Genode OS Framework version 11.11 released Nov 29, 2011

The version 11.11 of the Genode OS framework introduces user-level debugging via the GNU debugger, Android running as Genode process, a new free-standing tool chain, and various experimental results related to different virtualization techniques.

With version 11.11, the Genode project reaches a tipping point with regard to the overall stability and functionality of the framework. The new added facility for user-level debugging using the GNU debugger (GDB) greatly advances the comfort of application development while maintaining the security of the system. The key to our new debugging solution lies in the heart of the Genode architecture, which is the sandboxed execution of each individual process. Executing a debugging target in GDB is naturally possible by letting GDB intercept the communication between the debugging target and its parent.

With regard to new features, the new support for running Android as a Genode process is the most significant contribution to version 11.11. Furthermore, the release contains the results of various experiments examining various virtualization approaches. For example, using our custom Noux runtime environment, it has become possible to run complex UNIX software natively on Genode with no source-code modifications.

For more detailed information about all improvements introduced with version 11.11, please refer to the official release notes...

Genode OS Framework version 11.05 released Jun 02, 2011

Version 11.05 features L4Linux executed on top of the Fiasco.OC kernel, experimental GDB support, and a new inter-process communication API.

In line with our three-months release cycle, we have published the version 11.05 of the Genode OS Framework. With this version, we pursued two goals, revisiting the framework's mechanisms inter-process communication and advancing the support for the base platforms that we introduced in February.

The reliance on inter-process communication is the most fundamental characteristic of microkernel-based operating systems. Because Genode is based on a microkernel-based architecture, we consider an efficient, robust, and easy-to-use programming interface for inter-process communication as crucial for the success of the Genode OS technology. When the Genode project was started in 2006, we dismissed the time-tested solutions of the day in favor of an original approach called dynamic RPC marshalling. Even though our custom solution served us well over the last five years, it had its own share of limitations and deficiencies, most importantly the lack of type safety and the need for manual maintenance of communication code. Now, we have taken the chance to create a new framework API that takes our long-year experience into full account and thereby resolves all of the known limitations of Genode's inter-process communication facility.

In February, we introduced the Fiasco.OC kernel as well as a custom kernel for the MicroBlaze architecture as new base platforms. These new platforms received a lot of attention. We are happy to report that the Fiasco.OC base platform has become capable of executing the entire Genode software stack including the dynamic linker, Qt4, lwIP, and the steadily growing number of device drivers. Furthermore, we have made the classical workload of Fiasco.OC, namely L4Linux, available on Genode.

For the complete story with further news such as experimental support for GDB, and ARM RealView device drivers, please have a look at our full release-notes documentation...

Genode OS Framework version 11.02 released Feb 25, 2011

With the version 11.02 of our operating-system framework, we expanded the supported base platforms to 8 different kernels and introduced a new execution environment for using unmodified GNU software on Genode.

The primary focus during the development of the version 11.02 was broadening the platform support of the framework. With the addition of the Fiasco.OC kernel, a new custom kernel implementation for FPGA-based SoCs, and the upgrade of the NOVA hypervisor support to version 0.3, the Genode OS Framework can now be deployed on 8 different kernel platforms, each geared to different application areas. Using Genode, application software and device drivers can be used seamlessly across these platforms.

Functionality-wise, the introduction of a new execution environment called Noux for using unmodified GNU software on top of Genode shows the way towards using Genode as a general-purpose OS.

Read on about further details regarding the new kernel platforms, the vision behind our Noux, and many more improvements of the framework in the release notes of version 11.02...