The release of the postmarketOS 22.12 project has been published, which develops a Linux distribution for smartphones based on the Alpine Linux package base, the Musl standard C library and the BusyBox utility set. The goal of the project is to provide a Linux distribution for smartphones that does not depend on the official firmware support life cycle and is not tied to standard solutions of the main industry players that set the development vector. Builds are prepared for PINE64 PinePhone, Purism Librem 5 and 29 community supported devices 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 has been provided for over 300 devices.
The postmarketOS environment is unified as much as possible and puts all device-specific components into a separate package, all other packages are identical for all devices and are based on Alpine Linux packages. Whenever possible, the assemblies use the vanilla Linux kernel, and if this is not possible, then the kernels from the firmware prepared by the device manufacturers. KDE Plasma Mobile, Phosh and Sxmo are offered as the main user shells, but other environments are available, including GNOME, MATE and Xfce.
In the new release:
- The package base is synchronized with Alpine Linux 3.17.
- The number of devices officially supported by the community has been increased from 27 to 31. Compared to version 22.06, support for PINE64 PinePhone Pro, Fairphone 4, Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 and Samsung Galaxy E7 smartphones has been added.
- An experimental set of changes has been provided to allow the use of a regular Linux kernel, rather than a manufacturer-specific Android kernel, for devices based on the Qualcomm SDM845 (Snapdragon 845) SoC, such as OnePlus 6/6T, SHIFT6mq, and Xiaomi Pocophone F1 smartphones. Instead of proprietary drivers and user-space components, the open q6voiced background process, the QDSP6 driver, and the ModemManager/oFono-based stack are used to make calls.
- The graphical shell Sxmo (Simple X Mobile), based on the Sway composite manager and adhering to the Unix philosophy, has been updated to version 1.12. The new version expands the capabilities associated with the use of device profiles (for each device, you can use different button layouts and activate certain features). Adapted to work on OnePlus 6/6T, Pocophone F1, Samsung Galaxy S III, Samsung Galaxy Tab A 9.7 (2015) and Xiamo Redmi 2 devices. Improved superd support for service management.
- The Phosh environment, based on GNOME technologies and developed by Purism for the Librem 5 smartphone, has been updated to version 0.22, which has an updated visual style and redesigned buttons. In the battery charge indicator, the gradation of status changes is implemented in 10% increments. Notifications placed on the system lock screen allow the use of action buttons. Added phosh-mobile-settings configurator and phosh-osk-stub virtual keyboard debugging tool. New installations use gnome-text-editor instead of gedit as a text editor in a Phosh-based postmarketOS environment.
- The KDE Plasma Mobile skin has been updated to version 22.09, a detailed overview of the changes since the 22.04 release can be found in the 22.06 and 22.09 release notes. Among the most notable improvements, one can note the expansion of functionality and modernization of the design of the Shell shell, the home screen and the interface for making calls. In the Plasma Mobile-based environment in postmarketOS, it was decided to remove Firefox from the base distribution, limiting itself to the Angelfish browser based on QtWebEngine offered in KDE Plasma Mobile.
Source: opennet.ru