webOS booted up on a PC, just for kicks (video)

It's always been possible to run webOS on a PC using the emulator built into Palm's SDK, but it turns out that the OS image used for the emulator can actually be installed on an IDE hard drive and booted from -- which is exactly what one enterprising member of the PreCentral forums did with his Dell C600 laptop. It's not too surprising webOS can do this, since it's built on Linux, but don't get too excited yet; the OS runs in a funky aspect ratio in a small portion of the screen and the lack of a touchscreen means you're stuck using the keyboard to navigate. Still, it's hard not to watch this without visions of webOS running on all manner of HP hardware in the very near future -- a tablet, perhaps? Video after the break.

[Spaceshipped Posted May 16th 2010 11:46PM]

ipad killer.

[Spaceshipped Posted May 17th 2010 2:51AM]

@Eli Haj

Considering the Pre has the same resolution as the iPhone and iPhone apps can scale up to iPad size...that's a great idea.

[SoCoolCurt Posted May 16th 2010 11:47PM]

i wanna see them boot it on WinMo. i would love to rock webOS on my TP2. there has already been a version of linux released for the TP2 so i dont think it's impossible.

[husher Posted May 17th 2010 12:01AM]

its a start to something great

[KupoCheer Posted May 17th 2010 12:26AM]

Why not try it on a touchscreen monitor then?

[StanMe Posted May 17th 2010 12:31AM]

Hack it onto a HP touchsmart or a notebook that has one of those resistive touch displays. Pure epicness.

[dds1043 Posted May 17th 2010 12:50AM]

Finally, I have arrows to play doom on webOS... Wait, they have that on the PC, too?

[GadgetTamer Posted May 17th 2010 2:15AM]

Meh. I was expecting it to instaboot... really kinda slow considering it's a smart phone OS...

[k7of9 Posted May 17th 2010 2:21AM]

Can it run Flash though?

[benchase7 Posted May 17th 2010 2:39AM]

Long Live WebOS!

[jjrp123 Posted May 17th 2010 3:13AM]

Darrnn, I really need this!

[psycros Posted May 17th 2010 3:34AM]

Umm..how the heck did they do this without hacking the WebOS kernal? I wouldn't think Palm would build x86 support into their native build, to say nothing of the drivers. If they did, however..that would suggest they had bigger plans for WebOS than we ever suspected. This would go a long way towards explaining HP's interest in what would be, for all intents, a truly multi-platform OS. If done right it would trump everybody, esp. Microsoft who has forgotten how to create a good desktop OS and is hopeless in the mobile arena.

[Blacklight Posted May 17th 2010 9:35AM]

Dude, learn to read.

They used the image that comes with the SDK, *not* the one that is for the phone, the SDK image has always been x86 because it's meant to run on a virtualizer (VirtualBox), not on an ARM emulator. What they did was take it out of the virtual drive and hack it into a real hard drive.

[donv69 Posted May 17th 2010 9:25AM]

Two new devices need to come out by the end of summer so that Palm and HP don't get laughed at.

And a third one by Thanksgiving for the holiday shopping season. Palm should be dishing out a new device every three months so that carriers can compete with each other.

[Snaek Posted May 17th 2010 10:43AM]

They ported android to the iPhone, how long until we can get webos on there? I'd like to try it out before I decide on a new phone...

[fizix Posted May 17th 2010 11:13AM]

@Snaek

Would be good but a big part of what makes webOS great is its combination with a "Gesture Area"... like on the Pre and Pixi.

This is where webOS shines.

When software and hardware find a way to compliment each other... it's a beautiful thing.