To the people who would like to contribute to postmarketOS but haven't, what is stopping you? Or, people who *have* contributed but stopped. (With the exception of just not having time or such)
I'd love to hear some feedback on how our contribution process could be streamlined.
May 31, 2026, 10:29 AM@justsoup I wanna contribute, but I still didn't have time to research how the irc bouncer (I don't know if the name is correct) work and setup one here, in order to be able to properly communicate with the team members. (I gave up Matrix)
@kurau What about Matrix was challenging? It is also possible to use IRC without a bouncer, just more annoying.
@justsoup
Hi,
I will start soon, but sooner, what will slow me down is the lack of knowledge : I'll have to learn but everything to install and be able to run postmarketos on a Samsung Galaxy A10.
I am dreaming of a bootcamp wher you can work with guidance.
May 31, 2026, 5:42 PM@justsoup@mstdn.social my only modern and working android device was originally purchased with the intent of using postmarketOS (Pixel 3a) but its purpose later shifted to being a video camera, android apps, and anything i can't have/don't want on my main phone. pmOS doesn't have proper rear camera support on the 3a atm either so that's a dealbreaker
my older android devices refuse to boot pmOS when i build images (and my oldest device has had most homebrew/custom ROMs lost to time! also it's bricked)
i don't know enough about programming or reverse engineering to PR fixes nor use any of my (very many) iPhones for the cause but basically any work for Linux on iOS devices stalls for years at a time
also going back to school so i don't have a lot of time for experiments anymore
@justsoup I have kids and I don't have enough free time. :neocat_floof_sad: I really wish I could finish this https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/merge_requests/6646
@justsoup Really interested, got it running on a Pixel 3a.
Still in the phase of finding out how to contribute best when not coding, thinking about testing or documentation.
First hurdle is going onto Matrix, have to figure this out...
@ChrisMcZork There's tons of ways to contribute that aren't just coding. That's just a tiny part of what we do (I go weeks without actually writing programs). There's https://postmarketos.org/contribute/, but its made me realize that we probably also need to specify that artwork is also very important! All of our wallpapers come from contributors just making stuff, and I think that is amazing.
@justsoup I have little to no knowledge in booting process and device tree of linux and the wiki does not give any clear path to understand how port or troubleshoot a device on PostmarketOS. Love the project btw, but leaving it to people knowing what theire doing.
@epickiwi There's https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Porting_to_a_new_device but I do agree that it is challenging to get started. If you ever want to give it a try, just remember that mistakes are part of the process and nobody will fault you for asking questions. Otherwise, hope we at least look like we know what we're doing :)
@justsoup This wiki page definitely improved since last time I checked. I may give another try someday. Thank you for all the work done
May 31, 2026, 8:25 PM@justsoup I need to learn first. I am learning electronics, low level programming and etc. Doing projects that take less time but make me learn a lot.
Then I will have enough knowledge for comfortable reverse engineering.
Also I do not like⚠️:
IRC(cannot edit messages, need bouncer, no good clients for me), Matrix(laggy), gitlab(asks to login often, strange for me), Python.
@soupborsh Matrix being laggy is most likely a client issue. What app / server are you using for it? Also, GitLab asking to login has happened to me before. You might be rejecting cookies without realizing it.
May 31, 2026, 9:08 PM@justsoup I had one thing that I thought could need changing, made a MR for it and it was quickly accepted.
Overall very pleasant experience, if I’d stumble upon something else that I think I could improve, I‘d definitely do it again.
My experience so far:
- The core contributors are really nice and active, comments are helpful and welcoming
- Structure is a bit "leggy", takes a while to grasp how everything works and where it lives
- Not always clear what are some good first issues
- "good first issue"s seem to stay open for a while, despite PRs against them; as a newbie you're never sure abt. picking it up or not
- Some interdependency between different modules, eg build many repos to test a PR in one module