Genode OS Planning For PinePhone Bring-Up, Better GPU Support In 2021

For those wanting to run a micro-kernel operating system for your low-cost, open-source friendly PinePhone, the Genode OS framework plans to port to the PinePhone this year. Genode OS and its Sculpt general purpose platform are also wanting to better embrace GPU support in 2021.

The Genode operating system framework that features an original, open-source micro-kernel abstraction layer and a set of user-space components in development since 2008, published their road-map for the year.

Like many in the open-source community, Genode OS developers and users have been intrigued by PINE64's PinePhone that offers an Allwinner A64-powered open-source smartphone with 2GB of RAM, 16GB eMMC, and other basics for just $149~199 USD. While there are many Linux distributions supporting the PinePhone, Genode OS wants in on the action too and plans to port their operating system framework to it this year. They want Genode on PinePhone to serve as "a feature phone, covering basic web-browsing needs, placing calls, and SMS."

Genode OS in 2021 also wants to make it easier to port Linux drivers to its platform, various means of enhancing the developer experience, continuing to optimize the performance, and also focus on better GPU support. Genode has dabbled with Mesa and GPU support in the past but at the moment there isn't much to offer. This year they plan to focus more on Intel graphics support as well as GPU support by ARM platforms they currently target.

More details as to these open-source operating system plans for 2021 can be found via Genode.org.