LinBits 53: Weekly Linux Phone news / media roundup (week 27/28)
Table of Contents
It's Wednesday. Now what happened since last Wednesday?
New sounds for Plasma Mobile, Phosh, Phoc, Ubuntu Touch, Manjaro and DanctNIX see new releases and more! Commentary in italics.
Software releases
- Phoc 0.8.0 has been released, bringing a fix for idle inhibition and more. Read the full release notes for more.
- Phosh 0.12.1 has seen yet another release, containing mostly bug and translation fixes. Read the full release notes for more.
- Manjaro Phosh Beta 12 has been released.
- Danct12 has released Arch Linux ARM 2021/07/03, containing Phoc 0.8.0 and more nice new things.
- Ubuntu Touch OTA 18 is also out!.
Worth reading
Software progress
- NxOS: Maui Monthly Report 13. Great stuff that's coming along here, a lot to look forward to! Strike and NX Software center sound really exciting.
- Plasma Mobile: Winners of the KDE and LMMS Plasma Mobile Sound Contest. Sounds nice!
- Purism: Purism and Linux 5.13. Mainlining keeps going quite well for the Librem 5!
- Janet Blackquill: Approximately Two Pink Weeks In Tok.
GSoC progress
- Claudio Cambria: An eventful week — Kalendar week 5 (GSoC 2021).
- Visvesh Subramanian: A New Look for the Health app.
Metadata nerdery
- Philip Withnall: Add metadata to your app to say what inputs and display sizes it supports. You may find this boring and think: Why this XML stuff? Because it matters. Specifying where an app will fit in metadata is an important step to better app stores for Linux Phones.
FOSS reporting
- PineGuild: Manjaro ARM Beta12 of Phosh for PinePhone.
- TuxPhones: Some Kobo e-readers can now run Linux, becoming inexpensive e-ink tablets. Great post!
Assistive PinePhone
- Linux Smartphones: Mycroft, an open source voice assistant works with Linux smartphones like the PinePhone. I have had Mycroft on PinePhone on my To Do list for months. Maybe I'll get to it one day.
Ubuntu Touch
- Linux Smartphones: Ubuntu Touch OTA 18 brings improved performance for older devices, among other updates. Brad's take on the above Ubuntu Touch announcement.
Propaganda
- Purism: Proud to Be Top Contributor to GTK4. Well, 0.3%. On the other hand, that's more than Canonical or Intel contributed so far.
Worth watching
postmarketOS
- Wolf fur Programming: Plasma Mobile Oneplus 6t postmarketos. Nice!
eReader extravanganza
- Martijn Braam: postmarketOS on the Kobo Clara HD. The comments are interesting, mentioning a software called InkBox for future software.
Tiles
- Drew Naylor 2: RetiledStart demo #4: Landscape All Apps List. If you've been missing Windows Phone, this might excite you!
mutantC
Tutorials
- kdlk.de: tech: PinePhone Essentials: Turning off the Hardware Switches - Camera Turn Off.
- kdlk.de: tech: PinePhone App Development - Where to start? #01 Rust + GTK. Really nice!
Grumpy stuff
- Twinntech: Pinephone daily drive round 2. Admittedly, the title is not entirely fair. He's trying stuff again, and I hope it works. Also, you can see confirmation bias at work.
Stuff I did
Content
Nothing. Well, we recorded another PineTalk, which will be out this weekend. I was going to publish a short post on Phosh's new app drawer feature tonight, but I just couldn't – too tired.
One thing I managed to actually finish, is a Flatpak manifest so that you can try accelerated video playback in Clapper without tainting your /usr/local.
LINMOBapps
LINMOBapps did not get much love again, but luckily Marco H. contributed one new app:
- Vakzination, a Kirigami app which manages your health certificates like vaccination, test, and recovery certificates.