From 494047f5a44ddf511e8ec7bbd7f9fedf684c05cb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: =?UTF-8?q?Reynir=20Bj=C3=B6rnsson?= Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2020 19:49:40 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] Add About, OpenSource and thank you for reading --- Index | 5 ++++- LearnMore/About | 37 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ LearnMore/OpenSource | 13 +++++++++++++ 3 files changed, 54 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) create mode 100644 LearnMore/About create mode 100644 LearnMore/OpenSource diff --git a/Index b/Index index 5a64617..5f57aef 100644 --- a/Index +++ b/Index @@ -41,4 +41,7 @@ With the the office I plan on working from there just about every weekday. I am a social being and thrive around other people. I look forward to coming to Frontløberne daily and share the space and ideas with the lovely people there. -[About this site](/LearnMore/About) +This site is written using MirageOS. You can read more [about this site](/LearnMore/About) and how it works. + +Thank you for reading, +Reynir Björnsson diff --git a/LearnMore/About b/LearnMore/About new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f1c24c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/LearnMore/About @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +--- +title: Tiny Imaginary Computers +author: Reynir Björnsson +--- + +This website is running as a *Mirage unikernel*. +A traditional application is one or more programs that run in an operating system on a computer alongside other programs. +A *unikernel* is a program that is also an operating system. +That sounds boring -- an operating system where only one program ever runs?! +And that is correct, this is often not what you want. +Luckily, modern machines have the capability to run many *virtual machines*. +This provides some benefits: + +- A virtual machine is well isolated from other virtual machines. + You don't have to worry about one application messing with the files of another, + or a malicious application sending the private bits from another application somewhere where it doesn't belong. + +- You know what your application needs from the operating system, so you can leave out the things that are not needed. + This simplifies things, makes the operating system much smaller. + Furthermore, it's a big security benefit - every bit of code is a potential security issue. + Only a few years ago it was a huge problem for many people because their virtual machine had a vulnerability in the virtual floppy drive! + +- The program is self-contained. + All that it needs is packaged up in the unikernel. + In traditional software you often have a number of dependencies that you need on your computer in order to run the application, and they all need to have a compatible version. + +This website is using a *library* called [Canopy](https://github.com/Engil/Canopy) that a guy I met in Morocco and later Leipzig wrote. +The first thing it does when it starts is to fetch files that are under *version control*. +This means the files have a log of what was done, and every change is tracked. +You can go back in time if you regret a change! +I made the files public on a website hosted by my friends [data.coop](https://data.coop/). +Whenever I push new changes there Canopy makes sure to get the latest updates. +You are welcome to take a look at the history: [https://git.data.coop/reynir/frontloberne](https://git.data.coop/reynir/frontloberne) +Canopy knows how to make the simple text files look pretty in your web browser. + +On the same machine I run another Canopy instance which serves a technical blog at [blog.mirage.reyn.ir](https://blog.mirage.reyn.ir/). +At the moment I'm only running a few other things, but I could easily run 100s of instances. diff --git a/LearnMore/OpenSource b/LearnMore/OpenSource new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ab2188d --- /dev/null +++ b/LearnMore/OpenSource @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +--- +title: Open Source +author: Reynir Björnsson +--- + +Open source is a philosophy of sharing knowledge and know-how. +You share how things work, be it software, beer recipes or how to grow oyster mushrooms from spent coffee grounds. +You are free to read, inspect and modify the code (recipe) in any way you like. +In some cases, extra conditions apply such as you have to share back any changes or improvements you have made if you're not using it just for personal purposes. +In other cases no conditions apply. + +Pretty much all my work is released as open source. +It is something I believe in.