About ferdiOS
A Linux distribution for phones, built by people who wanted a shell in their pocket.
About
ferdiOS is a Linux based mobile OS. It is built on musl+mimalloc, has its own package manager, package builder, OS image builder, display protocol, message broker, IPC, and runs only Qt6 GUI applications. It uses the dinit as the init system, boots in 5 seconds, and is generally pretty fast and awesome at everything.
- Current release
- 0.0.1 “Vitosha”
- Supported devices
- pixel3a, oneplus6
- Kernel
- linux-ferdios 6.18
- libc
- musl 1.2.5
- Packages
- app / ferdios-tools
- Display
- libvermeer
- Licence
- ferdios
Actually a phone
Calls, SMS, mobile data and suspend that survives the night. The boring parts are the hard parts, and they are the ones we test first.
You hold the keys
Unlocked bootloader, your own signing keys, root if you want it. No vendor account stands between you and the hardware you paid for.
Reproducible images
Every image is built in the open, from a pinned package set, with the console output kept. Nothing ships that you cannot rebuild yourself.
A real package tree
main and community, built with abuild
for four architectures. If it is missing, the APKBUILD is three lines long.
Yours to change
Swap the compositor, replace the shell, disable anything. The system is configuration files and packages, not a product with settings.
Nothing phones home
No analytics, no crash uploader, no “improve the experience” toggle that is on by default. Updates are the only thing that reaches the network unasked.
A device you cannot repair, rebuild or refuse an update from is not yours — it is on loan. ferdiOS is what happens when a handful of people decide to stop renting.
-
2021
A rootfs and a lot of swearing
A single PinePhone, an Alpine chroot, and a modem that answered exactly one in four calls.
-
2023
1.0 “Brass Tacks”
The first image anyone outside the project flashed on purpose. Suspend still did not work.
-
2025
2.0 “Tin Whistle”
Own compositor, own shell, reproducible image builds, and suspend that lasts until morning.
-
2026
3.0 “Copper Kettle”
Five devices, four architectures, and a package tree large enough to be somebody's full-time complaint.
| Device | Arch | Status |
|---|---|---|
| PinePhone Pro | arm64 | Supported |
| PinePhone | arm64 | Supported |
| Librem 5 | arm64 | Supported |
| Raspberry Pi 4 | arm64 | Best effort |
| QEMU / virt | x86_64 | Testing |
Every target is rebuilt on its own schedule. The Images page has the console output for each one.
apk and abuild because they are small enough to
understand in an afternoon. The kernel, compositor, shell and device support are
ours.
Try it on hardware you already own
Every build ships a flashable image, its checksums and the log that produced it.