Redox OS 0.8.0 (UPDATED)
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.
UPDATE
Almost a week late:
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Redox OS version 0.8 is both strange and very familiar • The Register
If the words "experimental operating system" don't scare you off, Redox OS is an impressive demonstration of both homegrown OS development and the Rust language itself.
Redox OS version 0.8.0 arrives some seven months after version 0.7.0 in April. That seems to indicate that the cadence of new releases is accelerating – it's about three years since The Reg looked at Redox 0.5, and it's coming along quite well.
Saying that, though, it's not quite ready to host itself. In other words, you can't build Redox OS on Redox OS just yet. The Rust compiler rustc is working, but according to lead developer Jeremy Soller, the cargo build system and package manager isn't yet.
The main focuses in this version are to get the OS working on real hardware – there's a handy list – as opposed to just inside VMs. It now has audio support (IntelHD and AC97), and can boot on both BIOS and UEFI PCs. There are both i686 ("32-bit x86 from the Pentium II and up") and x86-64 versions, plus preliminary support for 64-bit Arm: it can boot to a login prompt inside QEMU.