Roadmap 2018

[Nobody III]

Along with adding features to the base-hw kernel, I would suggest an
emphasis on improving its performance. I have tried my own Sculpt-like
scenario on that kernel, and I found that the mouse was sluggish when I
tried dragging a window around. I had no such problem on NOVA.

My particular example indicates that the base-hw kernel has performance
issues that need to be resolved, beyond just its lack of SMP support. I
would like to see it running much more smoothly later this year.

Aside from that, like Stefan, I would like to see window management
improvements. In particular, I would like to see the buttons on the title
bar actually working. This might just be an issue with current graphical
apps, such as nit_fb, but wherever the issue is, it should be fixed this
year.


On Thu, Jan 11, 2018 at 6:45 AM, Norman Feske <norman.feske at ...1...>
wrote:

> Hi Stefan,
>
> > To me personally it seems 2018 will be the year of "sculpt", and
> > although I much appreciate my daily work on a Genode base, I fear
> > other activities will become orphaned - which is our own kernel and
> > support of embedded platforms.
>
> Let me try to dispel your fear. My line of thoughts is as follows:
>
> 1. NOVA cannot be Genode's long-term future.
>
> We carry the burden of maintaining NOVA alone (where "we" is for the
> most part one person - hi Alex!). Note that I am speaking of
> maintaining, not developing. It is clear that we won't expand our
> engagement beyond the current level. Solving the remaining fundamental
> deficiencies of the kernel, in particular the kernel-resource
> management, is not on our agenda. This would be a different story if
> there was an active community around the kernel. But there is none to
> speak of.
>
> Feature-wise, NOVA is complete. So it is definitely a suitable basis for
> today and the immediate future. But in the longer term, its limitations
> will become a burden that we must overcome.
>
> 2. Base-hw solves NOVA's architectural problems but lacks features.
>
> The base-hw kernel facilitates Genode's architecture to solve problems
> that are extremely complicated to solve in other kernels (seL4 comes to
> mind) or unsolved (NOVA). But its feature set is incomplete.
>
> Since we won't take NOVA to the level we need in the longer term, the
> conclusion can only be what you just suggested: adding the missing
> features to base-hw:
>
> > * revert kernel optimization to share the address space with other
> >   components at least on top of x86, keyword: meltdown
> > * enable SMP for x86
> > * implement IOMMU support
> > * add x86 hypervisor functionality to hw
>
> So how about combining the overall theme "Sculpt" with this ambition?
> Should we set up the goal to run Sculpt on base-hw by the end of the year?
>
> You may wonder about the role of seL4 in this discussion. In contrast to
> NOVA, it is actively developed and there is a welcoming community around
> it. It is also fairly feature complete. On the other hand, it is
> complicated and we cannot easily tailor it to our needs. This is not a
> critique but a just consequence from seL4's focus. In contrast to seL4,
> base-hw was co-designed with Genode. So it is simple and frictionless,
> and puts us in control over everything. Hence, I see seL4 and base-hw in
> complimentary roles. (A) In situations where seL4's formal-verification
> story is anticipated, Genode enables seL4 to carry highly dynamic
> workloads. (B) For Genode use cases that call for the highest-possible
> simplicity, or that benefit from our full control over the kernel,
> base-hw is attractive.
>
> Even though I often hear that (A) is super interesting, Genode/seL4 has
> no commercial backing yet. I.e., there are no customers with the
> ambition to drive Genode's seL4 support via commissioned development
> projects. Naturally, as a Genode developer, my personal use case falls
> into category (B). So I wholeheartedly support your plan!
>
> 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------------
> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
> _______________________________________________
> genode-main mailing list
> genode-main at lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/genode-main
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.genode.org/pipermail/users/attachments/20180111/74f49325/attachment.html>