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There is something magical about Firefox OS

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Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#131

Post by kibwen »

bornhuetter wrote: post #123
robhawkes wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fx OS on the SGS2 runs BLAZING fast compared to the device in the video. The reason why we don't shout about that? Because we're not launching with that device and it's not right to raise expectations in that way.

Are we going to be able to load Fx OS onto our own SGS2s when it's released?

AFAIK you can do it right this minute, if you'd like. Here's a guide for dual-booting B2G and Android on SGS2 (though I have no idea how up-to-date it is):

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Boot_to_Gec...

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#132

Post by pkolaczk »

robhawkes wrote: post #95
PommeDeTerre wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused by your statement about "the daunting prospect of dealing with Objective C, Java and C# simultaneously. This is a ludicrous prospect for a lone developer." Perhaps that's true for a hobbyist. But any professional software developer should already be familiar with at least one (if not all) of those languages, and should be able to pick up the others with very little work. Once you know C#, for instance, y…

You'd be surprised at what JavaScript can do nowadays… https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/demos/detail/bananabread

There is nothing surprising in it. 3D rendering is done mostly by hardware (OpenGL), not JS. But try to code something more sophisticated computationally for CPU, not a one function long microbenchmark where the JIT can guess all the types because code is simple. Something like simulating a complex mechanical or electrical system or some discrete optimisation stuff. Then it quickly turns out carefully hand crafted JS even on Chrome is more than order of magnitude slower than naive Java code.

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#133

Post by pkolaczk »

nemetroid wrote: post #126
pkolaczk wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how come e.g. www.circuitlab.com which is a simulator written in pure JS is two orders of magnitude slower on Chrome or Firefox than native *SPICE implementations in C? It is actually even much slower than the already pretty slow Falstad's Java applet.

The term "native-like" means "with a responsive interface" these days.

Oh yeah, by this definition interpreted Python is also native like. Just do all your UI rendering by native libs and use scripting to glue it together. But this is not what most of programmers call native speed.

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#134

Post by gcb »

davej wrote: post #98
klausa wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, considering that the same chipset (APQ8060) was also used in some variants of Galaxy S II, I really don't think so that Touchpad hardware was that bad. And the fact that after installing Android 4.0.4 on it, it feels like whole new machine (speed-wise) - I really blame webOS here.

I have a Touchpad that dual-boots into WebOS or Android ICS. I love WebOS but I find Android to be much smoother and snappier. The memory management of Android is also much better.

indeed. I often have to close the browser to be able to open the HP market place app... it just keeps loading (and if i try to open preware with a browser with facebook in the background, it gets the same infinite wait, but at least it tells you that something is broken if you see a message for more than some seconds and suggests you reboot)

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#135

Post by nathan_long »

podperson wrote: post #103
mtgx wrote: post #92

Mozilla, please don't allow carriers or manufacturers to modify your OS! You need to set the right tone from the very beginning. Otherwise you'll never get that kind of power back later on. Sell it to them as an alternative to Android. That's all they need to know if they want it or not. If they want more, you can go elsewhere.

If it's an alternative to Android that doesn't let Carriers "add value" then it's an alternative they won't use . Open Source, in this case, becomes a race to the bottom in every respect. We need carriers to be dumb pipes we buy data plans from; then this entire class of problem goes away. Until then, any platform that doesn't let carriers charge us different amounts for bits from different places is going to die on…

>> If it's an alternative to Android that doesn't let Carriers "add value" then it's an alternative they won't use.

Ideally, they shouldn't "use" any phone, because they are not the user. We should buy whatever phone we please somewhere else, with financing if necessary, and then buy service from the carriers. The whole "subsidizing" thing is a scam unless you get cheaper service by bringing your own phone, or after your phone is paid off.

Getting some popular third-party phone vendors in the US and making phone subsidies a line item in your cell phone bill are the first steps toward carriers as dumb pipes and towards true choice in phones.

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#136

Post by sixothree »

zacharyvoase wrote: post #4

> In short, Firefox OS is about taking the technologies behind the Web, like JavaScript, and using them to produce an entire mobile operating system. Just let that sink in for a moment — it's a mobile OS powered by JavaScript! This kind of happened before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_webOS What went wrong? Well, apparently[1] there were some big performance issues—and IIUC Gecko has some of those already. [1]: ht…

The world can only process the introduction of so many mobile operating systems at once? I get the impression it was seen as competition to Android, but failed because Palm was a two-bit player in comparison to the Google juggernaut. Maybe if it were being introduced today it would stand more of a chance.

edit: oh and as to the failing of the author to acknowledge WebOS speaks to the author's knowledge or honesty, take your pick.

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#137

Post by akrymski »

So it's an OS that requires apps to be written in JavaScript (an interpreted language that was designed by Netscape for web scripting and nonprofessional programmers) and HTML (a markup language designed to display static documents in the browser). None of these technologies were designed to help developers create software applications, so why is this magical?

Let's look at few possible reasons:

1. JavaScript/HTML/CSS are better tools for developing software than anything else out there. No.

2. It's open source. So is WebOS, Android.

3. It's more efficient - same software can run on cheaper hardware. No, Java & Objective C are more processor-efficient. If Firefox OS runs on $100 hardware, than iOS can run on $50. The fact that nobody is making an ulta-cheap smartphone is because there's little demand for one (it's like making a shitty Porsche)

4. Developers can package existing web applications as native mobile applications. There's already a thing called PhoneGap for that.

5. More teenagers know JavaScript than any other language

It seems like #5 is the only valid reason. A lot of kids don't know Objective C or Java, so they must love Firefox OS if they just know the web stack. But sometimes you've got to ask yourself - why rewrite an OS in a new cool language? Just because you can? Look how far Apple has come with Obj-C, why constantly replace the hammer? Having said that, the force of teenagers is not to be underestimated.

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#138

Post by nathan_long »

polshaw wrote: post #109
robhawkes wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are working on that, but there is only so much we can do if we want this to be open. If carriers want to use the Firefox OS branding and our system then there will be certain limitations on what they are expected to do in return. This is new to us, but I'm confident we'll come up with something satisfactory. Saying that, we can't stop someone taking the code from GitHub and producing their own non-Fx OS system and…

I think the key is making it easy for users to 'reset' the device to stock FxOS. I would hope the firefox brand was strong enough to keep carriers from releasing their own variants to avoid mozilla's requirements.

This. The Firefox OS license for carriers should be "you can modify our OS however you like, but you must take no steps to keep users from installing a clean one, nor penalize them for doing so."

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#139

Post by CrazedGeek »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #2

I wish they would add softkey support and toro support for the Galaxy Nexus. I'd love to try a build out.

Are you sure it doesn't already work? The build prerequisites page[1] makes it sound like all variants should work. I've run it on maguro, but it's definitely the most well-supported of the variants. The lack of softkeys made it astoundingly painful; I ended up using a USB OTG keyboard just to navigate.

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Boot_to_Gec...

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