Open webOS booted onto Nook Color and Samsung Series 7 Slate, gets live USB distro [video x2] 33
Just when you thought things couldn't get any crazier for Open webOS, they have. Industrious developers have already booted the open source successor to webOS onto the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and the Asus Transformer Prime, and are working on getting it running on top of Android. The march onward and outward continues, with two new tablets getting demonstration builds of Open webOS and a new distribution meant to be booted off of an external disc.
First up, lets take a look at those tablets getting a new welcoming into the Open webOS fold. We'll go in title order and start with the Barnes & Noble Nook Color, which got a demonstration courtesy of Ping-Hsun Chen of Taiwan. He managed to get Open webOS booting on the book seller's first-generation Android tablet, and much as with other builds there's still work to be done as far as getting it running up to speed is concerned. But it's a start, and the Nook Color is certainly an affordable alternative for those looking to jump into the Open webOS tablet game.
Though judging by the speed - Ping-Hsun's build of for the Nook Color is currently lacking hardware graphics acceleration, and thus quite lagging - it might be a while before anybody's going to want to jump in for purposes other than tinkering. Interestingly, the Nook Color port seems to be of the desktop edition, and leverages the already-existing Ubuntu port for the tablet instead of the processor-agnostic OpenEmbedded version of Open webOS.
Next up in the Open webOS tablet show is the Samsung Series 7 Slate. This build comes courtesy of WebOS Ports and was shown off by HP's Roy Sutton at the Open webOS Hackathon today in Toronto and captured by webOS onTap. It's booting off of an attached flash drive, and like the Nook Color above is currently lacking hardware graphics acceleration (and a good amount of optimizing), but it generally works. This build does appear to be based off of Open webOS OE instead of the Ubuntu desktop build.
For those not familiar, the Series 7 Slate is actually a Windows 7 device, with an Intel x86 processor (Core i5 or i7, depending on the configuration) and an 11.6-inch screen (ti's the same 768 pixels tall as the TouchPad, so the UI fits nicely in the wider 1366 pixels across). Yes, this is Open webOS OE on an Intel-powered tablet. Sutton did note that Open webOS will run faster on the Series 7 Slate once it's optimized and booting off of the internal SSD instead of the USB stick, and right now it's still in an early alpha state - like just about every other Open webOS project at this point.
There's one more interesting project that came to light recently, and that's a 'live' distribution of Open webOS. Brought to us by the same Pinh-Hsun responsible for the Nook Color port, the 122MB ISO is meant to be loaded onto a CD or flash drive so you can carry around and boot your own personal copy of the Open webOS desktop build. It's built off of Ubuntu 12.04, but skips the Ubuntu user interface in favor of the tried-and-true webOS cards interface. In theory (though testing is still needed), one could load Open webOS as a live build onto a flash drive and boot it onto just about any computer you can stick it into, and when you're done just unplug and walk away.
So that's two new tablets and a portable desktop build for your traveling adventures. Full steam ahead, webOS Nation!
Source: webOS onTap (YouTube), penk (Nook Color, Live Distro)
Via: webOS Developer Relations (Twitter), webOS onTap (Twitter)
33 Comments
Awesome!! We're getting more devices with Open webOS than the three years that Palm/HP had it closed sourced!!!
I wonder if anyone will try it on a Nook simple touch (with or without glowlight)
and wow... First time I'm first!
Close, but not enough... ;-)
drat.
Man! These ports just open the pandora box for Open webOS! Which one should we pick? I choose the GNexus and the new HP Elite-Pad (which also runs a X86 processor like the SAMSUNG 7). Shut up and take my moneeeyyy!!!
This is awesomeness!!!
I'm liking the ISO image, be good to see development of that
WebOS on an x86 slate? Power such as we have never known!
Which device will likely see the use of the accelerated graphics processor of the hardware?
Someone please port open webOS to a Samsung Galaxy S3 or an HTC EVO 4G LTE! Just show me that it can be done. Balance may soon return to the Force!
Pretty cool considering the Nook Color has about 4/5ths the processing power of a Pre 2. Kudos!
KINDLE FIRE KINDLE FIRE KINDLE FIRE ! :D if it can run on Nook Color, then I'm sure it can run on Kindle Fire, right? YAAAY !!
Man it is SO nice to finally have something to be excited about with webOS again. Time to fire up VirtualBox, gonna have me some webOS.
EDIT: I got it to boot up in VirtualBox. Can't get internet to work, but man is it good to see webOS running. The font will take a little getting used to though, and the email app still has an app catalog icon in it, but looks great.
Didn't they try Open webOS on the HP Touchpad or the HP Pre 3?
This should have been the obvious first !!! However I am guessing some of the devs porting to diff devices don't have Palm/HP hardware....I would love to see it on existing webOS hardware though :)
Ironically, as i understand it: There are much more suitable devices than the touchpad and pre3 because of their use of proprietary component drivers. Devices that are based on the standard linux kernel (most often android based devices or standard pc stuff) are much more realistic to bring open webOS to.
Please correct me if this is innacurate
Didn't the WebOS 3.05 Community Edition have the access to these drivers?
I want it on my TouchPad. If I can run Android [CM9] on my TP, why not open webOS?
Incidently, other than the camera issue, CM9 runs better than webOS on it. Also is better than my tranformer [TF101]
It's ASUS Transformer Prime, not Acer.
Different companies.
Not that excited unless a major company picks up webOS and manufacture devices.
well the sooner the better
wow im impress the windows slate 7 device is actually preatty good wow
What are chances of a functional usb device for windows? thatd be awesome to have a live usb or cd for win.
If they port to HP TP, I will be among the 1st to load it to my TO!
there is already an update to the TPad in what's called LunaCE it is the update people want. Open webOS will not be brought to the TPad in any other way. That said the nook now has acceleration going on in an updated post in the forum thread . Go check it out.
overmuch as with otherwise builds there's comfort touch to be through as far as exploit it spouting up to quicken is obsessed. But it's a commence, and the Nook Colo rise is certainly an cheap disjunctive for those perception to dive into the Coarse web OS paper fearless http://www.testbells.com/C-TADM51-70.html
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