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Test drive Boot to Gecko (B2G) in Firefox

Simulator gives you a feel for where the B2G project is headed.
Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Contributing Writer

Tired of Windows 8 and iPad 3 coverage? Here's something that might soothe your soul. It's a live web-based demo of Mozilla's Boot to Gecko (B2G) operating system.

What is B2G? It's an operating system being developed by Mozilla that the company hopes to get onto smartphones and tablets to rival the likes of Android and iOS. B2G is based on the Linux kernel and includes drivers from Android, but on top of that is the same Gecko layout engine that powers the Firefox browser. The main advantage of the OS being powered by Gecko is that developers can write apps using noting more than HTML, JavaScript and CSS.

Want to see B2G in action? Well, head fire up your copy of Firefox (yes, you need Firefox, and preferably a nightly build) and head over to Mozilla engineer Paul Rouget's website where you will find the simulator.

The simulator is pretty nifty actually. Of course, it's quite limited in places and you can't do everything with it, but on the whole it's very neat. If nothing else, it gives you a feel for where the B2G project is headed.

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