Genode OS 12.08 Gains ARM Support, NOVA Work

The interesting Genode OS framework project has released their 12.08 operating system with several new features.

Work that's now bundled into Genode OS 12.08 includes support for Genode on naked ARM hardware (bare metal) and NOVA Hypervisor work. Genode OS can now run directly on Texas Instruments OMAP4 hardware as one of the first ARM ports. The NOVA Hypervisor work allows it to become a "first class citizen" within the Genode world.

Other smaller features include a FFAT-based file system service, the port of the lighttpd web server, and support for on-target debugging via GDB. There's also new services, optimizations of existing components, new ported libraries, and much more.

This work deviates a bit from their ambitious 2012 road-map for having a tiled window manager, Intel WiFi/WLAN driver, and SMP support, but this work is part of their goal to turn Genode OS into a general purpose operating system. They hope to have Genode become a general purpose OS by the end of the calendar year, at least for developers.

More details are available from the Genode 12.08 release notes.