💾 Archived View for fossphones.com › 04-10-24.gmi captured on 2024-05-10 at 10:26:56. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Salutations, and welcome to the newest FOSSphones Linux Phone news roundup! It's been a fun start to April - I've been working on some things, seeing some family, and of course, viewing the total eclipse a few days ago. Hope your month has been going well so far, too!
We have some fun new developments to get into, as well as our usual mobile free software application highlights, so let's jump right into it!
The well-known and much-loved GNOME-based mobile desktop environment, Phosh, just saw its 0.38.0 release.
As usual, Phosh itself, as well as the Phoc compositor, and Squeekboard, Phosh's onscreen keyboard, all saw some quality-of-life improvements. Here's a quick breakdown of the new features and fixes:
~ Phosh updates
~ Phoc updates
~ Squeekboard updates
If you run a mobile Linux distro with Phosh as your mobile environment, these updates should make their way to you fairly quickly depending on which distribution you use.
If you like to tell your friends "btw, i run mobile arch", then you might like to know about some of the new updates the DanctNIX team has brought to the mobile distribution just 2 weeks ago.
Please note that this release targets PinePhone, PinePhone Pro, and PineTab2. Here are some of the notes from the changelog:
Quick Tip: If you're running Arch ARM on the Pinephone Pro, make sure you have Tow-Boot installed on the SPI.
The full changelog on DanctNIX GitHub
If you're a fan of the AOSP distribution, CalyxOS, you should be checking your device for the newest bits! CalyxOS 5.6.0 is here with the April Android security patches, bugfixes, and some other announcements. Let's take a quick peek and breakdown the latest from the CalyxOS team:
Also, a few devicec-specific fixes:
~ Pixel Tablet, Pixel Fold, Fairphone 5, Fairphone 4, Moto G32, Moto G42
~ Moto G52
It is worth noting that this update is for the Pixel 3 and above, along with Calyx-supported Fairphone and Motorola devices.
CalyxOS also showed up with a booth at the FOSSASIA Summit in Vietnam a few days ago. You can read about this and further details of things we listed off here about this update by checking out the post below from the CalyxOS team.
109
Speaking of AOSP distributions, there is some news from the world of LineageOS, as well. While most users are probably up-to-date to LineageOS 21 (as I currently am on my Moto z3 and my Essential Phone), users on older devices might still be using some of the older versions of LineageOS.
With that being said, LineageOS 18.1 just saw its final update. Going forward, LOS 18.1 will be considered sunset. This is due to the fact that in February, Google published the final ASB (Android Security Bulletin) for Android 11, the version of Android on which LineageOS 18.1 is based on.
The Lineage team clarifies that while backports could technically be done, it would very difficult for changes across versions to be tracked - and the worry that backporting the code to fix security vulnerabilities on this older version could introduce newer vulnerabilities in the process.
If your device is currently running 18.1, be sure to see if it is still supported by LineageOS. If it isn't, you can always grab a device which is supported by current versions, or you could see if development for your device starts up again - or you could always take up the mantle for yourself!
If you want further details on the sunsetting of LineageOS 18.1, be sure to check the announcement below from the LineageOS team to get the full scoop.
Announcement from Lineage Team
As usual, we have a few free software mobile apps to spotlight. If this is your first roundup, we share a few of our favorite apps on Linux phones and AOSP devices each time, in the hopes that more people learn about them.
As usual, if you have any recommendations for FOSS mobile apps you like and use frequently, tell us about it on the Fediverse or X, and we will be sure to highlight them in a future roundup!
That's about it for this first April roundup! As usual, thanks for stopping in and checking out what's new in the latest in the world of Linux and free software on mobile devices. Until next time, we hope everyone has a great week, and we'll see you in the next roundup!
Like what we're doing? Send us some crypto if you want to contribute to keeping this site up and running!
1K76vKnBp7ptd2viX5gp6gWE5knSrSjHjL
0xc51F36C9f939b721890c7df922D197cE068E4D4e
4ANpq4fxmb6N9ekXNvuJ4rLCG1A3bxyA2386X9xV3JsjZWJCbnKrVACdPD8rnpENtdAbMkmmMDrBNcrQZzVADeMMMTTWdXm
fossphones is proudly built and maintained by rav3ndust