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Inferno OS Running On Android Phones

Posted by Soulskill on from the hot-stuff dept.

New submitter Digi-John writes "Employees at Sandia National Labs have put the Inferno OS on Android-based phones, replacing the default Java UI. Applications are written in Limbo rather than Java. The full announcement is at the bitbucket repository, and a short video demonstrates some of its capabilities."

10 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. Its a native app running on Android, not an OS by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1, Insightful

    My fork of the Inferno OS, tweaked to run on Android

    and more

    The Hellaphone runs Inferno directly on top of the basic Linux layer provided by Android. We do not even allow the Java system to start. Instead, emu draws directly to the Linux framebuffer (thanks, Andrey, for the initial code!) and treats the touchscreen like a one-button mouse. Because the Java environment doesn't start, it only takes about 10 seconds to go from power off to a fully-booted Inferno environment.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
    1. Re:Its a native app running on Android, not an OS by Timmmm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, native apps still use the Android APIs (mostly). This is a separate OS that is built using the core of Android.

      You can't press home and go back from Inferno into Android. And MacGyver2210 is right.

  2. I'm underwhelmed by Maow · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I hadn't heard of Inferno, so watched the video.

    Sorry, but it was just not impressive. Seems to me Android has more interesting visuals in its robotic fingernail than Inferno on mobile has.

    Seems barely better than operating a phone from a terminal session.

    So I clicked the link about what Inferno is (Bell Labs' distributed computing effort), which DID sound interesting, but was hard to jive with what I'd seen on the phone.

    I think it's great that new stuff is being ported to mobile devices, and like the idea of dumping Java completely from a phone, but... I don't think Inferno is ready for actual usage yet, not even for hackers.

    Kudos on the effort, and I do hope it leads to more mobile options in the future, but for now, meh.

    1. Re:I'm underwhelmed by jamiethehutt · · Score: 3, Insightful

      OS9 Vista Rebecca Black Countless other bits of more instantly forgotten crap. Don't kid yourself, without a core the shell is just a shell. I mean if this guy had made a pretty GUI in Flash you'd of been here posting "this is awesome!"? No, you wouldn't, you'd see it for the substance-less crap it is. You've forgotten the massive amount of work that it's taken for your fancy visuals to come about, DECADES of work on ugly software. And you guys don't half ask for the earth. Where would we be if when Linus had posted the Linux kernel everyone just went "This sucks. Why is there no GUI?".

    2. Re:I'm underwhelmed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Where would we be if when Linus had posted the Linux kernel everyone just went "This sucks. Why is there no GUI?".

      We'd be using a superior BSD OS rather than shitty Linux?

  3. Cut the FUD. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Obviously you don't seem to understand this potential.

    It's nether nostalgia nor a native app. Inferno is a virtualized OS and runs in top of others, or in bare bone hardware.

    Looking forward to use 9P/Styx on my android phone.

  4. Re:Is this some kind of nostalgia thing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Folks that haven't just arrived here are well aware of Inferno

    Inferno is an offshoot of Plan 9, a AT&T research OS created by such luminaries as Ken Thompson, Rob Pike and Dennis Ritchie.

    It looks vastly worse

    Phone people...

    was a joke?

    No joke. Replacing the entire Java stack in Android with Inferno is not a joke. In fact, I'm certain it is far beyond anything you will ever accomplish.

  5. Programmers can see the potential by sauge · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If people cannot see the potential of this... so much for slashdot being for programmers...

  6. Re:Is this some kind of nostalgia thing? by nedlohs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are you sure you're on the right website?

    Next you'll say you haven't heard of Plan 9 or that it's just a crappy movie. Or that you don't know who Rob Pike or Ken Thompson are.

    And yes it won't make for anything usable for someone who wants to, oh I don't know, make a phone call. But this isn't "Consumer Phones For Idiots" either.

  7. Plan 9 is too good to be "successful" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Unfortunately, the sort of seamless network-agnostic computing Plan 9 and its descendants enabled is now a commercial threat to all the other players in the mobile space. Half the point of the "cloud computing" trend is to lock people in to one provider's weakly interacting web service, and, by extension, into the controlled ecosystem of third-party services that do interoperate well with it. Plan 9 is too good at what it does to be successful.