UPDATE: webOS Ports surprises with TouchPad port, name/logo change, Nexus 4

UPDATE:  This article is intended to bring cutting edge news of the latest goodies from webOS Ports. It caused quite the stir among some of the more webOS faithful out there. Please understand, my generalizations and assumptions are my perception of some handed down information.  Any related weeping and gnashing of teeth should be kept to a minimum.

Yes, you read that right.  There’s a TouchPad “port” of Open webOS coming that shows promise in booting the kernel from the webOS Ports Team (specifically – one of it’s developers).  A quick look at the team’s github page reveals a surprise tenderloin addition. This is nothing to get hopes up about just yet but like all possibilities that webOS fans have to keep our devices around, this one in particular induces quite the salivatory response.  But that’s not all.  They have a new logo, name, and have apparently been testing out the latest builds on the Nexus 4. The team has been a veritable bee-hive of busy bees.

UPDATE: As for the TouchPad port, if there’s anything below alpha level then this is it. So far it’s the work of one developer and it’s only a test.  It might be a promising test but it is still in the pre-natal stages of an idea. So for those of you upset for lack of hard evidence…RE.LAX. 😀

The instructions for booting up the kernel on your TouchPad are not readily available but I’d imagine they aren’t for the “faint of heart”. This mildly-Linux-familiar arm-chair pundit will leave that for the experts but if you’re among the command-line heavyweights, feel free to contact the team.

This does beg the question though, can the port work on any legacy webOS device?  Time will tell.

The other obvious change comes in the name switch.  webOS Nations forum user MudShark22 summed up most of the latest changes and may not have realized it but “spilled the beans” on the OS name change to LuneOS.  I’ll pretend like I didn’t know, ok? I.DIDN’T.KNOW.ALREADY.MONTHS.AGO. 😉  But despite the ulcer that I can neither confirm nor deny I received from holding on to some of the sworn insider secrets that I may or may not have been a “fly on the wall” for…I’m glad the info is out. I have to say that I’m a fan of the new logo as well.  And the name has an obvious connection with the former “LunaSysMgr” (the name of our beloved shell which our legacy devices run) but when the webOS Ports Team rewrote Luna from scratch it became LunaNext.  I for one appreciate the tie-in.

UPDATE:  The team has also been working on builds for the LG Nexus 4. The device may be an add but they have always been pretty device independent since portability has always been the goal. Still it’s nice to see they’ve added more device compatibility.

Well, thank you webOS Ports for pressing things on and I look forward to seeing more and more future progress.  I’ll just keep my old CDMA Galaxy Nexus on standby until then.

#webosforever

Images: https://github.com/webOS-ports, http://www.hdwallpapersbank.com