The release of the open platform webOS Open Source Edition 2.15 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).
DB8 storage is used to store structured data using the JSON format, using the LevelDB database as a backend. Bootd, based on systemd, is used for initialization. The uMediaServer and Media Display Controller (MDC) subsystems are offered for processing multimedia content, and the audio Server PulseAudio is used. For automatic firmware updates, OSTree and atomic partition replacement are used (two system partitions are created, one of which is active, and the other is used to copy the update).
Main changes in the new release:
- Keyboard and mouse support has been added. The Luna Surface Manager (LSM) composite manager has been adapted for managing and organizing input using a keyboard and mouse, not just a touchscreen. For example, a keyboard and mouse can be connected to a webOS-based mobile device or TV for use as a workstation. Keyboard shortcuts for quick access to settings (F1) and the program launcher interface (Start button or Windows).
- Improved rendering performance and improved animation quality in applications using the Qt library.
- Components and resources for customizing QML applications have been added to the Home Launcher.
- Support for volume tracking has been added to the audiod audio management service.
- A set of examples of applications and solutions based on webOS is proposed.
- The browser engine has been updated to Chromium 91 (previously used Chromium 87). The web engine now supports GPU vsync for Wayland.
- The emulator has swap partition compression (zram) and out-of-memory handling (oomd) enabled.
Source: opennet.ru
