Recently, the open source hardware community Pine64 officially released PinePhone, a smartphone based on the Debian system, with the goal of bringing Debian into the mobile field.
It is reported that PinePhone is essentially a smartphone with 4G network capabilities. Its operating system is called Mobian and its desktop environment is Phosh . Mobian is based on Debian's improvement, which makes PinePhone compatible with more than 50,000 packages already in the Debian ecosystem. And Mobian's desktop environment is built using Phosh , which is a mobile-oriented desktop environment based on GNOME, originally developed by Purism for its Librem 5 smartphone. The project team has redesigned some default applications for PinePhone that fit the size of the mobile phone display.
In addition, the official stated that there is no software tracker in the PinePhone system, which provides users with an ad-free and privacy-respecting platform. Developers can carry their PinePhone with them and support the insertion of a USB-C docking station connected to a keyboard, mouse and HDMI display, and use it as a microcomputer.
The community version of PinePhone will be launched on the Pine64 mall from January 18th, and currently provides two hardware versions:
- 2GB RAM + 16GB eMMC, priced at $149
- 3GB RAM + 32GB eMMC + USB-C docking station, priced at $199
Finally, the official stated that every device sold will donate $10 to the Mobian project, a large part of which will be given back to the Debian community.
For details, please check: https://blog.mobian-project.org/posts/2021/01/15/mobian-community-edition/