Fuchsia is Google’s latest foray into the operating system market. Google enters the market with this new capability-based software it is currently developing. Although its predecessors were based on Linux kernels, Fuchsia is based on a new kernel “Zircon”. Google has not made any official announcements on the matter. But, Github made an announcement based on sources in 2016 about this project.
Fuchsia is also deemed capable on running universally on multiple devices. This includes tablets, smartphones and personal computers. It is distributed as free and open-source software under a mix of software licenses, including BSD 3 clause, MIT, and Apache 2.0
A Brief History
In August 2016, media outlets reported on a mysterious codebase post published on GitHub, that revealed that Google was developing a new operating system called “Fuchsia”. While no official announcement was made, inspection of the code suggested its capability to run on universal devices, including “dash infotainment systems for cars, to embedded devices like traffic lights and digital watches, all the way up to smartphones, tablets and PCs”. The code differs from Android and Chrome OS due to its being based on the “Zircon” kernel (formerly “Magenta”) rather than on the Linux kernel.
In May 2017, Ars Technica wrote about Fuchsia’s new user interface, an upgrade from its command-line interface at its first reveal in August, along with a developer writing that Fuchsia “isn’t a toy thing, it’s not a 20% project, it’s not a dumping ground of a dead thing that we don’t care about anymore”. Multiple media outlets wrote about the project’s seemingly close ties to Android, with some speculating that Fuchsia might be an effort to “re-do” or replace Android in a way that fixes problems on that platform.
In November 2017, initial support for the Swift programming language was committed.
In January 2018, Google published a guide how to run Fuchsia on Pixelbooks. This was done successfully by Ars Technica.
Features in the new Fuchsia
Fuchsia’s user interface and apps are written with “Flutter”, a software development kit allowing cross-platform development abilities for Fuchsia, Android and iOS. Flutter produces apps based on Dart, offering apps with high performance that run at 120 frames per second. Flutter also offers a Vulkan-based graphics rendering engine called “Escher”, with specific support for “Volumetric soft shadows”, an element that Ars Technica wrote “seems custom-built to run Google’s shadow-heavy ‘Material Design’ interface guidelines”.
Due to the Flutter software development kit offering cross-platform opportunities, users are able to install parts of Fuchsia on Android devices. Ars Technica noted that, while users could test Fuchsia, nothing “works”, adding that “it’s all a bunch of placeholder interfaces that don’t do anything”, though finding multiple similarities between Fuchsia’s interface and Android, including a Recent Apps screen, a Settings menu, and a split-screen view for viewing multiple apps at once.
The second review by Ars Technica was impressed with the progress, noting that things were now working, and was especially pleased by the hardware support. One of the positive surprises was the support for multiple mouse pointers.
A little about Zircon
Fuchsia is based on a new microkernel called “Zircon”. Zircon is derived from “Little Kernel”, a small operating system intended for embedded systems. “Little Kernel” was developed by Travis Geiselbrecht, a creator of the NewOS kernel used by Haiku.