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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

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Run browser and/or mpv directly on hardware? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 day ago by emotional_soup_88@programming.dev to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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Context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKzRf8B-oDk

Would it be possible to run mpv and a browser directly on hardware somehow? Perhaps in an environment that doesn't classify as an operating system according to the definition in those California codes?

I know that an operating system distributes workloads and facilitates communication between various hardware components, but would it be possible to build a Linux kernel that is "only" an interface to the CPU, a GPU, a sound card and a keyboard? One that can take commands to run for instance a browser^[Nowadays, a browser feels like a container that can run most things a physical computer would: stream media, serve as a word processor, play simple games, what have you.] and mpv? Having the user manually - through commands of physical switches - handle the inter component communication? Or perhaps by being a kernel it already falls under the definition of an OS?

I'm just spitballing here. Barely know what I'm talking about, so please enlighten me! :D

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[–] Thwompthwomp@lemmy.world 0 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Looks like I've replied to you a few times, and sorry for the accusatory tone! Didn't mean it! You did get me worried since I'm going to be used "bare metal" in my embedded class later this semester, and felt like I had gone insane not being able to find it anywhere. I was mostly just trying to convince myself this morning I wasn't insane. I had thought it was the standard terminology. I do also need to caveat this that I am not familiar with whatever law OOP was referencing. I'm assuming it was one of the either baked-in surveillance or age verification things. Yeah, I'm with you and don't really see a way out, unless we just step way back in time when we had less standardization and do bespoke everything. Cheers, and sorry for the tone!

[–] Oinks@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Oh no I wasn't talking about your tone at all, sorry about my poor phrasing there. I meant the tone of Timothy Roscoe which rubbed me the wrong way.

I might be a bit overly sensitive since it reminded me of how science cranks like to talk about their "discoveries" - You know, how people like Avi Loeb or Eric Weinstein will go on Joe Rogan and complain how nobody in academia is taking them seriously. Obviously that's not at all what Roscoe is doing (and not just because he's right) but it sounded a tiny bit like that to my ears, at least before the Q&A section (which I hadn't watched before writing my comment).

I was mostly just trying to convince myself this morning I wasn't insane. I had thought it was the standard terminology.

No you are actually correct, "bare metal" does in fact mean "without an OS". It just got co-opted to mean... other things additionally, and in the case of servers specifically the new usage ended up crowding out the original one. Hence the original misunderstanding.