The $150 PinePhone is already the most affordable, accessible smartphone designed to run GNU/Linux software. But software is still very much a work in progress, which makes it an interesting development platform at the moment, but not a great… you know… phone. Now the makers of the PinePhone want to make a new handheld communication […]
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Plasma Mobile UI for Linux phones gets new lockscreen, keyboard, and apps
Plasma Mobile is a user interface designed for smartphones running Linux-based operating systems such as postmarketOS, KDE Neon, and Manjaro ARM. It’s a mobile version of the Plasma Desktop software designed for Linux notebook and desktop computers, but with a UI and suite of apps that have been optimized for small, touchscreen devices. While Plasma […]
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Purism’s Fund Your App asks what apps you’d like on the Librem 5 (and if you’ll donate to get them)
There are thousands of Linux applications that can run on Linux smartphones like the Purism Librem 5. The problem is that most of them are desktop applications that aren’t really optimized for devices with small touchscreen displays and cellular capabilities. Want to run mobile-first apps like WhatsApp? Then you might need a tool like Anbox […]
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Fedora Mobility wants to bring the Linux distro to smartphones
Earlier this year one Fedora user released an unofficial script for building a version of the popular desktop Linux distribution that could run on the PinePhone. Now things are starting to look a little more official. Fedora Infrastructure Lead Kevin Fenzi made an announcement in the Fedora mailing list recently that the team is reviving […]
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How to install apps in postmarketOS (with Phosh shell)
PostmarketOS is an operating system based on Alpine Linux which is designed to run on smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. It can at least boot on over 200 devices, and it supports a number of different user interfaces. The PinePhone postmarketOS Community Edition is one of the first smartphones that actually ships with the […]
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PinePhone postmarketOS Community Edition: Unboxing and first look (video)
The PinePhone is an inexpensive smartphone designed to run free and open source operating systems including postmarketOS, Ubuntu Touch, Mobian, Sailfish, and Manjaro. Pine64 began shipping the first version of the phone at the start of this year, and since then the company has offered several additional batches of phones, often involving “Community Edition” versions […]
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Purism’s Librem AweSIM is a privacy-focused cellular service (for $99/month)
Linux laptop maker Purism is also in the Linux smartphone business these days thanks to the company’s Librem 5 smartphone, which is designed to run free and open source software and offer privacy features including hardware kill switches. The Librem 5 is still under development, but Purism has been shipping some early batches to customers […]
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Volla Phone set to ship to crowdfunding backers in November
About a year after launching a crowdfunding campaign for a smartphone that would ship with a choice of a de-Googled version of Android or Ubuntu Touch software, the makers of the Volla Phone say production is underway, and the phone is on track to ship to backers in November. The phone is still up for pre-order […]
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PinePhone news roundup (9-25-2020)
The PinePhone Manjaro Community Edition smartphone is coming soon, the developers have been working to make Manjaro ARM ready for smartphones, and @linmobblog has recorded a few videos showing the OS in action so far. Meanwhile developer Martijn Braam has been hard at work on the new Megapixels app for PinePhones, enabling support for much […]
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Ubuntu Touch OTA-13 released with browser improvements, new features, support for more phones
The latest version of Ubuntu Touch for smartphones adds stable releases for six more smartphones, an updated browser engine that improves performance by 25-percent, and a bunch of new features. The UBports team says Ubuntu Touch OTA-13 will roll out to supported devices within the next week. Here are some of the changes in the […]