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PostmarketOS
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PostmarketOS
postmarketOS (abbreviated as pmOS) is an operating system primarily for smartphones, based on the Alpine Linux distribution. Developed since 2016, it was launched in 2017, and continues to be a work in progress.
It is capable of running different X and Wayland based user interfaces, such as Plasma Mobile, MATE, GNOME, and XFCE; later updates added support for Unity8 and Phosh. It is also capable of running Docker, if the device specific kernel has cgroups and relevant configs enabled. The project aims to provide a ten-year lifecycle for smartphones.
Oliver Smith started developing postmarketOS in 2016. The operating system was launched on 26 May 2017, with the source code available on GitHub before migrating to GitLab in 2018.
Unlike many other projects porting conventional Linux distributions to Android phones, postmarketOS does not use the Android build system or userspace. Each phone has only one unique package, and flashable installation images are generated using the pmbootstrap tool. The project intends to support the mainline Linux kernel on all phones in the future, instead of the often outdated Android-specific fork, to reduce the potential for security exploits. A few devices can boot into the mainline kernel already. The project aims to support Android apps, originally through the use of Anbox, which was replaced by Waydroid since postmarketOS v21.12.
Alpine Linux was chosen as the base distribution due to its low storage requirements, making it more suitable for older devices. Excluding the kernel, a base installation takes up approximately 6 MB. In March 2024, the maintainers announced that postmarketOS would migrate from OpenRC to systemd as its init system for select user interfaces.
As of 2025, it is work-in-progress software intended for power users.
Different tools have been published by the project, including:
As of February 2026 an estimated 723 device models are supported. This includes many smartphones and tablets that originally ran Android, some Windows 10 (or 8.1) Mobile based Lumia phones, as well as some Linux-based Nokia smartphones, such as the N900 and N9. After Corellium's Project Sandcastle ported the Linux kernel to some iPhone versions, postmarketOS was also seen to boot on it, although no persistent flashing is supported at the moment. As of May 2021, support for wearable devices (including Google Glass and smartwatches like the LG G Watch) has been improved through integration with the AsteroidOS user interface and work on mainline kernel for the LG G Watch R.
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PostmarketOS AI simulator
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PostmarketOS
postmarketOS (abbreviated as pmOS) is an operating system primarily for smartphones, based on the Alpine Linux distribution. Developed since 2016, it was launched in 2017, and continues to be a work in progress.
It is capable of running different X and Wayland based user interfaces, such as Plasma Mobile, MATE, GNOME, and XFCE; later updates added support for Unity8 and Phosh. It is also capable of running Docker, if the device specific kernel has cgroups and relevant configs enabled. The project aims to provide a ten-year lifecycle for smartphones.
Oliver Smith started developing postmarketOS in 2016. The operating system was launched on 26 May 2017, with the source code available on GitHub before migrating to GitLab in 2018.
Unlike many other projects porting conventional Linux distributions to Android phones, postmarketOS does not use the Android build system or userspace. Each phone has only one unique package, and flashable installation images are generated using the pmbootstrap tool. The project intends to support the mainline Linux kernel on all phones in the future, instead of the often outdated Android-specific fork, to reduce the potential for security exploits. A few devices can boot into the mainline kernel already. The project aims to support Android apps, originally through the use of Anbox, which was replaced by Waydroid since postmarketOS v21.12.
Alpine Linux was chosen as the base distribution due to its low storage requirements, making it more suitable for older devices. Excluding the kernel, a base installation takes up approximately 6 MB. In March 2024, the maintainers announced that postmarketOS would migrate from OpenRC to systemd as its init system for select user interfaces.
As of 2025, it is work-in-progress software intended for power users.
Different tools have been published by the project, including:
As of February 2026 an estimated 723 device models are supported. This includes many smartphones and tablets that originally ran Android, some Windows 10 (or 8.1) Mobile based Lumia phones, as well as some Linux-based Nokia smartphones, such as the N900 and N9. After Corellium's Project Sandcastle ported the Linux kernel to some iPhone versions, postmarketOS was also seen to boot on it, although no persistent flashing is supported at the moment. As of May 2021, support for wearable devices (including Google Glass and smartwatches like the LG G Watch) has been improved through integration with the AsteroidOS user interface and work on mainline kernel for the LG G Watch R.
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