Free and open-source operating system for smartphones, based on Alpine Linux
Linux distribution
postmarketOS
(abbreviated as
pmOS
) is an
operating system
primarily for
smartphones
, based on the
Alpine Linux
distribution.
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
postmarketOS was launched on 26 May 2017
[3]
[6]
with the
source code
available on
GitHub
before migrating to
GitLab
in 2018.
[7]
It is capable of running different
X
and
Wayland
based user interfaces, such as
Plasma Mobile
,
[8]
[9]
MATE
,
GNOME 3
, and
XFCE
;
[10]
later updates added support for
Unity8
and
Phosh
.
[11]
It is also capable of running
Docker
, if the device specific kernel has
cgroups
and relevant configs enabled.
[12]
The project aims to provide a ten-year lifecycle for smartphones.
[13]
Architecture
[
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]
Unlike many other projects porting conventional Linux distributions to
Android
phones, postmarketOS does not use the Android build system or
userspace
. Each phone has only one unique package, and flashable installation images are generated using the
pmbootstrap
tool.
[3]
The project intends to support the mainline
Linux kernel
on all phones in the future, instead of the often outdated
Android-specific fork
, to reduce the potential for
security exploits
.
[3]
A few devices can boot into the mainline kernel already.
[14]
[15]
The project aims to support Android apps, originally through the use of
Anbox
, which was replaced by Waydroid since postmarketOS v21.12.
[16]
[17]
Alpine Linux
was chosen as the base distribution due to its low storage requirements, making it more suitable for older devices. Excluding the kernel, a base installation takes up approximately 6 MB.
[18]
[3]
[19]
State of development
[
edit
]
As of 2024, it is work-in-progress software intended for
power users
.
[20]
Features
[
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]
Different tools have been published by the project, including:
pmbootstrap
,
[21]
[22]
a utility to help the process of development with
cross compilation
;
osk-sdl
,
[23]
[24]
a
virtual keyboard
to allow decryption of a password during startup (on a device with full disk encryption);
charging-sdl
,
[25]
an application contained in the
initramfs
to display an animation when the phone is charging while off.
Device support
[
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]
As of May 2020, over two hundred devices are able to boot the operating system, including 92 with WiFi support.
[26]
[27]
This includes many smartphones and tablets that originally ran Android,
[28]
[29]
as well as some Linux-based Nokia smartphones, such as the
N900
[30]
and
N9
.
[31]
[14]
After Corellium's Project Sandcastle ported the Linux kernel to some iPhone versions, postmarketOS was also seen to boot on it, although no persistent flashing is supported at the moment.
[32]
As of May 2021, support for wearable devices (including
Google Glass
and
smartwatches
like the
LG G Watch
) has been improved through integration with the
AsteroidOS
user interface and work on mainline kernel for the
LG G Watch R
.
[33]
In 2018, no devices were yet able to make phone calls with postmarketOS,
[34]
although significant efforts were being made in this regard. By 2020, a number of devices were fully or mostly supported, including for phone calls, SMS messages and mobile data. These included the
BQ Aquaris X5
,
Librem 5
,
Nokia N900
, Motorola
Moto G4 Play
,
Samsung Galaxy A3
(2015),
Samsung Galaxy A5
(2015), and
Wileyfox Swift
.
[35]
Furthermore, the
PinePhone
launched in 2020, with postmarketOS Community Edition as a first-party operating system.
[36]
Porting to a new device
[
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]
The development process to make a new device compatible with the operating system consists of creating a phone-specific package using the
pmbootstrap
tool. For that, the use of the Linux kernel from the device's original manufacturer is often necessary. The source code of the original kernel is often made available by compliance with the requirements of the
GPLv2
license, but some drivers necessary for the operation of the device may not be available, and must, therefore, be recreated.
[37]
[21]
Examples include GPU drivers such as
Lima
, which has a proprietary equivalent in userspace on Android that is not subject to the GPLv2 requirements.
Gallery
[
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]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"v23.12: The One We Asked The Community To Name"
.
postmarketOS
. 18 December 2023
. Retrieved
18 December
2023
.
- ^
Staff, OSNews.
"100 days of postmarketOS"
.
www.osnews.com
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
"Aiming for a 10 year life-cycle for smartphones"
.
postmarketos.org
.
- ^
"PostMarketOS Saves Old Smartphones"
. Hackaday. 2018-01-09
. Retrieved
2018-01-29
.
- ^
DistroWatch.
"DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD"
.
distrowatch.com
.
- ^
Ward, Craig (3 January 2018).
"PostmarketOS team makes progress towards goal of 10 year smartphone lifecycle - NotebookCheck.net News"
. Notebookcheck.net
. Retrieved
2018-01-29
.
- ^
"postmarketOS is #movingtogitlab"
.
postmarketos.org
.
- ^
"Get Plasma Mobile"
.
plasma-mobile.org
.
- ^
Shah, Bhushan (20 November 2017).
"14:00 Plasma Mobile"
. Akademy 2017.
- ^
Verma, Adarsh (2 January 2018).
"postmarketOS--A Linux Distro For Smartphones--Now runs Plasma/Lune UI/Xfce On Real Devices"
.
- ^
"600 days of postmarketOS"
.
- ^
"User talk:Docker - postmarketOS"
.
wiki.postmarketos.org
. Retrieved
2020-11-18
.
- ^
"Linux-based postmarketOS project aims to give smartphones a 10-year lifecycle"
. Linux Today. 2017-08-17. Archived from
the original
on 2019-04-04
. Retrieved
2018-01-29
.
- ^
a
b
"219 days of postmarketOS"
.
postmarketos.org
.
- ^
Brown, Eric (29 September 2017).
"New mobile Linux contenders keep the dream alive"
.
- ^
"postmarketOS // in 2020-02"
.
postmarketos.org
. Retrieved
2020-04-07
.
- ^
"Anbox - postmarketOS"
.
- ^
"Librem 5 Leads New Wave of Open Source Mobile Linux Contenders | Linux.com | The source for Linux information"
. Linux.com. 2017-09-29
. Retrieved
2018-01-29
.
- ^
"postmarketOS is a Touch-Optimized Linux Distro for Portable Devices"
. Xda-developers.com. 2017-09-05
. Retrieved
2018-01-29
.
- ^
"postmarketOS // State of postmarketOS"
.
postmarketOS
. Retrieved
9 February
2024
.
- ^
a
b
Chapman, Christian (2017-08-17).
"Porting PostmarketOS to the Motorola Photon Q"
. Public.asu.edu. Archived from
the original
on 2017-10-28
. Retrieved
2018-01-29
.
- ^
"pmbootstrap: Sophisticated chroot/build/flash tool to develop and install postmarketOS"
. postmarketOS. 2018-01-27
. Retrieved
2018-01-27
.
- ^
"Mobile - Debian Wiki"
. Wiki.debian.org. 2017-12-31
. Retrieved
2018-01-29
.
- ^
"SDL2 On-screen Keyboard"
. postmarketOS. 2017-12-31
. Retrieved
2018-01-27
.
- ^
"SDL2 charging application for the initramfs"
. postmarketOS. 2017-12-23
. Retrieved
2018-01-27
.
- ^
"Supported devices"
. 16 May 2020.
- ^
"postmarketOS now boots on over 200 phones and tablets"
. 16 May 2020.
- ^
"Why Mobile Linux Fails - Datamation"
.
www.datamation.com
. 11 September 2017.
- ^
"Weekly Linux News ? January 2, 2018
Lunduke.com
"
. Archived from
the original
on April 20, 2018
. Retrieved
January 29,
2018
.
- ^
"Telefonni revoluce se blizi | OpenAlt 2017 - video zц?znamy a slajdy"
. Superlectures.com. 2017-11-05
. Retrieved
2018-01-29
.
- ^
"Devices - postmarketOS"
.
wiki.postmarketos.org
.
- ^
"Running postmarketOS on iPhone 7 ? project-insanity.org"
. 16 April 2020
. Retrieved
2020-04-18
.
- ^
"postmarketOS is finally coming to wearables"
.
TuxPhones
. 3 May 2021
. Retrieved
7 May
2021
.
- ^
"PostmarketOS can run on older gadgets but with limited features"
. 5 January 2018.
- ^
"Devices - postmarketOS"
.
- ^
"Linux PinePhone 'Community Edition' with postmarketOS: All You Need to Know"
. 16 June 2020.
- ^
"Porting to a new device - postmarketOS"
.
wiki.postmarketos.org
. Retrieved
2018-01-27
.
External links
[
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]