=======================================
 Genode Labs Newsletter - September 2008
 =======================================

 Content

 1. Responses to the initial release of the Genode OS Framework
 2. Genode FPGA Graphics project launched
 3. Preview of the Genode OS Framework release 8.11
 4. New challenges ahead


 1. Responses to the initial release of the Genode OS Framework
 --------------------------------------------------------------

 The release of the Genode OS Framework in August has drawn the
 attention of several online news websites including

   OS News, a website focused on operating-system technology
   http://osnews.com/story/20169/Genode_OS_Framework_8_08_Released

   Heise online, a very popular German IT news ticker
   http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Genode-Sichere-Betriebssysteme-aus-Dresden--/meldung/114420

   The front page of computer-science department of TU Dresden
   http://www.inf.tu-dresden.de/article.php?node_id=1&ln=en&article_id=201

   Saxxess, an IT portal for Saxony
   http://www.saxxess.com/content/15776.htm

 Thanks to this coverage, the Genode OS Framework has become visible
 to other open-source projects. In particular, we were delighted to
 see Genode being picked up and incorporated into the Syllable Server
 OS project. It is now part of the official distribution of Syllable
 Server 0.3 as released on 12th of August:

   http://development.syllable.org/pages/index.html

 We look forward exploring the synergies of both projects!


 2. Genode FPGA Graphics project launched
 ----------------------------------------

 Only three weeks after having released the Genode OS Framework, we
 have made our second major project publicly available. The Genode FPGA
 Graphics (Genode FX) project is a composition of hardware and software
 components that enable the creation of fully fledged graphical user
 interfaces as system-on-chip solutions using commodity FPGAs.

 The approach relies on a GUI software stack executed on a soft core
 CPU implementation (e.g., Microblaze) or on a hard wired CPU (e.g.,
 PPC core as featured by Virtex4 FPGAs). For interfacing input devices
 and the display to the system, the CPU core is complemented by custom
 peripheral components.

 Since 2005, this project was conducted by Matthias Alles and Norman
 Feske. With our official release in August 2008, we turned this
 project into an open-source community project. At release time, Genode
 FX supported the Spartan3A Starter kit. Thanks to Matthias Alles'
 steady improvements, we were able to announce the support for the
 ML507 Virtex5-based platform at the beginning of September. Genode FX
 supports now Xilinx FPGAs ranging from the low-cost Spartan3 series
 using the Microblaze soft core up to the high-end Virtex5 series using
 the PowerPC 440. Video output is supported for screen resolutions up
 to 1024x768 via VGA or DVI.

 More detailed information on Genode FX are available at our product
 page

   http://genode-labs.com/products/fpga-graphics

 You can find our community resources such as source code, news, and
 mailing lists at our Sourceforge site:

   https://sourceforge.net/projects/genode-fx/


 3. Preview of the Genode OS Framework release 8.11
 --------------------------------------------------

 The development of the Genode OS Framework steadily progresses towards
 the upcoming release 8.11. The highlights for this release will be

 - Type safety of capabilities on the C++ language level, which vastly
   improves the safety and simplicity of code
 - Support for asynchronous notifications in the base API, which is
   prerequisite for a number of planned additional features such as
   nested data spaces
 - Device driver infrastructure for the reuse of Linux device drivers
 - C library, which will facilitate the porting of existing software
   and clear the way towards creating a POSIX environment on Genode


 4. New challenges ahead
 -----------------------

 Because we believe that the Genode OS Framework provides a lot of
 opportunity for research and experimentation, we invite academic
 and research institutions to join our effort. On our Wiki, have
 compiled a number of challenges that we find interesting to pursue,
 for example exploring Linux process containers, running Genode on FPGA
 platforms, dynamic linking support, de-privileging VESA, optimizing
 locking performance, and the port of libSDL. We hope that this
 compilation inspires researchers, students, and individuals to pick up
 our ideas and start experimenting with Genode. More details about our
 future challenges are described in our Wiki:

   http://genode.org/community/wiki/Challenges


 About the newsletter
 --------------------

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 Best regards
 -- 
 Norman Feske
 Genode Labs

 http://www.genode-labs.com ยท http://genode.org

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