Genode Archive
For more than a decade, we have a port of the curl library for Genode available. With the use of Sculpt OS as a daily driver as well as the plan to run Goa natively on Sculpt OS by the end of the year, the itch to also port the curl command-line tool became irresistible. Of course this is a perfect territory for using Goa. In this article, I will share the process of porting the curl command-line tool and shared library in order to guide future porting efforts of other projects. ↫ Johannes Schlatow A detailed, step-by-step retelling of porting the curl command-line tool and associated libraries to Genode/Sculpt OS. Articles like these are invaluable to anyone trying to port things to Genode and Sculpt OS, as it points to some directions you can explore when encountering errors and hurdles of your own.
The prime feature is the continuation of the multi-monitor topic of the previous release, covering multi-monitor window management and going as far as seamlessly integrating multi-monitor virtual machines (Section Multi-monitor window management and virtual machines). The second and long anticipated feature is the Chromium engine version 112 in combination with Qt 6.6.2, which brings our port of the Falkon web browser on par with the modern web (Section Qt, WebEngine, and Falkon browser). On the account of exploratory activities, we are happy to report that Qemu can now be used directly on Genode (Section Qemu on Genode). ↫ Genode release notes Another incredibly impressive set of improvements to Genode, which will benefit Sculpt OS, too of course. Aside from the improvements mentioned above, there’s also new support for Intel’s Meteor Lake and embedded F&S MX8MP armStone boards, improvements to USB and audio, and much more.
We talk about the Genode project and Sculpt OS quite regularly on OSNews, but every time I’ve tried using Sculpt OS, I’ve always found it so different and so unique compared to everything else that I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. I assume this stems from nothing but my own shortcomings, because the Genode project often hammers on the fact that Sculpt OS is in daily-driver use by a lot of people within and without the project, so there must be something here just not clicking for me. Well, it seems I’m actually not the only one with difficulties getting started with Sculpt OS’ unique structure and interface, because Norman Feske, co-founder of Genode Labs, has published a lengthy, detailed, but very interesting and easy to follow screencast explaining exactly how to use Sculpt OS and its unique features and characteristics. Even though Sculpt OS has been in routine daily use for years now, many outside observers still tend to perceive it as fairly obscure because it does not follow the usual preconceptions of a consumer-oriented operating system. Extensive documentation exists, but it leaves a fairly technical impression at a cursory glance, which may scare some people away. The screencast below aims at making the system a little bit more approachable. It walks you through the steps of downloading, installing, booting the system image, navigating the administrative user interface, and interactively extending and customizing the system. The tour is wrapped up with the steps for creating your personal sculpted OS on a bootable USB stick. ↫ Norman Feske After watching this, I genuinely feel I have much better grasp of how to use Sculpt OS and just how powerful it really is, and that it’s really not as difficult to use as it may look at first glance. The next time I set some time aside for Sculpt OS, I feel I’ll have a much better grasp of what to do and how to use it properly.
Within in the last release cycle we worked on adding and extending the support for the i.MX8MP SoC as also found in one of the SoM options for the MNT Pocket Reform and are happy to show-case a first preview version of Sculpt running on this handy computing device. ↫ Josef Söntgen If you have a Pocket Reform – I reviewed its bigger sibling earlier this year – you can now run Genode on it. Not everything is working flawlessly yet – most notably audio and NVMe need work – but networking is operational, so you can actually browse the web. I’m not sure how much overlap there is between Genode users and Pocket Reform owners, but at least both groups now know it’s an option.
Genode’s rapid development carries on apace. Whilst Genode itself is a so-called OS Framework – the computing version of a rolling chassis that can accept various engines (microkernels) and coachwork of the customer’s choice – they also have an in-house PC desktop system. This flagship product, Sculpt OS, comes out on a bi-annual schedule and Autumn brings us the second for the year, with what has become an almost a customary big advance: 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. ↫ Genode website Sculpt OS 24.10 is available as ready-to-use system image for PC hardware, the PinePhone, and the MNT Reform laptop.
The Genode project has released Sculpt OS 24.04, the general purpose desktop operating system based on the Genode OS Framework. This release is absolutely jam-packed with new features, improvements, and changes, and it’s hard to know where to begin. One of the biggest new features is support for suspend/resume, an experimental feature for now, for which the developers also made starting and stopping drivers and related components easier straight from the user interface. In addition, NVMe, AHCI, and Intel GPU drivers will resume automatically after a resume. Sculpt OS 24.04 also ships with a brand new audio framework, which brings support for “pluggable drivers, arbitrary sample rates, and the flexible routing and mixing of audio signals”, but the audio driver does need to be manually restarted after a resume. This release also adds support for 4K displays and I2C touchpads, underlining that yes, Sculpt and Genode developers dogfood their operating system on real hardware. Do note that at least for now, the I2C touchpad driver needs to be started manually, so an external mouse will initially be needed. Various images are available for download from the download page.
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. ↫ Official Genode news post The updated roadmap for 2024 details the goals of the project for the coming current year.
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