News item for version 21.08

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Norman Feske 2021-08-31 11:44:16 +02:00 committed by Christian Helmuth
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Genode OS Framework release 21.08 | 2021-08-31
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| The highlights of Genode 21.08 are revamped GPU support as well as new
| drivers for the Pinephone and MNT-Reform laptop based on a new streamlined
| approach for porting Linux kernel code. Further topics range from VirtualBox
| improvements, over media playback in the native web browser, to LTE
| connectivity in Sculpt OS.
For complex driver stacks, Genode largely relies on code ported from other
operating systems. The Linux kernel plays a special role because - being the
basis for Android - it is the de-facto reference for driving the peripherals
of most ARM SoCs. Up to now, however, the porting efforts of driver code from
Linux to Genode used to be a time-intensive affair, which forced a narrow
focus on very few SoCs on us. With the streamlined porting approach introduced
with the new release, we become able to dramatically reduce the costs,
creating the prospect of a much broader hardware support. The first success
stories of the new way of porting are added graphics drivers for the Pinephone
and the MNT-Reform laptop, a network driver for the Pine-A64-LTS board, and an
SD-card driver for the MNT-Reform.
The second spotlight of the release is the largely revamped support for Intel
GPUs. In contrast to our experimental GPU-related work of the past, we have
now identified a way to cleanly integrate GPU support into the GUI
architecture of sophisticated Genode systems such as Sculpt OS. This work is
accompanied with an up-to-date version of the Mesa library stack. In
combination with the improvements of our custom GPU multiplexer, we are now on
a good track to make the use of hardware-accelerated graphics a commodity on
Genode.
Even though most topics of the current release revolve around low-level
driver-related work, the new version improves higher-level functionality as
well. In particular, it adds the modular integration of mobile-data
connectivity to Sculpt OS and enables media playback for our port of the
Chromium web engine. Those and more topics are described in the detailed
[https:/documentation/release-notes/21.08 - release documentation of version 21.08...]
Genode OS Framework release 21.05 | 2021-05-31
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