It’s been a busy few weeks in the Linux phone space (and a busy few weeks outside of it, which is why I haven’t had time to write much – but follow @linuxsmartphone on Twitter for more timely updates).
Here’s a roundup of some recent news.
Phosh 0.12.0 released [Purism]
Updates to this open source, phone-friendly user interface include support for only enabling the proximity sensor on active calls to turn on the display for incoming calls and the ability to show adaptive apps in mobile mode and all apps when the phone is docked to an external display.
Demonstration of theme support for the Librem 5 [Purism]
Speaking of Phosh, the folks at Purism have added support for theming the user interface, and this blog post shares more details, photos of themes in action, and a short video.
Want to bring high contrast experience on your Librem 5 devices? Here is your guide to Librem themes👉https://t.co/IRUKcHUgRm #UI #librem5 #apps pic.twitter.com/GfajK3XOqB
— Purism (@Puri_sm) June 25, 2021
PinePhone keyboard final summary [megi]
Megi has been testing a pre-release PinePhone keyboard for a few weeks, and has now finsihed writing firmware for it, and posts notes for hardware & software hackers as well as recommendations for changes Pine64 may want to make to the final design.
postmarketOS Backups 0.2.0 [Martijn Braam / YouTube]
Developer Martijn Braam’s latest postmarketOS app is a backup utility that can create a local backup of your configuration, changed system files, packages, and files in your home directory. Backups can be restored to the same device or another device. The application is still a work in progress, but this video shows how it works so far.Â
Ubuntu Touch Q&A 102: Focal news, OTA 18 approaching, What is UT really for? [UBPorts]
Among other things, developers note that the Lomiri user interface uses 25% less RAM, and work continues to update the OS so that it’s based on Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa.
Hardware Accelerated Video Decoding on the PinePhone [Brian Daniels]
Most video players that work with the PinePhone don’t support hardware-accelerated video playback. But the hardware supports it, so one developer explains how to enable hardware acceleration for GStreamer for smoother video playback (when you launch videos from a command line). Hopefully the process will be more user friendly in the future.
F-Droid in the Jolla Store [@fdroidorg]
Sailfish OS is a Linux-based operating system for smartphones and tablets, but it’s long had support for running some Android apps. Now you can also download an Android app store from the Jolla app store. F-Droid is repository with more than 3,500 free and open source Android apps.
Nemo Mobile keyboard progress [@neochapay]
The Nemo Mobile user interface is looking better, and more usable, with an updated on-screen keyboard.
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