The Nura Project: Formerly postmarketOS
The postmarketOS project, known for developing a Linux distribution for mobile devices, has officially changed its name to Nura. The new name was inspired by the ancient towers Nuraghi in Sardinia, symbolizing stability and durability, reflecting the project’s aim to prolong the lifespan of mobile devices. While the logo remains largely the same, it has undergone refinement to enhance readability. Additionally, the project’s domain has shifted from postmarketos.org to nura.eco.
The decision to rename the project stems from the challenges posed by the lengthy and difficult-to-pronounce previous name, particularly for non-English-speaking users. Issues with capitalization variations and the inability to trademark the old name due to its descriptive nature also prompted the change. The Nura name was selected through a voting process from over 300 options and vetted for any negative connotations across different languages.
Nura is focused on developing a Linux distribution for mobile devices built on Alpine Linux, the Musl C library, and BusyBox utilities. The goal is to offer a versatile Linux distribution for smartphones and tablets that isn’t bound by the official firmware’s support life cycle or industry standard solutions. Key custom shells available include KDE Plasma Mobile, Phosh, GNOME Mobile, and Sxmo, with the option to install other environments like MATE, COSMIC, and Xfce. Builds are tailored for 65 devices, including community and testing devices like the PINE64 PinePhone Pro, Purism Librem 5, OnePlus 6, Fairphone 5, Google Nexus 10, Google Pixel 3a, Nokia N900, Lenovo A60xx, ASUS MeMo Pad 7, as well as various Samsung Galaxy and Xiaomi models. Experimental support is also offered for over 600 devices.