Qemu Javascript Emulator

PC emulator written in JavaScript. Wow. [Link]

We often use emulators like Qemu, Virtualbox, VMWare to virtualize another Operating systems on a different platform.

Qemu is popular and open source emulator that lets you virtualize nearly any OS on any other OS. Qemu has now been ported to a new platform: Browsers. Most modern browsers like Chrome 11 and Firefox 4 can run this javascript based Emulator making it possible to run an actual Linux in your browser.

Since javascript is slower than native code, one would expect slower boot times for the Linux, but it boots amazingly fast. With a very minimal download and couple of seconds, your browser window boots into an actual Linux based on commandline. Ofcourse CLI-only makes the OS snappy for executing all your shell commands.

If you aren’t excited so far, read this again: “A PC emulator written in javascript, and running solely in browser“.

Try it