Genode 12.02

Genode is an operating system framework that extends existing kernels (e.g., microkernel or hypervisor) and provides a uniform API for applications. Currently, L4/Fiasco and Linux are supported. Genode contains the following components:

· The base framework including all libraries and interfaces as described in the Base API documentation
· The Linux version of the base framework, which is the recommended platform for testing and developing
· The L4/Fiasco version of the base framework

Drivers
· Framebuffer driver for VESA and libSDL
vPS/2 keyboard and mouse driver
· PCI driver
· Timer driver

Services and applications
· Nitpicker GUI server
· Scout tutorial browser
· Graphical application launcher
· XML-configurable init process

· Complete demonstration scenario with graphical test applications such as liquid framebuffer, testnit, and nitlog.

Ported libraries
· libz
· libpng

Product's homepage

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

· The release of Genode 12.02 marks an exciting point in the history of the project as it is the first version developed in the open rather than within the chambers of Genode Labs. Thereby, we have embraced GitHub as central facility for discussion and source-code management. This change has benefits for users and developers of the framework alike. For users, it has become possible to get hold of the latest developments using the official genodelabs/master branch and get involved with discussing the current activities. For regular Genode developers, the public Git repository replaces a former mix of public Subversion and company-internal Mercurial repositories, making life much easier. In Section Liberation of the development process, we outline the motivation behind this change and give pointers to the new resources.

· The major new additions to the base system are a new framework API for accessing memory-mapped I/O resources, special support for using Genode as user-level component framework on Linux, and API support for the reuse of existing components in the form of sandboxed libraries. These changes are accompanied with new device-driver infrastructure such as the first version of a device driver manager and a new ACPI parser.

· Feature-wise, the current release takes the first steps towards the goal of the Roadmap for 2012, turning Genode into a general-purpose OS ready for everyday use by its developers. According to the roadmap, we enhanced the Noux runtime with fork semantics so that we can run command-line based GNU programs such as the bash shell and coreutils unmodified and natively on various microkernels. Furthermore, the library infrastructure has been enhanced by porting and updating libraries such as Qt 4.7.4 and the MuPDF PDF rendering engine.