Is Google Working on a New Operating System?

By Swapnil Bhartiya

The fully open-sourced operating system doesn’t use the Linux kernel.

Google is reportedly working on a new operating system that is not based on Linux. The company hasn’t made an official announcement yet; however, the source code is already available on GitHub.

The project is named Fuchsia OS. According to the GitHub page, “Magenta is the core platform that powers the Fuchsia OS.” Magenta comprises a microkernel and a small set of userspace services, drivers, and libraries required by the system.

Magenta is targeting modern phones as well as desktop PCs. The kernel used in it is capable of running in really small systems such as embedded devices.

The GitHub pages say that LK (Little Kernel) “is a Kernel designed for small systems typically used in embedded applications. It is good alternative to commercial offerings like FreeRTOS or ThreadX. Such systems often have a very limited amount of ram, a fixed set of peripherals and a bounded set of tasks.”

Google works on many projects, which may or may not translate into products. Fuchsia OS could just be another experiment or it might replace Android or Chrome OS as a single OS to run across devices, including phones, PCs, and embedded systems like Onehub and Google Home.

08/17/2016