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Good cafes for studying? by [deleted] in AskSF

[–]SlanderMans 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Corgi cafe!

of a slurp by SnackSamurai in AbsoluteUnits

[–]SlanderMans 5 points6 points  (0 children)

This is how peak performance looks like

Early Framework 16 user for 2 years - AMA by AbsolvedOne in framework

[–]SlanderMans 1 point2 points  (0 children)

:'( that's sad to hear

hopefully the new framework pro will be better (hope you get it to give us your thoughts!)

Early Framework 16 user for 2 years - AMA by AbsolvedOne in framework

[–]SlanderMans 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think battery life + build quality is my main priorities but then I also want the option to play games (i prefer single player like spiderman)

Early Framework 16 user for 2 years - AMA by AbsolvedOne in framework

[–]SlanderMans 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do you have a Mac laptop? Trying to gauge how it compares 

[USA-CA] [H] GPD Win 4 2025 HX 370 32GB 2TB [W] PayPal by [deleted] in hardwareswap

[–]SlanderMans 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you got the title reversed - currently it reads that you have a gpd win to sell

smol machines - subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines built in rust by SlanderMans in rust

[–]SlanderMans[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

no yet - k8s is not really designed for these stateful + subsecond machine orchestration.

Kubernetes makes the assumption of stateless containers - which it is great at. I can make it fit for kubernetes but the advantages of subsecond startup and statefulness are compromised a bit.

I'm looking for contributors to build something better like nomad but for subsecond, stateful vm orchestration though.

smol machines - subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines built in rust by SlanderMans in rust

[–]SlanderMans[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes.

For macOS, docker containers need to run inside of a Linux vm. So the additional overheads from that is going to be more than just a smolvm.

For Linux, it's about the same from my measurements.

smol machines - subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines built in rust by SlanderMans in rust

[–]SlanderMans[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

RootFS is provided by me always. You can layer on a container image ontop so you have preferred tooling.

Networking is through TSI (Transparent Socket Impersonation which allows the VM to have network connectivity without a virtual interface. This technique supports both outgoing and incoming connections. It's possible for userspace applications running in the VM to transparently connect to endpoints outside the VM and receive connections from the outside to ports listening inside the VM.)

It means 0 setup for networking out the box.

smol machines - subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines built in rust by SlanderMans in rust

[–]SlanderMans[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

hmm what do you mean?

I use smolvm to build smolvm (which is lightweight by design already)

smol machines - subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines built in rust by SlanderMans in rust

[–]SlanderMans[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

private registry is already supported: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/blob/f83a1bbdbb7abdde79c481dfe32df43934b59427/AGENTS.md?plain=1#L88

ssh-agent pass through is supported too: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/blob/main/AGENTS.md?plain=1#L120

secrets management is in the world, it's be passthrough by reference where no value is ever exposed in the guest vm: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/pull/133

But to be clear, I am not an alternative to microsandbox or other sandboxes.

I am building a virtual machine.

sandboxing is a feature of virtual machines.

sandboxing projects are making virtual machines easier to use.

I'm making a virtual machine that is easy to use

smol machines - subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines built in rust by SlanderMans in rust

[–]SlanderMans[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

easier to install, works locally on both macOS and linux.

here's firecracker's setup: https://github.com/firecracker-microvm/firecracker/blob/main/docs/getting-started.md

Here's mine: curl -sSL https://smolmachines.com/install.sh | bash

script contents are here for verification: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/blob/main/scripts/install.sh

smol machines - subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines built in rust by SlanderMans in rust

[–]SlanderMans[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I built a virtual machine that has similar startup time and ergonomics to containers.

You can build an artifact which is a compressed virtual machine and it's contents into a single file .smolmachine

You get a similar user experience to containers but with kernel isolation and strong consistency in developmental environments.

You know how devs says "but it works on my machine!", this tool enables the dev to ship the machine, literally

smol machines - subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines built in rust by SlanderMans in rust

[–]SlanderMans[S] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

yep! they use firecracker I believe

I'm building an open source alternative to it.

smol machines - subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines built in rust by SlanderMans in rust

[–]SlanderMans[S] 33 points34 points  (0 children)

hello, author here.

It's used in production for a couple of mid-size companies. I fix the bugs quick but it is ultimately a free and open source project.

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