webOS Open Source Edition (OSE)

Main Article: Operating Systems

In addition to the core webOS architecture, the webOS Open Source Edition (OSE) project offers additional features that expand opportunities for a variety of industry verticals.

2023

webOS Open Source Edition 2.23

On September 7, 2023, it became known that the release of the open webOS Open Source Edition 2.23 platform was presented, which can be used on various portable devices, boards and automotive infotainment systems. Raspberry Pi 4 boards are considered as reference hardware platform. The platform develops in a public repository under the Apache 2.0 license, and the development is supervised by the community, adhering to a joint development management model.

As reported, the main changes in the release affected the following:

• A framework for post-processing sound has been added, with the help of which the equalizer functionality is implemented.
• The system for detecting malicious sites using the Web Risk API has been optimized. To store hashes of malicious sites, a local database is used instead of a file, which made it possible to optimize memory consumption.
• The web engine has added support for the AVIF image format. The configuration of the ACG (Access Control Groups) access control model used to restrict service permissions has been updated.
• Sandstone interface components have been upgraded to version 2.7.3, and the enact application build utility has been upgraded to version 6.0.1. Qt library has been upgraded to version 6.5.2.
• The UnifiedSinkBin component, which provides video rendering on different SoCs, has been rewritten in Rust.
• The module for working with g-camera-pipeline cameras has added support for the Raspberry Pi 3 board.
• The Telegraf SDK has added the ability to monitor CPU resource consumption, track the list of processes and track process memory.

webOS Open Source Edition 2.23

The webOS platform was originally developed by Palm in 2008 and was used on Palm Pre and Pixie smartphones. In 2010, after the takeover of Palm, the platform passed into the hands of Hewlett-Packard, after which HP tried to use this platform in its printers, tablets, laptops and PCs. In 2012, HP announced the transfer of webOS to an independent open source project and in 2013 began opening the source code of its components. In 2013, the platform was purchased from Hewlett-Packard by LG and is used on more than 70 million LG TVs and consumer devices as of September 2023. In 2018, the webOS Open Source Edition project was founded, through which LG tried to return to an open development model, attract other participants and expand the range of devices supported in webOS.

The webOS system environment is formed using OpenEmbedded tools and base packages, as well as an assembly system and a set of metadata from the Yocto project. The key components of webOS are the System and Application Manager (SAM), which is responsible for running applications and services, and the Luna Surface Manager (LSM), which forms the user interface. The components are written using the Qt framework and the Chromium browser engine.

Rendering is done through a composite manager that uses the Wayland protocol. To develop user applications, it is proposed to use web technologies (CSS, HTML5 and JavaScript) and the Enact framework based on React, but it is also possible to create C and C++ programs with a Qt-based interface. The custom shell and embedded graphics applications are mostly implemented as native programs written using QML technology. By default, the Home Launcher shell is offered, optimized for control from touch screens and offering the concept of rotating cards (instead of windows).

To store data in a structured form using the JSON format, a DB8 store is used that uses the LevelDB database as a backend. The bootd based on systemd is used for initialization. For processing multimedia content, uMediaServer and Media Display Controller (MDC) subsystems are offered, PulseAudio is used as a sound server. OSTree and atomic partition replacement are used to automatically update the firmware (two system partitions are created, one of which is active, and the second is used to copy the update)^[1].

webOS Open Source Edition 2.20

On February 18, 2023, it became known that the release of the open platform webOSOpen Source Edition 2.20 was presented, which can be used on various portable devices, boards and automotive infotainment systems. Raspberry Pi 4 boards are considered as reference hardware platform. The platform develops in a public repository under the Apache 2.0 license, and the development is supervised by the community, adhering to a joint development management model.

webOS Open Source Edition (OSE)

As reported, the webOS system environment is formed using OpenEmbedded tools and base packages, as well as an assembly system and a set of metadata from the Yocto project. The key components of webOS are the System and Application Manager (SAM), which is responsible for running applications and services, and the Luna Surface Manager (LSM), which forms the user interface. The components are written using the Qt framework and the Chromium browser engine.

Rendering is done through a composite manager that uses the Wayland protocol. To develop user applications, it is proposed to use web technologies (CSS, HTML5 and JavaScript) and the Enact framework based on React, but it is also possible to create C and C++ programs with a Qt-based interface. The custom shell and embedded graphics applications are mostly implemented as native programs written using QML technology. By default, the Home Launcher shell is offered, optimized for control from touch screens and offering the concept of rotating cards (instead of windows).

To store data in a structured form using the JSON format, a DB8 store is used that uses the LevelDB database as a backend. The bootd based on systemd is used for initialization. For processing multimedia content, uMediaServer and Media Display Controller (MDC) subsystems are offered, PulseAudio is used as a sound server. For automatic firmware updates, OSTree and atomic partition replacement are used (two system partitions are created, one of which is active, and the second is used to copy the update).

Major changes in the updated release:

• The provision of ready-made webOS images for the Raspberry Pi 4 board and emulator has begun. Images will be posted on GitHub within days of release.
• The system user interface is translated from the Moonstone framework to Sandstone.
• The configurator provides the ability to view a list of known Wi-Fi access points to which there were once connections.
• Added keyboard combination (Ctrl + Alt + F9) to create a screenshot (saved in/tmp/screenshots), as well as the combination Ctrl + Alt + F10 to delete all screenshots.
• The icons on the status bar have changed. Added the ability to connect to Wi-Fi from the status bar.
• In the WebEX browser, a video or sound playback indicator has been added to the tabs.
• Clang is used to build webruntime and WAM in the Blink engine^[2].

2018: webOS Open Source Edition Announcement

An open source webOS project called webOS Open Source Edition (OSE) was announced in March 2018 in line with the philosophy of open platform, open partnership and open connectivity. Through this project, LG tried to return to an open development model, attract other participants and expand the range of devices supported in webOS.

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