No matter if you can still whip out a skateboard around this time of year to do kickflips and indy 900s, or if you'd need a snowboard for that: the all-new postmarketOS v22.12 release is out! As usually, it's based on the latest iteration of excellent upstream developments in Alpine. See the 3.17 release notes for more about that.
v22.12, like previous releases, is geared mainly towards Linux enthusiasts; it may be a bit rough around the edges so expect some bugs and make sure to read the known issues section in this very blog post. Help with identifying and resolving issues is always greatly appreciated.
Supported devices
The amount of supported devices has been increased to 31 (from 29 since v22.06 SP1).
- ASUS MeMo Pad 7
- Arrow DragonBoard 410c
- BQ Aquaris X5
- Fairphone 4 new
- Lenovo A6000
- Lenovo A6010
- Motorola Moto G4 Play
- Nokia N900
- ODROID HC2
- OnePlus 6
- OnePlus 6T
- PINE64 PineBook Pro
- PINE64 PinePhone
- PINE64 PinePhone Pro (v22.06 SP1)
- PINE64 PineTab
- PINE64 RockPro64
- Purism Librem 5
- SHIFT6mq
- Samsung Galaxy A3 (2015)
- Samsung Galaxy A5 (2015)
- Samsung Galaxy E7 (v22.06 SP1)
- Samsung Galaxy S III (GT-I9300 and SHW-M440S)
- Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Value Edition
- Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0"
- Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1" new
- Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.0
- Samsung Galaxy Tab A 9.7
- Wileyfox Swift
- Xiaomi Mi Note 2
- Xiaomi Pocophone F1
- Xiaomi Redmi 2
Highlights
As with all releases, you won't find a description of each and every commit that was done in postmarketOS edge and Alpine edge before the new release was cut. That's what git log is for. But here are some highlights.
Calls For SDM845 On Mainline
All devices listed above don't run an Android kernel - their kernels are (close to) proper mainline Linux. If you have been following this project for some time, you know that getting phone calls working on proper mainline Linux is not a trivial task. In the Android world this relies on proprietary programs in userspace that talk to the vendor's Android kernel fork on one hand, and modem on the other hand.
With mainline, the functionality from the downstream kernel needs essentially to be re-implemented to get accepted upstream. And everything that the proprietary userspace code did needs to be replicated in free software code, mostly by extending ModemManager/oFono and writing tools like q6voiced to glue everything together. The latter was originally written for the MSM8916 SoC where phone calls have been working for quite some time in postmarketOS. But with this very release, it is also possible to use it to call your friends from SDM845 based devices such as the OnePlus 6/6T, SHIFT6mq or Xiaomi Pocophone F1. As mentioned earlier, this is hot new experimental new stuff, expect serious bugs. But nevertheless, we are excited to share this amazing achievement!
User Interfaces
Sxmo 1.12.0 replaces version 1.9.0 from v22.06. This version and previous release Sxmo 1.11.0 introduced quite a few improvements for deviceprofiles and explicit support for the OnePlus 6/6T, Pocophone F1, Samsung Galaxy S III, Samsung Galaxy Tab A 9.7 (2015) and Xiamo Redmi 2. There's other cool changes too, read the original announcement posts for more information. Originally it was planned to do a Sxmo 1.10.0 release specifically for v22.06 SP3, but that version was skipped and now you're just getting all of the great improvements at once.
Phosh 0.22 brings another style refresh and 10% steps for the battery info icon, as well as actions for notifications on screen. Previously we had 0.21 in v22.06 SP2. Additionally we changed the default text editor from gedit to gnome-text-editor for new installs, and ship phosh-mobile-settings. If that is too many settings apps for your taste, we hear you and have been brainstorming on how to consolidate them.
- Plasma Mobile Gear 22.09 includes, among lots of other things, great improvements for the Shell, Homescreen and Dialer when compared to 22.04, that we had in the previous pmOS release. Take a look at the release notes for 22.09 and 22.06 to get a nice visual impression of everything that has been happening in KDE's mobile UI. Regarding what gets installed by default, we decided to no longer install Firefox by default in Plasma Mobile. Having both Firefox and Plasma Mobile's own Angelfish just takes up too much space in the installation image. Note that you can of course still install Firefox manually.
Known Issues
This release, testing didn't go as smoothly as in the previous releases. Especially on the less common devices, such as the PineTab, RockPro64 and some of the Androids, we weren't able to ensure that there are no regressions. If you are affected, consider helping out with related issues, create new issues where missing and consider becoming a co-maintainer for your device. That would be the best way to ensure it keeps working with new postmarketOS releases.
- PineTab: does not boot for some users (#1727), camera regression (#1840)
- PinePhone: mpv video decoding regression (workaround:
--vd-lavc-dr=no) (#1809) - Sxmo on Pocophone F1: call audio regression (#1821)
- Xiaomi Mi Note 2: a minute delay with black screen during boot (#1850)
How To Get It
For existing installations, see the upgrade to a newer postmarketOS release wiki article. And for new installs, see download and make sure to read the wiki page for your device.
Wrapping up
And so we end another postmarketOS release cycle, and another year. Everything you read above, and the many, many more small improvements that would be too plentiful to recount here, would not have been possible without the amazing postmarketOS community. A big thanks to everybody who contributed to postmarketOS, to Alpine or to any of the numerous upstream components we use!