Webkit everywhere
Mozilla Foundation's Gecko used to be "the" choice for embedding a HTML renderer into any application. Having the very popular Firefox web browser as its main success case, the Gecko engine seems to provide quite efficient web content rendering times. However, what the KDE project started as their own web content rendering engine (KHTML and friends) was transformed by Apple into Webkit, the engine used in their Safari web browser.
After porting Safari (and also Webkit, consequently) to Windows, it is pretty clear that the engine released by Apple is actually extremely portable. Additionally, Alp Toker just showed in Bossa Conference 2008 that Webkit's performance is excellent, while also keeping a small memory footprint.
Web 2.0-ready
Toker stressed the point of asynchronous operation support, that must be available in future mobile devices. It is really a requirement, because users should be able to close (or lose) their connections at any time and keep working on the web apps they were using, eventually re-syncing when connection is restablished.
Webkit can play HTML5 videos without any proprietary plug-ins, with GStreamer. Also, it can reverse the current concept of GUIs with small web portions, into full GUIs designed with HTML5 forms. These GUIs would look exactly like the graphics toolkit used, as Alp showed in his speak at the event, with "perfectly native widget styling".
Webkit is still under heavy development – which isn't all bad news. It has been experiencing a lot of "project-wide refactoring", which is currently encouraged, according to the developer. Among its not-so-usual ports are OpenMoko – quite a recurring word in this edition of Bossa Conference – and, tentatively, the OLPC and the iLiad e-paper.
Issue 39: Getting Started with Linux – /Special Editions
Buy this issue as a PDF
News
-
Microsoft Brings procmon to Linux
The creators of Windows have brought the sysinternals procmon tool to the open source operating system.
-
New KDE Slimbook Available
The makers of the KDE Slimbook have released a Ryzen-4000 powered laptop.
-
PinePhone Now Offers a Convergence Package
The makers of the Linux PinePhone are now offering a model that makes desktop/mobile convergence a reality.
-
Flutter is Coming to Linux
Google and Canonical have joined forces to bring Flutter to the Linux desktop.
-
Purism Launches a Mini PC
The makers of the Librem line of Linux-based laptops have released a mini PC.
-
openSUSE Leap 15.2 Adds AI Machine Learning
With the new release of openSUSE Leap comes some exciting new features, including machine learning.
-
Google’s Nearby Sharing Could Work with Linux
Google’s answer to Apple’s AirDrop feature is rumored to work with the Linux desktop.
-
System76 Launches Ryzen-Powered Laptop
The new System76 Serval WS includes a powerful AMD Ryzen CPU.
-
Linux Mint Drops Snap
Linux Mint has officially dropped their support for Canonical’s snap packages.
-
Lenovo Upping Their Linux Support
Lenovo is now offering full certification and Linux preinstalled hardware.