MeeGo Architecture

MeeGo Architecture

Submitted by Arjan Van De Ven on 11 February, 2010 - 07:51

MeeGo Software Architecture Overview

The MeeGo platform has been carefully created to provide the components necessary for the best device user experience. As shown in the MeeGo Reference Architecture Overview diagram below, the MeeGo architecture is divided into three layers:

• The MeeGo OS Base layer contains the Linux kernel and core services along with the Hardware Adaptation Software required to adapt MeeGo to support various hardware architectures.
• The MeeGo OS Middleware layer provides a hardware and usage model independent API for building both native applications and web run time applications.
• The MeeGo User Experience layer provides reference user experiences for multiple platform segments; the initial MeeGo release will contain reference user experiences for handhelds and netbooks and additional platform segments will be supported over time.

Each of the subsystems and functional blocks are described in the following sections.

MeeGo OS Base

Hardware Adaptation Software

There are multiple software components that a hardware vendor must provide for MeeGo to run successfully on their platform architecture, including platform kernel drivers, core architecture patches, kernel configuration, X software patches and configuration, modem support, and hardware specific media components. You can learn more about the hardware enabling process here.

MeeGo Kernel

MeeGo uses a Linux kernel from kernel.org, with architecture specific configuration and patches (as needed). Drivers are provided for each supported platform.

MeeGo OS Middleware

Comms Services

The Comms Services subsystem provides services to manage voice and data connectivity for the platform. APIs are provided to manage cellular and IP voice and data connectivity across a range of communications technologies, including WiFi, 3G, WiMax, and Bluetooth.

Internet Services

The Internet Services subsystem includes services for rendering web content, providing web run time support, exchanging data with web services, and determining location.

Visual Services

The Visual Services subsystem provides the core 2D and 3D graphics capabilities for the platform, including support for rendering internationalized text and taking advantage of underlying hardware platform acceleration for graphics.

Media Services

The purpose of media services is to provide audio/video playback, streaming and imaging functionality to the system. In general, media services take care of the actual audio/video data handling (retrieval, demuxing, decoding and encoding, seeking, etc.).

Data Management

The Data Management subsystem provides services for extracting and managing file meta-data (for example to support extracting and searching metadata for media files), retrieving data about the device context (such as device position, cable status), and managing the set of installed packages on the device.

Device Services

The Device Services subsystem contains a set of services for managing device state, including everything that is needed to make a device safe to use for a consumer, and exchanging data with the device, sensor data extraction, overall system policy, device data synchronization, and device data backup and restore.

Personal Services

The Personal Services subsystem provides services for managing user data on the device, including personal information management (that is, calendar, contacts, tasks) and managing user accounts to enable single-sign-on for web services.

MeeGo Security Architecture

MeeGo uses a scalable security framework that provides security via role based access control that applies to a wide range of systems, from completely open systems to systems that need to be partially locked down. This is achieved by having a flexible and updatable policy that is enforced by key pieces in the software stack.

MeeGo UI Toolkit

The MeeGo UI toolkit is the primary toolkit for developing MeeGo applications and is based on Qt with specific enhancements and additions. GTK and Clutter are also included for application compatibility.

MeeGo Handheld UX

The MeeGo handheld UX provides a user experience for handheld devices, including the core system user interface and applications which are built on a handheld optimized UI framework. The user experience illustrates the capabilities of the platform and also provides a starting point for building a MeeGo handheld product.

MeeGo Netbook UX

The MeeGo netbook UX provides a user experience for netbook devices, including the core system user interface and applications, which are built on a netbook optimized UI framework. The user experience illustrates the capabilities of the platform and also provides a starting point for building a MeeGo netbook product.