Genode OS Framework release 23.02 Feb 28, 2023

Version 23.02 introduces system-update functionality to the mobile version of Sculpt OS, enhances our ARM VMM for interactive guest OSes, adds DMA protection to Xilinx Zynq via a custom IP core, extends suspend/resume support, and makes Intel's P&E cores explicitly manageable.

For the first time, Genode has become easily installable on the PinePhone. The first system image is not merely a re-targeted PC version of Sculpt OS but it comes with a novel user interface, a new mechanism for rapidly switching between different application scenarios, and system-update functionality. This is everything we need to kick off the first public field test of Genode on the phone. This line of development motivated plenty of optimizations - from kernel scheduling, over the I/O throughput of the VFS, to the interfacing of GPU drivers - that made it into version 23.02.

Besides the focus on the phone, the release continues the hardware-software co-design story of the previous version by adding DMA protection to Xilinx Zynq SoCs using custom FPGA fabric, which is especially tailored for Genode. But also stationary platforms like PCs and ARM laptops received attention. On ARM, we enabled the use of interactive virtual machines by adding device models for the GPU and input events. For the PC, the principle support for suspend/resume has become available to Genode's custom microkernel in addition to NOVA, and Genode learned to distinguish Intel's performance cores from energy-efficient cores.

Regarding application workloads, the new release is accompanied by a substantially improved version of the Goa tool, which streamlines the creation, packaging, and publishing of Genode components using commodity build systems. With the new version, Goa largely automates the porting of CMake-based 3rd-party libraries for Genode.

Find these among many more topics covered by the official release documentation of version 23.02...