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NOOVEXOS 64 / RELEASES

Changelog

What changed in each NoovexOS 64 release.

v10.25

  • Properties for files, folders and window title bars: icon, name, type, location, size and permissions; folders count everything inside, and icons can be changed.
  • Classic Settings: grey window, white category list, group boxes, tick boxes and raised buttons, with every page kept. The Background page has a Plain grey button.
  • The ChatGPT app is removed, Browser is under Utilities, and the desktop has no icons.
  • Opening a file on a USB stick copies it to Downloads and opens it in the right app, for files up to 256 MB.
  • Faster, more reliable name lookups: other traffic keeps flowing while a lookup waits, lost queries are resent after 1 and 2 s, and 64 names are cached. Long downloads no longer set off the freeze report.
  • Scripts in the first srcdoc or src frame of a page now run, and postMessage works both ways.
  • Large pages appear while they download: the part received so far is shown, then the full page loads.
  • Faster JavaScript: replace with regular expressions 6 times faster, Map and Set 1.7 times faster, and a quicker JSON.stringify.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v10.13

  • Fixed browser pages turning white on reload, a new address or switching tabs: toolbar redraws no longer erase a pending load request, and the network reader no longer ends a response early when a packet is missed.
  • New browser toolbar: tabs with site initials, a joined active tab, round back, reload and star buttons, a rounded address field with a lock, distinct host and path text, and a busy bar.
  • Tested in QEMU: reloading twice and switching back and forth between three tabs with different pages; every page showed correctly.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v10.07

  • A C compiler inside NoovexOS: TCC is available as tcc and cc, with headers and libraries; tcc -run file.c compiles and runs a program in memory.
  • New source-built musl ports: vim, less, curl, git and Dropbear, with ncurses and zlib. Git clone over HTTP and HTTPS and Dropbear key-based login were tested in QEMU; git push, interactive SSH logins and real hardware were not tested.
  • NetSurf browser: HTML and CSS layout, images, HTTPS, forms and history, launched from the text console or a Terminal window. JavaScript is not included. PNG, JPEG and SVG were tested in QEMU; GIF and BMP were not tested.
  • Dynamic musl programs can find shared libraries in /usr/lib. Fixed trailing-slash paths, Linux ioctl request matching and directory creation when a name matches a program.
  • More reliable first network use: ARP retries and up to three DHCP retries. Text-console mouse input now reaches programs, and the console cursor no longer draws over an open /dev/fb0.
  • Default editor and pager are vim and less, with Git, shell, Dropbear and CA-certificate configuration included.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v10.05

  • Screenshots: Print Screen opens a screenshot tool with Area, Screen and Window modes. Shift+Print Screen saves the whole screen and Alt+Print Screen the window under the pointer straight away.
  • Each screenshot is saved as a PNG in /home/Pictures and copied to the clipboard, so Ctrl+V in Paint pastes it.
  • Print Screen now works on PS/2 and USB keyboards, and the shell has a screenshot (or scrot) command.
  • Much faster NVMe disks: several blocks are read and written per command. Installing to an NVMe disk in QEMU went from 136 s to 13 s. The new disktest command shows the read speed.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v10.04

  • Touchpads on laptops such as the ASUS TUF Gaming F17: the firmware is asked which touchpad entry is in use and which address it has, and a missing controller falls back to the parent bus. ELAN touchpads try address 0x15 first.
  • I2C controllers are also found through the ACPI interpreter and powered on before use. Only real I2C functions are touched, never UART, SPI or the SPI flash controller.
  • If the firmware lists a touchpad that does not answer, the start-up check now tries every known controller and the usual addresses by itself, without tpinfo scan.
  • tpinfo shows for each touchpad entry whether it is on, the address and controller used, and one line per Intel I2C device with why it was or was not used.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v10.03

  • Task Manager now looks like GNOME System Monitor and matches Settings: its own header bar with a centred view switcher for Processes, Resources, Devices and Services, an End task button on the left, and round window buttons. The rest of the header still moves the window.
  • Processes is one boxed list with column titles, Apps and Background groups with counts, the selected row in the accent colour, and a summary of processes, CPU and memory.
  • Resources shows CPU, Memory, GPU, Disk and Network with a colour dot, value and small graph, plus a 60-second graph and right-aligned details.
  • Devices is one boxed list of expandable rows with chevrons and a scroll bar. Services shows each service with its description and a Running or Stopped indicator.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v10.01

  • Settings has a new look in the style of GNOME Settings on Linux: its own header bar with the page title, a back button and round window buttons, a flat sidebar with simple one-colour icons, and your user at the bottom.
  • Search in Settings: start typing to find any page ("wifi" finds Wi-Fi), Enter opens the first result, Esc clears.
  • Pages are clean boxed lists with thin separators, centred content, new switches, buttons and segmented controls, and smooth text everywhere.
  • The Power page shows a clear message when the computer has no battery.
  • Systems on v10.00 can update to this version from Settings > Update & recovery > NoovexOS Update.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v10.00

  • Updates from inside NoovexOS: Settings > Update & recovery > NoovexOS Update (or the update command) checks noovexos.site, downloads the new version, checks its size and SHA-256 and the kernel's build checksum before anything changes.
  • The previous version is kept on the disk. If the new version does not start twice in a row, the computer starts the previous version by itself. Go back and Use it again switch between the two.
  • A power cut during an update leaves a version that starts: every step is recorded and each written file is read back and compared.
  • A full-screen "Working on updates" screen with progress, like Windows.
  • Better looking Settings: a new update page, status cards on the System and Update & recovery pages, and new icons.
  • Fixed: installing to a disk stopped with "The kernel size stamp is invalid" since the kernel passed 64 MB. The boot partition is now 512 MB.
  • HTTPS downloads larger than about 8 MB no longer stop early.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v9.99

  • Crash reports: when NoovexOS stops, the screen names the function, the call chain and the driver that was starting, and the report is saved as CRASH.TXT on the USB stick and crash-report.txt in Files. The next start shows it.
  • Freeze reports: if the system stops responding for 5 seconds, a report appears on screen and is saved after 30 seconds.
  • A start-up driver that stopped the previous start is skipped once, so one bad driver cannot keep the computer from starting.
  • Memory safety: a guard page under the kernel stack, stack overflow markers, the stack protector, and heap checks that catch overruns and double frees.
  • AMD GPIO driver: the touchpad interrupt pin on AMD laptops is checked against real touchpad reports before it is used.
  • CPU temperature and speed: Intel and AMD Zen sensors, hardware speed control (HWP) on Intel, shown in the task manager and with cputemp.
  • Fixed: files could not be written to a USB stick made from the ISO.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v9.98

  • Fixed: with NVIDIA GPU drawing on, newly opened apps could stay invisible, and a left click on them in the taskbar minimized them. Graphics memory for window layers is now given back when it is no longer needed.
  • If the GPU cannot get memory for a new window, the CPU takes over drawing at once, so new windows always show.
  • Opening a window while the GPU draws is much faster.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v9.97

  • Fixed the input lag introduced in v9.94: the mouse, window dragging and the keyboard respond immediately again.
  • Faster memory copies: a desktop frame in QEMU went from 47 ms to 20 ms.
  • The system no longer sleeps while mouse, keyboard or touchpad input is waiting.
  • New performance overlay: Ctrl+Alt+P shows frame rate, frame time, input wait and what draws the screen.
  • The wallpaper light animation pauses while you use the mouse or keyboard.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v9.96

  • Desktop images are kept in normal RAM again by default; keeping them in NVIDIA card memory made frames slow. nvgsp cardmem on turns it on for testing.
  • A watchdog stops GPU drawing and lets the CPU draw if the GPU fails or frames get slow, and logs the reason.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v9.95

  • Settings > Screens reads from the NVIDIA card which monitors are connected, their native modes and the current mode. This is the first step of the NVIDIA display work.
  • A more robust NVIDIA driver that handles lost requests, busy channels and channel errors the way the Linux nouveau driver does.
  • File Manager: a SerenityOS-style folder tree with a Devices section (This PC and the drives), and icon view by default.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v9.94

  • New SerenityOS-inspired classic look: window colours, gradient title bars with app icons, and a matching File Manager.
  • Mouse clicks are no longer lost when frames are slow: button changes are queued in order, like Linux evdev.
  • AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards are detected by name, in the task manager and with the gpus command.
  • When a window closes or is minimized, focus moves to the next window.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v9.93

  • Ctrl+Alt+N turns NVIDIA GPU drawing off and on again; nvgsp on and nvgsp off do the same in the terminal.
  • The task manager has an NVIDIA page, and Settings has a new NVIDIA graphics page that shows the state and why drawing was turned off.
  • Quick clicks inside app windows are no longer missed.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v9.92

  • Restart and power off shut the NVIDIA card down properly, so the GPU starts again after a warm restart.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v9.91

  • The full NVIDIA start now passes every step, and the desktop switches to GPU drawing.
  • Scaled copies on the GPU pick the correct pixels.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v9.90

  • Any NVIDIA failure turns every GPU path off and the CPU draws again; Ctrl+Alt+N does the same by hand.
  • GPU start requests run between frames, so the desktop does not freeze.
  • Error reports from the card are handled as they arrive.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v9.89

  • NVIDIA acceleration starts by itself on GTX 16 and RTX 20 cards (Turing) about 3 seconds after the desktop appears; nvgsp auto off turns this off.
  • If a start freezes the computer, the next boot skips the automatic start once, and the log is saved after every step.
  • A progress panel shows each step while the card starts.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v9.88

  • A more detailed NVIDIA start-up log for comparing with Linux.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v9.87

  • The whole desktop can be drawn by compute shaders on the NVIDIA GPU: wallpaper, windows, text, shadows, blur and gradients.
  • The GPU program matches the CPU drawing bit for bit.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v9.86

  • NVIDIA 2D engine: fills, copies, scaled copies and blends on the GPU.
  • Gears sends its frames straight to the screen while its window is fully visible.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v9.85

  • Only the changed parts of the screen are sent to the display, through the NVIDIA copy engine when it is available.
  • Starting the NVIDIA GSP firmware now follows the Linux nouveau driver.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v9.84

  • Desktop frames go to the screen through the NVIDIA copy engine.
  • The NVIDIA log is also saved to a USB stick as NVGSPLOG.TXT, so it can be read on another computer.
  • Gears animates at the display refresh rate.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).

v9.83

  • New source layout: one folder per part of the system at the repository root, each with a README. Build with bash build.sh.

Detailed technical notes for every release are in the Docs: Release history (technical).