Show HN: DWS OS, a Plan 9 Inspired Web “OS”
9 comments
·September 12, 2025MisterTea
/sys contains all system source code, including documentation, not just kernel code, which lives in /sys/src/
Acme has a snarf per window
Snarf should copy the text to the clipboard which it does not appear to do so I cant copy paste outside of DWS (Am I missing something?).
In your Acme, right clicking a file path opens a new window with an error message that it could not find the file. If I highlight the file path and right click, it opens the file. Is this intentional? Acme does not require you to highlight navigable text.
No shell? I see a /bin/9term but no way to run it.
Any plans for a plumber to route messages to the right program or start programs?
Your UI is pretty neat and isn't far off from Plan 9: 9front includes bar(1), zuke(1) audio player, and there is the vdiff directory browser from shithub.us. Window decorations and controls are available in lola, a window manager that replaces rio, also available on shithub. You can also run windows managers in windows managers on Plan 9 without limit.
Though simplicity, 9p and per process name spaces are what make Plan 9 awesome. I run 9front on bare metal on a few machines including my home CPU Server which is also my dhcp and dns server managed by ndb (it can do nat via ip(3) as well.)
treve
I feel the Plan 9 of the web should use the URI as the most important primitive vs a local path. Neat though!
alt227
I was disapointed to see that when I minimised the web browser, upon restoring it had returned to the homepage and not stayed on the page I was previously on :(
nticompass
I like how opening the "web browser" app has it load "https://dws.rip" inside. How deep can we go?
ori_b
Where's the chording?
packetlost
I like having acme(ish) in the browser, that's cool!
The fact that the window decoration buttons aren't square bothers me slightly.
dws
dws.rip? That hit kind of hard.
curtisszmania
[dead]
sigmonsays
this is pretty weak, it's not even virtualization, just faking it all the way?
Hi HN,
I've always loved the aesthetic, quirks, and concepts of Plan9, and I wanted to see how far I could vibe-code a web desktop/OS that resembled it. The result is DWS OS.
My goal was to reach a point where I could build "userspace" apps for this OS, in the OS. DWS OS has a virtual filesystem, an approximation of the ACME editor, file browser, internet browser (just an iframe for fun), and a few other apps to discover.
The environment supports uploading and downloading data from the virtual filesystem, along with support for JavaScript programming within ACME and an API for building GUI apps within DWS OS and interacting with the OS DOM. Lastly, you can export and import the state of your OS as a JSON to share with others! Check out the `examples/` directory!
I'd love to hear your feedback and suggestions and see if you build anything interesting within the OS, thanks!