Road map for 2013
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Norman Feske
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doc/road_map.txt
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doc/road_map.txt
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@ -15,106 +15,164 @@ pushing the Genode technology to a certain direction, we are willing
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to revisit our plans.
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2012
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2013
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####
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"Eating our own dog food"
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=========================
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Before detailing the work planned for 2013, let's have a look at the last
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year's road map. In 2012, we labeled our activities as "Eating our own dog
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food". Our goal was to bring Genode into a shape that makes it usable as
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working environment for conducting Genode development. Just to name a few
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achievements of 2012, there is the new ability to build Genode on Genode, SSH,
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lighttpd, the new file-system infrastructure, the new DDE linux and DDE OSS.
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But even though the puzzle pieces are nicely coming together, we are not quite
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there yet to realistically make the switch to Genode as development
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environment. Two major missing points are a solid UI concept that leverages
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Genode's unique architecture and a "real" file system.
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To emphasize our conviction in the maturity and flexibility of
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Genode, we dedicate the year 2012 to the transition of the framework
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from a toolkit for building special-purpose operating systems to a
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fully functional general-purpose OS. The ambitioned goal of the
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Genode developers is to switch to Genode as everyday OS environment
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for carrying out productive work. In addition to bringing forward
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Genode as general purpose OS, we plan to use it to serve the
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genode.org web site.
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Even though we missed our ambitious main goal for 2012, there is no cause for
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despair. There are many achievements in addition to our road-map items to be
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proud of. The most visible addition is the thorough support for ARM-based
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platforms reaching from versatile express, over freescale i.MX, to OMAP4.
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Another amazing development is the added base-hw platform that enables Genode
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to be executed without a 3rd-party kernel on a variety of ARM-based platforms.
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Furthermore, the largely revised support for the Linux base platform makes
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Genode fit to be used as component framework on Linux.
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So what is coming next?
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We see four major construction sites that we should address this year:
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framework infrastructure, self-hosting, tooling and optimizations, and hardware
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support.
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Ingredients
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===========
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Framework infrastructure
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========================
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As developers of low-level system software, we have very specific
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expectations from our everyday OS. While we can live happily without
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graphical effects and rich multimedia applications, an efficient
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Unix-like command-line interface, the presence of development tools,
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and system stability are crucial.
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The primary group of people Genode tries to cater well are developers
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and integrators of systems. Genode is meant as a tool box to empower
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those people to build real-world component-based system solutions. From
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this audience, we receive requests for improvements in the following areas:
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We identified the following features as fundamental to our computing
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needs:
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* Multi-processor support: On some base platforms, SMP support is
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available but the framework still misses a holistic concept to
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manage and configure the use of multiple CPUs.
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* VIM
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* Shell
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* Tool chain (coreutils, gcc, binutils, make, findutils, tar, Tcl,
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expect)
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* Persistent file system
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* Block-device encryption
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* SSH client
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* RSync
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* Git client
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* GNUPG
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* Web browser (also used for email, don't need multi-media stuff)
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* PDF viewer
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* A way to run a just-compiled Genode sub system
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* Interactive Python shell (to be used as a calculator)
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* Screen lock
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* A fall-back virtual machine running Linux for carrying out sporadic
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work with images (Gimp, Povray, ImageMagick, etc.) and LaTeX, and
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for testing the Linux version of Genode
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* Tiled window manager (similar to the wonderful ion3)
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* IM client for Jabber
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* Improving scalability: On multi-core systems, and systems with a
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non-uniform memory architecture (NUMA) in particular, we face scalability
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challenges that we haven't thoroughly addresses so far. On NUMA systems,
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memory locality is an important consideration. So the framework should
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provide means to tailor the allocation of RAM for different subsystems.
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Furthermore, core could be largely improved to process service requests and
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page faults in a concurrent fashion.
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With those fundamentals in place, we will be ready to get started
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using the system. This will be the right time to address add-ons
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that make the devloper's life more efficient and enjoyable:
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* Storage: Block-device access is a general concern. Even though we
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laid the foundations for Genode's storage infrastructure, several
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pieces are still missing, in particular a "real" (non-FAT) file
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system, block/file/directory caching, and I/O scheduling. Without
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those pieces, there is no way to achieve the application performance
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that we desire.
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* EMACS (for all those that cannot live with VIM)
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* Intel wireless driver
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* Media player (at least for playing music)
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* Thinkpad ACPI support, fan daemon
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* Qemu
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* Tuxpaint
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* High-performance graphics, e.g., via the Wayland display server
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* Native mail-user agent (e.g., mutt)
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* Additional command-line tools (e.g., mc)
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* Networking: The current TCP/IP performance using lwIP has room
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for improvement. So I'd like to find a solution to bring TCP/IP
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performance on Genode on par with Linux. Maybe this means to find
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the bottlenecks in our lwIP port, or even going for another TCP/IP
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stack?
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The work on enabling these functionalities on top of Genode will be
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scattered over the year. However, for each of the four releases in
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2012, we define a particular focus.
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* Qt5: Now that Qt5 is officially released, we should consider to
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switch from Qt4 to Qt5.
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* Low-latency audio: The current audio_out-session interface was
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our first shot into the direction of audio processing. To enable
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use cases where streaming audio and sporadic sounds must be
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accommodated at the same time, we need to revise our approach.
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* Cryptography
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* Random numbers
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* Block-device encryption
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Self-hosting
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============
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The second major topic is redeeming the promise stated for the past year
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- using Genode as a real-world OS. The following pieces are missing.
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* UI concept for pleasant working environment
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* Tiled window manager
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* Terminal improvements (e.g., scroll buffer)
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* Noux improvements (e.g., signals)
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* Tools
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* Git (work is already in progress)
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* Mail user agent
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* Instant-messaging software
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* Support for 'make prepare' (e.g., SVN, wget, mawk)
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* Support for run tool: expect, Qemu
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Tooling and optimization
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========================
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Now that Genode's work loads become ever more complex, we feel the
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drastically increased need to understand its inner behavior and detect
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possible black holes where the performance goes.
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When the system scenarios were rather small, printf-debugging was quite
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feasible. But now, with multiple instances of Noux running concurrently
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with several drivers, we need better tools for understanding, debugging,
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and tracing the system. In a component-based system like Genode, the
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creation of such tooling support of especially challenging because we
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need to walk on new grounds. But good tooling is key to direct our efforts
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spent with performance optimizations. The goal should be to ultimately debunk
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the slow performance of microkernel-based systems as a myth.
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Hardware support
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================
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The attractiveness of our framework corresponds to the degree of
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hardware support. Since we want to make Genode more attractive, we need
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to continue our efforts with creating custom drivers, porting drivers,
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and enabling platforms. The following points are considered as the most
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interesting ones for this year:
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* Intel architecture
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* IOMMU support
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* Improved virtualization support (Vancouver on NOVA)
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* Intel wireless
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* ARM architecture
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* Extending support for SoC platforms
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* TrustZone
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Milestones
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==========
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:February - Release 12.02:
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* File and directory-service interfaces
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* Offline Unix tools (vim, shell, tool chain)
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* PDF viewer
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In the following, there is a rough schedule about the planned work. As always,
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it is not set in stone. If you are interested in a particular line of work,
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please get in touch.
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:May - Release 12.05:
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* Revisiting the support for Linux drivers (USB, sound)
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* Network-based Unix tools (e.g., ssh, Git, rsync), IM client
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* Media player
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:February - Release 13.02:
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* Low-latency audio support
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* IOMMU support on NOVA
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* First steps of user-interface concept
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* Improved x86 virtualization support
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:July - Live CD 12.03:
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* Presenting usage scenarios of Genode as development platform
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:May - Release 13.05:
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* SMP support
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* Qt5
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* Cryptography
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* Refined user-interface concept
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:August - Release 12.08:
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* Tiled window manager and user-interface concept
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* Intel wireless driver
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* Persistent file system
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* Hosting genode.org website on Genode
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* Multi-processor support on NOVA, Pistachio, and Fiasco.OC
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:August - Release 13.08:
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* TCP/IP optimization
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* RPC tracing facility
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* Real (non-FAT-based) file system
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:November - Release 12.11:
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* Extended support for Lenovo Thinkpad
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* Cryptography (block-device encryption, GNUPG)
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* Additional tools (emacs, mc)
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:November - Release 13.11:
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* Intel wireless
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* MP scalability improvements
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Additional topics
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=================
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In addition to the main theme for 2012 described above, Genode will
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continue to improve its support for ARM-based platforms.
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Live system
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===========
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In addition to the milestones outlined above, we are planning to release
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a new live system in 2013.
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