The Fresh Project has been a significant part of my life for the past three years or so. Although it was the second custom ROM I created, it was the first, and so far, the only project that I came to love as my own. It has also been a crucial tool in my Computer Science course at university, serving as a "playground" where I can learn beyond the classroom's constraints. The project has exposed me to what the future holds as I pursue a career in software engineering.

The community has been a large contributor to keeping me going, despite the rocky roads and the challenges over the past three major releases Fresh (and by extension, Mint Kernel) ever had. Your support for the project, despite it being of no monetary value, has continued and continues to inspire me to keep going despite the problems I experience, whether personally or publicly.

Life is telling me to experience new things beyond what I am currently capable of and to take better care of myself. Fresh has become my safe space, a bubble, and a comfort zone that I love staying in. However, it is also preventing me from experiencing what my heart desires and pursuing new opportunities.

With this, it is with my heavy heart to announce that I am officially canceling Fresh 5 development starting today, 28th of March, 2023. Fresh 4 and Mint Kernel will remain supported throughout the year and update servers and source code will NOT be discontinued as a result of this cancellation. As long as my providers, CloudFlare, GitLab, and GitHub, stay online and alive, you will continue receiving updates, and that wouldn’t change.

In addition, I am currently in the process of open-sourcing essential components used in Fresh 5. By doing so, other developers will have access to the codebase and will be able to build upon the work done on The Fresh Project. I will still contribute from time-to-time, and will provide help when I can, but I will no longer work in full capacity on Fresh.

I want to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who has supported Fresh Project, and to everyone who has contributed to the project's growth and development. Again, Fresh has become my habit for the past three years, but it’s also time for me to pursue new opportunities and to better take care of myself.

But with Fresh being Fresh, of course I’m not going anywhere without a bang. 😂

Something Remains Beyond the Horizon

Fresh 4.5 is shaping up to be a huge release, and might be the most stable Fresh release to date. Mint Kernel is also getting a massive upgrade, which will bring a lot of improvements, bug fixes, and new features to further improve your Galaxy experience.

There are more reasons for you to love your phone with Fresh 4.5, with a host of new features coming into Fresh 4 that were previously only available on One UI 5. These features include Text Extraction on the keyboard and Gallery apps, which will make it easier for you to find the information you need by scanning text and extracting it directly from images. Additionally, you can look forward to seeing expanded photo details and searching within Samsung Gallery, which is only seen so far on devices with One UI 5.1 (which is, not very many of them).

I’m most excited about this, Fresh 4.5 is also about to get Object Clipping, which is, so far, only officially available on the Galaxy S23. This feature allows users to easily remove the background from an image and isolate the object you want to keep, and even save it on your storage for future use. This can be especially useful for creating clip-arts or collages, as well as for removing unwanted elements from photos.

Fresh 4.5 has also been re-architectured with a full overhaul on the build process, removing unnecessary cruft and patching, making the experience even more stable. Plus, performance and memory management improvements are aboard the new release.

I have more plans for the future, including improved security against malicious USB On-The-Go peripherals and the ability to disable RAM Plus. Feedback remains important to me, and I’m excited to know which features you are excited about in this release, and which would you also want to see in an update.

Mint Kernel 12.5 is an upcoming release that promises to be a major step forward in terms of performance and stability. In addition to porting the kernel task scheduler directly from the Samsung Galaxy A53, a device that is three generations ahead of the Galaxy A50(!), Mint is introducing a cutting-edge CPU governor called AIGo. This governor uses adaptive learning to forecast CPU load and provide performance when needed, while also optimizing battery life when the device is not in use.

But that's not all. Mint has also merged several modern improvements to the Linux kernel, including Utilization Clamp (UClamp) support. This feature will allow users to set constraints on CPU utilization, which can be extremely useful for power users who want to optimize their system's performance. Furthermore, Mint has made massive stability improvements to drivers, which should lead to a much smoother experience overall.

All of this, including the new Exynos Mobile Scheduler, as with the Fresh mantra, are all configurable to your heart’s content.

A release candidate for Mint Kernel 12.5 is now available starting today. Download it by clicking here.

Overall, Fresh 4.5 and Mint Kernel 12.5 are shaping up to be a release that's packed with exciting new features and improvements. Whether you're a power user or just someone who wants the best possible experience from their device, this release is definitely something that will make you love your phone even more.

Fresh 4.5 and Mint 12.5 will be released 11th April, 2023. Save the date.

Thank You

I want to express my deepest gratitude to everyone who has been a part of this journey with me. Your support, encouragement, and feedback have been very invaluable to the development of Fresh and Mint Kernel. From your feedback, to the beta testers, to the people that made Fresh even more accessible by translating it to their native language, to the moderators that kept the community safe and healthy, to the developers that contributed to the project', to the people that shared Fresh with their friends and family, and to the countless others that made The Fresh Project what it is today, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

I am excited to see the open-source community build upon the codebase and create new and innovative features for Fresh. It is important to me that Fresh remains accessible to all who want to use it, and I believe that open-sourcing essential components will help achieve this goal. I look forward to seeing what the future holds for The Fresh Project and cannot wait to see what you can do beyond what I was able to do with Fresh.

The Fresh Project will always have a special place in my heart. Thank you, and I hope to share more exciting things with you all in the future.

Here's to the future, and whatever's to come for Fresh, Mint Kernel, and the open-source Galaxy A50 community. 🥂