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Google Introduces Freon, a Replacement For X11 On Chrome OS

Posted by timothy on from the low-level-churn-at-a-high-level dept.

An anonymous reader writes With this week's release of Chrome OS M41, there is the new Freon graphics stack to replace X11 on some platforms. Freon is a very limited graphics stack to replace Chrome OS usage of X11/X.Org by having the Chrome browser communicate directly with the Linux kernel's KMS/DRM API and OpenGL ES interfaces for drawing. This design is much simpler and yields various power and performance improvements though it's not based on Wayland nor Mir (though Chrome plans to support these display server models).

2 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. DRM stands for by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here I'm assuming that "KMS/DRM" refers to "kernel mode setting and direct rendering manager", not anything to do with "digital restrictions management" such as establishing a protected video path for use with the Content Decryption Module draft stuff in HTML5.

  2. Re:The Browser is NOT the OS by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Just a variant of Linux" is a little understatement I think. It would be more accurate to say it's Linux with everything NOT needed to run the Chrome browser ripped out or trimmed down... this Freon is another improvement in that area.