While smartphones running Mozilla’s web-based Firefox OS aren’t expected to ship until 2013, that hasn’t stopped enthusiasts from porting the open source operating system to other platforms. The latest device to get a version of the system — formerly known as Boot to Gecko — is the Raspberry Pi, the $25 card-sized computer designed to promote computer science in schools.
Raspberry Pi runs ported version of Mozilla’s web-based Firefox OS
In the video below, developer Oleg Romashin demonstrates the device performing some basic functions such as swiping through the OS’s menu. It doesn’t look like a particularly smooth experience, but, then again, the Pi only contains a relatively meager 700MHz CPU and 256MB of RAM, shared between the CPU and its Broadcom GPU. Mercifully, the latter seems more than capable of handling hardware-accelerated 3D graphics using WebGL, just as it performs well playing high-definition video.
If you’re interested in trying out Firefox OS for yourself, nightly builds are available via FTP from Mozilla — but, as the swathes of green text in Romashin’s video suggest, the setup process is not for the faint of heart.
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