Sculpt OS

Sculpt is an open-source general-purpose OS. It combines Genode's microkernel architecture, capability-based security, sandboxed device drivers, and virtual machines in a novel operating system for commodity PC hardware. Sculpt is used as day-to-day OS by the Genode developers.

Version 20.08

(published in September 2020)

The administrative user interface ("Leitzentrale"): The panel at the top gives access to the live components view (shown), a file browser, and network connectivity. The interactive graph in the center presents the system components with their relationships and allows the user to interactively add/remove components offered by federated software providers.

SHA256 d8d92e701e454766364b5e3233b75a5edabf48d761301b3b9912dbb69af85899

Preparing a bootable USB stick on Unix

On Unix-based systems, use the dd command to copy the disk image to a USB stick:

sudo dd if=sculpt-20-08-b.img of=/dev/sdx bs=1M conv=fsync

Here, /dev/sdx refers to the device node of your USB stick. To determine it, you may inspect the output of dmesg after plugging it in.

Preparing a bootable USB stick on MS Windows

Option 1: Rufus Download and run Rufus (alternative portable executable available) Plug in your USB thumb drive and select it under "Device" Download the Sculpt OS image linked above and select it under "Boot selection" Write to the USB drive by clicking "START" Option 2: Win32 Disk Imager Download, install, and run Win32 Disk Imager Download the Sculpt OS image linked above and select under "Image file" Plug in your USB thumb drive and select it under "Device" Write to the USB drive by clicking "Write"

Running Sculpt as VirtualBox appliance

Download the sculpt-20-08-b.ova (signature) appliance that contains the Sculpt 20.08 image along with a known-to-work VirtualBox configuration. SHA256 b3ac6ef1dd1ae466293d5ff2aefa2efb425f181a495209c17b196c1f7986107e Start VirtualBox and import the OVA file as appliance. After boot, you will be presented with two disks, the boot disk and an empty disk as playground. You may format the latter using Sculpt's user interface.

Running Sculpt 20.08 in Qemu

You may take the following command line as starting point for experimenting with Sculpt 20.08 on the Qemu emulator.

qemu-system-x86_64 -display sdl -cpu core2duo -machine q35 \ -m 1024 -drive format=raw,file=sculpt-20-08-b.img

Version 20.02

(published in March 2020)

The administrative user interface ("Leitzentrale"): The panel at the top gives access to the live components view (shown), a file browser, and network connectivity. The interactive graph in the center presents the system components with their relationships and allows the user to interactively add/remove components offered by federated software providers.

SHA256 b37dc12c2d8c0b4ddd17902a03de3759ca598a1cfde88f2c10472b41c0a5cac5

Preparing a bootable USB stick on Unix

On Unix-based systems, use the dd command to copy the disk image to a USB stick:

sudo dd if=sculpt-20-02.img of=/dev/sdx bs=1M conv=fsync

Here, /dev/sdx refers to the device node of your USB stick. To determine it, you may inspect the output of dmesg after plugging it in.

Preparing a bootable USB stick on MS Windows

Option 1: Rufus Download and run Rufus (alternative portable executable available) Plug in your USB thumb drive and select it under "Device" Download the Sculpt OS image linked above and select it under "Boot selection" Write to the USB drive by clicking "START" Option 2: Win32 Disk Imager Download, install, and run Win32 Disk Imager Download the Sculpt OS image linked above and select under "Image file" Plug in your USB thumb drive and select it under "Device" Write to the USB drive by clicking "Write"

Running Sculpt as VirtualBox appliance

Download the sculpt-20-02.ova (signature) appliance that contains the Sculpt 20.02 image along with a known-to-work VirtualBox configuration. SHA256 465a00f7307ae52dbbe919952ea8523568e375ed7f8d2da0b5ff95ee6a57c748 Start VirtualBox and import the OVA file as appliance. After boot, you will be presented with two disks, the boot disk and an empty disk as playground. You may format the latter using Sculpt's user interface.

Running Sculpt 20.02 in Qemu

You may take the following command line as starting point for experimenting with Sculpt 20.02 on the Qemu emulator.

qemu-system-x86_64 -display sdl -cpu core2duo -machine q35 \ -m 1024 -drive format=raw,file=sculpt-20-02.img

Version 19.07

(published in July 2019)

The administrative user interface ("Leitzentrale"): The menu on the left provides a convenient way to access and manage storage and to control network connectivity. The interactive graph in the center presents the system components with their relationships and allows the user to interactively add/remove components offered by federated software providers.

SHA256 13010eafde20426c65998d3496b0269b82e5185ec14085c76ab57c9014ba7e04

Preparing a bootable USB stick on Unix

On Unix-based systems, use the dd command to copy the disk image to a USB stick:

sudo dd if=sculpt-19-07.img of=/dev/sdx bs=1M conv=fsync

Here, /dev/sdx refers to the device node of your USB stick. To determine it, you may inspect the output of dmesg after plugging it in.

Preparing a bootable USB stick on MS Windows

Option 1: Rufus Download and run Rufus (alternative portable executable available) Plug in your USB thumb drive and select it under "Device" Download the Sculpt OS image linked above and select it under "Boot selection" Write to the USB drive by clicking "START" Option 2: Win32 Disk Imager Download, install, and run Win32 Disk Imager Download the Sculpt OS image linked above and select under "Image file" Plug in your USB thumb drive and select it under "Device" Write to the USB drive by clicking "Write"

Running Sculpt as VirtualBox appliance

Download the sculpt-19-07.ova (signature) appliance that contains the Sculpt 19.07 image along with a known-to-work VirtualBox configuration. SHA256 9369d4f1f6f5e75543d912d06d1b5e229fae3b9ac2203f239e35d0d4f9bd2333 Start VirtualBox and import the OVA file as appliance. After boot, you will be presented with two disks, the boot disk and an empty disk as playground. You may format the latter using Sculpt's user interface.

Running Sculpt 19.07 in Qemu

You may take the following command line as starting point for experimenting with Sculpt 19.07 on the Qemu emulator.

qemu-system-x86_64 -display sdl -cpu core2duo -machine q35 \ -m 1024 -drive format=raw,file=sculpt-19-07.img

Sculpt as a Community Experience (CE)

(published in March 2019)

As explained in the accompanying blog posting, Sculpt CE features a new user interface to integrate software into the running system and to reveal the trusted computing base of each component. The integrity of the installed software is protected by digital signatures of the software providers while each piece of software is sandboxed both at installation time and at runtime. This way, users don't need to be faithful but enter a position of ultimate control.

Instructions Sculpt CE documentation Download disk image sculpt-ce.img (24 MiB) SHA256 359ccabed4d20719a9aa57420440764914a0e5f327cdc1cc42ea7eb5c5808c5a

Preparing a bootable USB stick on Unix

On Unix-based systems, use the dd command to copy the disk image to a USB stick:

sudo dd if=sculpt-ce.img of=/dev/sdx bs=1M conv=fsync

Here, /dev/sdx refers to the device node of your USB stick. To determine it, you may inspect the output of dmesg after plugging it in.

Preparing a bootable USB stick on MS Windows

Option 1: Rufus Download and run Rufus (alternative portable executable available) Plug in your USB thumb drive and select it under "Device" Download the Sculpt OS image linked above and select it under "Boot selection" Write to the USB drive by clicking "START" Option 2: Win32 Disk Imager Download, install, and run Win32 Disk Imager Download the Sculpt OS image linked above and select under "Image file" Plug in your USB thumb drive and select it under "Device" Write to the USB drive by clicking "Write"

Running Sculpt CE as VirtualBox appliance

Download the sculpt-ce.ova (signature) appliance that contains the Sculpt CE image along with a known-to-work VirtualBox configuration. SHA256 4305ff93ea0aa6411af7bfecf0d0c046de9ff3c3da14b6cfa9a74d34ea0b2753 Start VirtualBox and import the OVA file as appliance. After boot, you will be presented with two disks, the boot disk and an empty disk as playground. You may format the latter using Sculpt's user interface.

Running Sculpt CE in Qemu

You may take the following command line as starting point for experimenting with Sculpt CE on the Qemu emulator.

qemu-system-x86_64 -display sdl -cpu core2duo -machine q35 \ -m 1024 -drive format=raw,file=sculpt-ce.img

Sculpt with Visual Composition (VC)

(published in September 2018)

The administrative user interface ("Leitzentrale"): The menu on the left provides a convenient way to access and manage storage and to control network connectivity. The interactive graph in the center presents the system components with their relationships and allows the user to interactively add/remove components.

Instructions Sculpt VC documentation Download disk image sculpt-vc.img (24 MiB) SHA256 e9c012363cd5dce46dc972ad48c0252907b30331ac44971aee88301c0e7b1f42

Preparing a bootable USB stick on Unix

On Unix-based systems, use the dd command to copy the disk image to a USB stick:

sudo dd if=sculpt-vc.img of=/dev/sdx bs=1M conv=fsync

Here, /dev/sdx refers to the device node of your USB stick. To determine it, you may inspect the output of dmesg after plugging it in.

Preparing a bootable USB stick on MS Windows

Option 1: Rufus Download and run Rufus (alternative portable executable available) Plug in your USB thumb drive and select it under "Device" Download the Sculpt OS image linked above and select it under "Boot selection" Write to the USB drive by clicking "START" Option 2: Win32 Disk Imager Download, install, and run Win32 Disk Imager Download the Sculpt OS image linked above and select under "Image file" Plug in your USB thumb drive and select it under "Device" Write to the USB drive by clicking "Write"

Running Sculpt VC as VirtualBox appliance

Download the sculpt-vc.ova appliance that contains the Sculpt VC image along with a known-to-work VirtualBox configuration. SHA256 20c1ffd7c91fe26195100fe3be2721367a39654657d125e9fd8e3dfafdeb72d0 Start VirtualBox and import the OVA file as appliance. After boot, you will be presented with two disks, the boot disk and an empty disk as playground. You may format the latter using Sculpt's user interface.

Sculpt for The Curious (TC)

(published in June 2018)

The administrative user interface ("Leitzentrale"): The menu on the left provides a convenient way to access and manage storage and to control network connectivity. The main window allows the user to interactively shape the operating system using the Vim text editor. In the depicted scenario, the user just added a few new subsystems, which are currently being installed. The log on the bottom gives feedback about current activities.

The desktop: Firefox runs on TinyCore Linux inside a virtual machine. The Qt-based text editor allows the user to edit configurations - like the user-level network routing - live. On the top-right, the current CPU load is displayed. The terminal window below hosts the light-weight noux runtime environment for executing command-line-based Unix software.

The press of a button activates the "Leitzentrale" overlay, which empowers the user to inspect and change (sculpt) almost all aspects of the running system on the fly.

Instructions Sculpt TC documentation Download disk image sculpt-tc.img (20 MiB) SHA256 b3a299ec6f6d582a724e417dd8ff5613833f8702ebd7300a54de8a8ad2844c5b

Preparing a bootable USB stick on Unix

On Unix-based systems, use the dd command to copy the disk image to a USB stick:

sudo dd if=sculpt-tc.img of=/dev/sdx bs=1M conv=fsync

Here, /dev/sdx refers to the device node of your USB stick. To determine it, you may inspect the output of dmesg after plugging it in.

Preparing a bootable USB stick on MS Windows

Option 1: Rufus Download and run Rufus (alternative portable executable available) Plug in your USB thumb drive and select it under "Device" Download the Sculpt OS image linked above and select it under "Boot selection" Write to the USB drive by clicking "START" Option 2: Win32 Disk Imager Download, install, and run Win32 Disk Imager Download the Sculpt OS image linked above and select under "Image file" Plug in your USB thumb drive and select it under "Device" Write to the USB drive by clicking "Write"

Running Sculpt TC as VirtualBox appliance