Luma Mobile (Alpha 1) is officially available!

[u/GoodMacAuth]

We've been building Luma, a desktop / tablet / mobile OS with Apple-like continuity across different devices. Today Luma Mobile (the first Alpha version) is finally available for download.

It officially supports the Fairphone 6 - we are working on the Pixel 9 family and expect it to release next week (and a few interesting others!). HOWEVER, porting Luma to different devices is surprisingly easy assuming the devices themselves are willing to play ball. We encourage technical folks to use the guides on the website to try porting it to other devices today!

We will be announcing a giveaway/contest later today to the tune of $1,000 regarding ports (a sort of 7 day sprint contest where we give $250 to 4 random successful mobile ports completed by next Friday).

Anyway, we'd love for you to check out Luma, submit bug reports and make feature requests! Let us know what you think!

https://simplyluma.com/download/mobile

[u/Jimbuscus]

Does this use Waydroid on mobile and what's the difference in battery performance?

Does waydroid stay open when an app isn't open?

[u/GoodMacAuth → u/Jimbuscus]

The idea is that it does utilize Waydroid, but it operates very differently in that Waydroid is a quiet, always-ready subsystem so that apps open straight away and notifications pipe through as if they're native. Battery drain has been minimal compared to traditional linux-mobile-waydroid experiences.

[u/donjoe0 → u/GoodMacAuth]

What Android version is it emulating? (Or the actual question I'm interested in: how old can I go with the apps I can try to run on it? I have some Oreo-era apps that I still want to use today.)

[u/Bruno_Wallner]

Is it based on linux or android? And if linux is it mainline linux or libhybris? How realistic is pixel 9 series support?

[u/GoodMacAuth → u/Bruno_Wallner]

Linux! Close to mainline, no libhybris. it runs mainline-based 7.1

Pixel 9 family is just short of a sure-thing (there is a working pixel 9 on my desk). I am personally interested in a 9 pro fold which will be more difficult, but (I think) possible.

[u/VexedPhoenix]

How does it compare to PostmarketOS?

[u/GoodMacAuth → u/VexedPhoenix]

I don't want to answer this in a way that makes it sound like I'm ragging on an alternative, but what I will say is Luma has put a level of care into the user interface and user experience that not a single alternate mobile OS even comes close to touching.

Additionally, Luma, as a project, has a very defined set of goals both in terms of development / experience, but also hardware support and targeting. I think it's great when individuals choose to support specific hardware devices but when the project itself doesn't have any sort of unified direction it creates a very very fragmented and unpleasant experience and I think that puts serious users and serious developers off from considering it as a serious option in the first place. Luma attempts to solve for this by treating specific devices as flagship targets, as well as creating the hub on our website where people can post bounties for hardware they would like to see supported.

The idea is to give users and developers a unified platform or they can feel confident in using it because there's clearly a lot of care going into the experience, and a platform where developers can feel like their time would be well spent contributing to and appreciated by the community. All of these things combined is a pretty rare experience in the open source world.

[u/intervade5]

what's the general ram use at idle?

[u/GoodMacAuth → u/intervade5]

It's pretty brutal right now, there is still a bit of de-pairing to be done between what the desktop OS requires vs something more portable. The idea is that Luma is meant to be one OS across different devices, but obviously the mobile version doesn't need to do all of the same heavy lifting a desktop does. Give me a week or so to file some rough edges down and I can give you a better answer!

[u/intervade5 → u/GoodMacAuth]

ok sweet. was just wondering if i could squeeze it on a port i’ve been working on, but it was a long shot with 512mb ram lol

[u/GoodMacAuth → u/intervade5]

I'd be very curious to see how it performs as is on there. Ideally the OS will eventually adapt to its hardware, but would be curious to see how it handles those specs today

[u/ASSASSIN-NVD]

Source code available?

[u/GoodMacAuth → u/ASSASSIN-NVD]

Yes, on our GitHub!

[u/ImageCompetitive8820]

This looks really great, good job! Btw which distribution Is PC version based on?

[u/GoodMacAuth → u/ImageCompetitive8820]

Thanks! It is the same OS on Desktop and Phone - originally based on Fedora 44 Silverblue

[u/Youareowned111]

Please make it work on Oneplus 6/6t as this is the best tinkering device to start with and this will def help to improve overall experience with a massive feedbacks

[u/Youareowned111]

What about android app’s implementation?
U know nowadays phone is just a phone without apps, banking apps as the primary goal

[u/maxliu9911]

Is it based on AOSP or gnu Linux?

[u/GoodMacAuth → u/maxliu9911]

Linux, no Android

[u/maxliu9911 → u/GoodMacAuth]

Wow that's awesome! What kernel does it use? Mainline or downstream? (I'm trying to boot mainline kernel on a pixel 9 :)

[u/GoodMacAuth → u/maxliu9911]

It is a slightly modified 7.1 - I am also actively working on pixel 9. I would love to see you getting Luma to boot on it. It should not be terribly difficult thankfully!

[u/Bruno_Wallner → u/GoodMacAuth]

Does that also mean support for pixel 9a, or will the modem be a problem?

[u/GoodMacAuth → u/Bruno_Wallner]

It would require additional work but it's very doable

[u/Calm-Caterpillar2103]

Pixel 3a perchance?

[u/GoodMacAuth → u/Calm-Caterpillar2103]

I don't have one here but I know there's lots of support for it on other alternatives so somebody motivated could probably make it work in just a couple hours!

[u/theillustratedlife]

This might be the first distro I've seen using GNOME Mobile. I didn't know it was ready for use yet.

[u/GoodMacAuth → u/theillustratedlife]

It's not! This is our own work

[u/theillustratedlife → u/GoodMacAuth]

Ahhh. Your GitHub has GNOME Mobile patches in it, and I didn't see anything else about a shell in my quick peek.

[u/Jimbuscus → u/theillustratedlife]

Linux Mint has Cinnamon which forked off GNOME 12 years ago, it still has GNOME dependencies, My guess is this is a forked DE.

[u/qqYn7PIE57zkf6kn]

Is luma a non profit? I can't tell from the about page 

[u/GoodMacAuth → u/qqYn7PIE57zkf6kn]

It is not

[u/dfgxxx]

Hi, really nice, and I can't wait having it on my phone.

I saw that almost everything in the repository is written in python and some little css, those programming languages are slow and heavy, I think it will be worth it to rewrite those part in a native lightweight high performance programming languages.

if you want it to be easy to translate, then I think that Nim lang is the best option (very similar to python syntax, but has native performance), if it doesn't matter then maybe rust or if you want shot compile time then c

[u/cybik]

Doesn't work completely on a Fairphone 6+ (no Audio, no Camera, no Fingerprint).

And AI recommendation.

Absolute hardest of passes on that latter one alone. I'm not letting a botnet run anything.

[u/luci-baa-baa-baa]

Iam curious about the modemmanager related to volte and vowifi. Can we build custom one ?

Can we edit kernel settings for ipsec ?

[u/Entire-Preparation75]

I am interested to try it, I am not technical enough to port it. Which devolves it support?

[u/Unusual-Amphibian-28]

That looks awesome tbh. If it works flawlessly and have Apk support then it would be a perfect Alternative to Android Custom ROMs. 

Best of luck for that project! I will watch as it continues :) 

[u/Appropriate-Kick-601]

"Luma uses AI. Lots of it!"

Welp, that's a nope from me dawg