TL;DR
Redox marked its 10th anniversary with steady development across drivers, kernel, and tooling in December 2025, including an initial Intel GPU driver and ARM64 dynamic linking. The project continued compliance and CI work, received donations and NGI funding, and formalized governance and trademark policy.
What happened
December’s update rounded up a year of progress for Redox OS as the project celebrated ten years since its first commit. Community growth and contributions supported work on Wayland support, early hardware-accelerated graphics efforts, and an experimental smartphone port. Compliance testing using the os-test suite exposed bugs and guided fixes that improved POSIX conformance and portability. Financially, the project reported $17,000 from community donations plus $20,000 from Jeremy Soller, alongside grants and support from NLnet, NGI Zero Commons, and the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet initiative. On the technical side, Jeremy Soller produced an initial GPU driver for Intel Tiger Lake and Kaby Lake that currently supports mode setting only; ARM64 dynamic linking was added; and the system migrated drivers and components to a new scheme packet protocol. Governance and legal housekeeping included an elected board and a newly adopted trademark policy.
Why it matters
- Initial Intel GPU driver and Linux DRM compatibility work lay groundwork for future hardware acceleration and easier driver porting.
- ARM64 dynamic linking reduces package size and simplifies maintenance and cross-platform builds, improving portability to ARM hardware.
- Systematic compliance testing (os-test) raises POSIX conformance and makes porting Linux programs to Redox more practical.
- Ongoing NGI and donor-funded projects target stability, security, and performance, helping move the project toward larger goals such as self-hosting.
Key facts
- Project reached its 10th anniversary in 2025.
- Redox Matrix chat has more than 1,000 members.
- Community donations totaled $17,000; Jeremy Soller contributed $20,000 to the project.
- NLnet, NGI Zero Commons, NGI Zero Core and the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet initiative provided funded support.
- First Intel GPU driver implemented for Tiger Lake and Kaby Lake integrated GPUs; currently supports mode setting only.
- ARM64 support added to the dynamic linker and Cookbook, allowing dynamic linking on ARM64.
- System components and drivers migrated to a new scheme packet protocol to streamline system call API expansion.
- Optional package variants feature introduced; example reduced gcc13 primary package from 892MB to 597MB when using an optional cxx variant.
- Board of directors named: Ron Williams (chair), Jeremy Soller (treasurer), Alberto Souza (secretary), Mathew John Roberts (director).
- Multiple kernel, driver, CI and system fixes were merged, including a syscall6 implementation and various race-condition and CI reliability fixes.
What to watch next
- Progress on capability-based security and io_uring-like IO projects funded by NGI (ongoing).
- Development toward hardware-accelerated graphics and ioctl support for the new Intel GPU driver (in progress).
- Fundraising outcomes and hires for 2026 to support full-time development and longer-term goals.
Quick glossary
- Microkernel: A minimal kernel architecture that runs only core services in kernel mode and moves other services to user space to improve modularity and isolation.
- Wayland: A protocol for a compositor to talk to its clients, commonly used as a replacement for the X Window System on Linux and Unix-like desktops.
- Dynamic linker: A runtime component that loads shared libraries into a program’s address space and resolves symbol references when an application starts or at runtime.
- DRM (Direct Rendering Manager): A kernel-level subsystem in Linux that provides an API for graphics drivers and hardware-accelerated rendering.
- os-test suite: A compliance and correctness test collection used to evaluate POSIX conformance and identify bugs for an operating system port.
Reader FAQ
Is Redox fully self-hosting now?
Not confirmed in the source.
Does the new Intel GPU driver provide hardware acceleration?
No — the driver currently supports only mode setting; hardware-accelerated rendering is not yet available.
How much funding did Redox report for 2025?
The update reports $17,000 in community donations and $20,000 from Jeremy Soller, plus support from NLnet and NGI programs.
How can someone volunteer or contribute?
The project welcomes contributors and volunteers; board positions are elected and nominations are accepted—contact and contribution paths are maintained by the project (donate@redox-os.org mentioned as a contact).
This Month in Redox – December 2025 By Ribbon and Ron Williams on Wednesday, December 31, 2025 Redox OS is a complete Unix-like general-purpose microkernel-based operating system written in Rust….
Sources
- This Month in Redox – December 2025
- Redox OS Begins Developing Its Own Intel Graphics Driver
- [Phoronix] Redox OS Begins Developing Its Own Intel …
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