Google has begun distributing a new firmware based on Fuchsia OS for Nest Hub Max smart photo frames released since 2019. At the first stage, Fuchsia-based firmware will begin to be delivered to participants in the Google Preview Program, and if there are no unforeseen problems during the trial implementation, the firmware will be applied to the devices of other Nest Hub Max users.
The Nest Hub Max is the second consumer device to feature the Fuchsia operating system. The first Fuchsia-based firmware received the Nest Hub model a year ago, which is distinguished by a smaller screen and the absence of a built-in video camera, which is used in a video surveillance and security system. Despite the replacement of the operating system in the firmware, the user interface and functionality are completely preserved and end users should not replace the differences, since the interface is based on the Flutter framework and abstracted from low-level components. Previously, Nest Hub Max devices, which combine the functions of a photo frame, a multimedia system and a smart home control interface, used firmware based on the Cast shell and the Linux kernel.
Fuchsia OS has been developed by Google since 2016, taking into account the scaling and security weaknesses of the Android platform. The system is based on the Zircon microkernel, based on the developments of the LK project, extended for use on various classes of devices, including smartphones and personal computers. Zircon extends LK with support for processes and shared libraries, a user level, an object handling system, and a capability-based security model. Drivers are implemented as user-space dynamic libraries loaded by the devhost process and managed by the device manager (devmg, Device Manager).
Fuchsia has its own graphical interface written in Dart using the Flutter framework. The project also develops the Peridot user interface framework, the Fargo package manager, the libc standard library, the Escher rendering system, the Magma Vulkan driver, the Scenic composite manager, the MinFS, MemFS, ThinFS (FAT in Go language) and Blobfs file systems, as well as the FVM partitions. For application development, support for C / C ++, Dart is provided, Rust is also allowed in system components, in the Go network stack, and in the Python language build system.
The boot process uses the system manager, which includes appmgr to create the initial software environment, sysmgr to build the boot environment, and basemgr to set up the user environment and organize login. To ensure security, an advanced sandbox isolation system is proposed, in which new processes do not have access to kernel objects, cannot allocate memory and cannot run code, and a namespace system is used to access resources, which determines the available permissions. The platform provides a framework for creating components, which are programs that run in their sandbox that can interact with other components via IPC.
Source: opennet.ru