The release of the Sculpt 22.04 operating system has been announced, which develops a general-purpose operating system based on the Genode OS Framework technologies that can be used by regular users for everyday tasks. The source code of the project is distributed under the AGPLv3 license. A 28 MB LiveUSB image 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:
- Drivers for Intel wireless cards, Intel GPUs, and USB controllers have been completely redesigned. The code for the new drivers has been ported from the Linux kernel 5.14.21. Unlike Linux, each driver in Sculpt OS runs in user space in a separate isolated environment (sandbox).
- The code for hardware-accelerated graphics based on Mesa and the GPU access multiplexing mechanism has been optimized and stabilized. The new version offers the ability to not only run OpenGL applications but also use graphics acceleration in guest systems on VirtualBox running on top of Sculpt.
- A sandbox isolation mechanism has been implemented at the level of individual services. A 'black hole' component has also been added, which can be used as a placeholder for various system resources; for example, network traffic can be directed to the 'black hole' to isolate a service from the network. Similarly, access to sound, video capture, and other typical system resources can be blocked.
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 and 64 bit) or the NOVA microkernel (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 direct-running kernel for ARM and RISC-V platforms. The paravirtualized Linux kernel L4Linux, running on top of the Fiasco.OC microkernel, enables the execution of standard Linux programs within Genode. The L4Linux kernel does not interact directly with hardware but uses Genode services via 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
