For over a year now I've been working on daedalOS, my desktop environment in the browser. At the start of 2022 I published the app as my website for everyone to play with.
Website: dustinbrett.com
Source Code: daedalOS
For the WebAssembly audience I wanted to discuss the many features I've integrated into my desktop environment which use WebAssembly. Here is a list in no particular order:
x86 Emulation via v86
I support dragging .iso
& .img
files into the app which can be ran on v86. It also comes loaded with Kolibri and Linux. When an app is closed a snapshot of the current state is saved to /Users/Public/Snapshots
which is automatically loaded the next time the same image is opened.
DOS Emulation via js-dos
For this app you can open any .zip
or .jsdos
file in it. If you don't provide a jsdos config file it will boot to the command prompt. I have some preloaded DOS shareware games such as Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. Like v86 it will save snapshots on close and reload them on reopen, but instead of loading the emulator state it just loads the directory contents such as save games.
WINE (16/32-bit) via Boxedwine
This also supports .zip
files and will try and run .exe
too. It can run various apps as BoxedWine shows on their Apps and Games page. As an example I downloaded the latest 32-bit x86 Portable (zip)
version of Notepad++, shown below.
Flash Emulation via Ruffle
This app supports .swf
and .spl
files. I have a few fun demos on my site such as the Badger Badger Badger and Windows RG (Really Good Edition).
7z/RAR/TAR Extraction via Libarchivejs
I support .zip
& .iso
mounting through non-WebAssembly methods, so to handle .7z
, .rar
, .tar
& .tar.gz
I've added Libarchive.js. Extracting is done from the right click context menu on each file.
Audio/Video Conversion via ffmpeg.wasm
Currently only supporting single thread because of the SharedArrayBuffer limitation and my desire to not deal with CORS issues. For video you can convert .avi
, .flv
, .m4v
, .mov
, .mp4
, .mpeg
, .ogv
, .webm
& .wmv
. For audio it supports converting .aac
, .aiff
, .ape
, .flac
, .m4a
, .mp3
, .oga
, .ogg
.wav
& .wma
. These conversion options can be access via the context menu on each file.
Image Conversion via WASM-ImageMagick
Similar to audio/video, I support various formats of images that can be converted. They are .bmp
, .gif
, .ico
, .jpg
, .png
, .psd
, .tiff
& .xcf
.
Python via Pyodide
I've added support to run .py
scripts in the terminal. It's also possible to open the Terminal directly and run a command such as py import sys; sys.version
to see the same result as this example script.
WASI Modules via Wasmer JS
I've added limited support to run wapm.io directly from the Terminal. Examples of commands that work well are wapm cowsay {Text}
and wapm uuid
.
Space Cadet via SpaceCadetPinball
Finally for a blast from the past I've added 3D Pinball Space Cadet which has been ported to many platforms including to WebAssembly.
The Future...
Thanks for checking out my post/app!!! If you'd like to follow my progress as I continue to play with all things web/dev, please check out my YouTube channel. Here is my latest video where I discuss progress on this app:
Top comments (17)
Also I'll be doing a follow-up article pretty soon as I've added a NES/SNES/Sega Genesis emulator via WebAssembly, and I have a few other WASM's planned for the near future!
Did a video demo of everything on this list tonight, for anyone interested. :-)
Whoa ...
Oh God!! Truely unbelievable project.
Thanks! That's nice of you to say.
This is incredible Dustin! Looking forward to see how this is going to evolve
Thank you very much!
This is fantastic! Thank you for sharing :)
Thanks! Glad you liked it.
I'll be honest. This is the coolest thing I've seen in a long long time. I think this may revolutionize how web applications and teams function. The response rate on this thing is unreal
Thanks! I hope my proof of concept can inspire others to build on the ideas.
Really cool Dustin, especially impressed by the nitty gritty details, really awesome.
Thanks! I have a lot of fun with the details. Still lots of work to do. :-) I'm always adding more things to do or fix.
Amazing project! 😁
Thanks! It's my passion project for the foreseeable future.
This is really incredible. Fantastic job! WASM is awsm!
Thank you very much!