Firefox OS has not yet managed to convince everyone despite its ambitious promise. Although increasingly deployed on smartphones, today Mozilla seems inclined to run Firefox OS on a low-cost devices and most successful in the world - the Raspberry Pi.
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For those unaware, Firefox OS is based on the Mozilla browser. It consists of a kernel with a user interface provided by Gecko - essentially a Linux version of the Firefox browser. Firefox OS is designed for mobile devices, but it is also suitable for small system - like a Raspberry Pi Its main feature is that it is completely based on web technologies, making its development and easy customization.
The effort to make a Firefox OS Pi has been underway for some time now, but MozFest 2014 seems to have stimulated the actors, and set a guideline on its output.
This famous Raspberry Pi with Firefox OS is known as code Foxberry Pi , and is currently only available to experts - you need to flash a picture on an SD card by following a few instructions.
What seems to be new is that the demo version of Foxberry Pi can be installed under Raspbian. It makes use of WebIOPi, which is a small application that provides a web interface directly to control the GPIO pins. The installation instructions are simple enough, but things are still clearly experimental, since you'll have to make an electronic circuit with a single LED to use it.
All this sounds exciting, but be aware that there are various limitations :
On the roadmap of development, the goal is to get rid of Raspbian and run the lower layers of the OS in a customized version of Gonk, the Linux kernel on which the low level of services based Firefox OS. The idea is that once Gonk work, the rest of the OS will work without modification, and the system can then take advantage of updates to Mozilla.
In other words, if you're interested in developing applications for Firefox OS, you'll have to wait until next year, because now the images of Pi Foxberry are not really usable .
So all we have for now is a promise to the fully open Mozilla in 2015. It is also difficult to assess whether Mozilla will support the project system work - because all the information comes from the Mozilla wiki.
I guess it all depends on the difficulty of interacting with the graphics drivers. If you want to help in its development, the project will be more than happy!
See also : OnePlus One: New pre-orders November 17
For those unaware, Firefox OS is based on the Mozilla browser. It consists of a kernel with a user interface provided by Gecko - essentially a Linux version of the Firefox browser. Firefox OS is designed for mobile devices, but it is also suitable for small system - like a Raspberry Pi Its main feature is that it is completely based on web technologies, making its development and easy customization.
This famous Raspberry Pi with Firefox OS is known as code Foxberry Pi , and is currently only available to experts - you need to flash a picture on an SD card by following a few instructions.
What seems to be new is that the demo version of Foxberry Pi can be installed under Raspbian. It makes use of WebIOPi, which is a small application that provides a web interface directly to control the GPIO pins. The installation instructions are simple enough, but things are still clearly experimental, since you'll have to make an electronic circuit with a single LED to use it.
All this sounds exciting, but be aware that there are various limitations :
- The build of Firefox OS included in the picture is very old
- All capabilities of the device are not exposed via the Web API
- No support for a mouse or keyboard
- Not a controllable remote screen
- Slow and buggy
On the roadmap of development, the goal is to get rid of Raspbian and run the lower layers of the OS in a customized version of Gonk, the Linux kernel on which the low level of services based Firefox OS. The idea is that once Gonk work, the rest of the OS will work without modification, and the system can then take advantage of updates to Mozilla.
In other words, if you're interested in developing applications for Firefox OS, you'll have to wait until next year, because now the images of Pi Foxberry are not really usable .
So all we have for now is a promise to the fully open Mozilla in 2015. It is also difficult to assess whether Mozilla will support the project system work - because all the information comes from the Mozilla wiki.
I guess it all depends on the difficulty of interacting with the graphics drivers. If you want to help in its development, the project will be more than happy!