Manjaro with Plasma Mobile will be the default OS on Pinephone

Manjaro with Plasma Mobile will be the default OS on Pinephone. Pinephone with Mobian was the last in the Community Edition series.

Today, February 15, 2021. Pine64 announced that the PinePhone will ship with Plasma Mobile on a Manjaro ARM base from this point on.

We have a long-standing relationship with Manjaro and KDE Community, and both projects have supported us and our efforts since the dawn of PINE64. I’m not sure if I wrote about this publicly in the past, but the promise that Plasma Mobile held in its early stages was the deciding factor for us to proceed with creating a Linux smartphone in the first place. Needless to say, we have been excited to see the UI environment mature and flourish on our platform over the past 12 months. Manjaro is our core partner, offering support for all our flagship Linux devices, including the ROCKPro64 and the Pinebook Pro. Their work on the PinePhone has been indispensable, and their current OS images are among the best and most fully-featured for the platform. Working with both projects on the PinePhone has been a pleasure and I am convinced that together we will reach new heights in the months to come.

Lukasz Erecinski: February Update: Show and Tell

While the Community Edition program is now closed, Pine64 is working on a plan to actively support mobile projects on Linux. Talks are underway with all major projects, and apparently there are already some ideas on how to provide developers with ongoing support. In addition to the projects that received the Community Edition, Pine64 is now also talking to developers Maemo Leste, LuneOS, openSUSE, DanctNIX, and Fedora.

While we haven’t settled on a means to achieve this type of support just yet, I hope that a part of the strategy will be an introduction of branded back-covers to the Pine Store. In short, the idea is to sell back-covers with projects logos at approx. a $15 price-point, out of which $10 would go towards the donation. I think that this is a good and fun way of supporting development, which provides end-users with a tangible benefit for submitting their donation. It will take a couple of weeks for us to figure this out, or maybe even longer, but once we do arrive at a suitable arrangement I’ll write a dedicated blog entry about it.

Lukasz Erecinski: February Update: Show and Tell

Plasma Mobile is an open-source user interface for phones. Running on top of a Linux distribution, Plasma Mobile turns your phone into a fully hacking device. More about Plasma Mobile here: https://www.plasma-mobile.org/

Manjaro. Is an accessible, friendly, open-source operating system. Providing all the benefits of cutting-edge software combined with a focus on getting started quickly, automated tools to require less manual intervention, and help readily available when needed. Manjaro is suitable for both newcomers and experienced computer users. More about Manjaro, here: https://manjaro.org/

It’s worth mentioning that Manjaro from KDE is the default OS for Pinebook Pro. The whole thing perfectly closes the entire ecosystem: Pine64 + Manjaro + KDE.

What do you think about Pine64’s decision to choose Manjaro with Plasma Mobile as the default operating system on Pinephone?