The release of the open platform webOS Open Source Edition 2.19 has been published, which can be used on various portable devices, boards and car 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, and development is curated by the community, adhering to a collaborative development management model.
The webOS platform was originally developed by Palm in 2008 and used on the Palm Pre and Pixie smartphones. In 2010, after the acquisition of Palm, the platform passed into the hands of Hewlett-Packard, after which HP tried to use this platform in its printers, tablets, laptops and PCs. In 2012, HP announced the transfer of webOS to an independent open source project and in 2013 began opening the source code of its components. The platform was acquired from Hewlett-Packard by LG in 2013 and is now used on more than 70 million LG TVs and consumer devices. In 2018, the webOS Open Source Edition project was founded, through which LG tried to return to the open development model, attract other participants and expand the range of devices supported in webOS.
The webOS system environment is formed using the OpenEmbedded toolkit and base packages, as well as the build system and metadata set from the Yocto project. The key components of webOS are the system and application manager (SAM, System and Application Manager), which is responsible for running applications and services, and the Luna Surface Manager (LSM), which forms the user interface. The components are written using the Qt framework and the Chromium browser engine.
Rendering is done through a composite manager that uses the Wayland protocol. To develop custom applications, it is proposed to use web technologies (CSS, HTML5 and JavaScript) and the Enact framework based on React, but it is also possible to create programs in C and C ++ with an interface based on Qt. The user interface and embedded graphical applications are mostly implemented as native programs written using QML technology. By default, the Home Launcher is offered, which is optimized for touch screen operation and offers the concept of successive maps (instead of windows).
To store data in a structured form using the JSON format, DB8 storage is used, which uses the LevelDB database as a backend. For initialization, bootd based on systemd is used. uMediaServer and Media Display Controller (MDC) subsystems are offered for processing multimedia content, PulseAudio is used as a sound server. To automatically update the firmware, OSTree and atomic partition replacement are used (two system partitions are created, one of which is active, and the second is used to copy the update).
Main changes in the new release:
- The Home App has been improved to include a status bar with a selection of the most frequently called features. Support for free editing of the contents of the panel with applications is provided. Added new screen gestures.
- The Video Call application is included for making video calls and holding virtual video meetings. In its current form, only communication via Cisco Webex and Microsoft Teams is currently supported.
- Provided a command line environment for creating your own blockchain wallet applications (Blockchain Wallet), which makes it easy to perform operations such as signing transactions and logging these transactions on the blockchain.
- Enact Browser has added support for the malware detection service and implemented a pop-up window asking the user for permissions.
- Added support for detecting internal and external audio devices in the audiod audio server. Added support for secondary sound devices (subdevices), integrated sound cards and MIPI cameras in the Sys Service. PulseAudio uses the ECNR (Echo Cancellation Noise Reduction) echo cancellation mechanism.
- Yocto Embedded Linux Platform components have been updated to release 4.0.
- Browser engine updated to Chromium 94 release (previously used Chromium 91). Added the ability to use gamepads for webOS web applications.
- Updated Noto fonts (added support for Unicode 15.0.0 characters).
- Switched to Qt 6.4. The Enact web framework has been updated to version 4.5.0.
Source: opennet.ru