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Project News for Genode OS Framework

  • Genode OS Framework release 13.02

    The February 2013 release follows the tradition to focus on platform support at the beginning of a year. So, we improved the support for the NOVA microhypervisor (dynamic workloads, IOMMU, x86 virtualization) and extended the range of supported ARM SOCs (i.MX53, Exynos 5250). Additionally, several aspects of the framework were revised and conditioned for future challenges (synchronization primitives, low-latency audio, fault detection).

    All the details about Genode 13.02 can be found in the release notes at http://genode.org/documentation/release-notes/13.02

    2013-02-28 03:13:04 PST by chelmuth

  • Genode OS Framework release 12.11

    The Genode developers are celebrating the self-hosting of their genuine operating system environment with a fresh release. On the bill are also OSS-based sound drivers, extended support for the TI OMAP4 and Freescale i.MX SoCs, and numerous stability and performance improvements concerning the underlying kernel platforms.

    The most notable improvement from the perspective of a Genode developer is the ability to build Genode within the Genode environment leaving aside any virtualization. Therefore, we extended our UNIX-runtime environment named Noux to fit the requirements of a lot of tools involved in the build process (e.g., GCC, binutils, bash, and findutils). Furthermore, we extensively improved the support for OMAP4 SoC used in the famous Pandaboard. An accompanying article telling the adventure can be found here http://genode.org/documentation/articles/pandaboard.

    On Linux, Genode now comes with a largely revisited platform support, which brings additional value when considering the implementation of a component-based system. Genode provides an API for inter-component communication but also solves tricky problems concerning the composition of components.

    More details about Genode 12.11 can be found in the extensive release notes at http://genode.org/documentation/release-notes/12.11

    2012-11-29 06:37:51 PST by chelmuth

  • Genode OS Framework release 12.08

    On its 4th anniversary Genode brings enhanced platform support for ARM and the NOVA microhypervisor. Also, Genode is now able to run directly on ARM platforms without the need for an underlying kernel.

    The current release introduces the new base-hw platform, which enables Genode to run directly on ARM Cortex-A9 platforms. The new hybrid kernel-core approach vastly reduces the complexity of the root of the process tree to about 13,000 lines of code with highly positive impact on security and robustness. Furthermore, the support for NOVA experienced an extensive improvement. Genode/NOVA now runs on x86 32bit and 64bit platforms, utilizes kernel capabilities for object-integrity protection, and centralizes kernel-resource allocation in core. Additionally, enhanced OMAP4 SoC support, VFAT and TAR file-system support, Noux runtime improvements and the port of the lighttp web server complete this release.

    Learn more about Genode 12.08 in the release notes at http://genode.org/documentation/release-notes/12.08

    2012-08-23 01:23:21 PDT by chelmuth

  • Genode OS Framework release 12.05

    Genode walks the road mapped for 2012 and brings a release packed with features, e.g., native execution of the tool chain (GCC, G++, Binutils), a new USB stack, and media replay capabilities.

    The release follows our road map and introduces three major features. First, the Noux runtime is growing and thriving. It supports a growing number of unmodified GNU programs, most notably the Genode tool chain. Furthermore, we added support of stacked file systems and networking. Second, we fundamentally re-approach the challenge of device drivers and ported a new USB stack from Linux 3.2 to Genode. Finally, Genode 12.05 adds a native file-system session interface and first implementation of an in-memory file system. The new interface is already integrated in Noux and the C runtime.

    Learn more about Genode 12.05 in the release notes at http://genode.org/documentation/release-notes/12.05

    2012-05-30 02:52:24 PDT by chelmuth

  • Genode OS Framework release 12.02

    The current release marks the first step in our open development process. It brings fork support in Noux, ACPI support, and base framework improvements.

    At the turn of the year 2011/12, we changed Genode's development process from a Genode Labs internally driven model to a completely open process. The new approach involves the community into more design, operational, and even strategic discussions. The first step was the issue-tracker migration from Sourceforge to GitHub. After that we migrated the source code from Genode-Labs-internal Mercurial repositories to a public Git repository also hosted on GitHub. From now on, https://github.com/genodelabs/genode reflects the current state of development of the official Genode repository and is accompanied by several public forks with feature branches of Genode developers on GitHub. Nonetheless, we will release quarterly on Sourceforge via Subversion and archive files in the future.

    The most notable feature of this release is the evolution of our Unix emulation environment Noux. It now supports the essential fork() mechanism enabling users to finally benefit from our port of Bash. We also added a native port of the MuPDF viewer to our application portfolio. With these features and all other improvements of the current release, we are well on our path to turn Genode into an every-day-use OS.

    Read on about these and all additional changes in more detail in the release notes at http://genode.org/documentation/release-notes/12.02

    2012-02-28 03:16:17 PST by chelmuth