By Jeremy Soller

on Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Overview

We have a lot to show since the 0.7.0 release! This
release, care has been taken to ensure real hardware is working, i686 support
has been added, features like audio and preliminary multi-display support have
been enabled, and the boot and install infrastructure has been simplified and
made more robust. I highly recommend skimming through the changes
listed below before jumping into the images, if you want more
details. It is also recommended to read through the
Redox OS book if you want more information on
how to build and use Redox OS.

For this release, I would like to personally thank Ron Williams, who goes by
rw_van in the Redox OS chat and GitLab. Ron has provided many valuable
contributions for this release, including vast updates to the
book, support for building with podman,
improvements to the build infrastructure, performing hardware testing, and more.
I would also like to thank our Redox OS Summer of Code (RSoC) students, whose
work was detailed in prior news posts and much of this work is included in this
release. Finally, I would like to thank the donors to Redox OS, for it is their
contributions that keep our RSoC program and our infrastructure running. Please
consider donating to Redox OS using the links on the Donate page!

In addition to the exciting technical changes, there is also organizational news
to share. Redox OS received a donation of $400,000 (USD). This donation
was anonymous, and the way in which it was made anonymous has made it not
possible to use at this time. Presently, I am working with a legal team on
determining specifically how the
OFAC sanctions on Tornado Cash
apply to this donation, which was made through Tornado Cash. At present, as I am
a US citizen, I have blocked the transfer of this donation in order to comply
with potential OFAC sanctions. In the event that I am allowed to use this
donation, I will describe in another news post what it means for Redox OS.

Discussion

Links where this release is discussed will be added here. To contact me
directly, view the links on my personal website: https://soller.dev/

• Hacker News
• Mastodon
• Patreon
• Reddit /r/redox
• Reddit /r/rust
• Redox OS Chat
• Twitter

Supported Hardware

Redox OS generally supports the following hardware, and any issues should be
reported as bugs:

• CPUs
  • Any x86_64 CPU is supported
  • i686 CPUs from the Pentium II and up are supported, however, support is
    not as complete as x86_64 support
• Audio
  • Audio out is supported with 16-bit samples at 44100 Hz
  • AC’97 chipsets are supported (via ac97d)
  • Intel HD Audio chipsets are supported (via ihdad)
• Display
  • Any BIOS supporting VESA BIOS extensions or UEFI system supporting GOP
    will be supported. Advanced features like multi-display are only available
    on UEFI systems where the firmware assigns a GOP instance to each display
• Ethernet
  • Intel Gigabit Ethernet is supported (via e1000d)
  • Realtek RTL8168 is supported (via rtl8168d)
  • There is an Intel 10 Gigabit Ethernet (via ixgbed) driver that I cannot
    test but may work
• Input
  • PS/2 keyboards, mice, and touchpads are supported. Laptops generally use
    PS/2 for the keyboard, and most use PS/2 for the touchpad
• Storage
  • AHCI (SATA) is supported (via ahcid)
  • IDE (PATA) is supported (via ided)
  • NVMe is supported (via nvmed)

Redox OS as of this release generally does not support Wi-Fi, USB, and
any other hardware not listed above. Please do not report the lack of support
until it is specified as generally supported.

Please consider contributing to our hardware compatibility list here:
https://gitlab.redox-os.org/redox-os/redox/-/blob/master/HARDWARE.md

Images

It is recommended to try Redox OS in a VM before trying on real hardware. See
the supported hardware section for details on what
hardware to select for the best experience. For this release, only x86_64 images
are provided, as there is still work to be done on i686 and aarch64 support.

Remember to verify images with sha256sum: https://static.redox-os.org/releases/0.8.0/x86_64/SHA256SUM

Demo

A 768 MiB image containing the standard desktop environment as well as pre-installed
demo applications

• Live (recommended): https://static.redox-os.org/releases/0.8.0/x86_64/redox_demo_x86_64_2022-11-23_638_livedisk.iso
• Pre-installed: https://static.redox-os.org/releases/0.8.0/x86_64/redox_demo_x86_64_2022-11-23_638_harddrive.img

The demo image includes these additional packages:

• DOSBox: A DOS emulator
• Games using PrBoom:
  • DOOM (Shareware)
  • FreeDOOM
• Neverball and Neverputt: OpenGL games using llvmpipe
  (performance may vary!)
• orbclient: demo orbital
  application
• Periodic Table: an app
  for viewing information about chemical elements
• Redox OS Games: command line
  games for Redox OS
• rodioplay: a music player
  capable of loading FLAC and WAV files
• Sodium: a vi-like editor
• sopwith: a classic PC air combat game
• syobonaction: a freeware platforming game

Desktop

A 256 MiB image containing only the standard desktop environment. Use this if
you want to download a smaller image

• Live: https://static.redox-os.org/releases/0.8.0/x86_64/redox_desktop_x86_64_2022-11-23_638_livedisk.iso
• Pre-installed: https://static.redox-os.org/releases/0.8.0/x86_64/redox_desktop_x86_64_2022-11-23_638_harddrive.img

Server

A 256 MiB image containing only the command-line environment. Use this if the
desktop image is not working well for you

• Live: https://static.redox-os.org/releases/0.8.0/x86_64/redox_server_x86_64_2022-11-23_638_livedisk.iso
• Pre-installed: https://static.redox-os.org/releases/0.8.0/x86_64/redox_server_x86_64_2022-11-23_638_harddrive.img

Changes

There have been quite a lot of changes since 0.7.0. I have manually enumerated
what I think is important in this list. Links to exhaustive source-level change
details can be found in the Exhaustive Details section

General

• Vast improvements to the book
• Support for i686 (32-bit x86 from the Pentium II and up) has been added, and
  is generally working on real hardware
• Support for aarch64 (64-bit ARM) has been improved, and is booting to login on
  QEMU. Real hardware is not working yet
• Support for multiple displays, if firmware provides framebuffer information
• Audio is now generally supported
• BIOS and EFI images have been merged, one install can boot on either
• The clone and exec syscalls have been