============================================== Genode Labs Newsletter - August/September 2009 ============================================== Content 1. Genode OS Framework 9.08 released 2. New Genode Live CD available 3. New platforms supported by the Genode FPGA graphics project 1. Genode OS Framework 9.08 released ------------------------------------ In August, we have released the version 9.08 of our operating-system framework. This release was focused on optimizations and refinements and advances the framework with regard to cross-kernel portability. We took the chance to revisit fundamental parts of the framework such as synchronization primitives, signals, and timers. Furthermore, there are many improvements specific for the different base platforms. The OKL4-kernel support as added with the previous release motivated code unifications among all four supported kernel platforms. The kernel-specific lines of code, which provide complete kernel abstractions, have become as little as 1800 (OKL4), 1500 (Linux), 1600 (L4/Fiasco), and 2000 (L4ka::Pistachio) lines of C++ code. With regard to Linux as base platform, we reached our goal to make the base framework completely independent from Linux' userland infrastructure. The Linux version of Genode is now executed on the raw Linux kernel without linking against glibc. The introduction of the dynamic linker ported from FreeBSD promises a significant reduction of binary sizes and, thereby, will finally allay doubts about the resource requirements of using Qt4 on Genode. Find out more about all the new features and improvements in the release notes of version 9.08: http://genode.org/documentation/release-notes/9.08 2. New Genode Live CD available ------------------------------- To make our work on the Genode OS Framework more visible outside of the core developer community, we have compiled a Live CD that shows off our achievements made during the past months. The Live CD presents Genode running on three different kernel platforms highlighting Genode's unique cross-kernel portability. Furthermore, the Live CD presents the native execution of Qt4 applications on top of Genode running on a microkernel, and a cool virtualization demo that enables you to execute Genode on top of a sandboxed Linux on top of Genode running on a microkernel. Download our new Live CD 2009-09: http://genode.org/news/download/live-cds For those of you who already got their hands on our Live CD, we have updated the ISO image, improved the performance and refined the presentation of the Qt4 demo. So you might want to give the new version a try. 3. New platforms supported by the Genode FPGA graphics project -------------------------------------------------------------- We are happy to announce the result of collaborative efforts of Trenz Electronic and Genode Labs to bring our graphics solution to Trenz Electronic's range of industrial FPGA modules. By having brought these products together, we enable the creation of fully fledged graphical user interfaces with extremely compact hardware that comes at the PCB size of only 40.5mm x 47.5mm. To learn more about running Genode FX on the TE0300 series of industrial modules, please refer to our recent announcement: http://www.genode-labs.com/news/genode-fx-on-trenz-electronic-industrial-fpga-modules Furthermore, we are happy to announce the biggest contribution from outside our company to the Genode FPGA project so far. Sébastien Bourdeauducq is the author of the FPGA-based Milkymist SoC platform. Milkymist is based on the Lattice Mico32 softcore CPU, a custom high-performance DDR memory controller, and hardware units for texture mapping and vector calculations. The project is geared towards building a real-time VJ solution. After meeting us in Dresden, he went for porting our Genode FX software stack to his platform and considers using our GUI as part of his forthcoming project. More information about the exciting Milkymist project is available at the official project website: http://www.milkymist.org The support for both new platforms is already available at the mainline subversion repository of Genode FX and, thereby, will become a regular part of the Genode FX distribution. About the newsletter -------------------- If you have friends or colleagues who might be interested in our projects, we would appreciate you to forward this email. If you received this newsletter as a forwarded email, you may subscribe to the newsletter here: http://genode-labs.com/newsletter In the case of receiving this newsletter unintended, you can cancel your subscription at any time by replying to this email with the subject set to "unsubscribe". Best regards -- Norman Feske Genode Labs http://www.genode-labs.com/ · http://genode.org/
