Google Is Quietly Developing A New OS And Kernel, Fuchsia

Google’s own GitHub page simply describes Fuchsia as “Pink + Purple == Fuchsia (a new Operating System)”.

There’s the Magenta kernel based on the LittleKernel project. Just like with Linux and Android the Magenta kernel powers the larger Fuchsia operating system. Magenta is being designed as a competitor to commercial embedded OSes.

Magenta is said to work on embedded devices, smartphones, and desktop computers. Magenta improves upon its LittleKernel base by adding first class user mode support and a capability based security model, this will allow features like Android 6.0 permissions to work.

Google is using Flutter for the user interface as well as Dart as the primary programming language and Escher a renderer that supports light diffusion, soft shadows, and other visual effects with OpenGL or Vulkan at the helm of it all. Shadows and subtle color reflections are a key component of Material Design.

We know Fuchsia has support for both 32-bit and 64-bit ARM CPUs, as well as 64-bit PCs. Could Fuchsia be a lightweight OS used on hardware not capable of running full Android such as the Google OnHub router and Google Home? Let us know what your thoughts are in the comment section below.


Source: GitHub, Google Git

Open webOS Build Scripts Sneak Out Onto GitHub

Build scripts for the desktop version of Open webOS have managed to sneak out onto the Github code repository belonging to webOS Engineering team member Anupam Kaul. Before you get too excited, these scripts don't actually do anything yet, primarily because the majority of the source code for Open webOS hasn't yet been released. The actual code to run the webOS UI and many other underlying components are't expected to be released until July. Still, it is interesting to see these build scripts come out at this time, given that Open webOS is not yet released in full and is very much a work in progress.

On the GitHub repository there are build scripts for db8, a component that manages certain types of application databases used throughout webOS and that was released in March, as well as build scripts for cjson, luna-service2, and pmloglib. Some of the components, namely luna-service2 which powers Node.js-based services, and pmloglib (which is responsible for on-device debugging logs), are webOS-specific components and are part of the Open webOS release plan. The remaining component, cjson, is a popular open source JSON library for C code required for many components of webOS.

We chatted briefly with Kaul about the project and he confirmed that this is a personal project of his, and that though these scripts along with the Linux Standard Kernel would help it booting webOS onto a desktop, there's still a lot of work that will have to be done with as-of-yet unreleased components to make webOS cursor-friendly. Until then, the code on GitHub is simply waiting for the day to come where it might be pushed out to the larger Open webOS project.

It's interesting to think back a year ago to Think Beyond, when HP first unveiled their plans to put webOS onto all of their computers by the end of this yar. My how times change. Although the practicality of using webOS on a computer is still debatable, we do look forward to the day when we can do just that. Until then, we have got no option but to sit and wait patiently.