PinePhone’s Default OS Revealed: Manjaro Linux ARM with Plasma Mobile UI

PinePhone Manjaro Plasma

PINE64, the makers of the PinePhone Linux phone, PineTab Linux tablet and Pinebook ARM laptops, announced today the default operating system and graphical UI for the PinePhone.

After revealing earlier this month that there won’t be any Community Editions of the PinePhone in the near future, PINE64 shocked the Linux community today by unveiling the fact that they decided upon a default operating system and desktop environment for the popular Linux phone.

I bet some of you might have guessed already, but PINE64 selected Manjaro Linux ARM as default operating system for the PinePhone, as well as KDE’s modern and mature Plasma Mobile UI as default graphical interface.

“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,” said Lukasz Erecinski. “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.”

As such, if you plan on buying a PinePhone in the future, when it will be back in stock, you should know that the Linux-powered smartphone will come with Manjaro Linux ARM and Plasma Mobile pre-installed.

That’s very good news indeed for Linux fans, and it doesn’t mean PINE64 will forget about all of the other OSes and DEs available for the PinePhone. In fact, PinePhone remains an Open Source project where you can install the operating system and desktop environment of your choice if you don’t like Manjaro ARM or Plasma Mobile.

As such, PINE64 announced their intention of continuing supporting mobile Linux development by various means that will be revealed in the coming weeks, including selling branded back-covers for the PinePhone with logos of some of the operating systems available for the device, and donate the money to these projects.

Last updated 3 years ago

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