The release of the open platform webOS Open Source Edition 2.26 has been announced, which can be used on various portable devices, boards, and automotive infotainment systems. Raspberry Pi 4 boards are considered as the reference hardware platform. The platform is developed in a public repository under the Apache 2.0 license, with development overseen by the community, following a collaborative development management model.
Key changes in the new release:
- Support for installing standalone web applications (PWA, Progressive Web Application) has been added. When opening websites that support PWA, a button for their installation appears in the browser toolbar. After installation, a shortcut to launch the PWA application is displayed in the standard application launcher interface, alongside regular applications.
- The multimedia recording interface has introduced pause and resume recording features, as well as an option to record only audio. For video, users can choose the frame rate and resolution (FHD/20 FPS or HD/30 FPS).
- The audio API has added the ability to stop and pause the playback of system sounds, as well as to control their volume.
- The Enact web browser has added the ability to open websites through a proxy. Proxy usage can be tied to specific sites.
- Support for protected rendering using DMABUF has been added.
- The Noto fonts have been updated.
- The UnifiedDecodebin decoder, written in Rust, has been utilized for GStreamer.
- Support for the Web Push mechanism has been added to the browser engine using server FCM (Google Firebase Cloud Messaging).
- Changes have been ported from the Yocto platform 5.0.
The webOS platform was initially developed by Palm in 2008 and was used on Palm Pre and Pixie smartphones. In 2010, after Palm was acquired, the platform fell into the hands of Hewlett-Packard, which attempted to use it in its printers, tablets, laptops, and PCs. In 2012, HP announced the transition of webOS to an independent open project, and in 2013 began to release the source code of its components.
In 2013, the platform was acquired from Hewlett-Packard by LG and is now used on more than 70 million LG TVs and consumer devices. In 2018, the webOS Open Source Edition project was launched, through which LG attempted to return to an open development model, attract other participants, and expand the range of devices supported by webOS.
The webOS system environment is formed using the OpenEmbedded tools and base packages, as well as the build system and metadata set from the Yocto project. Key components of webOS include the System and Application Manager (SAM), which is responsible for running applications and services, and the Luna Surface Manager (LSM), which creates the user interface. The components are written using the Qt framework and the Chromium browser engine.
Rendering is done through a composite manager using the Wayland protocol. For developing user applications, it is recommended to use web technologies (CSS, HTML5, and JavaScript) and the Enact framework based on React, although it is also possible to create programs in C and C++ with a Qt-based interface. The user interface and built-in graphical applications are mainly implemented as native programs written using QML technology. By default, the Home Launcher interface is offered, optimized for touch screen navigation and featuring a concept of interchangeable cards instead of windows.
DB8 is used for storing data in a structured manner using the JSON format, utilizing LevelDB as its backend database.
Initialization is performed using bootd based on systemd. For processing multimedia content, uMediaServer and Media Display Controller (MDC) subsystems are provided, while PulseAudio is used as the sound server. Automatic firmware updates are handled using OSTree and atomic section replacements (two system sections are created, one of which is active, while the other is used for copying updates).
Source: opennet.ru
