Firstly, An open-source software toolkit called Solana Mobile Stack (SMS) enables the creation of native Android apps based on the Solana blockchain. The Mobile Wallet Adapter, a protocol for connecting mobile Solana wallets, is part of the package. It will function on all mobile devices, not just Android ones, claims the company.

Nonetheless, Keeping private keys, seed phrases, and other sensitive data secure on Android is now possible through the Seed Vault feature. Seed phrases are essentially the passwords that unlock crypto funds, and the company is providing a custody solution to keep them secure. SMS offers Solana Pay for Android, a platform that permits mobile payments.

Would I get a PinePhone again? Yes, totally. Granted, I have been lucky so far: My hardware has held up well, when I dropped my PinePhones I was lucky enough to not break them, I am not affected by a failing WiFi/BT chip (an issue not too uncommon by my anecdata). No, I don't use it as a daily driver, which was something I thought I would do by this point - but that's on me, not on the PinePhone: I just can't stop buying more hardware, be it Linux Phones and competing platforms.

I know, some people will wonder if they should buy a PinePhone after reading this, and I can't really answer this question for you. Read up on PINE64's return policy, maybe; check whether your current phone network is compatible and decide whether you could live with the available applications. Watch some videos and decide if you can live with the time Firefox takes to launch and a lack of notifications.9 Make sure to have the willingness and time to tinker, to get the deeper "Linux knowledge" necessary if you don't have it, to make whatever distribution you start with your own: This is a far more involved process than upgrading from one iPhone to another, in most cases even more involved than switching between the major platforms! With all this considered, it can be a fun ride, a great learning experience, a nice nerdy thing to do! Oh, and if you do so, make sure to be supportive to the software ecosystem, in contributions and/or funding Thanks!

A Linux distro for smartphones abandoned by their manufacturers, postmarketOS, has introduced in-place upgrades.

Alpine Linux is a very minimal general-purpose distro that runs well on low-end kit, as The Reg FOSS desk found when we looked at version 3.16 last month. postmarketOS's – pmOS for short – version 22.06 is based on the same version.

This itself is distinctive. Most other third-party smartphone OSes, such as LineageOS or GrapheneOS, or the former CyanogenMod, are based on the core of Android itself.

The project is quite different. It uses the mainline Linux kernel, and a standard userland, to support a wide variety of devices. The theory is that not needing a manufacturer's outdated firmware or drivers means that pmOS can use more current components, direct from the various upstream Linux projects. The project's own wiki currently lists over 200 supported devices, including phones, tablets, and e-book readers, ranging back to the venerable Nokia N900.

They're not all equally supported, though. Most of them can can boot, many have Wi-Fi support, but currently just two actual phones work as phones: the open-source hardware PinePhone and the Purism Librem 5. Even saying that, though, the ability to connect to Wi-Fi and use an old device as a pocketable terminal could make obsolete hardware useful again.

A new Manjaro Phosh Beta, videos about Phosh on tablets and its upcoming gestures, and another Ubuntu Touch Q&A!