After 6 months of development, the postmarketOS 24.12 project, which develops the distribution, has been released Linux for mobile devices, based on the Alpine package base Linux, the standard C library Musl and the BusyBox utility suite. The goal of the project is to provide Linux- a distribution for smartphones and tablets that is independent of the official firmware support lifecycle and isn't tied to the standard solutions of major industry players. Builds have been prepared for 54 devices, including the PINE64 PinePhone, Purism Librem 5, OnePlus 6, Google Nexus 10, Nokia N900, Lenovo A6000, ASUS MeMo Pad 7, as well as various Samsung Galaxy and Xiaomi models. Limited experimental support is provided for over 500 devices.
The postmarketOS environment is unified and places all device-specific components in a separate package. All other packages are identical for all devices and are based on packages from the Alpine distribution. Linux. The builds use the vanilla kernel whenever possible. Linux, and if that's not possible, then kernels from firmware prepared by device manufacturers. KDE Plasma Mobile, Phosh, GNOME Mobile, and Sxmo are offered as the primary user interfaces, but other environments, including MATE and Xfce, can also be installed.
In the new release:
- Added support for the Google Pixel 3A smartphone and devices based on the Qualcomm MSM8953 (Snapdragon 450/625/626/632) platform, including Xiaomi Mi A1, Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite, Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime, Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus, Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 and Xiaomi Redmi S2/Y2.
The number of ready-made assemblies has decreased from 54 to 53. Compared to the postmarketOS 24.06 version, the following assemblies have been added:
- google-sargo (Google Pixel 3a)
- xiaomi-elish (Xiaomi Mi Pad 5 Pro)
- google-asurada (Acer Chromebook 514, Asus Chromebook Flip)
- google-cherry (Acer Chromebook Spin 513, HP Chromebook x360)
- google-corsola (Lenovo 300e Yoga Chromebook Gen 4, Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 Chromebook)
- google-peach-pi (Samsung Chromebook 2)
- qcom-msm8953 (devices with Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chip)
- Xiaomi Mi A1
- Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite
- Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
- Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus
- Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 / 4X
- Xiaomi Redmi S2 / Redmi Y2
- Asus Zenfone 3
- BQ Aquaris X / Aquaris X Pro
- 3 Fairphone
- Huawei Maimang 5
- Lenovo P2
- Motorola G5 Plus
- Motorola G6
- Motorola Moto G7 Power
- Samsung Galaxy A6 (2018)
- Xiaomi Redmire 5
- Xiaomi Redmire 7
The following builds have been discontinued: google-nyan-big (Acer Chromebook 13 CB5-311) and google-nyan-blaze (HP Chromebook 14 G3). The following builds have been merged: xiaomi-daisy (Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite), xiaomi-markw (Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime), xiaomi-mido (Xiaomi Redmi Note 4), xiaomi-tissot (Xiaomi Mi A1), xiaomi-vince (Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Plus) and xiaomi-ysl (Xiaomi Redmi S2).
- The release includes more than 200 devices from the "testing" category, the level of support for which varies from the ability to boot to the operability of almost all functions. Builds for these devices can be prepared using the pmbootstrap toolkit and ready-made packages from the project repository. Among the new devices, support for Fairphone 5 and Amlogic TV set-top boxes is noted.
- The "Generic x64 UEFI" port, designed for installing the distribution on regular PCs and laptops, has been updated to include the ability to use the open Nouveau driver on systems with NVIDIA GPUs, and firmware for Intel GPUs has been added.
- The package database is synchronized with Alpine Linux 3.21.
- The KDE Plasma Mobile shell has been updated to version 6.2.4 (previously version 6.0.3 was supplied). A new interface for making calls has been implemented.
- The GNOME Mobile user environment has been updated, featuring a GNOME Shell edition tailored for use on touchscreen smartphones and tablets. GNOME Mobile components have been migrated to the GNOME Shell 46 branch. Improvements have been made to the design, virtual keyboard, and sleep/standby modes.
- The Phosh environment, based on GNOME technologies and developed by Purism for the Librem 5 smartphone, has been updated to version 0.43 (previously, version 0.39 was used). Among the changes: redesigned quick settings panel; quick settings for activating dark mode, enabling/disabling data transfer via cellular network and enabling Wi-Fi Hotspot; support for accent colors; adaptation of the lock screen for small screens; improvement of the notification display system.
- The Sxmo (Simple X Mobile) graphical shell, based on the Sway composite manager and adhering to the Unix philosophy, has been updated to version 1.17 (previously 1.16.3), which provides the ability to use the wofi application menu instead of bemenu; a new screensaver (peanutbutter) is used; a "busy" mode has been added, which disables the ringtone and vibration; the notification system has been rewritten; a handler for LED indicators has been added; a section with all installed applications has been added to the menu; smooth scrolling in the menu has been implemented.
- New wallpapers are in use.
- GNOME builds now include the Snapshot camera app and Weather interface by default. The Evince PDF viewer has been replaced by Papers, and the Lollypop audio player has been replaced by Decibels.
- The MATE-based interface has been adapted for touchscreen control, with larger margins and a larger font. MATE and Xfce environments have been relocated to the slick-greeter login screen.
- A plugin for working with apk packages used in Alpine has been added to the Discover application manager used in KDE. Linux.
- The initramfs RAM disk image launched by the kernel early during boot to mount the file system has improved detection of the boot partition and added additional debugging capabilities, such as holding the volume up button now enabling detailed boot logging.
- Improved camera support in builds using the vanilla kernel Linux instead of a specific core from AndroidThe camera capabilities when using the vanilla kernel are still noticeably behind the kernel from Android, but the situation is gradually changing. For example, the new version provides support for the front and rear cameras on the Pixel 3A and Fairphone 5 smartphones, and also adds the ability to use one of the two rear cameras on the Pocophone F1 smartphone.
- When connecting via SSH, the PAM (Pluggable Authentication Module) is configured correctly, allowing you to run graphical applications and use pw-dump to debug PipeWire when working with cameras.
- By default, instead of the sudo utility, the doas program (a simplified analogue of sudo from the OpenBSD project) and the doas-sudo-shim layer with the implementation of the sudo command on top of doas are used.
- The ZSTD algorithm is used to compress linux-firmware firmware.
- The default delivery includes fonts for Cyrillic and Greek-based languages.
The ability to use the systemd system manager instead of the OpenRC init system, which was expected in postmarketOS 24.12, has been postponed to 25.06. The reason given for using systemd is the difficulty of maintaining an OpenRC-based init stack in the context of GNOME and KDE's ever-increasing dependence on systemd components.
Source: opennet.ru
