We'll see if it reaches bare metal some time, instead of relying on QEMU(on Ubuntu).
In theory I'd be tempted to try, in practice not, because of all the back and forth between changing owners in the past, and resulting policies regarding availability.
I'm also very well served by some 'gaming distro', where nothing ever stutters or lags, on almost obsolete hardware, mostly clocked down to 800Mhz, with uptimes of up to 150 days. More isn't really useful anyways, because of updates.
But hey, Wayland! On QNX! With XFCE on top of that! Who would have thought?
What about photonic Plasma instead of some Generic ToolKit?
> We'll see if it reaches bare metal some time, instead of relying on QEMU
You can already get a free license for QNX and grab a BSP (board support package) to create a bare metal image. You have been able to for quite a while. People who understand how a computer works, what a device driver is and how and when to use one, are not the target for this demo. It's targeted at the people who think the user interface is the software and the desktop GUI is the operating system.
Marketing looks nice, but why do they make it so hard to build trust? If it's a software focused on developers it's really important to establish trust.
The page on https://devblog.qnx.com/about/ does not show what kind of company it is, who is behind it, and where they are located. Should I expect backdoors? Is it an elaborate front by north korea? Who will be able to remotely execute code on this operating system?
It's nearly 2026 and fake job applications by nation-state threat actors are common. If a new open source project with shiny marketing pops up it would really help if there is some proof that the org behind it consists of humans living in democratic countries.
Edit: The about page links to https://qnx.software/en which only shows a black screen for me.
I've only ever used QNX in the form of Blackberry products (mostly the Playbook), so I am afraid I don't what the advantages of it would be compared to Linux or something.
I know it's a microkernel which is inherently cool to me, but I don't know what else it buys you.
Can anyone here give me a high-level overview of why QNX is cool?
I always liked their original UI - Photon[1][2]. Very lightweight and fast. Also a distinct and consistent style. I understand why they dropped it in favor of Qt and later Web technologies, but it's still a big loss.
Indeed. QNX is the coolest OS I ever seen and Photon felt the coolest desktop environment. Although I like XFCE in the Linux context (more than e.g. GNOME), I am sad to see it replaced Photon on QNX. Photon just looked and felt so lovely and came with a visual C++ builder making GUI apps development so nice.
> I understand why they dropped [Photon] in favor of Qt and later Web technologies
The arrows of time branch and spiral, so it's possible that "later" could require some properties of "earlier".
If Photon could not be open-sourced, it could be licensed to a third party for custodian maintenance. If QNX is abandoning Photon forever, would Blackberry object to Photon being cloned for Linux or FreeBSD? That could preserve a future option for QNX to use it again, like XFCE.
Enthusiasts still use Blackberry keyboards on handheld devices in 2025, which sell out in minutes. In a parallel universe, Blackberry.com offers embedded SBC developers self-service purchase and global delivery of the legendary Blackberry keyboard, with Bluetooth for convenience or USB-c for security.
Glad to see QNX still progressing. I worked there as an intern twice in Ottawa and they're pretty damn good. Great place to work imo. I met some of the kernel devs there. Had the priviledge of working with one and he taught and demoed some of the kernel features to me. They gave us interns a full summer course on kernels, C programming, OS and some hardware. Fun times.
We still do that! In fact, the _QNX From The Board Up_ series on the developer blog is a small rip from that training content, adapted by Mr Brown. I hope we'll get all of it out there for everyone to benefit from in 2026 :)
It's not a hard-running race. PREEMPT_RT is soft realtime and if you rely on it for your brakes you're going to crash. AGL has not yet produced any kind of usable system that can be certified for functional safety under ISO 26262 or IEC 61508. Just a core kernel with no drivers.
We run into a lot of OEMs who switch to Linux because of AGL and come crawling back to QNX many expensive months later to start over with a viable solution so they can deliver.
As someone who still uses a QNX phone, the Blackberry Q10 as my second phone, I’m not just optimistic for the return of the cross-platform and secure os, I’m rooting for it.
Especially for portable Linux handhelds.
If Blackberry were to release a phone tomorrow, it would instantly be the most secure android phone. I still run some of my favourite android apps on my BB10os via the android translation layer.
Some comments mentioning QNX can run Swift code makes me think of it could also run iPhone apps.
While Blackberry exited the phone market, I’m surprised to know QNX is still the most popular os for cars. With 275 million devices running it atm.
I learned C on QNX (back then, it booted from a floppy on a PC/XT). It was a nice little Unix-like OS, with all the things you'd expect from a nice little Unix-like OS, plus a reputation of being rock-solid like nothing else.
I think it's a real shame Blackberry didn't manage to etch a third (or fourth - I also loved Palm's WebOS) niche for their QNX-based phones. Blackbberry 10 was an amazing mobile OS.
100% this. I had a Passport and it was one of the single lovelist phones I've ever had.
Compared to my Nokia 7710, the last device with the original Psion UI... that was an elegant touchscreen, plus physical buttons, and a replaceable battery, but that was about it.
Compared to my Nokia E90 Communicator...
The keyboard was even better; it charged off a standard MicroUSB port, and had a standard headphone jack; it had way more apps, because it ran Android ones pretty well.
Compared to any Android phone... Vastly unrecognisably better messaging app, with one inbox for all messages and notifications. Square screen so no fighting portrait vs. landscape. Physical keyboard for much more accurate typing -- and scrolling. Google-free.
Supposedly QNX is used by many car infotainment systems. A hard realtime OS for infotainment? What is the purpose? There are costs associated with using something like QNX. I can understand if you needed to control drivetain with it, but for infotainment why not just use Linux?
A bit dissapointed by this. You have to create an account, get a license, deploy it and then you get a fucking download manager just for linux and windows to download who knows what that should run on qemu. Why not just give a link to a qemu image with a script that runs it?
49 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 62.0 ms ] threadIn theory I'd be tempted to try, in practice not, because of all the back and forth between changing owners in the past, and resulting policies regarding availability.
I'm also very well served by some 'gaming distro', where nothing ever stutters or lags, on almost obsolete hardware, mostly clocked down to 800Mhz, with uptimes of up to 150 days. More isn't really useful anyways, because of updates.
But hey, Wayland! On QNX! With XFCE on top of that! Who would have thought?
What about photonic Plasma instead of some Generic ToolKit?
You can already get a free license for QNX and grab a BSP (board support package) to create a bare metal image. You have been able to for quite a while. People who understand how a computer works, what a device driver is and how and when to use one, are not the target for this demo. It's targeted at the people who think the user interface is the software and the desktop GUI is the operating system.
The page on https://devblog.qnx.com/about/ does not show what kind of company it is, who is behind it, and where they are located. Should I expect backdoors? Is it an elaborate front by north korea? Who will be able to remotely execute code on this operating system?
It's nearly 2026 and fake job applications by nation-state threat actors are common. If a new open source project with shiny marketing pops up it would really help if there is some proof that the org behind it consists of humans living in democratic countries.
Edit: The about page links to https://qnx.software/en which only shows a black screen for me.
I know it's a microkernel which is inherently cool to me, but I don't know what else it buys you.
Can anyone here give me a high-level overview of why QNX is cool?
[1] https://www.qnx.com/developers/docs/6.5.0SP1.update/com.qnx....
[2] https://www.mikecramer.com/qnx/momentics_nc_docs/photon/prog...
[1] https://www.wincustomize.com/explore/litestep/6/
[2] https://www.wincustomize.com/explore/litestep/292/
The arrows of time branch and spiral, so it's possible that "later" could require some properties of "earlier".
If Photon could not be open-sourced, it could be licensed to a third party for custodian maintenance. If QNX is abandoning Photon forever, would Blackberry object to Photon being cloned for Linux or FreeBSD? That could preserve a future option for QNX to use it again, like XFCE.
Enthusiasts still use Blackberry keyboards on handheld devices in 2025, which sell out in minutes. In a parallel universe, Blackberry.com offers embedded SBC developers self-service purchase and global delivery of the legendary Blackberry keyboard, with Bluetooth for convenience or USB-c for security.
https://github.com/swiftlang/swift-testing/issues/868
We run into a lot of OEMs who switch to Linux because of AGL and come crawling back to QNX many expensive months later to start over with a viable solution so they can deliver.
Some comments mentioning QNX can run Swift code makes me think of it could also run iPhone apps.
While Blackberry exited the phone market, I’m surprised to know QNX is still the most popular os for cars. With 275 million devices running it atm.
QNX will shift focus in a year or two.
I think it's a real shame Blackberry didn't manage to etch a third (or fourth - I also loved Palm's WebOS) niche for their QNX-based phones. Blackbberry 10 was an amazing mobile OS.
100% this. I had a Passport and it was one of the single lovelist phones I've ever had.
Compared to my Nokia 7710, the last device with the original Psion UI... that was an elegant touchscreen, plus physical buttons, and a replaceable battery, but that was about it.
Compared to my Nokia E90 Communicator...
The keyboard was even better; it charged off a standard MicroUSB port, and had a standard headphone jack; it had way more apps, because it ran Android ones pretty well.
Compared to any Android phone... Vastly unrecognisably better messaging app, with one inbox for all messages and notifications. Square screen so no fighting portrait vs. landscape. Physical keyboard for much more accurate typing -- and scrolling. Google-free.
I would still love one, but I don't think I could move it to my own Blackberry account at this point in time.
Initially the actual implementation didn't match the conceptual framework, but by version 1.2 they had really cleaned things up.