Genode OS Framework 20.11 release Nov 30, 2020

Genode 20.11 add dynamic CPU-load balancing, improves power management and audio on PC hardware, and brings Sculpt OS to 64-bit ARM platforms.

The year is coming to an end, but not before we publish another Genode release.

One year ago, we envisioned running our Sculpt operating system on 64-bit ARM hardware. Genode 20.11 made this vision a reality. Thanks to the intensive development work on the framework's driver architecture for ARM platforms and a zoo of drivers for one concrete SoC - namely NXP's i.MX8 - we are happy to announce that the Sculpt system that we enjoy using on our PC laptops has now become able to run on the i.MX8 EVK board. It goes without saying that more boards are to follow.

The second highlight of version 20.11 is the new ability to balance CPU workloads among multiple CPU cores in a dynamic fashion. This is an important feature for hosting complex multi-threaded application software such as web browsers. Our solution greatly benefits from Genode's architecture, which ultimately allows us to implement a variety of CPU-balancing strategies without adding complexity to the operating-system kernel.

Besides those two major topics, the release features many further improvements ranging from reworked audio support, over multicore virtualization on ARM, to power management on PC hardware. All the details are described in the official release documentation...