Google's Android system has dominated the smartphone market, and Google also has another operating system, Chrome OS, on personal computers. Today, Google is developing the next-generation operating system Fuchsia OS, combining Android and Chrome OS into one.
According to 9to5google, the development of Google Fuchsia OS is nearing completion, and it has entered the stage of trial by developers themselves.
In software development, especially Google's development cycle, there is usually a "dogfood" test period for developers before they let ordinary users try. This means that developers can install and use the operating system themselves and find shortcomings and deficiencies through testing.
In addition to the normal public testing phases, such as Alpha and Beta, Google has quite a few internal testing phases, all derived from the same "dogfood" name.
For example, when the Google social network "Google+" was still in the early stages of development, before conducting a company-wide dogfood test, they did a small-scale "fish food" test, following the codename of the project "Emerald Sea".
The name fish food has been around ever since, and other Google teams used it in the earliest testing stages.
In addition, Google sometimes has a slightly wider "team food" test phase between fish food and dogfood. The dogfood test is usually the last and almost company-wide internal test before batch production or social public testing.
Over the past year, there have been indications that at least some of the features of Fuchsia OS's next-generation operating system-if not the entire operating system-have gone through development testing in the fish food phase and team food phase.
Of course, the next stage is dogfood testing, which means more extensive testing across Google.
In some recent code changes in Fuchsia OS, the words "for dogfood release" appeared.
In another command line, the developer informed the hardware device on which Fuchsia OS was installed to seek updates through Google's "Omaha System", which manages software code updates.
It can be seen from these codes that Google already has a "dogfood distribution" upgrade channel, and some developers may have started dogfood testing.
According to Google's plan, Fuchsia OS can run on desktops, laptops, tablets, laptops, mobile phones, routers, smart displays and other devices. This means that Google's dogfood test will cover a variety of different hardware devices.
It is reported that in the code comment text of Google programmers, a URL (arm64.dogfood-release.astro.fuchsia.com) appeared with the word "Astro", which happened to be a prototype device of Google's early installation of Fuchsia OS system. Name, the official name of this smart home device later was "Google Nest Hub".
The English wording "dogfood release" also appears in the above URL, and there is also information on the type of processor used by the device.
According to various information disclosed by Google, Google may at least test the dogfood distribution of Fuchsia OS on Google Hest Hub hardware.
According to Google's usual development and release process, dogfood should be the last test phase before entering the public. If the final internal testing goes well, it is entirely possible for Google to submit the Fuchsia OS beta to a third-party developer in advance and enter the "developer testing phase".
In terms of timetable, it is unlikely that Google will announce the Fuchsia OS development beta at the 2020 I / O Developer Conference.
In fact, with the recent spread of the new coronavirus epidemic globally, whether the global development conference scheduled by Google in the middle of the year can continue as scheduled, a question mark is needed.
What does the new system bring?
In 2016, Google began developing its ambitious operating system, Fuchsia OS. This news has received different reactions from the mobile industry.
Some experts believe that this is the next major event in the operating system field that can replace the Android operating system. Google kept the project secret, and said nothing about Fuchsia OS until last year.
After announcing the home screen design of the Fuchsia OS operating system last year, Google has integrated the design style into its own Pixelbook notebook.
In a way, one can consider its future role in replacing Android and Chrome.
With Fuchsia OS, Google hopes to develop a "universal" operating system that will run seamlessly on all platforms, such as smart devices, tablets and smartphones.
The Fuchsia OS operating system evolved from a microkernel called "Zircon" operating system. Android and Chrome OS, on the other hand, are "heavy versions" of the Linux kernel.
In this case, the microkernel-based Fuchsia OS operating system runs faster.
Speaking of smaller but more efficient operating systems, the Fuchsia OS operating system seems to be ideal for the next generation of operating systems. What makes the Fuchsia OS operating system more special is that it is completely managed and controlled by the parent company Google, while the Android operating system is mainly controlled and customized by external companies that get the source code.
The open source model also caused Android to "fragment" the trap that a large number of Android devices on the market are running older versions of Android.
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