The release of the Sculpt project 26.04 has been presented, developing an operating system based on the Genode OS Framework technologies, which can be used by regular users for everyday tasks. The project's source code is distributed under the AGPLv3 license. A system image of 33 MB is available for download, which can be used on PC, PinePhone smartphone, and MNT Reform laptop. It supports operation on systems with Intel processors and graphics subsystems with VT-d and VT-x extensions enabled, as well as ARM systems with VMM extensions.
Key innovations:
- The USB controller, Wi-Fi, Ethernet adapter, and Intel GPU drivers have been ported from the Linux kernel and synchronized with kernel 6.18 (previously, drivers from kernel 6.12 were used). For laptops, support for USB interface network adapters is enabled by default.
- The transition from XML configuration files to the use of a custom HID (Human-Inclined Data) format has been implemented, representing data in the form of a hierarchy of nodes with their own attributes. Configuration changes are now picked up on the fly, all changes are applied immediately, and connections between components can be restructured during operation.
- Updated versions of programs, including Qt6 and the Falkon browser.
- An experimental feature for native launching of the Goa SDK without creating a Linux virtual machine has been added. Genode components can now be developed, compiled, and tested within Sculpt OS without booting of virtual machines and loading other OSes.
- The first stage of migrating the development processes from GitHub to Codeberg has been completed. All code repositories, except for the main one, have been transferred to Codeberg.
The system comes with a graphical interface Leitzentrale, allowing typical system administration tasks to be performed. In the upper left corner of the graphical interface, there's a menu with tools for managing users, connecting drives, and configuring network connections. In the center, there is a configurator for defining the system's composition in the form of a graph, showing the interconnections between system components. In interactive mode, components can be added or removed, shaping the composition of the system environment or virtual machines.
Users can switch to a console management mode if desired, providing greater flexibility in management. The traditional desktop can be accessed by launching the TinyCore Linux distribution in virtual machine Linux. In this environment, browsers Firefox and Aurora, a Qt-based text editor, and various applications are available. The command-line utilities can be accessed through the 'Noux' environment.
The Genode framework provides a unified infrastructure for creating user applications that run on top of the Linux kernel (32 and 64 bit) or microkernels such as 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, and L4/Fiasco (IA32, AMD64, ARM). It includes a paravirtualized Linux kernel, L4Linux, operating on top of the Fiasco.OC microkernel, allowing standard Linux programs to run in the Genode environment. L4Linux does not interact directly with hardware but instead uses Genode services through a set of virtual drivers.
Various components of Linux and BSD have been ported to Genode, supporting Gallium3D, integrating Qt, GCC, and WebKit, and making it possible to create hybrid Linux/Genode software environments. There is a port of VirtualBox running on top of the NOVA microkernel. Many applications have been adapted to run directly on the microkernel and the Noux environment, which provides OS-level virtualization. For non-ported applications, a virtual environment system is available, operating at the level of individual applications and allowing programs to run in a virtual Linux environment using paravirtualization.
Source: opennet.ru
