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'Fuchsia Is Not Linux': Google Publishes Documentation Explaining Their New OS (xda-developers.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from XDA Developers: You've probably seen mentions of the Fuchsia operating system here and there since it has been in development for almost 2 years. It's Google's not-so-secretive operating system which many speculate will eventually replace Android. We've seen it grow from a barely functional mock-up UI in an app form to a version that actually boots on existing hardware. We've seen how much importance Google places on the project as veteran Android project managers are starting to work on it. But after all of this time, we've never once had either an official announcement from Google about the project or any documentation about it -- all of the information thus far has come as a result of people digging into the source code.

Now, that appears to be changing as Google has published a documentation page called "The Book." The page aims to explain what Fuchsia, the "modular, capability-based operating system" is and is not. The most prominent text on that page is a large section explaining that Fuchsia is NOT Linux, in case that wasn't clear already. Above that are several readme pages explaining Fuchsia's file systems, boot sequence, core libraries, sandboxing, and more. The rest of the page has sections explaining what the Zircon micro-kernel is and how the framework, storage, networking, graphics, media, user interface, and more are implemented.

9 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It looks like an interesting kernel using microkernel ideas. It should be interesting if they can get around the latency for process switching and message passing.

    1. Re:interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Did you come here to be an ass?

      You do realize most microkernels suffer from those 2 issues. It will be interesting what they do to work around it. You know maybe advance computer science forward a bit? You know by studying it. Even Apples kernel uses bits of ye-ol MACH. Which is a derivative of that. They got around it by putting parts of the user process in kernel space. So not a 'pure' implementation as it were. And yes I may know a bit more about it than you assume.

    2. Re:interesting by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Microkernels work fine, they just take (up to) a 30% performance hit depending on the workload. So you are making a tradeoff between crashing when you find a bug and speed.

      I will tell you the problem with Android bugs is not in the kernel. This is a severe case of NIH. The biggest problems in Android come from Google themselves.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:interesting by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not a severe case a of NIH. It's a severe case of GPL. This is just so they can move all the Android devices to Fuchsia (under permissive licenses), and then slam the door shut by requiring things for new Fuchsia devices once the whole ecosystem has moved over. It's an evolution of what they started to do with GApps.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    4. Re: interesting by mSparks43 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Android is a java vm running on a linux operating system. And works.
      Fuchsia is googles attempt at writing its own operating system, but like most every bit of software i have ever seen google write, it doesn't actually work.

  2. DOA by datavirtue · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Stupid name. Dead on arrival.

    --
    I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  3. Fuchsia? by TiberiusKirk · · Score: 3, Insightful
    "You've probably seen mentions of the Fuchsia operating system here and there since..."

    Um, no. Never heard of it.

  4. Re:Will it (finally) prioritise the user ? by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, you're not really asking that the system never have priority over the user. You're asking that your interactive task have priority over everything else. The system is responsible for reading what you type on the keyboard, for example, so in that case the system should have a very high priority so that it can service your interactive task.

    I suspect that what is bothering you is a process that is blocked on I/O, or your computer is starved for resources and swapping (which means everything gets blocked on I/O).

    Ultimately this comes down to the system attempting to keep all of the promises it's already made to you. Most of the time these promises are buffered writes which it has in RAM, and is pushing to your really slow USB drive or SD card as fast as it can. You interrupt it, but this does not interrupt the promises already made.

    Ultimately the fix is adding more expensive hardware, like a disk that won't make you wait.

  5. Re:Fuchsia kernel (Zircon) is a lot like Windows by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Insightful

    David Cutler likely didn't have to "steal" anything. It was already in his head. All he had to do was just spit it out again.

    David Cutler stole David Cutler.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.