Mozilla is gearing up for the launch of its Firefox OS. Naturally, the
mobile community seems very curious to see just what this new OS will
bring to the table, and developers are already building apps and testing
it out as they have access to development devices like the Keon and
Peak. But they're not the only ones who can use it. There's a simple way
to get your own hands-on demo of the new mobile OS before it makes it
to the commercial space. We demonstrate how you to use the OS from
within the Firefox browser itself.
Firefox OS is a Linux-based operating system for smartphones and tablets. It has been under development for a few years now. It is designed to allow HTML5 applications
to integrate directly with the device’s hardware using JavaScript, and
it has been tested on Android-compatible smartphones and Raspberry Pi.
There's no way to install it on your phone right now, but you can get a
feel of it by using a simulator on your desktop PC.
The operating system
is based on three major software layers within—Gonk (the Linux kernel),
Gecko (the application runtime) and Gaia (the user interface). Firefox
OS is still being tested and developed until the launch date and the
desktop build is code-named Boot2Gecko (B2G). It is available on all the
major PC platforms— Windows, Mac and Linux. But that's enough
description for one article; read on to get to the emulator part. All
you need to get the operating system running on your desktop PC is the
Firefox browser extension and, of course, the browser itself. The
procedure is similar to all operating system platforms.Let’s get
started.
Follow the Steps Below to Simulate Firefox OS on your PC:
1. Download and install Mozilla Firefox if you don’t have it on
your PC. The present version is 25.0 for Windows and you can download it
by visiting this website.
2. Next, you will need the simulator extension. Visit Firefox OS Simulator
and download the appropriate file for your operating system. The file
is around 67 MB in size and will be downloaded with the extension '.XPI'.
3. Download the fi le and save it to your desktop. Start Firefox and click on "Tools" and then on "Add-ons". In the tab that will now open up, click on the settings icon on the top right, beneath the search bar. Next, click on "Install Add-on from File".
Browse to the desktop, select the .xpi fi le you just downloaded and
click on "Open". In the next dialogue box, click on the "Install"
button; the Extension will be added in a few seconds. You can install
add-ons using the drag-n-drop method too. Simply open Firefox, drag the
.xpi fi le into the browser window and Firefox will automatically
install it. Restart Firefox if asked to.
That's it! Your system is now ready to simulate Firefox OS within
Firefox. Click on "Tools", then on "Web Developer" and fi nally on
"Firefox OS Simulator". A new tab will open; there will be a simulator
button on the left column and you'll see a highlight that it is
currently stopped. Click on the icon to start it and a new window will
pop up with the smartphone operating system run inside the simulator.
Have fun checking out the new OS and see what is new. You can play
around with the user interface, see what the settings are like and even
install new apps by downloading them from the Firefox Marketplace. Keep
in mind that the OS is still under development and it won't run
perfectly. It is an experimental prototype and hence is a bit buggy.
Enjoy.......
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