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Lilbits: More chip shortage fallout, elementary OS turns 10, and the end of LG smartphones?

Another upcoming product has been delayed due to the ongoing chip shortage. This time it’s the Analogue Pocket, a handheld gaming device designed for retro gaming — it even uses cartridges from classic game consoles. Originally scheduled to ship in 2020, that date was pushed back to May 2021 due to global supply chain issues… […]

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Sxmo 1.4 released with keyboard, display, text rendering improvements for the lightweight Linux phone UI

Some Linux phone user interfaces, like Plasma Mobile, draw obvious inspiration from other modern smartphone operating systems like Android or iOS. Sxmo doesn’t do that. It’s a simple, lightweight user interface with a dynamic window manager (dwm) that uses tiling to stack windows side-by-side, atop one another, or a combination. You can navigate using a combination […]

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Lilbits: Open source keyboards, E Ink smartwatches, the fastest (least user friendly) PinePhone software

System76 has been selling Linux laptop and desktop computers since 2005, but up until recently most of the company’s computers were designed and manufactured by other companies and customized with small tweaks and Linux software by System76. A few years ago the company started manufacturing some of its own desktops, and notebooks may eventually follow. […]

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Sxmo 1.3.0 brings usability, performance improvements to this simple, geeky Linux phone UI

Sxmo is a collection of simple applications designed to run on Linux phones. It’s not a full-fledged operating system, but rather a lightweight and speedy user interface and set of apps that runs about as well as any software I’ve tried on the PinePhone so far. But Sxmo isn’t necessarily for everyone. You have to spend […]

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Lilbits: Samsung and LG leaks, Chrome OS Phone Hub, and Raspberry Pi HiFi

Google makes the Android operating system that powers most of the world’s smartphones. And Google makes the Chrome OS operating system that powers a growing number of laptops. So you’d think that the company would want to make sure the two play nicely with one another… and you’d be right. It’s just taking a bit […]

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Sxmo 1.2.0 adds support for gesture controls

Most popular user interface projects for Linux phones are designed to be finger-friendly in the same way that Android and iOS are. So while phosh, Plasma Mobile, Lomiri, and other user interfaces are all distinctive, most feature things like big app icons, status bars, and other navigation elements. And then there’s Sxmo. Described as a […]

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Sxmo brings a simple Unix-inspired UI to the PinePhone

While Android and iOS dominate the smartphone space these days, there are multiple projects underway to create free and open source, Linux-based operating systems. For the most part, developers have focused on making touch-friendly operating systems that resemble Android and iOS in some ways. But Sxmo is a new project that makes a Linux smartphone […]