Google is now in the process of testing out its mysterious new operating system that is currently going by the name of Fuchsia OS. The Big G is now actively testing Fuchsia on the PixelBook.
But what is it? And what does it mean for Google’s wider ecosystem? Plenty. According to Google itself, Fuchsia is designed for modern smartphones and personal computers.
Fuchsia has only been in development for a year, so it is still very much in its embryonic stages. Unlike many platforms, however, Fuchsia does not use a Linux kernel; instead, it rocks a Google-built microkernel called Zircon (it was previously called Magenta).
What Does Fuchsia Run on Right Now?
Not much. As it stands, Fuchsia is only up and running on a few machines, and all of them are Chromebooks (the PixelBook, the Acer Switch Alpha 12).
“The ‘Escher’ renderer is written in the Vulkan graphics API,” notes ARSTechnica, “and seems custom-built to run Google's shadow-heavy Material Design interface guidelines. Apps are written in Google's ‘Flutter’ SDK, which produces cross-platform code that also runs on Android and iOS. The OS is open source, but with no Linux kernel, there's no GPL components—the OS is licensed under a mix of BSD 3 clause, MIT, and Apache 2.0.”
Early builds of Fuchsia were designed to run on smartphones, but the most recent builds of the platform do not support ARM, so it is impossible to run the OS on smartphones right now.
The Rabbit Hole
Fuchsia is open source, so those interested in its development can watch as Google builds it, however, its esoteric nature means very few will have any idea about what any of it means.
The OS, as of right now, is basically a mystery. It doesn’t look like it works on anything, is supremely difficult to get running on a PixelBook (you need to do it via a USB that is constantly connected), and it does not support ANY Arm-based targets.
What does it all mean? Again, no one really knows. But whatever it is, it is getting built, growing, and will, at some point, arrive alongside Android and Chrome OS. As for when this will be, well… that’s anyone’s guess.
For instance, it took Google five years to create Android. With this in mind, and if Fuchsia actually survives the development process, we might not see the OS launch until 2020. Perhaps even later.
Google is also very happy to kill its darlings as well, as we have seen with multiple hardware lines over the years.
As of right now, you can definitely file this one under interesting. I'm really looking forward to see how this develops in the coming months and years.
by rgoodwin via Featured Articles
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