postmarketOS 24.12 has been released. It includes KDE Plasma Mobile 6.2.4 and GNOME Shell 46.

postmarketOS 24.12 is now available as the latest version based on this platform. This Linux-based mobile device operating system provides new features, new device support, and updated components.

The main updates in postmarketOS 24.12 include KDE Plasma Mobile 6.2.4, GNOME Shell on Mobile 46, Phosh 0.43.1, and Sxmo 1.17.0. The Phosh UI now supports accent colors, and the Sxmo UI has switched to a new menu with smooth scrolling and line wrapping, enhancing device support.

However, GNOME Shell for mobile devices now comes with the Snapshot app and Weather app pre-installed by default. The Documents app replaces Evince as the basic PDF viewer, and Decibel replaces Lollypop as the basic music player.

This release for users who prefer MATE UI updates components to make it more touch-friendly with larger fonts and a less cluttered layout. postmarketOS 24.12 includes major initramfs changes for improved logging and debugging consoles, support for Varnish characters in fonts, correct PAM support for SSH sessions, among other features.

Running in the background, postmarketOS 24.12 is based on Alpine Linux 3.21, which includes Zstd-compressed software packages for performance improvement and faster boot processes. Additionally, it uses doas (dedicated OpenBSD application subexecutor) instead of sudo to run commands with root (system administrator) privileges.

Like all new postmarketOS releases, this release includes support for new devices. This release allows installing a distribution based on Alpine Linux on the following smartphones: Google Pixel 3A, Xiaomi Mi A1, Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite, Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime, Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus, Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, and Xiaomi Redmi S2/Y2 smartphones.

Additionally, general x64 UEFI device support includes added Nouveau graphics driver support for NVIDIA GPU and Intel GPU firmware. Camera support has been enabled on the Fairphone 5, and one of the two rear cameras on the Pocophone F1 is also active.

To get detailed information about the changes included in postmarketOS 24.12, please visit the release announcement page. This version can be downloaded from the official website. Users running postmarketOS 24.06 are encouraged to upgrade their installation to the latest postmarketOS release by referring to the official wiki.

Image source: postmarketOS