Sculpt 25.10 with HID-syntax highlighting

General
1

Hello everyone,

I just published a new Sculpt system image with the following features:

  • Switch from NOVA to Genode’s custom kernel
  • HID-syntax highlighting in Vim
  • Syntax highlighting when viewing /report/log in Vim
  • Fully compatible to Sculpt 25.10
  • The /bin/hrd tool has been renamed to /bin/hid

You can find the new version 2025-12-12 provided by nfeske in the system-update dialog. Alternatively, you can download a fresh system image from https://depot.genode.org/nfeske/image/. I made it available for the PC and MNT Reform.

The files of the config and report file systems now look as follows when viewing/editing them in Vim.

hid_vim_syntax_1
hid_vim_syntax_1715×332 47.3 KB

Disabled nodes and comments appear in blue.

hid_vim_syntax_2
hid_vim_syntax_2712×329 44.5 KB

The highlighting might not be perfect (e.g., the mac addresses in the wifi/accesspoints look funny) but it is already quite nice to use. Hence I’m sharing it. Should you discover cases that are not handled well yet, please consider tweaking the syntax file and report your findings. For experimenting, copy /share/vim/vim73/syntax/hid.vim to /tmp, replace the first part of the file (about current_syntax) by syntax clear and use :source /tmp/hid.vim to try out your modifications.

As mentioned above, I just made the switch from NOVA to our custom base-hw kernel. There are still a few things missing, e.g., the MSR GUI is not yet supported. There may also be a few rough edges still, e.g., I noticed that the touchpad driver on my Gen12-Framework laptop does not behave as expected. Nevertheless, I’ve switched to this version full time now. If you like to help us sanding off those rough edges, please give the image try and report your findings.

7 Likes
2

Is Base-HW an example of an exokernel? According to Genode Foundations:

In contrast to classical L4 microkernels where Genode’s core process runs as user-level roottask on top of the kernel, base-hw executes Genode’s core directly on the hardware with no distinct kernel underneath.

If so, this would be a cutting edge feature that is under-reported.

3

My understanding is that is done by moving the userspace features into the kernel and not by bypassing it entirely

4

The motivation and approach was first described as part of our TrustZone article in 2014. You can find additional in-depth information in Section 7.7 of the Genode Foundations book.

2 Likes
5

As another minor update, I published a new version 2025-12-16, which re-enables the support for the file-vault and fixes a few device-detection issues. Thanks to @skalk for testing and reporting.

4 Likes
6

Hi, thanks for the great work.
Are there any plans to make the level of performance changeable again (powersave to max performance)?

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The feature for steering the power and reading the frequency is currently not available for the -hw- Sculpt version, only for -nova- by now. Some kernel work is required to add this feature, we started to discuss this but this is nothing to happen tomorrow.

1 Like