Pine64 community reception on smartphone , completed with a firmware with a mobile platform based on Alpine Linux, Musl and BusyBox. Smartphone cost 150 dollars.
Additionally to order a more powerful PinePhone model, which is $50 more expensive, but comes with 3 GB of RAM instead of 2 GB and is equipped with twice the amount of built-in eMMC storage (32 GB instead of 16 GB). This model is currently only supplied with a USB Type-C adapter for connecting to a monitor (HDMI), network (10/100 Ethernet), keyboard and mouse (two USB 2.0 ports). It is understood that this model can be used as a pocket portable workstation that can be connected to a monitor and get a familiar desktop with typical Linux applications.
The PinePhone hardware is designed to use replaceable components - most of the modules are not soldered, but connected via detachable cables, which allows, for example, if you wish, to replace the mediocre camera offered by default with a better one. The device is built on a quad-core SoC ARM Allwinner A64 with a Mali 400 MP2 GPU, equipped with 2 or 3 GB of RAM, a 5.95-inch screen (1440 Γ 720 IPS), Micro SD (with support for booting from an SD card), 16 or 32 GB eMMC ( internal), USB-C port with USB Host and combined video output for connecting a monitor, 3.5 mm mini-jack, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 (A2DP), GPS, GPS-A, GLONASS, two cameras ( 2 and 5Mpx), removable 3000mAh battery, hardware-switchable components with LTE/GNSS, WiFi, microphone and speakers.
By default, a custom shell is suggested , developed by Purism for the Librem 5 smartphone based on GNOME and Wayland technologies. If desired, the user can download the firmware version from , but in order not to duplicate efforts in stabilizing the postmarketOS Community Edition, Phosh was chosen as the primary environment. Of the features of the firmware, the use of a new installer is noted, which supports installation with encryption of all data on the drive (the password for accessing encrypted partitions is set at the first boot). The interface is optimized for small touch screens and is based on standard GNOME or KDE technologies, depending on the selected shell.
Recall that the goal of the postmarketOS project ensuring the possibility of using a GNU/Linux distribution kit on a smartphone 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. 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 standard packages , which is selected as one of the most compact and secure distributions. Linux kernel compiled project developments .
Except postmarketOS, for PinePhone boot images based , , , , and partially open platform . Work is underway to prepare assemblies with . The software environment can be loaded directly from the SD card without the need for flashing.
Source: opennet.ru