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Greetings, and welcome to the June FOSSphones news roundup! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to update the site last month due to having to deal with some family things and some medical appointments. As always, I've been collecting notes on things to write up when it comes to FOSSphones news, however, and we're finally ready to bring a nice new update covering the highlights of the May and June period that I was away.
In this update, we're going to be looking at some news from the Phosh and Sxmo worlds, a brand new postmarketOS update, some new updates regarding CalyxOS and LineageOS, and more! With all that being said, let's jump right into it!
Phosh, the mobile desktop built on top of GNOME technologies, celebrated its 0.39.0 release on May 15. We love Phosh around here, so as always, we're excited to highlight some of the major points with each release, and this one is no different.
As usual, we're going to be breaking down the updates to the Phosh core components (Phosh, Phoc, and Squeekboard), along with some recommended components, which include phosh-mobile-settings (a Phosh Settings application, like GNOME Settings) and phosh-tour (a quick introduction to Phosh, like GNOME Tour). Let's get into it!
~ Phosh updates
You can see the full list of updates for Phosh in greater detail here.
~ Phoc updates
You can see the full list of updates for Phoc in greater detail here.
~ Squeekboard updates
You can see the full list of updates for Squeekboard in greater detail here.
~ Phosh Mobile Settings Updates
You can see the full list of updates for Phosh Mobile Settings here.
~ Phosh Tour Updates
You can see the full list of updates for Phosh Tour here.
For all the details from the Phosh team, please be sure to check out the full update!
As usual, if you run Phosh, be sure to check your Linux phone distribution for updates if you haven't already so you can get the newest bits!
On all my computers, I run tiling window managers, and as you can bet, I also enjoy playing around with them on my Linux mobile devices. This is where Sxmo (Simple X Mobile) shines. If you like Sxmo as well, you might be excited to find out about these updates as well!
Here's the latest in this new, yet small, 1.16.1 update.
If you run Sxmo and are looking to update, make sure you also run sxmo_migrate.sh after rebooting in order to sync your config files to the newest release.
You can see the full note from the Sxmo team at this link.
PostmarketOS has become the main mobile distribution I run on my PinePhone, as it is one of the most consistently stable options and stays up to date with all the mobile desktop options and apps. It also has support for many more devices than just mainline Linux phones, such as Android devices that would otherwise end up in a landfill when they stop getting Android updates. I despise the idea of otherwise perfectly good devices becoming e-waste, and if you have some old devices you aren't using anymore, now might be a good time for you to consider trying postmarketOS on them!
That's because, as of the team's latest update, the operating system now supports up to 250 different devices! That's not just phones either - but laptops and tablets, too! Got a Chromebook you're not using anymore because Google stopped sending out ChromeOS updates for your model? There's a good chance postmarketOS now supports it!
Along with this wider support for more devices, here are some of the other highlights from the latest update from the pmOS team:
There's never been a better time to be a postmarketOS user with this latest news! If you want to see the full update from the pmOS team (and I encourage you to!), please check out the link below!
Full update from the postmarketOS Team
Megapixels is pretty much the standard standard camera application on mobile Linux, and recently, Martijn Braam shared some of the latest patches and contributions that have been making their way into the Megapixels codebase. Let's take a look at the highlights!
The libmegapixels library has seen some of its first external contributions, and there has been some nice progress on that front. Contributor Pavel Machek made progress for video recording on the PinePhone, adding in UI elements for video recording. There are currently two implementations of video recording on the device:
It's great to see Megapixels gaining even more capabilities to help mobile Linux devices provide a better experience in this area. If you want to see the full technical breakdown, I encourage you to check out Martijn Braam's post about it!
Post from Megapixels dev Martijn Braam
The free software AOSP distribution, CalyxOS, just released their quarterly platform release and security update for June. It is a relatively short update.
Here's the quick changelog:
This update currently relates to these devices:
The above listed devices received the Stable update on May 18, the Security express update on June 13, and the Beta update on June 14 (all OTA, as usual).
Other devices supported by CalyxOS are currently a work-in-progress for this update. Remember, other devices supported by CalyxOS (such as the supported Fairphone and Moto models) follow a different release schedule than the Pixel devices, and are usually a month behind.
If you want to read this update from the CalyxOS Team, check it out at the link below.
Speaking of free software AOSP distributions, LineageOS now supports the Nintendo Switch console!
While Android 10 has been seen running on the device before, an important thing to note is that this is the very first time it's officially been supported by LineageOS. If you have a Switch device and want to mess about with running AOSP on it, opening up the possibility to play emulators and games from more than just Nintendo, this is your chance to check it out.
To make things even better, the Lineage build uses Android TV when the Switch is put into its dock when using it on the big screen. Also, you can flash the build onto an SD card, so that you don't have to remove the Switch's native OS.
While this isn't really an update that pertains wholly to phones, it is always neat to see the AOSP distribution I use the most get support for other devices! You can learn more about how you can go about getting this installation up and running, including some requirements and prerequisites, at the link below.
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 (check the footer of this page for social links), and we will be sure to highlight them in a future roundup!
Thanks for checking in on this June roundup of FOSSphones news! Remember to add our RSS feed to your favorite newsreader to stay up-to-date with us when we put out new roundups, if you'd like. Until next time, friends, and we'll see you in the next roundup!
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