QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop • Hacker News Board

Re: QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop

#121

Post by DaeDev » Sat, Dec 27, 2025, 3:45 PM UTC

xvilka wrote: post #27

I always liked their original UI - Photon[1][2]. Very lightweight and fast. Also a distinct and consistent style. I understand why they dropped it in favor of Qt and later Web technologies, but it's still a big loss. [1] https://www.qnx.com/developers/docs/6.5.0SP1.update/com.qnx.... [2] https://www.mikecramer.com/qnx/momentics_nc_docs/photon/prog...

Funny thing is this got brought up to us in other circles. As a relatively new person to QNX photon seems to have a special place in people's hearts

Re: QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop

#122

Post by cbsks » Sat, Dec 27, 2025, 4:07 PM UTC

m132 wrote: post #76

cbsks wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also running virtualized in a lot of cars! Although I’ve seen more and more US car companies switching from QNX to Linux. Chinese car companies I’ve worked with all use Linux instead of QNX, so perhaps that is the future.

Out of curiosity, do you mean Linux on bare metal, or Linux on top of QVM? The latter is actually a common setup, used by Mercedes-Benz and Hangsheng if I'm not mistaken.

Linux on top of a hypervisor. There are several companies providing hypervisors, including the one I work at, so my experience is biased.

Re: QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop

#123

Post by wkat4242 » Sat, Dec 27, 2025, 4:17 PM UTC

Wow so they have a desktop version again after many many years. That's huge.

Re: QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop

#124

Post by cheema33 » Sat, Dec 27, 2025, 4:26 PM UTC

Supposedly QNX is used by many car infotainment systems. A hard realtime OS for infotainment? What is the purpose? There are costs associated with using something like QNX. I can understand if you needed to control drivetain with it, but for infotainment why not just use Linux?

Re: QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop

#125

Post by blumenkraft » Sat, Dec 27, 2025, 4:28 PM UTC

cheema33 wrote: post #124

Supposedly QNX is used by many car infotainment systems. A hard realtime OS for infotainment? What is the purpose? There are costs associated with using something like QNX. I can understand if you needed to control drivetain with it, but for infotainment why not just use Linux?

Infotainment controls many of car systems. For example, infotainment controls car drive mode, which instantly affects gearbox. Probably requires predictable time delays for certification.

Re: QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop

#126

Post by blumenkraft » Sat, Dec 27, 2025, 4:29 PM UTC

IceWreck wrote: post #85

harhargange wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like QNX was hiding in plain sight as a car os and a mission critical os for other devices.

Blackberry OS 10 was also running QNX under the hook afaik.

And it was awesome! Very responsive.

Re: QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop

#127

Post by tyingq » Sat, Dec 27, 2025, 4:30 PM UTC

cheema33 wrote: post #124

Supposedly QNX is used by many car infotainment systems. A hard realtime OS for infotainment? What is the purpose? There are costs associated with using something like QNX. I can understand if you needed to control drivetain with it, but for infotainment why not just use Linux?

fast boot, low latency for buttons/controls.

Re: QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop

#128

Post by sedatk » Sat, Dec 27, 2025, 4:41 PM UTC

bregma wrote: post #89

sedatk wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux was like that in 1995 (Slackware 3.1 or so). I believe QNX live was introduced in 1997.

QNX was introduced in 1980.

That’s why I said “QNX live”, not QNX.

Re: QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop

#129

Post by qwerty456127 » Sat, Dec 27, 2025, 4:55 PM UTC

xvilka wrote: post #27

I always liked their original UI - Photon[1][2]. Very lightweight and fast. Also a distinct and consistent style. I understand why they dropped it in favor of Qt and later Web technologies, but it's still a big loss. [1] https://www.qnx.com/developers/docs/6.5.0SP1.update/com.qnx.... [2] https://www.mikecramer.com/qnx/momentics_nc_docs/photon/prog...

Indeed. QNX is the coolest OS I ever seen and Photon felt the coolest desktop environment. Although I like XFCE in the Linux context (more than e.g. GNOME), I am sad to see it replaced Photon on QNX. Photon just looked and felt so lovely and came with a visual C++ builder making GUI apps development so nice.

Re: QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop

#130

Post by jecel » Sat, Dec 27, 2025, 5:31 PM UTC

QNX was my operating system from 1985 to 1988. I also studied it in 2000 for a project that ended up getting cancelled.

Initially the actual implementation didn't match the conceptual framework, but by version 1.2 they had really cleaned things up.