COS (China Operating System) is a
Linux kernel
The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...
-based
mobile operating system developed in China mainly targeting mobile devices, tablets and
set-top boxes. It is being developed by the Institute of Software at the
Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISCAS) together with
Shanghai Liantong Network Communications Technology to compete with foreign operating systems like
iOS and
Android
Android may refer to:
Science and technology
* Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human
* Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system
** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
.
The operating system is based on Linux but the platform is
closed source. Security and the risk of back doors in devices from foreign vendors are some of the main motivations for COS. Android had almost 90% of the smart phone market when COS was introduced and Apple most of the remaining market share. COS looks very similar to Android and has its own Application Portal much like
Android Market
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating sys ...
and iOS
App Store.
Licensing
The Linux kernel is
GPLv2 and the COS framework is closed source and licensed by the originators.
Core OS
The COS Core operating system is based on the Linux kernel and can be seen as a
Linux distribution
A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...
, in the same way as the Android operating system.
API
According to the official statements, COS supports
HTML5 based applications and
Java based applications.
See also
*
Kylin
*
Linux Deepin
*
Zorin OS
*
StartOS
*
Comparison of mobile operating systems
This is a comparison of mobile operating systems. Only the latest versions are shown in the table below, even though older versions may still be marketed.
About OS
Advanced controls
Accessibility features
App ecosystem
Browser ...
*
List of free and open source Android applications
References
*
*
External links
*
Demonstration video
Mobile Linux
ARM Linux distributions
Linux distributions
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