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v24.12: The One With Androids & Cameras, But It's Mainline Linux

December 23, 20249 min. read

postmarketOS v24.12 with KDE Plasma, Sxmo, Gnome Mobile and Phosh

This release is geared mainly towards Linux enthusiasts. We are working hard on stability improvements and automated testing, but if you expect Android or iOS levels of polish, then this is not for you yet. Systemd is coming in the next one.

Introduction

One thing that people have been asking us over and over is, will it be possible to use cameras with postmarketOS on Androids? While of course we all would like to see that, this is a significant challenge for postmarketOS and other Linux Mobile projects that prefer using the mainline Linux kernel and don't use the proprietary Android userspace blobs for interacting with cameras. But as you can guess from the headline, there has been a significant breakthrough: the Pixel 3A and Fairphone 5 both have front and a rear camera working now, and somebody even reported being able to record video on the FP5. One of the two rear cameras of the Pocophone F1 also works now. As you would expect, this is not on-par with Android's implementation yet and some of the media has a bit of a retro appeal at the moment. Nevertheless, this is a major achievement! Thanks to Robert M., Richard A., Luca, Joel, Alistair as well as the libcamera and Megapixels folks!

Software Stack

As always we target the most recent Alpine release. In case of v24.12 it is the excellent Alpine Linux 3.21.

User Interfaces (UIs)

Mobile UI Versions

UI Configuration

Other Notable Changes

Devices

PinePhone and Librem 5

In previous releases we used to have the device categories  main, community and testing. The PinePhone and Librem 5 were in the main category, but we have decided to move them to community with this release.

The main reasons are that the Librem 5 did not receive much testing for v24.12, and that the PinePhone images unfortunately did not boot in edge and as v24.12 was branched for quite some time (this seems to be fixed, if it isn't for you then please reply in the issue). There are some other issues with the devices that we would like to have solved such as fast battery drain for the PinePhone, before we think these devices are ready for main again.

Furthermore this could be a good opportunity to set better standards for main, such as requiring an automated hardware test setup that could really ensure that we don't introduce most regressions or at least notice them shortly afterwards and can fix them more easily. We highly appreciate all the work that the device maintainers and other community members have put into those devices, and we would like to see additional community members who care about these ports stepping up to improve and test these ports.

If you are interested in helping out, get active in the related issues (PinePhone, Librem 5), join the #postmarketos-devel chat for coordination and consider joining the testing team.

Community Category

Thanks to all of our amazing device porters, and everybody who contributed!

Device/UI Testing And Known Issues

A huge thank you to device maintainers and the testing team, and people who spontaneously decided to take part in testing this new release (#3359) and fixing bugs right before finalizing it! If you would like to join the fun next time, add yourself to the Testing Team. Note that if you added yourself there previously and now have a different nickname in our new GitLab instance, then you need to update your nickname on this wiki page.

While testing, several audio issues were reported. We were not able to fix all of them in time for the release, yet another reminder that we need the automated hardware testing setup mentioned earlier. If you can help with getting these resolved, join the new #postmarketos-audio chat.

The following issues may not affect all users. If you are affected, then consider leaving a note in the related issue, especially if you have more information or could help with fixing.

How To Get It

New Installation

Look at install postmarketOS and make sure to read the wiki page for your device.

Upgrade

For existing installations, see the upgrade to a newer postmarketOS release wiki article.

Users of Xiaomi Mi A1, Mi A2 Lite, Redmi 4 Prime, Redmi 5 Plus, Redmi Note 4 and Redmi S2/Y2 need to follow this guide for upgrading to the new generic MSM8953 port.

Recommended manual steps after upgrading:

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A big thanks to everybody who contributed to postmarketOS, to Alpine or to any of the numerous upstream components we use — without you this would not be possible! ❤️

We would also like to thank NLnet and NGI Zero Core for funding most of the infrastructure and maintenance work that went into this release. NLnet is funding a lot of great free software projects, including quite a few projects in the Linux Mobile world. If you would like to get your project funded, consider applying for a grant!

And what's next?

If you appreciate the work we're doing with postmarketOS and want to support us, consider contributing financially via OpenCollective.