running webos on pc hardware

[xtn]

I would LOVE to dual boot win7 and webos on by multi touch tablet pc!!!!!

[DrewPre]

http://uploads.precentral.net/rumor-...le-hit-q3-2010

[cdowers]

This seems to have IDE built into the kernel, so I'm going to try transfering from the usb drive to an IDE drive and see what happens.

[unfairSurprisery]

IDE/ATA would be either an old hard drive or a cd/dvd drive. modern hard disks are all SATA.

[nimer55]

Originally Posted by DrewPre

http://uploads.precentral.net/rumor-...le-hit-q3-2010

I think they want it now, and for free...

[sabianadmin]

Any chance i could get a copy of the contents of the vmdk, im having a problem monting the image on both my mac os and linux machines

I would suggest maybe dropping a new kernel image in?

[nimer55]

Originally Posted by xtn

I would LOVE to dual boot win7 and webos on by multi touch tablet pc!!!!!

any chance it's made by hp?

[Seb_or_Sam]

Umm... webOS only runs on ARM CPUs. At least that's the impression I'm under. Are you trying to get the version used in the emulator to run? That seems much more possible, as that is, according to the webOS internals feeds, i686. i686 is just recent Intel or AMD I believe. You'd need to rewrite some drivers though, right? Also, can webOS even handle the amounts of RAM in a real computer?
Of Course, there is the issue of practicality. webOS is a touchscreen OS. It needs a touchscreen. And a gesture area. Yeah, I suppose you could use a touch-compatible PC, but the gesture area? Could you trick it into using on of those Bamboo quasi-mouspad devices as the gesture area? A magic mouse even?
Either way, this sounds cool as a proof-of-concept.

[tavik]

Originally Posted by Seb_or_Sam

Umm... webOS only runs on ARM CPUs. At least that's the impression I'm under. Are you trying to get the version used in the emulator to run? That seems much more possible, as that is, according to the webOS internals feeds, i686. i686 is just recent Intel or AMD I believe. You'd need to rewrite some drivers though, right? Also, can webOS even handle the amounts of RAM in a real computer?
Of Course, there is the issue of practicality. webOS is a touchscreen OS. It needs a touchscreen. And a gesture area. Yeah, I suppose you could use a touch-compatible PC, but the gesture area? Could you trick it into using on of those Bamboo quasi-mouspad devices as the gesture area? A magic mouse even?
Either way, this sounds cool as a proof-of-concept.

Yeah, we're talking about the emulator version, which does run on x86 hardware... kinda. Keep in mind I've not had the time to take this beyond the "oh hey I can get this to kinda boot on x86 virtualized hardware" stage... but these are the initial challenges/considerations/required hackery for getting WebOS running on 3rd party, x86 hardware:

1) handle interface issue (touchscreen/gesture area, faux mouse... not to mention the accelerometer issue)

2) drivers. seeing as it's running on top of an x86 kernel... maybe it's just an issue of running a different kernel with some patches? It's hard to say on this one... it really depends on how much palm patched the underlying kernel.

3) software/gui. The gui doesn't draw right at anything but the native 320x480 / 320x400 resolutions (yet). Will likely require a virtual keyboard of some sort (there's a patch for that already).

4) binary compatibility, for apps that don't use the PDK it's matter of correctly translating the mojo framework calls. PDK based apps aren't going to work at all without being recompiled for an x86 processor (anything that uses PDK now is compiled for ARMv7... I think).

I'm sure much more will be involved... by the time we get anywhere HP will already have their device out... probably :P

[cdowers]

It actually boots. I did no modifications to it at all. I just put it onto the HDD in my old Dell C600 laptop. Anyone wanna help make this work?

WEBOS ON A PC!!!

[xtn]

Originally Posted by nimer55

any chance it's made by hp?

Lenovo...

[xtn]

Originally Posted by cdowers

It actually boots. I did no modifications to it at all. I just put it onto the HDD in my old Dell C600 laptop. Anyone wanna help make this work?

WEBOS ON A PC!!!

WOW!!!

What are you doing to navigate?

[cdowers]

Originally Posted by xtn

WOW!!!

What are you doing to navigate?

most of the stuff for the emulator version works on the keyboard.

[mikevember]

The only thing i can pull out of the emulator is the .vmdk file, how do I extract this file? I tried using VMware to extract it but it would only let me mount it and attempt to run it.

[thehomelessguy]

Originally Posted by DrewPre

wouldn't that be something... webOS ... The alternative to Mac and Windows.

I think it's pretty telling that Palm is being renamed the "Software and Solutions" division at HP. If HP only wanted WebOS to be for tablets and smartphones it would be called the "Software and Mobile Devices division," but it isn't.

I fully expect HP to use webOS for "thin-client" computers that leverage cloud based apps i.e. email, collaborative document editing, scheduling and databases (perfect for most businesses). With WebOS on thin-clients, tablets and smartphones, you now have the possibility of all of your computing devices running the same OS and being tied into the same cloud. While UI changes would have to be made (touch vs. keyboard and mouse and screen size), being able to run any custom provided software (the "solutions" part) on any hardware (mobile or nonmobile) would be huge and much easier to manage than lots of different devices running different OS's and different software.

The synergy HP is able to bring (they are already leaders in cloud based computer and virtualization of corporate computing resources) should mean that WebOS will be successful in the corporate world.

So in conclusion, I fully expect there to be a desktop version of WebOS that will directly compete with google's chrome. Moreover, such will allow HP to offer a top-to bottom solutions for medium to large businesses.

[Seb_or_Sam]

Originally Posted by tavik

Yeah, we're talking about the emulator version, which does run on x86 hardware... kinda. Keep in mind I've not had the time to take this beyond the "oh hey I can get this to kinda boot on x86 virtualized hardware" stage... but these are the initial challenges/considerations/required hackery for getting WebOS running on 3rd party, x86 hardware:

1) handle interface issue (touchscreen/gesture area, faux mouse... not to mention the accelerometer issue)

2) drivers. seeing as it's running on top of an x86 kernel... maybe it's just an issue of running a different kernel with some patches? It's hard to say on this one... it really depends on how much palm patched the underlying kernel.

3) software/gui. The gui doesn't draw right at anything but the native 320x480 / 320x400 resolutions (yet). Will likely require a virtual keyboard of some sort (there's a patch for that already).

4) binary compatibility, for apps that don't use the PDK it's matter of correctly translating the mojo framework calls. PDK based apps aren't going to work at all without being recompiled for an x86 processor (anything that uses PDK now is compiled for ARMv7... I think).

I'm sure much more will be involved... by the time we get anywhere HP will already have their device out... probably :P

This sounds fascinating. I'd love to help out with this. I don't have a computer at all right now, but I'm going to buy a new white unibody MacBook and can handle some hacking around with webos on it. Promising!

Thanks for the info btw

[cdowers]

now that I know it can run, I'm working on patches to scale up the UI for larger screens. I also need to figure out mouse support for non-touch pc's.

[sorli]

Interesting and I'd love to hear and see more in the future. BTW, I have a I/R Touchscreen that is both Windows and Linux capabale if in the future you write some detailed instructions on how you did it and would like some help?

Congratulations! Sorli...

[abiezerf]

Originally Posted by thehomelessguy

I think it's pretty telling that Palm is being renamed the "Software and Solutions" division at HP. If HP only wanted WebOS to be for tablets and smartphones it would be called the "Software and Mobile Devices division," but it isn't.

I fully expect HP to use webOS for "thin-client" computers that leverage cloud based apps i.e. email, collaborative document editing, scheduling and databases (perfect for most businesses). With WebOS on thin-clients, tablets and smartphones, you now have the possibility of all of your computing devices running the same OS and being tied into the same cloud. While UI changes would have to be made (touch vs. keyboard and mouse and screen size), being able to run any custom provided software (the "solutions" part) on any hardware (mobile or nonmobile) would be huge and much easier to manage than lots of different devices running different OS's and different software.

The synergy HP is able to bring (they are already leaders in cloud based computer and virtualization of corporate computing resources) should mean that WebOS will be successful in the corporate world.

So in conclusion, I fully expect there to be a desktop version of WebOS that will directly compete with google's chrome. Moreover, such will allow HP to offer a top-to bottom solutions for medium to large businesses.

No offense, but that sounds like the Apple communism.

[sabianadmin]

Originally Posted by cdowers

now that I know it can run, I'm working on patches to scale up the UI for larger screens. I also need to figure out mouse support for non-touch pc's.

Ok ill help you out, busy working on ..another big project ( RevLin OS: A desktop OS with a desktop coded in web lang like WebOS ) but i will give any free time to working on this,
i would be gratfull if the community would chip in and list out the things that need doing so i can compile a project list.

Thanks guys