Openmoko Linux is an
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
for
smartphone
A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...
s developed by the
Openmoko project. It is based on the
Ångström distribution, comprising various pieces of
free software
Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...
.
The main targets of Openmoko Linux were the Openmoko Neo 1973 and the Neo FreeRunner. Furthermore, there were efforts to port the system to other mobile phones.
Openmoko Linux was developed from 2007 to 2009 by Openmoko Inc. The development was discontinued because of financial problems. Afterwards the development of software for the Openmoko phones was taken over by the community and continued in various projects, including
SHR,
QtMoko and
Hackable1.
Components
Openmoko Linux uses the
Linux kernel
The Linux kernel is a Free and open-source software, free and open source Unix-like kernel (operating system), kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the k ...
,
GNU libc, the
X.Org Server plus their own
graphical user environment built using the
EFL toolkit,
GTK+ toolkit,
Qt toolkit
Qt ( pronounced "cute") is a cross-platform application development framework for creating graphical user interfaces as well as Cross-platform software, cross-platform applications that run on various software and hardware platforms such as L ...
and the
illume window manager (previously
Matchbox window manager). The
OpenEmbedded build framework and opkg package management system, are used to create and maintain
software packages.
This is a very different approach than that of
Android (in which everything except Linux, Webkit, and the Java language inside of Android seems non-standard).
[It uses Bionic as libc, the ]Dalvik virtual machine
Dalvik is a discontinued process virtual machine (VM) in the Android operating system that executes applications written for Android. (Dalvik bytecode format is still used as a distribution format, but no longer at runtime in newer Android versi ...
for Java
Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...
, a new frame buffer system, and new proprietary ways of dealing with HID and other peripherals. Google is also accused of not giving their changes of Linux back to the communit
Greg Kroah Hartman on the Linux Kernel
/ref> Applications targeted for Android must be substantially rewritten and are largely not portable. Many existing Linux desktop apps can be easily ported to Openmoko. (However the limited computational power and screen resolution require substantial reworking of existing applications, in order to render them usable in a finger-oriented, small-screen environment.)
See also
* List of free and open source Android applications
References
External links
*
{{Linux
Smartphone operating systems
Mobile operating systems
Embedded Linux
Openmoko
Free mobile software
Linux distributions