postmarketOS // real Linux distribution for phones

User Interfaces

Mission

postmarketOS develops free and open-source software to extend the life of consumer electronics. By empowering people to have full control of their devices, we promote a healthier and more sustainable society.

Sustainability

Oftentimes the usefulness of phones, tablets and other computers is artificially limited by lack of software updates. This is either caused by closed source software that cannot be updated by anyone but the original developers. Or by having highly specific code for few devices, which can only be maintained and updated by a large team of developers. With postmarketOS we do the opposite, we build an open source operating system with many shared components that can run on all devices. We want to keep our hardware useful until it physically breaks!

Full Control

We think computers should act in the interest of their users. For example, they should not participate in the privacy nightmare of targeted advertising, as it is directly built into the operating systems from Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft, as well as the apps and services recommended by them. postmarketOS respects your privacy, and gives you full control over your device. It turns your device into a tool for you to use, not the other way around. Our source code proves it.

Connecting Projects and People

postmarketOS is proudly built from and contributing back to a whole ecosystem of Linux (Mobile) related components. From the mainline Linux kernel to Alpine Linux on which we are directly based, through various important libraries and daemons like ModemManager up to the user interfaces like GNOME, KDE, Phosh and Sxmo.

All changes from hardware enablement in the kernel to making sure applications work great with touchscreens start as changes on top of the existing projects — services, libraries, or applications. But instead of keeping those changes to us, we make sure to work closely with the projects in question, helping them excel on mobile, as well as taking responsibility in upstream projects.

postmarketOS is for You

postmarketOS is definitely not yet ready for everyone, you can check the state of postmarketOS yourself to understand what we mean by that. But we've come a long way already and have no plans of stopping. Come join us for the ride!

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What Others Say

postmarketOS revolutionizes smartphone hacking

— Drew DeVault, FLOSS pioneer

I think it's really amazing what you do. [...] I have also always thought that it was a goal to have spin-offs or distros that are derived from Alpine, and we have that with postmarketOS.

— Natanael Copa, Alpine Linux founder

I feel like every project that's kind of in the Linux Mobile space has some sort of connection to postmarketOS. [...] For us in KDE, having always supported Plasma Mobile from its inception, even before I started contributing, to now also helping provide all the resources we use for development.

— Devin Lin, Plasma Mobile lead developer

The enthusiasts behind the project are hard at work to port drivers for devices to the mainline Linux kernel. This ensures that devices can be used after vendors do not provide an up-to-date operating system anymore.

— Keywan Tonekaboni, c't (translated)

With the widespread move to mobile devices, users lose control over their computing devices. [postmarketOS] gives us the ability to run code that we can read and modify on these devices.

— Eric Evenchick, Hackaday