At the end of the last millennium, some companies believed that the future of computing would be NCs. network computerThey envisioned computers as lightweight terminals, relying solely on data stored on servers, in what was not yet called the cloud. Ersei took this concept rather literally, by running a computer Directly on Google Drive.
If you're interested in detailed explanations, they're in the blog post, but here's a summary: The computer's UEFI (firmware) loads a bootloaderwhich can be found on a USB key (for example). The latter then loads the kernel and the minimal system into RAM, which contains the tools needed to connect to Google Drive and mount Google Storage as if it were a device. This exact point goes through program Open source Which adds FUSE compatibility to Google Drive. Once you have access to the storage, it becomes possible to start (slowly) on it.
Obviously it is a bit longer and more complicated in practice, but everything works and the author shows tests with a virtual machine but also with an old laptop. Let us also remember that even Apple was once considered a company network computer The original iMac comes from working on a machine of this type, and there are some traces of that past in the device's firmware.
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