
    • zelifcam@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      [deleted]

      source

      • -> View More Comments
  • LodeMike@lemmy.today ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    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.

    source
• regrub@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Interesting experiment, but I’d rather have a personal machine that isnt completely useless when/if the internet goes out. Also would be nice not to depend on a centralized service that could easily revoke access.

  Seems like it’s better suited for company work computers.

  source

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    when/if the internet goes out.

    Or worse, when it basically sends a different image…

    source

    • regrub@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Looks like a new CVE dropped lol

      source
  • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Boot from IPFS!

    source
• umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Good luck booting when Google nukes your account

  source
• FelipeFelop@discuss.online ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I can see two issues here:

  It’s not really a storageless computer. It’s using EFI as storage to build the ramdisk.

  What happens if you need to change things because of a change of cloud account, change of cloud API etc etc

  source

  • catloaf@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    No computer is ever really storageless. Even the BIOS has to be stored somewhere. If you didn’t have any storage, you wouldn’t be able to load any code, and it would not be a computer, it would be a brick.

    source

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Not necessarily, you could build all of the boot stuff into hardware, have it send all input to the cloud server, and only have enough hardware to render images. Boom, no storage, everything is static.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
    • FelipeFelop@discuss.online ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The point is that calling the computer storage less is what’s wrong.

      source
• Glowstick@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  y tho

  source

  • deranger@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    “Primarily a silly pursuit”

    source

    • Glowstick@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yeah, but it then goes on saying

      “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.”

      And that’s what I’m saying “y tho” to.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
  • ReveredOxygen@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    funny

    source
• AVincentInSpace@pawb.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  the thing that gets me is that said dev tried it first with amazon S3 and it worked infinitely better there

  source

  • Venator@lemmy.nz ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Probably a bit more expensive though, depending how much storage you need.

    source
• ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Reminds me of the image macro about using drive as your swap

  source
• chiisana@lemmy.chiisana.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Netboot.xyz ?

  source
• SzethFriendOfNimi@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  So we’re back to PXI? Everything old is new again.

  Neat technical problem to solve though just for fun

  source

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I set up a PXE image for the Arch installer and scripted the whole installation. The idea was to switch the boot order and have it auto-reimage, such as for a IOT device deploy.

    Once I built it, I never used it again. But it was a fun afternoon.

    source

    • SzethFriendOfNimi@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I wonder if it’s still used for POS such as registers?

      source

      • -> View More Comments
  • vext01@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Was gonna say. Has no-one heard of diskless boot (PXE on x86).

    I’ve done it in the past with OpenBSD: man.openbsd.org/diskless

    source
• argh_another_username@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  One of my duties in my first job was to build diskless computers. I’d record an EPROM in the station and boot from a Novell server.

  source