alt Hacker News15 years, one server, 8GB RAM and 500k users – how Webminal refuses to die
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> User Mode Linux
Oh man, what a blast from the past. I have fond memories of learning linux networking with netkit (based on UML).
UML was a really really cool piece of technology.
If anybody is wondering, User Mode Linux lets you boot a Linux kernel as a normal linux process, and then run an userspace, still in a linux process. This is from 2001. Super cool.
That's wonderful and I know why it's an Indian founder. Was so hard to get a remote shell back then. Indian debit cards didn't work online reliably and so on. So what's the hardware underneath? Cloud server or on-prem?
These days the world is amazing. Oracle Cloud gives you a ton for free. But perhaps there's some niche where this is useful. I have to say that this shared screen comms system is outrageously crazy, hahaha.
UML is a smart call, and reminds me when I built an inventory and shift scheduling system on wordpress in 2017.
somtimes the "wrong" / "old" tool for some job is exactly right for you if you really understand it. UML is old but fits here.
15 years is long enough to call memory about a lot of things.
It's been a while since I've used it but Google cloud shell is a good free platform for learning Linux commands as well
To be fair. 8GB of ram is huge. I don't know, maybe I'm stuck in the early 00s but even 2 GB of ram still seems extravagant; I remember when that was an exotic amount of RAM for dedicated gamers to play extremely high fidelity games, so for a mere web server 8 GB of ram almost seems like absurd overkill. I still feel a tinge of shame whenever I see any software of my own using more than a few hundred megabytes. What a waste.
Feels like the real value here is zero setup.
Even spinning up a VM can be enough friction for beginners. A browser shell is kind of “good enough” for that.
Probably why tools like this keep sticking around. Wanna try.
All that on a single Github Sponsor[0].
The way the stack is described reminded me of this masterpiece. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE9W9Ghe4Jk
You just might break that 10K visit from Spanish tech blog in 2017.
This is a very inspiring entrepreneurial story. The story of not giving up.
This is so fascinating, I've never heard of UML!
How many users can this support simultaneously? It says 256MB RAM per user, 8GB total on server? But it's probably more than 32 simultaneous users?
Well that server is worth 1M due to the 8GB RAM now!
Would UML be similar to Incus running unprivileged VMs?
I've never tried Webminal (only used Linode for it's simplicity). But, it seems great. I'll probably try it out.
This is a good reminder that good enough + zero setup often beats more powerful solutions.
iximuiz also give you 1 hour per day free i think.
very easy to use. almost instant.
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blegh, the content is interesting but i've grown numb towards AI speak. It's so generic that I lose interest halfway through.
Old school internet. Internet done right.
Great work giis.
I haven't used it, I didn't know it existed until now, but I'm happy it exists and has been providing service to those who need it. There should be more of this.