Roadmap 2018

[Nobody III]

I definitely agree that we need to make the sculpt scenario more
user-friendly. A desktop environment would help a lot, but isn't planned as
part of the official Genode repository. I'm personally working on my own
(see https://github.com/NobodyIII/genode-desktop-environment), and I'd be
more than happy to accept contributions. That being said, I would suggest
that we add an easy way to start Genode subsytems from inside noux. From my
understanding, the fastest way to start a subsystem in the Sculpt scenario
is to type the XML start node into one of the config files. If instead, I
could just type something like "start vbox_linux" into bash, I would be
much more inclined to put Sculpt on my laptop, like I did with Turmvilla.

Also, improved hardware support would be very nice. I have run into various
issues in the past, and I'll bring them back up if I still have problems
getting Genode to work on my computers. But even if all of the bugs have
been resolved, we still don't have an AMD framebuffer driver, or a NVIDIA
driver for that matter. For people like me who have high or non-standard
monitor resolutions, being stuck with the VESA driver is rather annoying.
I'm not sure whether these display drivers should be ported in 2018 or some
later year, but they should definitely be ported sometime in the next few
years.

We had porting a modern web browser on the roadmap back in 2015, but that
never happened, AFAIK. This might be worth pursuing again.

* We have started using a package manager (depot), but we need more
recipes, especially for ported libraries such as Qt 5.

* Many run scripts are outdated. Most still need to be updated to use depot
packages, and many don't work anymore due to recent changes such as cap
quotas. We need to update the run scripts and verify that they all work.

(* = high priority)


On Fri, Dec 22, 2017 at 2:47 PM, Norman Feske <norman.feske at ...1...>
wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> like every year in December, I'd like to kick off the discussion of
> Genode's road map for the upcoming twelve months. It goes without saying
> that your feedback and suggestions are very welcome. Should you have any
> plans related to Genode, please do not hesitate to chime in!
>
> Before I present my rough plans, let me take a minute to review the past
> year.
>
>
> Review of 2017
> --------------
>
> As Johannes Schlatow's team put it so nicely in their Christmas card
> (thanks a lot!), the "Turmvilla" era lies behind us. So let the "Sculpt"
> era begin! Whereas Turmvilla allowed me to work on a Genode-based system
> since mid of 2015, the scenario was quite rigid and required significant
> manual labour for any customization. Although it was not really inviting
> for potential users, it illustrated well that all the basic building
> blocks - in particular the driver stacks - were in place. But it would
> have been be quite a stretch to call Turmvilla a general-purpose OS at
> that point.
>
> The new Sculpt scenario that I started to put together this autumn
> leverages two key features of 2017 to ultimately enter the realms of
> general-purpose computing. Those features are the dynamic init and the
> package management. The combination of Genode's recursive architecture
> with the dynamic reconfigurability of the init component allows me to
> interactive shape the running Genode system including any subsystem or
> even configurations of individual components. The system structure is at
> my fingertips and I can change it instantly using my favorite text
> editor. This excites me to no end! :-) At the same time, the new package
> management greatly helps to keep the complexity at a manageable level.
> Whereas I rarely updated my Turmvilla installation out of hesitance to
> break my work environment, I routinely update Sculpt on a weekly basis.
> Not only do I but also all my team mates at Genode Labs! The switch of
> the entire Genode-Labs team to Genode full time was certainly our
> biggest milestone of the year.
>
> At the technical level, the use of the gained cross-kernel binary
> compatibility or the VFS infrastructure have already become a second
> nature. Regarding the latter, remodelling this infrastructure to an
> asynchronous mode of operation was certainly a long and stony way. I am
> extremely grateful to Emery and Christian for having taken a big share
> of this labor-intensive work! Now, we can start to reap the fruits of
> this development.
>
>
> How to proceed in 2018?
> -----------------------
>
> Personally, I'm to eager to take Genode in two main directions. First,
> the Sculpt scenario will for sure spawn manifold developments to the
> benefit of end users. Those developments will include documentation to
> make Sculpt palatable to users, the further cultivation of Genode's
> package-management concept, the composition of new subsystems, and the
> optimization of daily work flows. The progress in this direction will be
> quite organic and primarily motivated to make our daily computing
> experience more effective and fun.
>
> The second direction is the application of Genode for real-time graphics
> and sound processing - in a way reigniting my past passion of
> programming demo effects on the Atari Falcon. ;-) The path for this
> activity was paved this year by Josef and Sebastian who created our
> driver infrastructure for Intel GPUs. By actively using this
> infrastructure along with the audio stack, I am eager to push Genode
> towards low-latency multimedia performance. In order to do that, I will
> have to improve the tools for gathering runtime data (e.g., putting our
> tracing infrastructure to good use), gain a profound understanding of
> the behavior of complex scenarios, and optimize.
>
> Aside these playful activities, I also want to focus on the quality and
> resilience of our software. The modernized framework API introduced last
> year is an important stepping stone. But there is much more we can (and
> should) do, I.e., learning from the high-integrity computing community
> (e.g., implementing critical components in SPARK), leveling-up the scope
> and intensity of our automated tests, facilitating static code analysis,
> and employing software-hardening techniques. Of course, this scope goes
> far beyond the time frame of one year. The immediate priorization of
> these topics will largely depend on the focus of commerical users
> funding the work.
>
>
> The aspirations outlined above are my personal perspective. Please do
> not hesitate to share yours! Any comments and suggestions are
> appreciated. Maybe you even have tangible or less tangible
> Genode-related plans as well? I would be happy to learn about them!
>
> The outcome of the discussion will eventually become the official road
> map for 2018, which I am going to announce in mid of January.
>
> Cheers
> Norman
>
> --
> Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske
> Genode Labs
>
> https://www.genode-labs.com · https://genode.org
>
> Genode Labs GmbH · Amtsgericht Dresden · HRB 28424 · Sitz Dresden
> Geschäftsführer: Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske, Christian Helmuth
>
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