The postmarketOS 23.06 project, which is aimed at developing a Linux distribution for smartphones based on the ALPINE Linux package base, the standard MUSL SILLITETREE, and the BusyBox, has released a new issue. The project aims to provide Linux display for smartphones that is not dependent on the life cycle of supporting official firmware and not tied to standard solutions of the main players in the industry that set the development vector.
The latest builds have been prepared for Pine64 Pinephone, Purism Librem 5, and 29 devices supported by the community, including Samsung Galaxy A3/A5/S4, Xiaomi Mi Note 2/Redmi 2, OnePlus 6, Lenovo A6000, ASUS MEMO PAD 7, and even Nokia N900. Limited experimental support is provided for more than 300 devices.
The postmarketOS environment puts all the components specific to particular devices in a separate package. All other bags are identical to all devices and are based on Alpine Linux. As much as possible, the Linux vanilla core is used, and if this is not possible, then nuclei from firmware prepared by manufacturers of devices are used. The main user shells offered are KDE Plasma Mobile, Phosh, Gnome Mobile, and sxmo. But there is the possibility of installation, including Mate and xfce.
In the new issue of postmarketOS:
- The number of devices officially supported by the community has not changed. As in the last issue, the support of 31 devices is announced, but one device was deleted and one added. The Pine64 Pinetab tablet has been excluded from the list due to the lack of an accompanying person. However, the components to support the Pine64 Pinetab remain in a branch for developers and can be returned to a stable branch if an accompanying person is found. From the new devices, the Samsung Galaxy Grand Max smartphone appeared on the list.
- The possibility of using the user environment of Gnome Mobile is announced, in which the editors of the Gnome Shell shell, adapted for use on smartphones and tablets with a touch screen, is involved. Gnome Mobile components are based on the Gnome Shell 44 branch from Git. To manage the installation of applications, a mobile version of the GNOME application Software has been prepared.
- The Phosh environment, based on GNOME technology and developed by Purism for the Librem 5 smartphone, has been updated to version 0.26. Compared to the last postmarketOS release, a new plugin has been added to display information about the user and emergency challenges