Re: web inherits UNIX console?

[Matthew Mondor <mm_lists%pulsar-zone.net@localhost>]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 12:04:11 -0500
David Young <dyoung%pobox.com@localhost> wrote:

> An idea that I keep turning over in my head and cannot put to rest is
> that the web already has a lot better console abstraction, in the form
> of DOM, than the glass teletype that UNIX uses now.  Maybe we should
> switch?
> 
> Another idea I'm mulling is that web stuff like HTML5 (Canvas) + SVG
> will eventually add up to a graphics console with a lot more seats,
> portability, and capability than X11.

Well I've seen people run an AJAX terminal emulator + SSH client in
their browsers to connect to their unix systems, but this still
remains a text console.  I personally prefer a lightweight urxvt for
this ;)  I've not looked, but would not be surprised if it's now
possible to find browser-bound X11 servers, heh.

We now do have bozohttpd for the server-side, and I think it can now
run lua scripts without extra dependencies?
It'd then be possible to eventually have an optional http-sysinst,
useful for headless systems without an rs-232 port to allow installation
(which could optionally support ajax, but should also ideally support
js-disabled setups).  After the base install, as usual one could then
connect via SSH to finalize the configuration and install wanted
packages...

But I'm not really sure how far you'd want to push the idea.  If you
mean that a totally novel web interactive interface could replace both
X11 and console, I think that it's a good research area.  For now
unfortunately if the client-side is BSD you still need a heavy X11 +
modern browser setup (with its security implications thrown in)...
For the server-side a possible implementation might be a special HTTP
daemon application connecting/proxying to the various
application-specific SOAP/RPC/FastCGI-like services, applications
designed for your particular protocol rather than for something like
tty, Gtk, QT, Gnome or KDE...
-- 
Matt