Hello everyone,
Sorry for the late general reply, but I needed some days to elaborate on some of my ideas for Sculpt os.
In those days I've tested almost every package available on depot, I must say some things referred for falkon browser: it is nice and probably the most interesting software in the entire distribution, but I think that disabling JS by default could be a really nice step for a more lightweight approach (which follows sculpt "style"), I've tested the frames and the browser speed through online tests and lichess duels, seems to go quite well, only small downside: sometimes it tends to stuck or stop the internet connection but is often a temporary problem, not persistent. PS I don't know why but when I've done the browser fingerprint, I found that the browser is effectively installed on Genode, have you set any identificative User Agent (or similar) for that?
I don't know if "Chocolate Doom" is the homonymous video game, but unfortunately I wasn't able to play it cause an infinite "I_init: setting up machine state", the audio driver was the bsd_audio_drv while the wm was the themed_wm (internet connection under nic_router), do you know if I am doing anything wrong? I am not big fans of video games, but I would like to try it!
Another few general considerations: the learning curve of Sculpt is pretty fast, I don't know why, but after few days I increased the feeling with the OS, the documentation played a fundamental role in it, Have you thought to implement also a touch screen mode for Sculpt? may be extremely interesting for smartphones.
One good point is the "inspect" shell, fast and portable, I like it, only one problem: too few tools under /bin are available, apart vim, there is not many things you can do with it, my idea for fixing that could be to add few more useful tool: one idea could be the microsed implementation, it is around 25kb and permits to modify files through Regexp, only downside for this implementation: still many commands crashes (-e is an example). (sorry for the zip of the last time, I had not the idea of how peoples are suspicious on compressed files haha), the files are sed.h, sedcomp.c, sedexec.c and the relative Makefile;
Another hint: upgrade the md5sum (maybe in the future) to something more secure, I don't know if Sculpt uses it for more complex (and security related) tasks but is strongly discouraged.
I started to test the Xoroshiro PRNG you use for the OS internals, in general is quite secure, it is interesting to see its generation with a "0" seed. I'll search for some weakness on it in those days.
Final suggestion: One day I tried to install as much software as I can on Sculpt, the result was quite strange, I wasn't able to scroll down the Leitz. enviroment, do you know if is possible to do it? { the photo is 5ECB60B5-C98C-496D-9A9D-ECB617AD6809 }
Now I have more technical questions:
Josef, I started yesterday studying how Genode handles wifi connections, it is almost identical to Linux, for the software stack (mac80211 and cfg80211) but I haven't understood why in firmware.cc ( the text file you linked to me ), in Fw_list struct some firmware images have NULL as available name while others have their correspondent name? Are still unimplemented some models ? I would like to start writing a software stack for BLE, any hints? Bluez could be a good starting point but honestly, I have no idea of how to port it on A non Unix system.
Martin, I've finished the Wikipedia page translation, is the Wikipedia_it file, I've chosen to write it in Markdown language, let me know if is good. I've tried to adjust it as much as I can, let me know (I don't know if the format is legible by any Markdown interpreter).
Norman, As the first thing, I've started to port a working Italian layout keyboard, the current version is in the email attachment (file: it_IT.chargen), only problem, certain letters are unavailable (like è, ò, à, ù, § and £), could you try to fix it? the big works for upper keys is already done and tested, (everything works well).
Another few things to ask:
Do you confirm that Sculpt, for now, has NO API or syscall available? it would be pretty useful for me to write tools in C with a nice syscall system, my idea could be to implement a programming language designed only for this OS which offers both high and low-level capabilities, (like Inferno's os Limbo programming language), I've started thinking on it, if you agree, in the next days I can try to design the main body of it (in PURE c, the best by test).
Replaying the Bluetooth part: I agree with you, the big advantage you could gain by Bluetooth depot system consists on the practicality: think that the latest version of Bluetooth (5.0.X) can trace a device distance measurement by triangulation and, if we join this to the OBEX protocol, I think that a secure (and maybe native) application which show the nearest device which could act as depot server could be an interesting point, also think on the possible growth of a 24h connected (similar)"peer to peer" network system for discovering near possible Genode applications.
[ Yes, not every device support BLE nor Bluetooth 5.0.X but for an incoming future could be a great idea]
Let me know what you think,
Regards, Edoardo Mantovani, 2021
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Edoardo Mantovani Independent security researcher email: Baseband@cpan.org Urbino, Italy
