AUTO-CONFIGURATION OF A DOCKED SYSTEM IN A MULTI-OS ENVIRONMENT

• US 20120084480A1
• Filed: 08/24/2011
• Published: 04/05/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/01/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Z124 LLC (Flexis)
• Original Assignee: IMERJ LLC (Flex, Ltd.)
• Inventors: Reeves, Brian, Reeves, Paul, Teltz, Richard, Reeves, David, Sirpal, Sanjiv, Tyghe, Chris, Hancila, Cristian
• Granted Patent: US 9,152,582 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 710/303
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/14 Handling requests for interconnection or transfer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4068 Electrical coupling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4282 on a serial bus, e.g. I2C bus, SPI bus on daisy chain buses G06F13/4247
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4411 Configuring for operating with peripheral devices; Loading of device drivers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4418 Suspend and resume; Hibernate and awake
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44505 Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/541 via adapters, e.g. between incompatible applications

Abstract

A mobile computing device with a mobile operating system and desktop operating system running concurrently and independently on a shared kernel without virtualization. The mobile operating system provides a user experience for the mobile computing device that suits the mobile environment. The desktop operating system provides a full desktop user experience when the mobile computing device is docked to a secondary terminal environment. The mobile computing device configures the mobile operating system and/or the desktop operating system to take advantage of a docked secondary terminal environment. The mobile computing device may be a smartphone running the Android mobile OS and a full desktop Linux OS distribution on a modified Android kernel.

Claims

1. A method for configuring an interface port of a mobile computing device, the mobile computing device running a mobile operating system in a first execution environment on a shared kernel and running a desktop operating system in a second execution environment concurrently on the shared kernel, the method comprising:

detecting a docking event of the mobile computing device with a secondary terminal environment;

determining that a user experience profile of the docked secondary terminal environment is associated with the desktop operating system;

configuring, in response to determining that the user experience profile of the docked secondary terminal environment is associated with the desktop operating system, the desktop operating system to a display of the secondary terminal environment; and

outputting a graphical user interface of the desktop operating system from the interface port.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of configuring the desktop operating system to the display includes associating, by the shared kernel, a frame buffer of the mobile computing device with the desktop operating system, and configuring the frame buffer to a resolution of the display of the secondary terminal environment.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the steps of determining the user experience profile of the secondary terminal environment and configuring the desktop operating system are performed by a desktop monitor service of the mobile operating system.

4. The method of claim 1, further including the step of setting a flag that indicates that the secondary terminal environment has a user experience profile associated with the desktop operating system.

5. The method of claim 1, further including the step of ignoring, by the mobile operating system, input commands from input devices of the secondary terminal environment based on the determining that the secondary terminal environment has a user experience profile associated with the desktop operating system.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining the user experience profile of the secondary terminal environment includes receiving an indicator of the user experience profile of the secondary terminal environment from a dock connector.

7. A computing system, comprising:

a mobile computing device, comprising;

a processor operable to concurrently run a mobile operating system in a first execution environment and a desktop operating system in a second execution environment on a shared kernel; and

an interface port, the interface port operable to connect the mobile computing device to a secondary terminal environment,

wherein the mobile operating system includes a desktop monitor service that monitors the interface port and associates the interface port with one of the mobile operating system or the desktop operating system based on a user experience profile of the secondary terminal environment.

8. The computing system of claim 7, further comprising the secondary terminal environment.

9. The computing system of claim 8, wherein the secondary terminal environment includes a display device, and the interface port includes a display interface port.

10. A method for configuring an interface port of a mobile computing device, the mobile computing device running a mobile operating system in a first execution environment on a shared kernel and running a desktop operating system in a second execution environment concurrently on the shared kernel, the method comprising:

detecting a docking event of the mobile computing device with a secondary terminal environment;

determining that a user experience profile of the secondary terminal environment is associated with the mobile operating system; and

configuring, in response to determining that the user experience profile of the secondary terminal environment is associated with the mobile operating system, the interface port to display a graphical user interface of the mobile operating system on a display of the secondary terminal environment.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the detecting of the docking event is performed by a device driver of the shared kernel.

12. The method of claim 10, further including

instantiating, by a desktop monitoring service of the mobile operating system, a remotable object;

and

calling, by an event listener in the mobile operating system in response to detecting the docking event, the remotable object, the call to the remotable object including a notification of the docking event.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising the step of receiving, in the desktop monitoring service, the call to the remotable object indicating that a docking event has occurred.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the step of configuring the mobile operating system to display the mobile operating system graphical user interface on the display of the secondary terminal environment includes configuring a frame buffer associated with the mobile operating system for a display resolution of the display of the secondary terminal environment.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the step of configuring the interface port to display the mobile operating system graphical user interface on the display of the secondary terminal environment includes deactivating a display and other input devices of the mobile computing device.

16. The method of claim 10, further including configuring applications and tasks running on the mobile operating system for the display of the secondary terminal environment.

17. The method of claim 10, wherein the secondary terminal environment comprises a tablet-style secondary terminal environment.

18. The method of claim 10, wherein the display of the secondary terminal environment comprises a touch-enabled display.

19. A mobile computing device including a computer readable medium storing instructions for a physical processor, the instructions, when executed, causing the processor to perform the method of claim 10.