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Mobile software platforms
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Mobile software platforms

Many big vendors realized Linux power in multifunction multimedia devices and thus actively sponsor the development of Linux software platforms for use in portable mobile devices. Some non-commercial organizations and consortium were found to push Linux based software platform into widely sold devices such as smartphones and netbooks. Amongst them one should note the most valuable:

Consortium, company Platform Target market
Open Handset Alliance (OHA),
Google		 Android Phones, Smartphones
Linux Foundation, Intel Moblin Netbooks
LiMo Foundation LiMo platform Phones, Smartphones
Nokia, Qt-software Qt/Embedded PDA
Nokia, Gnome Mobile Maemo Internet Tablets, MIDs
Access Access Linux Platform (ALP) Phones, Smartphones
Canonical Ubuntu Netbook Remix Netbooks

Moblin

Moblin platform was developed by Intel as open source project to push Linux in netbooks based on Intel Atom hardware platform. In April 2009 the control over the project was passed to a non-commercial organization Linux Foundation. The Moblin platform has the following distinctive features:
  • High-level Clutter 3D graphic library for advanced user interface with 3D effects and animation
  • Fast-boot and power-save technologies specific to Intel Atom processors
  • GUPnP library for development of UPnP compatible devices and services
Moblin system architecture diagram

Android

Google developed its own implementation of mobile linux software platform targeted to mobile phones called Android. Open Handset Alliance (OHA) was formed to coordinate and promote Android platform. The development of user applications is done with a help of Android SDK in Java programming language. Java bytecode is converted into own Android bytecode format called dex, which is executed by Dalvik virtual machine. Distinctive features of the Android platform are the following:
  • Dalvik virtual machine
  • built-in web browser based on Webkit engine
  • rich graphical libraries for 2D graphics and 3D graphics compliant to OpenGL ES 1.0 specification with support of hardware acceleration
  • usage of SQLite for structured data storage
  • vast multimedia support (MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, PNG, GIF)
  • GSM software communication stack
  • software communication stack to work with Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G and WiFi
  • support of additional devices like webcam, GPS, compass, accelerometer
  • sophisticated development tools: debugger, emulator, profiling tools, integration with Eclipse IDE
Android system architecture diagram

Maemo

Maemo platform (Internet Tablet OS – it's marketing name) — an operating system and application software stack for internet tablet devices made by Nokia company.

Nokia 770 Internet Tablet

Maemo consists of system-level software (including Linux kernel), user-level applications and middleware libraries (Maemo API and Hildon User Interface).

Key components of the platform:
  • Linux kernel optimized for TI OMAP architecture
  • system-level libraries (libc, stdc++, openssl, curl)
  • dpkg package manager
  • Gnome Mobile framework
  • Hildon graphical user interface
Maemo system architecture diagram

Maemo platform has a wide range of development tools for tutorials for creating and porting user applications for Internet Tablet OS, which is an optimized Debian Linux distribution for TI OMAP hardware architecture.

Nokia sponsors and direct the platform development. Maemo is used by the following Nokia devices: Nokia 770, Nokia N800, Nokia N810.