Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

Recently, many friends are very concerned about the Fuchsia OS operating system, and many friends are concerned about its development. Today we will talk about its structure. When describing the structure of Fuchsia OS, Google uses the analogy of "layer cake". The original text is Layer Cake. Fuchsia OS is the name of the entire project and the name of the finished product, but under it it is divided into four different levels, as shown in the following figure:

The first and lowest layer is the cornerstone of building Fuchsia OS, the Zircon kernel. Last year's news was Magenta, but it was later changed to the name Zircon, a new kernel designed by Google that mainly deals with hardware access and communication between software.

For students who don't know much about the role of the kernel, in short, Zircon is to Fuchsia what Linux is to Android. The Linux kernel drives multiple operating systems, and many operating systems are built on it, such as Ubuntu, Android, Manjaro, ArchLinux, Debian, Red Hat, SUSE and even Chrome OS, so we can boldly predict that if Fuchsia OS develops well and the Zircon kernel proves to be useful in the future, then it is likely that more operating systems will adopt this new kernel.

The second layer: a layer also built directly on top of Zircon is called Garnet. Garnet contains a variety of underlying functions required by a variety of operating systems, including hardware drivers (network, graphics, etc.) and software installation. The most exciting things in this layer are Escher (the graphics renderer), Amber (the update for Fuchsia), and Xi Core, the underlying engine of the Xi text and code editor (released earlier this year).

The third layer: Peridot is the next layer, which mainly deals with the modular application design of Fuchsia, and the other two main components of Peridot are used directly for modules. Ledger can save your location in the application / module across devices and synchronize it to your Google account. Maxwell is a more complex topic that requires more in-depth research, but Maxwell is likely to be the finishing touch for Fuchsia to fully use its magic. It can be revealed in advance that the strengths of Maxwell include Kronk, also known as Google Assistant.

The fourth layer: Topaz, which is the top layer of this Layer Cake cake and has the greatest direct impact on developers and users. Topaz provides Flutter support, and with Flutter support, a variety of gorgeous applications can help enrich the full-featured applications for daily use. For example, the most impressive thing right now is, of course, Armadillo UI, which is the main user interface and home screen of Fuchsia.

For an analogy, the Topaz layer can be found as a contrast in Android, which will be your must-have applications such as contacts, music, file manager and text editor Xi (the visual front end in Topaz connects to the back end of Garnet). Even if you don't have what you need, you can install it easily.

On the face of it, the hierarchical design of Fuchsia OS seems to be more suitable for team organization. It also helps to divide the code into different parts that are easier to understand and develop. Of course, there are more important reasons why hardware vendors can also have hierarchies that they can control. This means that companies will be able to replace one (or more) of the four layers with their own modified versions.

Most mobile phone manufacturers customize the Android user experience to stand out from the competition, rather than using Google's default interface design. The ability to customize the design is a further indication that Google is learning from the lessons learned from Android. Fuchsia and Android make it easier for vendors to use their custom settings and UI designs without affecting the rest of the system. For example, Samsung can replace the Topaz layer with a TouchWiz-themed version, as can HTC, Asustek and other mobile phone manufacturers.

In addition, the Android team could not predict that companies like Amazon would significantly modify Android to use as the operating system for Kindle Fire devices. With Fuchsia OS, the same thing becomes easier, such as replacing Peridot's Google Cloud and Google intelligent assistant with Amazon Web Services and Alexa, and, of course, replacing Topaz with Amazon's design language, but it doesn't affect getting updates to Fuchsia's Zircon and Garnet.

All in all, it can be seen from Fuchsia's design that Google is remembering many of the valuable lessons and lessons learned by its Android team. In contrast to Android's torn ecosystem, dividing Fuchsia OS into hierarchies built up only should help ensure updatability and unity. Of course, Google can still change this design, and only time will tell whether Fuchsia OS's plan will succeed.

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