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Moving on from XML? A teaser for a possible alternative
The prominent role of XML throughout Genode has been a recurrent point of critique. Technical pros and cons notwithstanding, syntax is a matter of taste, and XML tastes not favorably to many. Over the past two years, I've secretly pondered over a tasteful alternative, which I'd like to share with you today. Continue...
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MNT Pocket Reform Sculpt 24.10 Preview Image
Within in the last release cycle we worked on adding and extending the support for the i.MX8MP SoC as also found in one of the SoM options for the MNT Pocket Reform and are happy to show-case a first preview version of Sculpt running on this handy computing device. Continue...
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Control the devices in your testing fleet
Imagine having a number of devices in a testing fleet, which you use to test your changes periodically or on each push to the repository. You are faced with the challenge of controlling these devices. In this article, I describe the solution we at Gapfuit came up with. Continue...
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Building Rust projects with a custom profile
Starting with Rust 1.77, our Rust Goa projects were giving us trouble. My colleague Sebastian was quick to figure out and fix the initial runtime linking problem. However, with that out of the way, the applications would simply crash with a segfault. Continue...
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Genode and RISC OS demo
This is the demo I showed on the RISC OS Southwest show this spring. Continue...
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Goa - Debugging with GDB
With Goa supporting Sculpt OS as a remote test target and Sculpt supporting on-target debugging, it was time to streamline the debugging experience with Goa. In this article, I share the details about how I integrated GDB support into Goa and how it's put into use. Continue...
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A couple of new challenges
An update to Genode's official list of future challenges has been long overdue. Continue...
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Goa - Using a headless Sculpt as a remote test target
Goa's ability to run applications on a remote Sculpt system comes in handy for testing. However, switching between keyboards to control the remote-running application is a tiny inconvenience. My recent experiments with Sculpt on a ZimaBlade, which has no built-in display, thus motivated me to experiment with solutions for Sculpt as a truly remote test target. Continue...
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On-target debugging with GDB on Sculpt OS 24.04
With the recent Sculpt release, we introduced initial on-target debugging support to get the best from the ported GNU debugger (GDB) and our custom debug monitor that fuels the Sculpt runtime. This little hands-on introduction is completed by a live demo. Continue...
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What's new in Sculpt OS 24.04
Sculpt OS 24.04 is packed. The spectrum of topics ranges from user experience, over audio, USB, suspend/resume, on-target debugging, and goes on. In the article, I'm presenting my personal highlights of this most profound release so far, garnished with various bits and pieces of the updated documentation. Continue...
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FOSDEM 2024 aftermath
This year's FOSDEM was once again an eventful experience. By now, most presentations have become available. Yet I took the opportunity to re-record a more complete version of my talk that I want to share with you. Continue...
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Adding a dynamic desktop background to Sculpt
For getting to know LVGL, I wrote a configurable desktop background for Sculpt OS that shows certain system information (e.g. clock, battery state). Continue...
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Goa - Test running applications on Sculpt
Since its first release, Goa allows test-running applications on the host. We recently added an alternative run target to Goa which enables executing a Goa application on a Sculpt system. Continue...
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Goa - Porting a calculator app from Ubuntu UI Toolkit
I ported the calculator app from Ubuntu/Lomiri UI Toolkit. In this article, I walk you through the porting procedure step-by-step to provide a blueprint for porting other apps. It also serves as an additional and more advances Goa tutorial. Continue...
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Manually installing wsman(1)
For convenience and to some degree also necessity most of our x86-based test machines feature AMT to power-cycle the system and also gain serial console access via SOL. On recent systems the controlling part is done via WS-MAN, for which a package is not always readily available on Linux distributions. The following post gives short instructions on how to build it manually and illustrates one or the other pitfall. Continue...
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A SIP client for Genode on the PinePhone
We ported the "Linphone Console Client" and the "SIP Client for Ubuntu Touch" to Genode to expand the available features on the PinePhone when it comes to mobile communication. This article illustrates the integration and describes how you can experience it yourself. Continue...
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Create a specialized run target for Goa
If you need special services for your Goa project, you can easily create a customized run target for testing your project. I will describe how you can achieve this in this article with two simple examples. Continue...
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Crafting a modded Sculpt OS image in a few moderate steps
I'd like to invite you to get playful with Sculpt OS. Because Sculpt OS is entirely Free Software, no user is bound to the decisions taken by us core developers. This article gives you tangible steps to start modding your user experience beyond the mere configuration level. Continue...
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What's new in Sculpt OS 23.10
My personal highlights and a few technical tidbits about the just released Sculpt OS version 23.10, putting the spotlight on the Framework laptop, the PinePhone, and the MNT Reform laptop. Continue...
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Sculpt Customisation
The modularisation of Sculpt with release 22.02 enabled us to easily build customised Sculpt images. Instead of personalising my Sculpt OS via config files on the used file system, I've been managing my customisations in a separate repository since then. In this article, I want to share what modifications have worked out for me and provide ideas to fellow Genodians. Continue...
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A first complex Rust package
With the release of depot packages for Sculpt OS 23.10, we finally have all building blocks in place to build and run a Rust package without needing to locally build its Genode dependencies. Continue...
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Migration of incompatible File Vault containers
The File Vault is a graphical tool for creating and managing encrypted file containers in Genode. The first official version was published with Sculpt 21.03b. Since then, the File Vault is part of the basic tooling for Sculpt. Continue...
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x86 CPU frequency and power steering with Sculpt 23.10
With Sculpt 23.10 the previous sneak peek feature got integrated into the Genode base framework and hence is readily available with the new Sculpt OS release. Continue...
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Evaluating browser-performance limitations
I recently collected a bunch of browser benchmark measurements on Sculpt OS to get an idea of what factors might be limiting the browsing performance. Continue...
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Enabling the upstream Rust toolchain
Release 23.05 reintroduced support for the Rust programming language to Genode, but our initial implementation relied on a slightly adapted Rust toolchain. As detailed in my previous blog post, we were working around issues with versioned FreeBSD libc symbols that were unsupported by our linker. Continue...