After 6 months of development, a new version of postmarketOS 24.12 has been presented, focusing on developing a Linux distribution for mobile devices based on the ALPINE Linux package base, standard MUSL SILLICTE, and a set of BusyBox utilities. The project aims to provide a Linux display for smartphones and tablets that is independent of the official firmware life cycle and not tied to typical decisions of major industry players. Builds have been prepared for 54 devices, including Pine64 Pinephone, Purism Librem 5, OnePlus 6, Google Nexus 10, Nokia N900, Lenovo A6000, Asus Memo Pad 7, as well as various models of Samsung Galaxy and Xiaomi. Limited experimental support is provided for more than 500 devices.
The PostmarketOS environment is unified, making specific components for each device into a separate package. All other packages are identical across devices and are based on packages from the Alpine Linux distribution. The assembly aims to use the Linux vanilla core whenever possible and firmware nuclei from device manufacturers when necessary. User shells offered include KDE Plasma Mobile, Phosh, GNOME Mobile, and Sxmo, with the option to install other environments like MATE and XFCE.
In the new issue, support has been added for Google Pixel 3a smartphone and Qualcomm MSM8953 (Snapdragon 450/625/632) platform, including various Xiaomi models. The number of completed assemblies has decreased from 54 to 53. New builds included in postmarketOS 24.12 are for Google Asurada (Pixel 6a), Google Cherry (Pixel 7), Google Corsola (Pixel 7 Pro), Google Peach-Pi (Pixel 7a), Google Sargo (Pixel 3a), QCOM-MSM8953 devices, and Xiaomi Elish (Xiaomi 12 Lite).
The release also includes over 200 devices in the “Testing” category, with varying levels of support from booting to almost all functions. Building for these devices can be done using PMBOOTSTRAP tools and packages from the project repository. Support for Fairphone 5 and TV-settings Amlogic has been noted among the new devices added.
In the “Generic X64 UEFI” port for installing the distribution on PCs and laptops, the ability to use the Nouveau open driver with NVIDIA GPUs and firmware for Intel GPUs has been added. The package base is synchronized with Alpine Linux 3.21.