Firefox Mobile OS

Mozilla is one of the developers of a WebOS and now a Mobile OS. Mozilla has worked on HTML5, and is striving hard to achieve everything using HTML5!

Mozilla is making some serious progress on its Boot to Gecko mobile operating system. Boot to Gecko is an opensource operating system, which is promoting open web technology than its counterpart “API BASED”.

Mozilla has already dominated the Web and Mobile in the browser war. Firefox is their key product. One of the finest browser especially after the latest Firefox 13 update. Firefox is a full-fledged browser on Android, and its on iStore called as a junior, which is a minimalistic browser of Firefox.

Firefox OS mainly aims to unbind the current restrictions of web development on mobile devices by exposing the underlying capabilities of a phone to HTML5 applications. This removes much of the middle-ware layer that characterizes other smartphone platforms.

“The introduction of the open mobile OS continues the Mozilla mission to promote openness, innovation and opportunity on the Web for users and developers. As billions of users are expected to come online for the first time in the coming years, it is important to deliver a compelling smartphone experience that anyone can use,” said Gary Kovacs, CEO, Mozilla. “The large number of operators and manufacturers now supporting this effort will bring additional resources and diversity to our global offerings.”

Alcatel and ZTE will be manufacturing customized mobile phones for Firefox OS, whereas, the following leading global network operators backed this initiative, including Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica and Telenor.

Firefox OS Terminologies

(source:wiki)-

Gaia

This is the user interface of b2g. Gaia implements a lock screen, home screen, telephone dialer, text-messaging application, camera app, etc., Gaia is written entirely in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Its only interface to the underlying operating system is through Open Web APIs, which are implemented by Gecko.

Gecko

The “application runtime” of b2g. At a high level, Gecko implements the open standards for HTML, CSS, and JS and makes those interfaces run well on all the OSes that Gecko supports. This means that Gecko consists of, among other things, a networking stack, graphics stack, layout engine, virtual machine (for JS), and porting layers.

Gonk

The lower-level “operating system” of b2g. Gonk consists of a linux kernel and userspace hardware abstraction layer (HAL). The kernel and several userspace libraries are common open-source projects: linux, libusb, bluez, etc. Some other parts of the HAL are shared with the android project: GPS, camera, among others. You could say that Gonk is an extremely simple linux distribution.

Some useful links on Firefox OS (Boot To Gecko)-

Introduction to Firefox mobile OS

Developing Apps for Firefox mobile OS

Building and Installing Firefox mobile OS

Introduction to Gaia

Gaia hacking guide – Change the User Interface of Firefox mobile OS

Testing Firefox mobile OS

Debugging on Firefox mobile OS

Firefox mobile OS (Boot to Gecko) Developer phone guide

Setting up Firefox mobile OS (Boot to Gecko) build environment

Installing Firefox mobile OS (Boot to Gecko) on a mobile device

Screenshots of Firefox Mobile OS (Boot-To-Gecko)