The Sculpt 21.10 operating system release has been presented, based on the Genode OS Framework technologies, developing a general-purpose operating system that can be used by regular users for everyday tasks. The project's source code is distributed under the AGPLv3 license. A LiveUSB image of 26 MB is available for download. It supports operation on systems with Intel processors and graphics subsystems with VT-d and VT-x extensions enabled.
Key innovations:
- Hardware graphics acceleration has been implemented using Intel GPU. The Mesa package and the GPU access multiplexing mechanism introduced in Genode OS Framework release 21.08 are used for GPU support.
- Support for USB interface web cameras has been added.
- The ability to play audio and video content in the Falkon browser, which is based on the Chromium engine, has been ensured. A functional audio driver and a component for sound mixing have been provided. A black hole component has been suggested to disable sound, pretending to be an audio driver but not producing any sound output.
- Compatibility with VirtualBox 6 has been added (previously only VirtualBox 5 was supported).
- A file-vault component has been added for storing files in an encrypted format. Together with the recall-fs component, file-vault allows each user to have a separate encrypted storage area.
The system comes with the Leitzentrale graphical interface, allowing typical system administration tasks to be performed. In the top left corner of the graphical interface, a menu with tools for managing users, connecting storage devices, and configuring network connections is displayed. In the center, there is a configurator for assembling the system's components, providing a graph-like interface that defines the relationships between system components. Users can interactively remove or add components to define the system environment's composition. of virtual machines.
At any time, the user can switch to the console management mode, which offers greater flexibility in management. A traditional desktop can be obtained by launching the TinyCore Linux distribution. virtual machine with Linux. In this environment, the Firefox and Aurora browsers, a Qt-based text editor, and various applications are available. Command line utilities are provided in a noux environment.
Genode provides a unified infrastructure for creating custom applications that run on top of the Linux kernel (32-bit and 64-bit) or microkernels like NOVA (x86 with virtualization), seL4 (x86_32, x86_64, ARM), Muen (x86_64), Fiasco.OC (x86_32, x86_64, ARM), L4ka::Pistachio (IA32, PowerPC), OKL4, L4/Fiasco (IA32, AMD64, ARM), and a core that runs directly for ARM and RISC-V platforms. The paravirtualized Linux kernel L4Linux, operating on top of the Fiasco.OC microkernel, enables the execution of standard Linux programs in Genode. L4Linux does not interface directly with hardware but uses Genode services through a set of virtual drivers.
Various Linux and BSD components have been ported to Genode, ensuring support for Gallium3D, integrating Qt, GCC, and WebKit, and enabling the organization of hybrid Linux/Genode software environments. A port of VirtualBox has been prepared, which operates on top of the NOVA microkernel. A large number of applications have been adapted to run directly atop the microkernel and the Noux environment, which provides OS-level virtualization. For unported programs, there is a mechanism for creating application-level virtual environments that allows programs to run in a virtual Linux environment using paravirtualization.
Source: opennet.ru
