Firefox OS Coming To Raspberry Pi

ControlsGeek writes Mozilla plans to build a version of its Firefox OS for use in the Raspberry Pi. Plans are afoot to build a version capable of (1) being run on the Pi hardware and (2) eventually achieving parity with Raspbian and (3) enable easy development for robotics.

Comments

Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[BitZtream]

Firefox OS seriously needs to just die. The CPU on the raspberry pi is painfully under powered, the speed in the thing is the GPU, for which the CPU is actually just meant to help control things on the side as the chip functions as a GPU for something else.

I really wish people would get over the raspberry pi, its crappy hardware in every way for just about every reason. It had a price advantage for about 4 days between when it was announced as an ARM version and when half the factories in china produced equivalents for the same/lower price points ... and most of them don't have the same crappy hardware bugs that the devs try to blow off as not being a big deal ...

Now ... now someone is trying to stick a painfully bloated OS that thinks javascript is the way everything should be written ... on a painfully underpowered CPU meant to function as a secondary controller for a powerful GPU ... which still doesn't have proper open source drivers for and doesn't work for shit with anything but a tiny handful of OSes ...

GREAT IDEA GUYS. Android has been 'coming' for over 2 years now and pretty much nothing changed when BroadCom open sourced ... A SMALL PART of the video driver code ... I hope no one holds their breath on this one ...

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason to get a Raspberry Pi is the software support. Sure, you can get any number of cheaper, faster boards made in china anywhere. But you basically have to build whatever your thing is from scratch. The Pi had excellent marketing and as a result is a standard device that there's tons of software for. So yes, it's not the most powerful by any stretch or even the most power for money. It's the best choice for software. It's the same reason the x86 PC "won".

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[CastrTroy]

It won't be long before you can get a full x86 Atom board with SATA, USB3, etc. for the same price as a Raspberry Pi. There's Atom tablets coming out soon that include Windows and will only cost $100 with screen, case, storage, and charger included. They will use a little more power than a Raspberry Pi, but if you want actual low power, you should be using an Arduino or similar microcontroller. If you want to run a desktop OS and some basic multimedia stuff, or run a basic home server, which is what a lot of people try to use the Raspberry Pi for, the an Atom board will do a lot better job than the Pi.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know what a Raspberry Pi is, do you?

Re: Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you and OP both: rpi pretty much has the best software support, and the rpi hardware is total garbage.

Re: Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

I think one thing you probably aren't aware of, Intel looses money on almost every atom they sell. They are just trying to regain market share... Now imagine how much an atom based product will cost when they regain market share...

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[FatdogHaiku]

Firefox OS seriously needs to just die.

I think that's berry unlikely...

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Narcocide]

It won't be long before you can get a full x86 Atom board with [everything you want] for the same price as a [leading low-power-consumption competitor]. There's Atom tablets coming out soon that include Windows and will only cost $100 with screen, case, storage, and charger included...

Don't get me wrong, the Pi is crippled by a number of software development, hardware design, and corporate policy defects, but I've been hearing for almost as long as there have been Atoms that "soon" there will be ones released that are cheap enough and low enough in power consumption to justify their existence, without actually seeing any evidence of that being likely to ever happen, popular opinion notwithstanding.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Narcocide]

I don't see how any of your complaints are relevant to Firefox OS. It seems like you're bitching about (admittedly valid) problems with the Raspberry Pi and their corporate overlords handling of the project but trying to pin it on FFOS somehow.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[TheRealMindChild]

Not only that, but to "enable easy development for robotics", the only thing a Pi can do is bit bang over the GPIO port without add-on hardware

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[CrashNBrn]

Firefox is great (the most customizable browser ever), but Christ it refuses to release memory and when it hits a few GB or more the CPU load wont go below 30-40% (on a quad core).

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[BitZtream]

I own 2 model B's, I've yet to find a use for them other than the one I have functioning as an NTP server with a GPS hooked to it. Anything more processor intensive and its pretty much not useful for the purpose.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[ChunderDownunder]

So what you're saying is Firefox, the desktop browser, is too 'heavy' for a raspberry pi?

Firefox OS has been optimised for devices of 256MB or less.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[EETech1]

Hey if the community can make FirefoxOS work on the Pi just think of how well it'll work on our cheap as fuck piece of shit Firefox Phone!

Win Win...

Re: Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Then Inteln should find a way to tighten money on each one they sell.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

In case you haven't been following, Bitztream is a Microsoft shill.

Re: Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone needs to get off their ass and make Raspberry PI Model C with a CPU at least 4x faster than the Model B, at least 2GB of DDR3, USB3 and possibly SATA3 so we can use a small SSD instead of slow ass microSD, and last but not least a realtime clock chip with battery backup. Oh, and fix the bugs that randomly reset the USB.

If you sell those for $100, I'll take a dozen.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[drinkypoo]

The reason to get a Raspberry Pi is the software support.

Oh yeah? Where's the working Android distribution? No? Oh, Beaglebone Black? Righto.

Re: Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Sycophantic Microsoft shills agree with each other. News at 11...

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[redelm]

The Atom tablets are below that, but do not have HDMI output. The SBCs have been there for a while (a bit more expensive), but suck more power 20W vs 1.2W. I have and use both, still like my RPis.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

So just because you can't find a use for them, you're claiming they're crap? What an asshole.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say less software support, more support ecosystem. The Pi enjoys a very large user-base and as a consequence it's very easy to find an answer for just about any question you can think of. There's support for plenty of different projects and uses, code/libraries, tutorials, etc. As with Windows, it might not be the best in class but the weight in numbers provides advantages that can't necessarily be matched by the lesser popular alternatives.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Ford Prefect]

GREAT IDEA GUYS. Android has been 'coming' for over 2 years now and pretty much nothing changed when BroadCom open sourced ... A SMALL PART of the video driver code ... I hope no one holds their breath on this one ...

They open sourced a small part of the video drivers a few years ago - and more recently released full documentation and drivers for the VideoCore IV 3D whatsits. (I gather this version has all the OpenGL gubbins running on the ARM side rather than doing the message-passing stuff of the previous driver, but you can run Quake III at a decent framerate using these open drivers.)

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

A quick browse of his comment history shows that's not the case. What are you trying to sell?

Re: Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I've completely boycotted x86 chips and the entire PC ecosystem for the same reason.

If it doesn't run android it's not worth my time or anyone else's for that matter. AMIRITE.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox has a multi-threaded web scale garbage collector, so naturally you're going to see some CPU usage when the memory load gets high. It doesn't aggressively collect memory though, because you might still be using it.

Re: Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[drinkypoo]

Yeah, I've completely boycotted x86 chips and the entire PC ecosystem for the same reason.

That's dumb.

If it doesn't run android it's not worth my time or anyone else's for that matter. AMIRITE.

Actually, I was alluding to the fact that Liz showed R-Pi running Android, then refused to release the result and never answered any questions about it. Other platforms have far superior software support.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[weilawei]

As opposed to partially dying? I'm not sure that's how that works.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

So what form factor is better and available? I'm curious.. you def have strong opinions as to why it sucks. I just ordered my first Raspberry pi yesterday as a toy.

What is a better alternative?

Re: Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

android is open source and you can build a raspberry pi version on your own.

I don't understand why you want the foundation to provide one for you.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[BlackHawk-666]

You can get a Beaglebone Black for close to the same money, with 2GB of storage built in, 512MB RAM, a processor that is twice as fast, more GPIO pins, a pair of USB ports, and a micro-SD card slot.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

To both of you that give a shit - BWAHAHAHAHA!

Re: Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[drinkypoo]

I don't understand why you want the foundation to provide one for you.

Liz showed off Android, promised exciting news, then nothing.

I want the foundation to release the work they did, so that we can work on it. But probably they couldn't release the video driver or something, because broadcom.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[danknight48]

So yes, it's not the most powerful by any stretch or even the most power for money.

http://www.bananapi.org/p/prod...
Time to move on :)

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet the biggest problem with Firefox on RPI is that it only has 512MB of RAM. The browser just needs more, eg. currently my FF has 5 windows open and it uses 1GB of RAM. Use of RAM is OK for desktops, since it speeds things up, but it makes the browser to crawl on low end devices, which need to swap the memory in and out of slow MMC.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have the technical knowledge on the different ARM families. Could someone explain why that is different or better?

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm only pretending to give a shit, actually. I don't know what the other guy's deal is.

Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS

[mnt]

Crippled like... no way to enable the DSI connector? Or only Raspberry Pi cameras able to use the CSI port? Yeah, same thought here.

Lots of work ahead

[Anonymous Coward]

Their wiki looks very ambitious. Can they actually find enough developers and QA people to make it all happen?

What is the point?

[exomondo]

What is the point of FirefoxOS? It seems like an exercise in just trying to cram it in everywhere rather than creating a proper solution to an existing problem in one place. The goal here is to eventually "achieve parity with Raspbian" ... well shouldn't the goal be to solve some actual problem? It's the same as with FFOS on smartphones, it doesn't really solve any problem, even at the low end of the market Android has dirt cheap phones pretty well covered with a proven and already well-established OS.

Re: What is the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

God forbid people have options you self-important fuck. Google's self centered shit isn't for everyone.

Re:What is the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the point of FirefoxOS? - exomondo

Firefox OS seriously needs to just die. - BitZtream

Now that's interesting. We have BitZtream and exomondo both pouring FUD on FirefoxOS. That means Microsoft must be really scared of it.

I guess they're feeling pretty fragile down in the low end of the market.

Re: What is the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

God forbid people have only one option you self-important fuck.

Re: What is the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

iOS, html5 app ready since v1

Re:What is the point?

[exomondo]

Asking what the point of it is can now be considered FUD? Are you sure you understand the question and the term "FUD"? Because from your post it seems pretty clear that you don't. And yes advocating for Android - made by Google - is clearly a pro-Microsoft ploy...::rollseyes::

Re:What is the point?

[exomondo]

What was the point of Firefox? IE was free and was a proven and already well-established browser.

IE was a crap browser, Firefox solved the problem of being stuck with a proprietary, closed-source, crappy browser by being a better browser.

The world needs a truly open mobile OS as much as it needed a truly open browser a decade ago.

For what? That's what I'm asking, what can you do with it that you can't accomplish with open AOSP? And assuming there is something then that should be the focus, not spreading resources thin doing things like getting it on to raspberry pi.

Re: What is the point?

[ChunderDownunder]

Apple phones are outside the price range of the masses in the developing world Mozilla is supposedly targetting.

Re:What is the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot, where asking difficult questions of popular projects is forbidden.

Re:What is the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

> What was the point of Firefox? IE was free and was a proven and already well-established browser.

You have that the wrong way around. Before IE there were several good browsers including Netscape's. Netscape founded Mozilla and released its source code so Firefox has origins that were _before_ IE. In fact Netscape's went back to Mosaic, the first browser.

Mosaic/Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox was a proven and established series of browsers so what was the point of IE ?

The answer to that is to drive Netscape out of business and prevent them establishing their plan of 'the network is the computer'. The result of IE was to hold back computing for another decade or more.

Re:What is the point?

[jenningsthecat]

...It's the same as with FFOS on smartphones, it doesn't really solve any problem, even at the low end of the market Android has dirt cheap phones pretty well covered with a proven and already well-established OS.

If FFOS turns out to be any good in any reasonable time frame, (and I too have my doubts about that), then it will solve a big problem for me. I have an Android phone, of whose capabilities I only use about 10%. Why? Because I don't use Google cloud services - I don't trust them as far as I can throw one of their server farms. Because Android apps are security-hole-ridden nightmares whose permissions I have little control over even on my rooted device. Because Google added that POS called MTP and took away the simplicity of USB mass storage.

If FFOS puts some power and control back into my hands, then I'll call it a win even if it's not as powerful or featureful as Android. I'm sick and tired of Google's plans for world domination.

Re:What is the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Asa, how the hell is Firefox OS considered a "truly open mobile OS"?

We, the community, have just as little say with regard to its direction and development as we do with Android, or iOS, or BlackBerry OS.

To us, Mozilla is just another large, unaccountable organization that does what it wants, regardless of what we desire. It's really no different than Google, or Apple, or BlackBerry, or Microsoft.

Don't even bother trying to claim that Firefox OS is open because it uses various "standards". Most of these so-called "standards" are nothing more than royal fiat. We, the community, have no real say over how they originate, evolve and finally end up. It is large organizations, including Mozilla, and their representatives that make all of these decisions, then force them on us under the guise of them being "standards".

It is distasteful to see you claim that Firefox OS is "open", when it clearly is not. We, the community, have absolutely no say whatsoever when it comes to Firefox OS. That's not "openness" in any way.

Re:What is the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Firefox can't compete on the existing mobile OSes. Apple won't let them put Firefox on their phones, only a skin of their own browser. Similarly Mozilla can't even get their product on Windows Phones and Blackberrys, not without crippling it at best. And Android? It's been there for a long time, but almost nobody installs third-party browsers. They stick with whatever came with the device, and OEMs are strongly discouraged from changing the bundled applications including the browser. And so Mozilla has to make their own mobile OS to overcome that, or slide into irrelevancy as desktop computing dies and the age of more mobile devices takes over (which is happening right now).

Re:What is the point?

[tibit]

I think that the slightly sad part of this story is that a source-level port of IE6 to, say, pango/cairo running on a frame buffer, would be much faster than Firefox when it comes to rendering basic web. Of course its JS completely sucked both performance- and functionality-wise.

Re:What is the point?

[exomondo]

You have all that power already, Android is open source and you can enable mass storage if you want to use that rather than MTP and you can strip out anything you don't want to use. Take a look at CyanogenMod or Paranoid Android, with Android you're not beholden to Google anymore than you would be beholden to Mozilla if you used FirefoxOS.

Re:What is the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hack a Mesh Networking button right into the interface.

Re: What is the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

And their js is slow as fuck compared to Firefox's engine, which also just surpassed V8's speed

Re:What is the point?

[narcc]

Well, Android isn't very good as-is, and it only gets worse on low-end hardware. Android development is a also complete nightmare. (Really, let's be honest here.) Then there's the issue of trust, which I'm sure a lot of users hear can agree is a pretty serious problem. In short, Android kinda sucks.

FFOS is not Android. That's a big win, in my book.

Re:What is the point?

[jenningsthecat]

Thanks for the tips. I haven't installed CyanogenMod because it doesn't support some of my phone's hardware features, but I'll choose my next phone more carefully. Paranoid seems to have an even narrower range of hardware that it supports. I could possibly do some tinkering with either of these to make them work on hardware not already supported. But as with my desktop computer, I'm past the stage where I want to put a lot of effort into that kind of thing - I'm more focused on what I can do WITH my devices than TO them. Also, as far as I've been able to tell, (please correct me if I'm wrong), using Cyanogen or Paranoid still won't address many of the app permissions problems, as many apps won't work when certain permissions are denied, even when those permissions are absolutely not needed for the app to do its job.

As for enabling mass storage and stripping out stuff myself, I've not done very much programming, and learning how to program just so I can have a secure and useful phone seems a bit much. Besides, AFAIK, (and again, please correct me if I'm wrong), most apps are not open source, so I couldn't readily modify them evem if I wanted to do so and had the skills.

My point about FFOS was that it has the potential to be a less toxic ecosystem than Android, with perhaps fewer privacy and security holes baked in.

Re:What is the point?

[freezin fat guy]

Open source means the source code is available in full. Whether the creators/inner contributors run the project like the wild old days of Wikipedia or whether they are autocratic is up to them. e.g. I can't just tell Linus to put my code in the Linux kernel.

But if I have the motivation I can take the source and put in my changes myself. Perhaps it will gain traction, perhaps not. But I have the option.

Also, there is the little matter of transparency which only open source provides.

So in these ways Firefox is the only one of the aforementioned which is truly open, even though, as you say, they do not allow you any say in the development of their OS.

Re: What is the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

"users hear can"?

Re:What is the point?

[exomondo]

Also, as far as I've been able to tell, (please correct me if I'm wrong), using Cyanogen or Paranoid still won't address many of the app permissions problems, as many apps won't work when certain permissions are denied, even when those permissions are absolutely not needed for the app to do its job.

Does FFOS address those problems? Maybe it does but I haven't seen it.

As for enabling mass storage and stripping out stuff myself, I've not done very much programming, and learning how to program just so I can have a secure and useful phone seems a bit much.

Fair enough, but Android had mass storage at the start too, just because FFOS has it now doesn't mean they won't switch to an MTB type of model. What I'm saying is that the "openness" of FFOS isn't an advantage over Android and if you're not utilising that then you're just as beholden to Mozilla with FF as you are to Google with Android.

Re:What is the point?

[exomondo]

Well, Android isn't very good as-is, and it only gets worse on low-end hardware. Android development is a also complete nightmare. (Really, let's be honest here.) Then there's the issue of trust, which I'm sure a lot of users hear can agree is a pretty serious problem. In short, Android kinda sucks.

Does FF solve those problems though? Having a look at the low end FFOS devices the performance is awful with just the OS, adding HTML5 applications makes it even worse. The real problem is FFOS isn't any better than the incumbents to end users, that's the same reaso Linux isn't broadly adopted on the desktop and why Windows Phone isn't broadly adopted on mobile, it's not that either is bad, it's just not disruptive ... and neither is Firefox OS. But again, what is the point of Firefox OS on Raspberry PI?

Re:What is the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

So in these ways Firefox is the only one of the aforementioned which is truly open

No it isn't, Android (AOSP) is just as open, yes it has closed source blobs for drivers but so does Firefox OS. So please explain what modules exist in AOSP that are not "truly open" as opposed to Firefox OS.

Re:What is the point?

[narcc]

? Having a look at the low end FFOS devices the performance is awful with just the OS

I disagree. I have a ZTE Open, and the performance isn't nearly as bad as the reviewers suggest. On the Cloud FX, the one for India, I've seen enough video reviews to call the Ars article that started that meme a flat-out lie.

The real problem is FFOS isn't any better than the incumbents to end users

It doesn't need to be in order to be successful. But that's not really the point, is it? We need FireFoxOS for the same ideological reasons we needed FireFox in the days of IE6.

what is the point of Firefox OS on Raspberry PI?

On the PI? Who knows. It's neat, I guess. I'd rather see it on the desktop, competing with ChromeOS.

Re:What is the point?

[exomondo]

It doesn't need to be in order to be successful.

Of course it does, if you're a late me-too entrant to an established market you can't be successful without being disruptive.

But that's not really the point, is it? We need FireFoxOS for the same ideological reasons we needed FireFox in the days of IE6.

No, back then we needed competition, these days there is more competition in the mobile space than you can poke a stick at. FFOS is no more "open" than AOSP and you can already get many non-Google Android phones anyway. I fail to see why we need FFOS for ideological reasons when we already have AOSP and all the other niche open systems like Tizen, webOS and Meego. All these players have NIH syndrome so instead of building on an existing open source, free software foundation they create their own.

Re:What is the point?

[narcc]

I fail to see why we need FFOS for ideological reasons when we already have AOSP

Sorry to hear that.

these days there is more competition in the mobile space than you can poke a stick at.

Not really. Just look at your examples: webOS has been all but dead since HP killed it, LG doesn't seem interested in using it on mobiles. Meego is REALLY dead, as in it was terminated in favor of other projects. Tizen, might be someday, maybe. How many years has it taken to appear on a device? Oh, and it just managed to show up on one brand of smartwatch. That's not exactly competition.

You're also ignoring one of the biggest benefits of FFOS -- Open Web Apps. Mozilla and, by extension, consumers win when other platforms support them, even if FFOS fails. Mozilla used the phrase "Breaking the walled gardens" offering that "The norm for mobile platforms tends to be be walled gardens written with proprietary technologies, so apps are locked inside their platforms." Open Web Apps, in contrast "put the developer back in control of every aspect of the app experience — from easy development to distribution to direct customer relationship management." That's a massive win for both developers and consumers. Imagine: the ability to buy apps from your choice of stores, or directly from the developer -or- to sell your app on your choice of stores, or directly to customers, instead of your app being locked up and lost in the over-crowded wasteland that is modern app stores.

Re:What is the point?

[exomondo]

Sorry to hear that.

Reason is it doesn't exist, if you think it does then explain why.

Not really. Just look at your examples

Yes they are all open source mobile operating systems, that's what you said we need but clearly that isn't the case at all.

webOS has been all but dead since HP killed it, LG doesn't seem interested in using it on mobiles.

It's open source, but nobody wanted or needed yet another mobile operating system.

Meego is REALLY dead, as in it was terminated in favor of other projects.

Again, open source but nobody wanted or needed yet another mobile OS.

Tizen, might be someday, maybe. How many years has it taken to appear on a device?

Well now you're moving the goalposts, first you said we need an open source mobile OS but we have already had plenty of those.

You're also ignoring one of the biggest benefits of FFOS -- Open Web Apps.

We can already to that on every single platform, but the experience is poor and the "standard" is so mixed with different implementations and browser-specific extensions which is why even though we can do it nobody does it. If you knew your history you would know this abortion of an idea was also touted as an advantage for the early iPhone and also for webOS. This is not new, it has been tried and failed because it is a poor idea.

Mozilla used the phrase "Breaking the walled gardens" offering that "The norm for mobile platforms tends to be be walled gardens written with proprietary technologies, so apps are locked inside their platforms."

HTML5 took 15 years to be finalized during which time we have had a myriad of different browser-specific extensions and named implementations to support new features introduced by different vendors. Even supporting the major web browsers for developing simple websites is a mess of browser-specific extensions. If one vendor introduces a new feature the process of getting that standardized and supported in the same way by multiple vendors takes years.

Re:What is the point?

[narcc]

We can already to that on every single platform, but the experience is poor and the "standard" is so mixed with different implementations and browser-specific extensions which is why even though we can do it nobody does it.

Okay, reality isn't your thing. That's fine.

Re:What is the point?

[exomondo]

Okay, reality isn't your thing. That's fine.

No, you have it backwards. Obviously you're unaware that this has been tried a number of times before and failed because it is an inferior experience, not to mention you can already do open web apps for existing mobile devices and again nobody does it because the experience is poor.

Re:What is the point?

[narcc]

Obviously you're unaware that this has been tried a number of times before and failed because it is an inferior experience

Okay, now you're talking about web apps, right? Where did it fail? WebOS? No, that was HP's fault. You'll also find that the "experience" on those old Palm smartphones was near universally lauded. iOS? Not only did they not support packaged apps, or offer developers anything to leverage their fledgling platform before offering native apps, they *still* don't have a half-decent browser. When did they enable WebGL? Oh, last month... Web apps on Android, BlackBerry, and FireFox OS have been fantastic, and offer a fantastic user experience. Sure, I can name a few really shitty web apps -- but that's the developers fault, not the fault of the platform, as evidenced by the countless web apps that are indistinguishable from native apps.

(By the same token, I can install any random non-web Android app and almost guarantee you a shitty experience. That's because of the glut of incompetently designed apps by incompetent developers looking to cash-in on the app crazy. That doesn't mean Android is a shitty platform, there are actual reasons for holding that opinion, only that shitty developers write shitty apps.)

again nobody does it because the experience is poor.

See, that's just delusional. Tons of people are developing web apps for desktop and mobile. It's the hot-new-trend, after all. Further, where did you come up with this ridiculous idea that web apps necessarily provide a poor experience? The only thing I remember was some noisy complaints about PhoneGap a few years ago which all traced back to the incompetent garbage that is jquery mobile. (Again, it's not the platform, it's the developer.) Take a look around there are countless high-quality web apps ranging from lob apps to fancy 3d games. Oh, yes, even 3d games running well on low-end FFOS handsets.

Not that it matters, I can't change your mind. You don't seem to care about all of that. Apparently, you just don't like the idea of web apps. That's fine, you're entitled to that opinion, just don't go around spreading nonsense.

Re:What is the point?

[exomondo]

Okay, now you're talking about web apps, right? Where did it fail? WebOS? No, that was HP's fault.

WebOS was released as open source, anybody could and still can pick it up and use it if it were worth using. Same with Meego and Tizen but it isn't about having an open source mobile OS at all as there are already plenty of those.

iOS? Not only did they not support packaged apps, or offer developers anything to leverage their fledgling platform before offering native apps, they *still* don't have a half-decent browser. When did they enable WebGL? Oh, last month...

WebGL isn't required for web apps and the vendor doesn't have to offer anything to developers, that is the whole point of "breaking the walled gardens".

Web apps on Android, BlackBerry, and FireFox OS have been fantastic, and offer a fantastic user experience.

Like what? What ones offer a comparatively good experience to native ones?

See, that's just delusional. Tons of people are developing web apps for desktop and mobile. It's the hot-new-trend, after all.

Oh well if everybody is doing it that must mean it's good.

Further, where did you come up with this ridiculous idea that web apps necessarily provide a poor experience?

On desktop some categories of them are fine, but on mobile in particular manipulating the DOM is one of the biggest things that makes web apps inherently junk as does the speed of javascript interpretation which is why web apps feel sluggish and unresponsive when compared to natively compiled ones (though this isn't necessarily exclusive to mobile devices).

Not that it matters, I can't change your mind. You don't seem to care about all of that. Apparently, you just don't like the idea of web apps. That's fine, you're entitled to that opinion, just don't go around spreading nonsense.

No, I don't like the idea of web apps because of the limitations they impose due to the abstraction layer intended to provide cross-platform capability but which is actually a mess of platform-specific hacks and non-standard extensions to a spec that has taken 15 years to finalize.

What is the point?

[asa]

What was the point of Firefox? IE was free and was a proven and already well-established browser. By your logic, we never should have built Firefox and the Web should have stalled with IE6 in 2002.

The world needs a truly open mobile OS as much as it needed a truly open browser a decade ago. Android is open in name only and Google is hurriedly moving its most lucrative components into closed proprietary services and apps that aren't a part of open source Android. iOS is as closed as everything Apple does. Windows is getting some nice HTML5 support for apps, but not nearly enough. There's clearly an opportunity for HTML5 apps to compete on mobile if someone can build a solid alternative platform to the monopolies and silos we're all stuck with today.

Re: Bennett!! BENNETT!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess we three. Still a small number, but I'm sure one day we will be as many as words in one of bennett's frequent contributions.

MOAR OPTIONS!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

yes if there's one thing we dont have enough of it is mobile operating systems: webos, meego, maemo, windows phone, android, bada, qnx, yunos, tizen, sailfish, ubuntu phone, and the list goes on. if only we had options!

Re:MOAR OPTIONS!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, you pretty much named them all, and even named some that merged into others you named.

Re: Bennett!! BENNETT!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

can I be four? and I'm looking for five. I have no clue what the fuck we're talking about. Is bennett a type of pastry?

"Optimized" to be total shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read this review from Ars Technica of one of the recently released Firefox OS phones.

After reading that review, I don't see how you can suggest that Firefox OS has been "optimised for devices of 256MB or less" when, according to that review, it's an absolutely dismal failure on a device with 128 MB of RAM.

I couldn't even have made up most of these problems if I tried. Seriously, these are just a few excerpts from a universally negative review of Firefox OS:

It's perfectly possible to hit a Web server and pull the correct time—most desktop OSes do that—but Firefox OS doesn't.

In theory, Firefox OS can multitask, but thanks to a combination of failings in Firefox OS and in the hardware, you'll never have an app run in the background on the Cloud FX.

The other problem is that when Firefox OS does run out of memory, it closes apps without doing anything to preserve their state or to keep critical background tasks running.

Solitaire, for instance, is "pre-loaded" in that there is an icon that ships with the OS, but it's just a Web app that needs an Internet connection.

You won't find much in the way of apps for Firefox OS. There's basically nothing "custom made" other than a small handful of utilities. Most "apps" in the Marketplace are just bookmarks that users could make themselves.

You would think Firefox OS would have a killer browser that could easily run browser-based benchmarks, but they all crash. Even Mozilla's own Kraken benchmark doesn't run on the Cloud FX.

The performance isn't just inconsistent; rendering is too. Firefox OS seems to cut loading short sometimes, and the above screenshots show three attempts at the Ars homepage, all of which are "finished" loading. The first one is missing images and CSS, the second is a little further along but still unrecognizable, and the third is mostly loaded but missing lots of images. In general, Firefox OS is full of bugs like this, where things just stop working and need a reboot.

Firefox OS has a recent apps screen, but there is never any free memory, so nothing other than the current app is ever open. During particularly slow freak-outs, the screen will just turn black. If the phone falls asleep, or the alarm pops up, or a phone call comes in, your app closes and you lose your progress. Even something as simple as opening a folder of apps has a load time measured in seconds.

Being able to disable images and JavaScript in the browser would be a great first step, but Firefox OS offers no way to do that.

The problem is that Firefox OS just isn't the right choice of operating system for this device—it's trying to do way too much with the limited hardware.

But Firefox OS has no alternative browsers that we could find.

When Firefox runs out of memory, it should do something other than crash.

Low-end smartphones need a low-end-appropriate operating system, and Firefox OS isn't up to that task.

Firefox OS was a totally inappropriate choice of operating system for this hardware. There are literally zero considerations for the speed and memory of the Cloud FX, and most of the device's really serious problems come from running software on hardware that feels well below the minimum spec.

Firefox crashes all the time.

A boon to firefox os users everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

There are literally dozens of us!

ARMv6?

[ChunderDownunder]

Mozilla recently stopped doing builds for Android, despite builds of CM11 being actively developed by the androidarmv6.org community.

AFAIK, Firefox OS currently only supports the armv7 architecture as found in later Qualcomm SoCs.

whats big about it ?

[Anonymous Coward]

seriously , i run a nice little MySQL db on my pi , recording data from my meteorological station , granted it's not a bilarger g db like what i see at work , but it's still a bigger piece of software then a simple browser

What is the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your rationale makes a great case against the argument you were given. Where I'm curious, though, is why on earth anyone would want it on a Raspberry Pi, where existing GNU/Linux distributions already abound. Sure, FFOS may have promise as a great alternative to Android, but I've seen nothing suggesting I might want it on a Raspberry Pi. This seems like just an exercise in "x....ON A RASPBERRY PI!". Perhaps I'm just neglecting how much more pleasant it may be to develop for due to form factor or something, but I just don't see the point here. The RPi has no touch interface, nor anything remotely resembling the same interface hardware as the Android devices FFOS is aiming to compete on.

As long as people are interested in "x...on a Raspberry Pi!" though, can the next one of these stories be "Minix recently ported to Raspberry Pi"? Sure, I could get a Beagleboard, but the RPi is sitting under my TV as is...

Calculator and Flashlight need Wifi

[mnt]

That is the result of building an OS where everything is HTML: Many developers don't bother to build installable apps, rely on installable hosted webpages.

This is amazing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Robotics as well?! I sure do hope that VEX is a hardware that is supported!

Freelance jobs

[jobsremotely]

Awesome website about freelance jobs, and work from home opportunities. https://www.jobsremotely.com/

Firefox was improving Netscape

[billstewart]

It sounds like you're saying that the free software world suddenly decided to invent Firefox as a competition for IE. Firefox was Netscape freeing the source code for the Netscape browser so the open source community could improve it, and people continuing to improve it over the years. IE was Microsoft's attempt to kill Netscape and particularly to kill browser standardization, because the increasing move to HTML as a universal user interface for applications was threatening to make the operating system irrelevant. Imagine AOL shipping a CD with Linux, Netscape, and AOL, letting you use your slightly older PC, and letting you use AOL for your mail instead of some Microsoft product.