The Linux distribution PostmarketOS 22.06 for smartphones is polishing the surface. In addition, it now provides an updater and celebrates its fifth birthday.
With the release 22.06, the smartphone Linux distribution PostmarketOS celebrates its fifth birthday. The new version adds support for two new smartphone models and provides an updater that simplifies updating the distribution on the devices.
The developers explain in the release notes that for the first time, according to the new release schedule, they can release the new version in half the time, just three weeks after the release of the underlying distribution, Alpine Linux 3.16. And by all accounts, it has been properly tested.
Updater for PostmarketOS
Probably the most serious innovation is the update script that can be used to update PostmarketOS on the device. Although the developers do not officially support this, it also allows a jump to earlier releases, such as from PostmarketOS Edge to 22.06.
To do this, users must first install the updater. They do this in the terminal with the following command:
- apk add postmarketos-release-upgrade
- The update then starts the command
- postmarketos-release-upgrade
Multiple user interfaces
PostmarketOS offers several user interfaces to choose from. Sxmo 1.9.0 supports device profiles, improves Bluetooth audio support, and relies on Pipewire by default. The call menu and audio management have been improved and superd is now used to monitor supervise user services.
Phosh 0.17.0 receives a slight polish to the sytle and other small improvements over version 0.15.0. The developers are still working on a larger update here, which will then also be backported. Gnome is at version 42, while numerous GTK applications have been ported to GTK4 and libadwaita. The gap of the actually missing calendar app was filled by the developers with karlender for the time being. Plasma Mobile Gear 22.04 also comes with a lot of improvements, although the PostmarketOS makers refer to the project page for details.
More small improvements
Pinephone users who know what they’re doing can use fwupd to update the modem firmware to the alternative firmware from Biktor v22.06, which is said to feature stability improvements in particular compared to the factory firmware.
The supported smartphones and tablets now extend to 27 models. PostmarketOS now supports ASUS MeMo Pad 7, Arrow DragonBoard 410c, BQ Aquaris X5, Lenovo A6000 and A6010, Motorola Moto G4 Play, Nokia N900 (v21.12 SP1), ODROID HC2, OnePlus 6 and 6T, PINE64 PineBook Pro, PinePhone, PineTab, RockPro64, Purism Librem 5, SHIFT6mq (new), Samsung Galaxy A3 (2015), A5 (2015), S III (GT-I9300 and SHW-M440S) (new), S4 Mini Value Edition, Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0″ (v21.12 SP4), Tab A 8.0, Tab A 9.7, Wileyfox Swift, Xiaomi Mi Note 2, Pocophone F1 and the Redmi 2.
The updated software is available on the PostmarketOS project download page. An installation guide is also linked there.
