Sculpt OS release 25.04 Apr 29, 2025

Sculpt OS 25.04 brings compatibility with Intel's Meteor-Lake hardware, introduces multi-monitor window management and display rotation, and is accompanied by a major update of the Chromium web engine.

Incorporating all the technical advancements of the framework releases 24.11 and 25.02, Sculpt OS has now become compatible to Intel's Meteor-Lake hardware, leverages modern IOMMU features, and benefits from recent SIMD-based graphics optimizations.

Usability-wise, the new version comes with two highly anticipated features. First, building upon the multi-monitor support added with the previous release, the new version takes multi-monitor awareness to the window management level, allowing for the flexible assignment of virtual desktops to physical displays, adding new window-manipulation conveniences, and supporting rotated displays. Second, a new directory browser allows the user to interactively assign arbitrary directories as file systems to components, vastly easing the fine-grained sandboxing of subsystems.

For staying on the heels of the modern web, an updated version of the Falkon web browser has become readily available. This version is based on the Chromium engine version 112 and Qt 6.6.2.

In tandem with the Sculpt OS release, the Goa SDK has been updated, targeting the new version by default while introducing sandboxed builds. Thanks to this new confinement, complex 3rd-party build systems can no longer accidentally affect any part of the host system outside the respective project directory. This, in turn, gives developers peace of mind when bringing more and more sophisticated and often unfathomable complex software stacks to Genode.

Sculpt OS 25.04 is available as ready-to-use system image for PC hardware, the PinePhone, and the MNT Reform laptop at the Sculpt download page accompanied with updated documentation.

Genode OS Framework release 25.02 Feb 28, 2025

Version 25.02 extends Genode's multi-monitor abilities to the window-management level and to virtual machines, features the ports of Qemu and the Chromium web engine version 112, boosts the graphics performance via SIMD optimizations, and brings Sculpt OS to the latest Intel Meteor-Lake Framework laptops as well as F&S MX8MP armStone hardware.

With Genode 25.02, we deliver the technical underpinnings for the next version of Sculpt OS: An up-to-date web-browser engine, a profound window-management solution designed for multi-monitor setups, refined framework interfaces for treating individual directories as virtual file systems, and much improved graphics performance by leveraging vector instructions on the 64-bit ARM and x86 architectures.

Speaking of Sculpt OS, the framework extends the range of supported hardware platforms to Intel Meteor Lake as used by the latest Framework laptops, and adds F&S MX8MP armStone to the arsenal of ready-to-use NXP i.MX-based boards.

Under the hood, Genode's custom microkernel received much love. Besides maturing the kernel's x86 virtualization abilities, IOMMU IRQ protection is now fully supported, the kernel advanced in terms of diagnostic aid for developers, and gained performance.

Going up the stack, the steadily evolving Goa SDK unlocks the direct use of 3rd-party software on Genode we could only dream about previously. The best example is the fresh port of Qemu, which is a crucial tool for the work of Genode's developers and has now become available in the form of a Genode component.

For the full description of these and more improvements, please refer to the release documentation of version 25.02...

Road Map for 2025 Jan 22, 2025

We dedicate the year 2025 to Genode's rigidity, clarity, and performance.

At the turn of each year, the Genode community and core developers reflect on the past year's achievements and make up their minds about the year ahead. The updated road map for 2025 condenses the recent brain-storming on our public mailing list and presents a rough feature schedule for the releases planned for 2025. Get a glimpse at Genode's foreseeable future by visiting our updated official road-map....