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by jack_quack 2798 days ago
I actually would like a stateless computer. A pure functional laptop. It could store state on the cloud as a series of changesets, and each boot would be a "checkout" of the top state. Then as you compute, you make to make new changesets.
3 comments

You might be in the market for a Chromebook. Keep in mind that this isn't really what the author is talking about, though–a significant part of her paper is a desire for the ability to keep her information private, which includes measures such as removing wireless functionality.
See GuixSD: https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Featur...

It doesn't store "in the cloud" by default, but there's no reason you couldn't set that up.

Functional has nothing to do with how a computer actually works. It's a semantic convention employed by programming languages to assist programmers by offering an alternative way to mentally model what the computer is doing. Don't conflate that.