Roadmap 2023

[Norman Feske]

Hi Pirmin,

thanks a lot for your contribution to the road-map discussion!

>> What directions are you most excited about?
> 
> As I want to replace my main setup (Linux/KVM with virtual machines for 
> different tasks) with a Genode system. I'm very interested in everything 
> related to things that enable Genode to run on my main desktop machine.
> 
> Two points that Alex brought up caught my attention:
>   - Extended multi monitor
>   - support for AMD GPUs. This I have on my task list for some time now, 
>     unfortunately I never had time to do it.

The repeated interest in AMD during the road-map discussion cannot be 
dismissed. Even though I expressed my hesitation in my reply to Alex 
[1], I sense that the community interest in AMD deserves a mention on 
the official road map. My concerns can be addressed by presenting the 
topic as exploratory work.

[1] https://lists.genode.org/pipermail/users/2023-January/008218.html

> An other point I'm interested in, is Genode on the PinePhone (mine 
> should arrive on Friday). One thing I would want to use this for, is 
> thedering in locations with no WiFi but LTE coverage. This can currently 
> be done via the LAN port of the dock I think.

It is so nice to see your interest in the PinePhone topic as well. For 
your specifc use case, the Wifi driver would be the most obvious piece 
missing so far.

> One point that is probably not that easy and further out, is the 
> possibility to pass through a PCI device (Graphics cart) directly to a 
> virtual machine.

Another interesting topic to explore. The biggest challenge will 
certainly be the coupling of the the guest OS with the IOMMU to allow 
the guest OS to issue DMA transfers. So VBox must somehow interoperate 
with the platform driver who is the single authority over DMA memory 
now. ...interesting food for thought.

> Second, now that support to port libraries with Goa is nearing 
> completion, I would like to use this to port neovim to Genode. Not that 
> vim isn't enough to edit files. I would like to test out, what can be 
> achieved that way.

I'm grateful for your intensive work on this topic. Even though I have 
not yet reviewed your latest version, I sense that the library support 
has matured enough to be upstreamed soon. Do you think that we should 
aspire featuring it it in Genode 23.02? If so, I'd commit to focus on 
the review/finishing touches during February.

Cheers
Norman

-- 
Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske
Genode Labs

https://www.genode-labs.com · https://genode.org

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