I've found that tar processing tends to dominate the time used to do anything with standard OCI layers. I have a more efficient format (that splits apart the layer into metadata+chunks) that I'm open sourcing soon if y'all are interested in using it.
> Isn't it really obvious that a user space fs will always be slow, and especially slow with small files?
Small files seem like the perfect case for a user space fs... depending on what you mean by user space fs. If you mean interfacing with a FUSE (or similar) filesystem by using syscalls in your program to context switch into the kernel, then context switch to the userspace FUSE layer, then send it back to the kernel and then back to your program ... that will be especially slow with small files where date bytes per context switch is small. OTOH, if you mean a user space fs where your program has a built in filesystem it can access without context switching, then that will be of benefit ... especially if the files are small enough that you can pack multiple files into a single page.
I don't think you can blame that on FUSE in general. If not some quirk of your local setup then maybe the particular implementation you were using - what sort of volume was it?
Is anyone here using this software? How do you integrate it with your agent workflow? Do you run agents in editor (Zed, VS Code, Cursor, whatever)?
Have you tried the sync feature?
Edit: FML why is this being downvoted? At least have the decency of explaining, I'm happy to adjust my conduct but I can't do so if I don't know what I did wrong.
it depends where you want your agent to live. inside the sandbox, start a sandbox via the CLI and run your agents/do your dev in there. outside the sandbox, you'd configure your harness to use the MCP / skill integration. here's the guide: https://docs.microsandbox.dev/getting-started/agents
if you're building a harness, the SDK provides better integration. let me know if you hit any blockers.
I can only guess at the actions of others, but I would guess it’s because your comment is a tangent and at best only vaguely related to the featured article?
The article is really about solving a particular problem with the backend of their infrastructure. Discussion about VMs, Linux kernel syscalls, file systems (virtual, FUSE, etc) would all be relevant.
Your comment is a question about whether and how people use the software itself, which is pretty unrelated to the article.
It’s a bit like an article about Porsche identifying a particular engineering nuance in their fuel injectors, and how things didn’t work the way they thought at a low level, and how they solved it once they realized it. And then you come in with a comment about what people like to do with their Porsches. Like, sure, it involves the same company but what would that have to do with the underlying article on automotive engineering?
Combine that with a growing disdain for the insistence of certain segments of the tech scene to make everything about agentic workflows, (an echo to the constant evangelism of cryptocurrencies or blockchain in the recent past) and you have a recipe for downvotes.
This is pretty common on this forum though. Many times the comments section becomes mostly about things that are not necessarily directly related to the article but remain related to the bigger thing the article is about.
You’re not wrong, and this is speculation, but I suspect you’re just missing the subtext I added in my edit: that some people are burnt out on the evangelism of agentic workflows in the same way they were about blockchain or whatnot.
People are generally sick of AI, and of people who bring AI up in every single comment thread. The downvoters may not realise that TFA is by an AI company, about an AI product, making your comment tangentially relevant, and not (strictly-speaking) an example of the behaviour they're fed up with.
Heh yeah it very well could be. I am also fed up with AI everywhere but I don't go out downvoting everyone and everything who mentions it - and definitely not where the whole context is about it.
Your coworker/other account, messed it up last time you submitted it too: We made our sandbox filesystem 47× faster by deleting it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48195883
> Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.
You're linkbaiting.. the opposite of the guideline
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
we've played with some chunking ideas on our end but haven't landed on a format. drop a link when it's out.
I don't know the purpose of microsandbox, but such an article doesn't give me great confidence in exploring it further.
Small files seem like the perfect case for a user space fs... depending on what you mean by user space fs. If you mean interfacing with a FUSE (or similar) filesystem by using syscalls in your program to context switch into the kernel, then context switch to the userspace FUSE layer, then send it back to the kernel and then back to your program ... that will be especially slow with small files where date bytes per context switch is small. OTOH, if you mean a user space fs where your program has a built in filesystem it can access without context switching, then that will be of benefit ... especially if the files are small enough that you can pack multiple files into a single page.
Also, it's a great illustration of the benefits of layered, modular design that Linux sports: it allows to mix and match parts to build what you need.
Lol, yeah that was your mistake. FUSE is a phenomenal idea but anyone who has used it knows how slow it can be.
Have you tried the sync feature?
Edit: FML why is this being downvoted? At least have the decency of explaining, I'm happy to adjust my conduct but I can't do so if I don't know what I did wrong.
if you're building a harness, the SDK provides better integration. let me know if you hit any blockers.
for sync, it's currently in the works.
The article is really about solving a particular problem with the backend of their infrastructure. Discussion about VMs, Linux kernel syscalls, file systems (virtual, FUSE, etc) would all be relevant.
Your comment is a question about whether and how people use the software itself, which is pretty unrelated to the article.
It’s a bit like an article about Porsche identifying a particular engineering nuance in their fuel injectors, and how things didn’t work the way they thought at a low level, and how they solved it once they realized it. And then you come in with a comment about what people like to do with their Porsches. Like, sure, it involves the same company but what would that have to do with the underlying article on automotive engineering?
Combine that with a growing disdain for the insistence of certain segments of the tech scene to make everything about agentic workflows, (an echo to the constant evangelism of cryptocurrencies or blockchain in the recent past) and you have a recipe for downvotes.
Oh well. :) Thanks for your insight anyway.