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Firefox OS Coming To Raspberry Pi

Posted by Soulskill on from the raspberry-fox?-fire-pi? dept.

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.

7 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. What is the point? by exomondo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:What is the point? by jenningsthecat · · Score: 3, Interesting

      ...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.

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  2. Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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".

  3. Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 4, Funny

    Firefox OS seriously needs to just die.

    I think that's berry unlikely...

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  4. Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS by Narcocide · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  5. What is the point? by asa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  6. Re:Low power CPU meet bloated pOS by BlackHawk-666 · · Score: 2

    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.

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