Nimbus OS

[Amit]

In the wallpaper thread I briefly mentioned last month that I was waiting for something called the Nimbus OS. It's a shell replacement for windows, but it's so much more than just that. I'm still waiting for it to be released, but in the mean time, take a look:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3T9qxJaDj0I

Nimbus works on Mac OS X 10.6+, Windows 7+, iOS 5+, Android 4.2+, and WP7+.

Here is the description that the author gave from the Nimbus OS DeviantArt page (http://mangosango.deviantart.com/art/Nimbus-SSC-13-369791162):


You might be thinking that this is a good ol Visual Style + TT + Litestep stack, but ohohoho you'd be very wrong.

edit: sorry for wall of text http://e.deviantart.net/emoticons/letters/=p.gif

My goal for this shot was to re-examine the fundamentals of an OS, and really see what would be possible if you broke all the rules. So I scrapped Litestep and explorer entirety for a completely custom build. Everything you see on-screen (save for the photographs) was hand-designed and hand-coded from scratch. It's Windows underneath, but a completely different beast on top.

Nimbus is a shell replacement & app suite that I'm prototyping for large and small screens. The whole thing is scripted in javascript and styled with standard webtech (css + html). This means that everything,everything from the taskbar, to the icons, to the apps and windows themselves are built from the ground up with html, styled with css, and scripted with javascript.

Using websockets, the shell actually syncs across devices in realtime, so you can move an app running on your desktop to your mobile, just as if your laptop and smartphone were running the same operating system, connected to the same hardware. You can even set it so that your actions on the phone are mirrored (more-or-less) 1:1 on the desktop. The UI is designed so that cross-platform interactions make sense. This is especially nice when using the music & video apps (sit back, and control with your phone http://e.deviantart.net/emoticons/b/biggrin.gif).

In terms of usability: It's a prototype shell. It breaks more often than not, especially when you have multiple devices trying to sync with each other. One great thing about this shell, however, is that it runs seamlessly alongside your existing OS, so I've been running it on its own desktop alongside my normal Windows 7 install. I was hoping to upload the mobile shot of the shell too, but I haven't been able to make it pretty yet. http://e.deviantart.net/emoticons/letters/=p.gif

The shell is very much pre-alpha, but it's currently running on iPhone, Android, Windows 7, Ubuntu, and (probably OSX http://e.deviantart.net/emoticons/letters/=p.gif). Basically, if your device can run a webkit capable browser (preferably chrome), it will run. My goal is to get litestep-levels of customization on all platforms (desktop & mobile) and most basic apps. That release is still a far from happening, but this is the real first step in showing that it's a feasible idea! I'm super happy with the way this turned out and am happy to share it with you guys first http://e.deviantart.net/emoticons/s/smile.gif

Here's a live demonstration of it:


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=472611979484149

EDIT: It appears that Facebook changed something with their videos recently so embedding for facebook videos no longer works. However, there is a solution to it in this (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum/vbulletin-4/vbulletin-4-questions-problems-and-troubleshooting/3959089-facebook-video-embed-stopped-working-since-yesterday) thread. Get on fixing that, badmins.

[Limited]

:neckbeard: This is not an OS, or even close. This is simply a glorified web app.

[Phopojijo]

:neckbeard: This is not an OS, or even close. This is simply a glorified web app.Firefox OS is an operating system shell developed on a web app (the OS just launches Gecko)... so that does not mean anything.

But on the topic of "Nimbus", specifically... yeah.

[Warsaw]

If it lets me remotely run and play games from my PC, I'm in.

[Btcc22]

Based on the demo, I get the feeling that it'll either never be released or won't meet expectations.

[Amit]

Based on the demo, I get the feeling that it'll either never be released or won't meet expectations.

Why? Did it not do what you expected it to?

[Btcc22]

Why? Did it not do what you expected it to?

The site makes some pretty bold claims yet the demo from only ~6 weeks back is something that could have been built in an afternoon by somebody with a bit of websockets knowledge. Additionally, the preview/release is over a month overdue because the dev has just started at a new job and finally, in his own words, it "breaks more often than not".

I wouldn't mind being proved wrong but I'm pretty cynical about these overly ambitious solo projects. If they had something meaty to demo rather than just bluster and Apple-esque videos then I might be less so.

Oh and I'm curious about the whole technology side of things. How is an OS shell being replaced by HTML and JS?

[Phopojijo]

Again, legitimate OSes can have shells programmed exclusively in web standards.

In fact, there are big pushes from many directions to make the web browser an operating environment itself. Perpetual compatibility with basically just a performance penalty... and a slowly diminshing one at that.

[Dwood]

Again, legitimate OSes can have shells programmed exclusively in web standards.

In fact, there are big pushes from many directions to make the web browser an operating environment itself. Perpetual compatibility with basically just a performance penalty... and a slowly diminshing one at that.

I love the internet, but, I've always liked the big divide between the environment of google (let's face it, Google is more home to many people than their desktop) and my hard drive. I like Nimbus because it seems to be a step into the anti-cloud direction. (ie making use of home computing with internet instead of having some cloud company do the hosting)

If there was a kickstarter project for it, I would pledge $5.

[Phopojijo]

I love the internet, but, I've always liked the big divide between the environment of google (let's face it, Google is more home to many people than their desktop) and my hard drive. I like Nimbus because it seems to be a step into the anti-cloud direction. (ie making use of home computing with internet instead of having some cloud company do the hosting)

If there was a kickstarter project for it, I would pledge $5.Did not say anything about the internet, just web standards.

I'm actually working on a few applications which are designed to run in a web browser... just through a local filesystem. Security features make it a bit difficult (so a bad website cannot just browse your hard drive) but Firefox, by default, permits access to wherever index.html is located and any sub-directories. It is a bit annoying without HTTP responses... because there is not likely an HTTP server installed on the client machine... but I have been managing.

But, suffices to say, I like web technologies (http://loosescrew.ca/auroraAnim/).