Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 16 submissions in the queue.

Submission Preview

Link to Story

Google Fuschia UI Previewed

Accepted submission by takyon at 2017-05-09 15:18:27
OS

takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Google's Fuchsia [wikipedia.org] System UI can now be previewed [arstechnica.com]. The operating system could potentially replace Android and even ChromeOS:

Google, never one to compete in a market with a single product [arstechnica.com], is apparently hard at work on a third operating system after Android and Chrome OS. This one is an open source, real-time OS called "Fuchsia [github.com]." The OS first popped up in August last year, but back then it was just a command line. Now the mysterious project has a crazy new UI we can look at, so let's dive in.

Unlike Android and Chrome OS, Fuchsia is not based on Linux—it uses a new, Google-developed microkernel called "Magenta." With Fuchsia, Google would not only be dumping the Linux kernel, but also the GPL: the OS is licensed under a mix of BSD 3 clause, MIT, and Apache 2.0. Dumping Linux might come as a bit of a shock, but the Android ecosystem seems to have no desire to keep up with upstream Linux releases. Even the Google Pixel is still stuck on Linux Kernel 3.18, which was first released at the end of 2014.

[...] This all leads us to an interesting point right now: the Fuchsia interface is written with the Flutter SDK, which is cross-platform. This means that, right now, you can grab chunks of Fuchsia and run it on an Android device. Fuchsia first went public in August 2016, and but back then compiling it would get you nothing more than a command line. Thanks to Hotfixit.net [hotfixit.net] for pointing out that the Fuchsia System UI, called "Armadillo" is actually pretty interesting now.

It's possible to download the source and compile Fuchsia's System UI into an Android APK and install it on an Android device. It consists of a wild reimagining of a home screen along with a keyboard, a home button, and (kind of) a window manager. Nothing really "works"—it's all a bunch of placeholder interfaces that don't do anything. There's also a great readme [github.com] in the Fuchsia source that describes what the heck is going on.

It's about time for Linux Torvalds' domination of the smartphone industry to end.

Also at BGR [bgr.com], ZDNet [zdnet.com], ComputerWorld [computerworld.com], and The Register [theregister.co.uk]. Preview video [youtube.com].

Fuchsia on Google Git [googlesource.com].

Original Submission