They aim for a unified look and feel for all PureOS devices

Jan 25, 2018 01:14 GMT  ·  By

Purism, the computer technology company that sells Linux-powered laptops, is currently working hard on their first Linux phone, Librem 5, for which the company ran a successful crowdfunding campaign last year.

Last week, Purism published their first report on the upcoming privacy-focused Linux smartphone since the crowdfunding campaign ended, saying they plan to use the i.MX8 ARM processor for the device and the next-generation Wayland display server for the UI (User Interface), which is still in the design phase as they spent last two months establishing a design team.

Now that their design team is in place and ready to work on the most powerful Linux phone ever, Purism shared their plans on attempting to bring convergence across all devices running the PureOS Linux operating system, including the upcoming Librem 5 smartphone and any of Purism's Librem Linux laptops.

"Our approach to convergence is that mobile is the motivating factor for all other platforms," said François Téchené, Director of Creative at Purism. "We want to improve the user experience through ease of use, by creating a graphical environment that doesn’t require a steep learning curve when switching between devices."

Purism aims for a minimalistic and aesthetic design by default

While the general appearance of the user interface of the upcoming PureOS operating system for laptops and phones will follow the current visual design approaches in the mobile industry, Purism said that they expect their design patterns to have a minimalistic and aesthetic look by default. Both dark and light themes will be available for the new convergent design.

Below you can see a few mockups of what Purism's new design goals for the PureOS operating system running on the Librem 5 phone and all Librem laptops look like. The company also said they plan on contributing all of their Librem 5 UI/UX design work upstream, to the parent projects on which their work is based, and allow users to install other desktop environments on Librem 5.

These include KDE and GNOME, which become partners with Purism during the crowdfunding campaign for the Librem 5 Linux phone. However, they might offer different approaches to the mobile experience, and users should be aware of that before purchasing the device. But that is a good thing, because that's what free and open source software is all about, allowing the user to be in control of his device and its contents.

Unified look for PureOS devices
Unified look for PureOS devices
Unified look for PureOS devices
Unified look for PureOS devices

Unified look for PureOS devices (4 Images)

Librem 5 Phone
Unified look for PureOS devicesUnified look for PureOS devices
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