LINux on MOBile

The third week of 2022 has the release of postmarketOS 21.12 Service Pack 1 and many smaller stories – a comparatively quiet week.

Hardware news

• PINE64 published the January Community Update (blog post, video), without further highly exciting product announcements. This makes sense, as Chinese New Year is approaching, which means that operations (be it manufacturing, shipping or else) pretty much shut down for a bit. The PineNote Developer Edition is now available (for everyone), but ... even if you are an eInk enthusiast, you might still want to hold off if not a developer. This time, PizzaLovingNerds video is especially good, so make sure to watch it!
• Liliputing: This kit turns a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W into a pocket computer with a keyboard and display (crowdfunding soon). Reminds me of the PocketC.H.I.P., nice.

Fun projects

• Using the PinePhone accelerometer as a device to keep you walking.

Software news

GNOME ecosystem

• Chatty 0.6.0 beta has been released (with the latest stable release still being 0.4.0), bumping the version due to necessary changes that change the database schema and thus preventing easy downgrades.
• Secrets 0.6.0 and 0.6.1, a subsequent bugfix release, where released this week. This is GNOME PasswordSafe gone GTK 4/libadwaita.
• GNOME 42.alpha has been released – the final release is going to happen in march, taking many apps to a new GTK4 base.
• This Week in GNOME: #27 Borderless.

Plasma/Maui ecosystem

• Phoronix: Qt 6.3 Alpha Released With New Qt Quick Compiler For Commercial Customers. Sad to see speed improvements as a "commercial guys only" feature.
• Volker Krause: KDE Frameworks 6 Continuous Integration. Great!
• Nate Graham: The 15-Minute Bug Initiative. Not mobile specific, but quite important, anyway!
• Niccolò Ve: KDE NEWS - Kirigami Improvements, New Multi-Monitor Tools, And More!.

Non-Linux

• Genode: Road Map for 2022. The road map includes the following: "we plan to take Genode on the Pinephone to a level where we can routinely use it for advanced applications, in particular video chat". Impressive plans!
• ExoticSilicon.com: Crystal installs OpenBSD on the Pinephone.

Distro releases

• postmarketOS v21.12 Service Pack 1 has been released. Great to see the Nokia N900 being back, Librem 5 GPS working now, the latest Sxmo and adding support for the PinePhone keyboard.

Worth reading

Kernel building

• xnux.eu: How to build megi's Pine­Phone kernel. Megi added a how to, so if you've been holding off on building your own kernel, ...

PINE64 Critisism

• Drew DeVault: Pine64 should re-evaluate their community priorities. This is an interesting read, and I agree that it would be great if PINE64 could do more with regard to Drew's first priority ("Implementing and upstreaming kernel drivers, u-Boot support, etc") to improve their devices software story.¹ Regarding the rest, I think that unless PINE64 is switching to focus on phones exclusively or mostly (remember: They make SBCs, laptops and tablets, too), I am not too sure. I understand PINE64 as a "hardware provider", not a "product company" – it's up to the community to contribute (with time and work or financially) to the software development. If this is the case, this story could be told better or more openly – I've frequently seen people oder multiple PinePhones to support the effort in places where I felt that spending the same amount across a few software projects would have helped more. Assuming I am not completely wrong here, were just talking about the nightmare of funding FOSS projects properly once again.

  • Related Reddit thread.
  • Related Hacker News thread.

Keyboard

• /u/GrumpyCat79: What Desktop Environment do you guys use with the keyboard?

Mainstream Publications write about the PinePhone Pro

• ArsTechnica: The PinePhone Pro brings upgraded hardware to the Linux phone.

postmarketOS on the SAMSUNG Galaxy S5

• project-insanity: This is what you already can do with Linux on a low-budget smartphone.

Worth watching

PINE64 Community Update

• PINE64: January Update: More News.

PinePhone Keyboard

• Jose Briones: Pinephone Keyboard Review.
• Izaic's Linux: PinePhone Pro with Keyboard - Plasma Mobile Bug.
• (RTP) Privacy Tech Tips: Pinephone Keyboard Case First Impression + Opensnitch Firewall + Faraday Bag #Quickie.

UBports Ubuntu Touch

• UBports: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 115. This is a really good one, make sure to watch carefully in the beginning and listen until the end.
• Geotechland: Ubuntu Touch OTA-21 New Updates.

Conference Talks

• linux.conf.au: "A year in the life of GTK" - Emmanuele Bassi. Great talk detailing the way towards and ideas behind GTK4!

Shorts

• @utopiah: postmarketOS Sxmo and PinePhone Keyboard

Something missing?

If your projects' cool story is missing and you don't want that to happen again, please get in touch via social media or email!