========================================= Genode Labs Newsletter - April / May 2022 ========================================= Content 1. Sculpt OS 22.04 2. Genode OS Framework 22.05 released 3. Second revision of Genode's SoC porting guide 1. Sculpt OS 22.04 ------------------ With the Sculpt OS version 22.04 released end of April, users of our Genode-based general-purpose OS can enjoy completely new drivers for wireless, graphics, and USB. In a major surgery, the new drivers got transplanted from the Linux kernel version 5.14.21 using Genode's unique DDE approach. In contrast to Linux where the drivers are part of the almighty operating-system kernel, Sculpt OS hosts each of the drivers in a dedicated sandbox as plain user-level component. So users can benefit from the broad hardware support of up-to-date Linux drivers without ultimately trusting those staggeringly complex driver stacks. Closely related, the support of hardware-accelerated graphics that we introduced with the previous version 21.10 received substantial optimization and stabilization. With the new version, Sculpt users can not only run native OpenGL applications but can even go as far as using hardware-accelerated graphics via guest operating systems hosted within VirtualBox on top of Sculpt OS. Besides the hardware-related improvements, the new version equips the user with additional means to exercise control over the deployed software: A new optional component called black hole can now be used as placeholder for various system resources when deploying an application. For example, a virtual machine can be shielded from the network by connecting its network traffic to the black hole. This also works for audio, video capturing, USB, and other commonly used system resources. Sculpt OS 22.04 is available as ready-to-use system image: https://genode.org/download/sculpt https://genode.org/documentation/articles/sculpt-22-04 (documentation) 2. Genode OS Framework 22.05 released ------------------------------------- The lineup of new PC device drivers mentioned above is one of the highlights of the just released Genode version 22.05. The revamped drivers not only bring the modern feature set of the respective Linux subsystems to Genode, but they also validate the efficiency of our new porting approach. The main spotlight of the current release, however, is the new support for WireGuard-based virtual private networks as a dedicated native Genode component. Thereby, easy-to-use state-of-the-art network security becomes available to Genode/Sculpt OS users. With the vision of a Genode-based smartphone being a recurring topic throughout the year, we are happy to report that Genode gained the principle ability to issue and receive voice calls with the PinePhone. Besides those prominent topics, the release comes with numerous framework improvements, reaching from a forthcoming new PC platform driver, over performance optimizations and usability refinements, to dynamic device management on FPGA-based Xilinx Zynq devices. The complete picture is presented in the official documentation: https://genode.org/documentation/release-notes/22.05 3. Second revision of Genode's SoC porting guide ------------------------------------------------ One year ago, we announced the first version of the Genode Platforms document, describing the process of porting Genode to a new hardware platform by taking the PinePhone as concrete example. Over the past year, we continued documenting this journey in the form of our Pine Fun article series at https://genodians.org. We have now condensed the gathered material into the second revision of the document. https://genode.org/documentation/genode-platforms-22-05.pdf Compared to the first version that was mostly concerned with kernel and bare-bones user-level topics, the new content is focused on the complexities of driving the device hardware of modern SoCs, ranging from low-level pin controls, over networking, up to driving sophisticated devices like the display and touch screen. For the latter, the ability of reusing device drivers from the Linux kernel plays a crucial role. Hence, the guide presents Genode's practical methodology and tooling behind the black art of transplanting and reanimating unmodified Linux kernel code into Genode components. Along the way, there are countless little tips and tricks that help to turn low-level grunt work into a fun and worthwhile experience. If you ever wondered how to make sense of highly-complex ARM SoCs without accurate public documentation, what it takes to bring a modern microkernel from one SoC to another, how to transplant and re-animate individual Linux kernel subsystems into sandboxed user-level components, or how to craft a custom bare-bones operating system out of Genode's components, the new revision of the Genode Platforms document is for you! About the newsletter -------------------- If you have friends or colleagues who might be interested in our projects, we would appreciate you to forward this email. If you received this newsletter as a forwarded email, you may subscribe to the newsletter here: https://genode-labs.com/newsletter In the case of receiving this newsletter unintended, you can cancel your subscription at any time by replying to this email with the subject set to "unsubscribe". Best regards -- Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske Genode Labs https://www.genode-labs.com/ · https://genode.org/ https://twitter.com/GenodeLabs · /ˈdʒiː.nəʊd/ Genode Labs GmbH · Amtsgericht Dresden · HRB 28424 · Sitz Dresden Geschäftsführer: Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske, Christian Helmuth
