Genode OS Framework release 24.11 Nov 22, 2024With mirrored and panoramic multi-monitor setups, pointer grabbing, atomic blitting and panning, and panel-self-refresh support, Genode's GUI stack gets ready for the next decade. Hardware-wise, version 24.11 brings a massive driver update for the i.MX SoC family. As a special highlight, the release is accompanied by the first edition of the free book "Genode Applications" as a gateway for application developers into Genode. Closing up the Year of Sculpt OS usability as the theme of our road map for 2024, we are excited to unveil the results of two intense lines of usability-concerned work with the release of Genode 24.11. For the usability of the Genode-based Sculpt OS as day-to-day operating system, the support of multi-monitor setups has been an unmet desire for a long time. Genode 24.11 does not only deliver a solution as a singular feature but improves the entire GUI stack in a holistic way, addressing panel self-refresh, mechanisms needed to overcome tearing artifacts, rigid resource partitioning between GUI applications, up to pointer-grabbing support. The second line of work addresses the usability of application development for Genode and Sculpt OS in particular. Over the course of the year, our Goa SDK has seen a succession of improvements that make the development, porting, debugging, and publishing of software a breeze. Still, given Genode's novelties, the learning curve to get started has remained challenging. Our new book "Genode Applications" is intended as a gateway into the world of Genode for those of us who enjoy dwelling in architectural beauty but foremost want to get things done. It features introductory material, explains fundamental concepts and components, and invites the reader on to a ride through a series of beginner-friendly as well as advanced tutorials. The book can be downloaded for free at https://genode.org. Regarding hardware support, our work during the release cycle was hugely motivated by the prospect of bringing Genode to the MNT Pocket Reform laptop, which is based on the NXP i.MX8MP SoC. Along this way, we upgraded all Linux-based i.MX drivers to kernel version 6.6 while consolidating a variety of vendor kernels, equipped our platform driver with watchdog support, and added board support for this platform to Sculpt OS. You can find these among more topics covered in the detailed release documentation of version 24.11... Sculpt OS release 24.10 Oct 30, 2024Thanks to a largely revamped GUI stack, the Genode-based Sculpt OS 24.10 has gained profound support for multi-monitor setups. Among the many usability-related topics on our road map, multi-monitor support is certainly the most anticipated feature. It motivated a holistic modernization of Genode's GUI stack over several months, encompassing drivers, the GUI multiplexer, inter-component interfaces, up to widget toolkits. Sculpt OS 24.10 combines these new foundations with a convenient user interface for controlling monitor modes, making brightness adjustments, and setting up mirrored and panoramic monitor configurations. Besides this main theme, version 24.10 benefits from the advancements of the Genode OS Framework over the past six months: compatibility with Qt6, drivers ported from the Linux kernel version 6.6.47, and comprehensive debugging support for the Goa SDK. Sculpt OS 24.10 is available as ready-to-use system image for PC hardware, the PinePhone, and the MNT Reform laptop at the Sculpt download page accompanied with updated documentation. Genode OS Framework release 24.08 Aug 29, 2024Genode 24.08 introduces the Qt6 application framework, updates all Linux-based components and PC device drivers to Linux version 6.6.47, equips the Goa SDK with remote debugging support, modernizes the base and GUI interfaces of the framework, extends the board support for i.MX-based devices, and explores AVX on x86. The highlights of Genode 24.08 are the addition of the Qt6 application framework in addition to the time-tested Qt5 and the major update of all Linux-based components and PC device drivers. So Genode users can enjoy current-generation commodity software and drivers across all kernels supported by the framework. For developers, the new combination of Genode's recent advances in on-target debugging with the Goa SDK enables seamless remote debugging. Regarding hardware support, the new version broadens the driver landscape for NXP i.MX-based devices, paving the way for Sculpt OS on the MNT Pocket Reform open-source hardware laptop. For the full picture, please refer to the release documentation of version 24.08... New community forum at Discourse Aug 13, 2024Our new community forum is organized by Genode users to share ideas and experiences, help newcomers, and discuss Genode-related projects. The new forum complements the existing mailing list and issue tracker with a place for casual conversation among newcomers, seasoned users, and developers. https://genode.discourse.group As the forum is a place for users, it is moderated by users. Thanks a lot to Spencer and Cedric for constituting the initial moderation team! Meet us at FroSCon during August 17-18 Jul 30, 2024The Genode project will host a booth at this year's Free and Open-Source Software Conference in Sankt Augustin. Besides FOSDEM, public appearances of Genode are rather rare. All the more delighted we are about the opportunity to host a booth at the upcoming FrOScon conference. FrOScon Free and Open-Source Software Conference August 18 and 17 in Sankt Augustin The Genode stand will be maintained by the Genode team members Stefan Kalkowski, Johannes Schlatow, Christian Helmuth, and Norman Feske. It goes without saying that we will have Sculpt OS in various forms and flavors with us to showcase. Whether you like to get acquainted with our project or touch base with us developers in person, FrOScon might present the perfect opportunity! Genode OS Framework release 24.05 May 30, 2024The highlights of Genode 24.05 are the new ability to run Sculpt OS on our custom kernel, GDB on Sculpt OS, suspend/resume, the redesign of the framework's USB infrastructure, and the completed transition to the new audio interfaces. The release is accompanied with the annual update of the "Genode Foundations" book. With Genode 24.05, the underpinnings of the many usability improvements of the latest Sculpt OS release found their way into the framework. Among them are a completely redesigned USB infrastructure that allows for fine-grained and dynamic assignment of USB devices to components and virtual machines, the consistent use of the audio facilities introduced in February, and the driver life-cycle management for suspend/resume. Beside those usability-related topics, two mile-stone achievements stand out. First, we have realized our long-time vision of running Sculpt OS on our custom kernel specifically designed for Genode. With Intel virtualization support, the release delivers the final missing piece of this puzzle. Second, our long-hedged dream of natural on-target debugging via the GNU debugger running directly on Sculpt OS has become true. This feature, which has been in the works for more than a year, enables Sculpt OS users to leverage GDB for the development of applications, services, and even device drivers. The release is accompanied by a new version of the "Genode Foundations" book, which is the go-to documentation of the framework. Further topics of the current release range from timing and network-throughput optimizations, over updated 3rd-party software like Mesa, libSDL2, and cURL, to developer tooling. Find these among many more topics covered in the detailed release documentation of version 24.05... Sculpt OS release 24.04 Apr 26, 2024Sculpt OS 24.04 is rich of new user-visible features. It now supports 4K displays and I2C touchpads out of the box, brings experimental support for suspend/resume, allows the fine-grained assignment of USB devices to applications and VMs, and introduces new audio-mixing capabilities. The release of version 24.04 adheres to our declared focus on Sculpt OS usability during this year. Seasoned users will immediately recognize the new power of the component-management UI, offering easy control over optional features, software providers, and software installation. Among many little user-interface improvements, the component graph and configuration interface have become scrollable, boosting the interactive user experience. When looking closely at the components, users will recognize a whole new set of drivers neatly grouped under hardware. In contrast to earlier versions, which operated these drivers hidden from the user, the new version manages the drivers dynamically and fully transparent for the user. The change makes the user interface more logical and simpler. However, the driving force behind this approach was our aspired support for suspend/resume, which requires the dynamic life-cycle management of drivers. This brings us to the technical highlight of the release: After on-and-off development for more than a year, we are more than happy offering suspend/resume as an experimental feature. As culmination of a second long-term development, version 24.04 employs a new and much more flexible interplay between the USB-host driver and components accessing USB devices. The dynamic assignment of devices to virtual machines and other components has become a breeze. Just in time for the release, Sculpt OS has received a completely overhauled audio stack that supports pluggable drivers, arbitrary sample rates, and the flexible routing and mixing of audio signals. We are eager to stress and refine the taken approach over the upcoming release cycle to make low-latency audio a commodity on Sculpt OS. Thanks to our routine with running Sculpt OS on modern laptops day to day, version 24.04 bumps the range of supported hardware. Displays up to 4K are supported out of the box now, and touchpads of laptops like the Gen13 Framework have become operational. Speaking of developers, the release offers two bold new features targeted at this specific demography, namely the support for on-target debugging via GDB, and the ability to use Sculpt OS as a remote test target of Genode's Goa SDK. Look out for more information about these features in the upcoming weeks at https://genodians.org. Sculpt OS 24.04 is available as ready-to-use system image at the Sculpt download page accompanied with updated documentation. Genode OS Framework release 24.02 Feb 29, 2024Version 24.02 revisits Genode's audio support for latency-sensitive scenarios, flexible sample rates, and pluggable drivers. It also introduces the new ability of the Goa SDK to use Sculpt OS as remote test target, comes with a new TCP/IP stack based on Linux 6.1.20, makes drivers aware of suspend/resume, and improves HID event handling. Genode 24.02 kicks off the year with a profound redesign of the framework's audio infrastructure, addressing the routing and mixing of multi-channel audio streams at flexible sample rates, the dynamic starting and removal of audio sources and sinks, and latency optimization. Besides audio, the second infrastructural rework is a new TCP/IP stack based on DDE-Linux 6.1.20. It wraps up our long-year transition from a fairly fragmented landscape of ported driver code to the consistent use of our modern Linux device-driver environment across all Linux-based drivers and protocol stacks. The feature highlight of the release is the new ability of using Sculpt OS as a remote test target for the Goa SDK during application development. Thanks to this new feature, Genode applications can be developed and tested in a quick and uniform way, whether testing directly on a Linux-based development environment, or on a Sculpt PC reachable via a local network, or a PinePhone connected to the same wireless access point. Further highlights of the release are the versatile handling of human-interface devices including the calibration of motion events, the use of Vivante GPUs by multiple clients, and the driver-related preparatory steps needed for implementing suspend/resume for Sculpt OS. You can find the changes presented in full detail in the release documentation of version 24.02... Road Map for 2024 Jan 18, 2024After intensively concentrating on deeply technical topics below the surface in 2023, we are going to reap user-visible rewards in 2024 by focussing on Sculpt OS usability. Thanks to the input gathered from our annual road-map discussion on Genode's mailing list, we have updated the project road map for 2024. Without hesitation, our developer community quickly rallied behind the topic "Sculpt OS usability", desiring to boost the user experience with respect to multi-monitor usage, convenient interactive UIs for common tasks, profound support for touchpads and touchscreens, tearing-free graphics, low-latency audio, casual on-target debugging, and suspend/resume. The focus on usability notwithstanding, we will steadily continue with the gardening of Genode's driver landscape, fostering the consistent use of drivers ported from up-to-date Linux kernels, clear-cut ACPI support, and making drivers pluggable. In 2024, we will also promote Genode's custom (base-hw) microkernel to become the default kernel for Sculpt OS, which is the culmination of a multi-year effort. Please find our reflection of the past year and the complete plan for 2024 presented on Genode's official road-map page. |
