Sailfish OS 3.3 arrives with updates, new services, improvements and more

Jolla developers announced the release of the new version of the operating system Sailfish "3.3" which arrives with a lot of changes and of which the update of the system libraries stands out, as well as packages and improvements in the services.

For those who are still unaware of Sailfish OS should know whate this uses a graph stack based on Wayland and the Qt5 library, the system environment is built on the foundation of Mer, which has been developed as an integral part of Sailfish since April, and the Nemo packages.

The user shell, basic mobile applications, components Silica QML to build Android GUI, Android application launch layer, smart text input engine and the data synchronization system are proprietary, but its code was planned to open in 2017.

What's new in Sailfish OS 3.3?

In this new version an update of the build tools and system libraries was carried out, Among which stands out: GCC from 4.9.4 to version 8.3, glibc from 2.28 to 2.30 and glib2 from 2.56 to 2.62, Gstreamer 1.16.1, QEMU 4.2 (used during assembly for other platforms).

On the part of the system packages were updated the following: expat, file, e2fsprogs, libgrypt, libsoup, augeas, wpa_supplicant, fribidi, glib2, nss and nspr. Instead of coreutils, tar, and vi, analogs from the busybox set are used, reducing the system size by 7,2 MB. Statefs functionality has been superseded when receiving state information through the libqofono API, Python has been updated to version 3.8.1.

System services isolation via sandbox mode in systemd is enabled. In the future, it is planned to provide application launch isolation (while experimenting with firejail).

The migration to the new GCC was done by the developers of the Aurora mobile operating system (a localized version of Rostelecom's Sailfish operating system), who also added the following enhancements:

A service based on the Nextcloud platform was implemented and the ability to use it to organize access to photos (Nextcloud albums appear automatically in the Gallery app), documents, and notes, as well as to backup and sync your address book and calendar planner.

Of the other changes that are mentioned in the announcement:

  • For wireless connections, support for WPA-EAP authentication has been added (TTLS and TLS).
  • Authentication using Exchange Accounts (EAS) has been improved, authentication with personal SSL certificates has appeared.
  • The stack of Wi-Fi locations and base station (without GPS) is adapted to work with other providers.
  • The 'Mount' and 'Unlock' buttons are added to the 'Settings> Backup' settings to mount or unlock memory cards.
  • Fixed bugs in calendar planner, camera, document viewer (fixed issues when viewing CSV and RTF).
  • MDM API implemented for ActiveSync and accounts.
  • The address book added support for autocomplete fields and search.
  • Improved work with call history and dialing interface.
  • Improved VPN management API.
  • Icons with icons showing various weather conditions have been added. Updated icons for Google accounts.
  • The design of the application interface elements is optimized for smartphones with large screens.
  • The Android compatibility layer has been updated to the Android 8.1.0_r73 platform.
  • Problems with adding contacts and watching videos on WhatsApp have been resolved. For many programs, support is provided for accessing the SD card.

Get Sailfish OS 3.3

This new version of Sailfish OS 3.3 sus builds are prepared for Jolla 1, Jolla C, Sony Xperia X, Xperia XA2, Gemini, Sony Xperia 10 devices and are now available as an OTA update.

To do this, just go to Configuration - Sailfish operating system updates, here you must scroll down to find an update (if you currently have an old version of the operating system, use the menu «Settings - Information - About the product. With this, the new version should appear so that they can update to it. 


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