Weekly GNU-like Mobile Linux Update (03/2026): Release Plans and Foreshadowing
Table of Contents
This past week: PureOS Crimson December development report teases release updater, PineTab2 camera support progressing (front and rear cameras working), PinePhone Pro PDAF pixel artifacts being eliminated, PocketBlue booting on Poco F1, Mecha Comet Kickstarter launching soon, and LinuxPhoneApps.org publishes Q4 2025 progress report. Enjoy!
Commentary in italics.
Worth Reading
- alaraajavamma for FuriLabs blog: They said you can’t teach old phones new tricks until postmarketOS arrived - Part 7 - FuriPhone FLX1s Linux Phone
- alaraajavamma for FuriLabs blog: The New King Has Arrived – Please Welcome Pinephone Pro - Part 6
- techglimmer: The Jolla Phone Proved We've Been Using Smartphones Wrong All Along
- CAIS: FLX1s – Erfahrungsbericht und Vergleich zum FLX1
- Purism: PureOS Crimson Development Report: December 2025
- LinuxPhoneApps.org Blog: 2nd Half Q4 2025 Progress and 2026 Foreshadowing. This one may actually be worth reading ;-)
Worth Watching
- RTP Tech Tips: Pinetab 2: Flashing Arch Linux & WiFi Test
- Continuum Gaming: Continuum Gaming E504: SFOS App "Dampffish" for Steam & Referal Program
- Anino Ni Kugi: Touchscreen and Virtual Touchpad Gestures | Lomiri Plus (Ubuntu Touch)
- David Hamner: Do Hardware Kill Switches Actually Work?. Good explainer!
- Ksk Royal: How To Install LINUX With GUI On Android 16 (Natively)
- orailnoor: I Installed Ubuntu Touch on My Phone in 2026 — Should You?
- Smartphone Nostalgia: Nokia N9, a phone way ahead of its time 🔥😍
- Dominic Corriveau: Leaving ChromeOS for PostmarketOS on the Lenovo Duet 3 - Thoughts & Overview
- Nicco Loves Linux: We Need More of these Linux Laptops!. … or tablets.
Worth Noting
- Mecha Comet on Kickstarter: We are almost there now, the Comet goes live on January 24!
- jmlich: "I was still wondering why navigation wasn’t working for me (PineTime + Amazfish on #UBports). In the end, it turned out to be AppArmor in Pure Maps (there is now an unconfined version of the app in the store). Navigation must be enabled in the #Amazfish settings, and the resources (navigation images) must be uploaded to the #PineTime."
- dos: cold purrs #shotonlibrem5 #catsofmastodon #snow #librem5
- peja: "Took the car for a longer drive today and figured it was the perfect chance to test navigation on my #linuxphone. Тhe road is really winding, so it's easy to see if the position tracking is accurate. I wasn’t expecting much since, when I’m stationary, all apps seem to drift by about 100 meters. To my surprise #PureMaps was just as precise as OsmAnd on Android, which I kept running side-by-side for comparison.So, on #pixel3a with #postmarketos GPS works perfectly when you’re on the move."
- Luigi311: #PinephonePro pdaf pixels be gone! Before: https://photos.luigi311.com/s/imx258 After: https://photos.luigi311.com/s/imx258-pdaf Should hopefully be getting less artifacts on the PPP rear camera sometime soon
- runefish: "Finally got #Pocketblue booting on my Poco F1! Still needs some work to fix audio and bluetooth, but it shouldn't be too difficult#linuxmobile #mobilelinux"
- mobilni_linux_cs_sk: "Makáme. out-of-picture @okiasKernel, kamery (libcamera, autofocus), balíčkování CoMaps, Linux na Samsung S4 Mini, NixOS Mobile demo atd.#Prague #MobileLinux #LinuxMobile #Flatpak #CoMaps #sdm845 #NixOS #NixOS_mobile". CoMaps packaging sounds great!
- danct12: Got back camera to work on the #PineTab2 EDIT: I think this should be considered as #LinuxMobile too.. right?, Got an image from the #PineTab2 front camera! 📸 The pixel format is all wrong.. but at least it's a picture and you can make out the details in it!#LinuxMobile #MobileLinux
- FuriLabs: FAQs Are Released We just released new automated FAQ's & a Telegram bot. Please contrib to the PR's https://github.com/FuriLabs/faq/.https://furilabs.com/new-faqs/. See also this app. I like the idea.
- r/MobileLinux: Looking to port a device
- r/MobileLinux: Run Linux desktop on any recent Android phone or tablet
Events
- fluconf: The form for proposing contributions for FluConf 2026 is now live. Read all about it in the accompanying blog post:https://fluconf.online/blog/now-accepting-proposals-for-fluconf-2026/#fluConf #fluConf2026
- fosdem: https://fosdem.org/2026/news/2026-01-11-travel-transportation-advisories/. Railway strike.
- dcz: Thank you #FOSDEM Graphics track organizers for accepting my proposal! I'm excited to tell where I (re-)took this #Wayland project I started back in 2018!https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/MVVELP-wayland_input_method_wrap_up/Curse you FOSDEM organizers for accepting my proposal! Now I have to prepare it :P
More Software News
Gnome Ecosystem
- This Week in GNOME: #232 Upcoming Deadlines
- Arun Raghavan: Accessibility Update: Enabling Mono Audio
- Allan Day: GNOME Foundation Update, 2026-01-16
- Planet GNOME: Sriram Ramkrishna: GNOME OS Hackfest During FOSDEM week
- Phoronix: GNOME 50 Will Make Sure You Don't Use Your Computer Past Your Bedtime
- Phoronix: GNOME 50 Alpha Released With The X11 Code Gutted
Phosh
- Phosh.mobi e.V: Our next online community get together is in less than 🔟 days: https://ev.phosh.mobi/gettogether/ . Join us!#LinuxMobile #Phosh. Tuesday.
Plasma Ecosystem
- Nate Graham: This Week in Plasma: dark mode switch and global push-to-talk
- KDE Announcements: KDE Plasma 6.5.5, Bugfix Release for January
- KDE Announcements: KDE Plasma 6.6 Beta Release
- Volker Krause: Transitous Hack Weekend January 2025
- tsgeos: KDE Gear 26.04 release schedule
- Phoronix: KDE Begins Landing Features For Plasma 6.7, Some Last Minute Plasma 6.6 Improvements
Sailfish OS
- Announcements on SailfishOS forums: Jolla Phone update - referral program
- frankps: "Hot, hot, hot!Jolla has just released the first photos of a dummy phone with the actual size and feel. Now we know how the Do It Together (DIT) Linux phone actually will look like!Head over the Sailfish Community forum for a look!https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/jolla-phone-update-design-appearance-models/27024@jolla #SailfishOS #LinuxMobile #NextGenJollaPhone"
- jolla: "⏰ Still 14 hours left to vote.Just like we defined the next gen Jolla Phone together with the community, we’re now doing the same with The Other Half.We’ll open up what’s technically possible, you vote on what we should build, and together we design something genuinely unique.Comments stay open after voting closes, but if you haven’t voted yet, now’s the moment. Every vote counts.👉 Vote now: https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/the-other-half-returns-community-innovation-program/26011"
- frankps: @jolla has just announced a referral program for the upcoming Do It Together Linux phone. In that announcement they shared some figures related to the preorders they have received:- More than 50% are new customers, i.e. the community has grown significantly. Something we already can notice in the forum - Sailfish Forum visitor statistics were up 150% from November to DecemberTruly awesome news for the SailfishOS community! — Welcome to all newcomers!https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/jolla-phone-update-referral-program/27123#SailfishOS
- poetaster: "Announcing version 1.3.0 of tooter, the #SailfishOs mastodon client! Lots of fixes and additions , mostly NOT mine….* edit toot* slideshow > 1 image in a toot* mini previews of links where possible* quote toots* proper multi-person response* alt text for media uploads* polls are visible* a new finish translation* plain text reader view for links* a number of potential race conditionsUp at: https://github.com/poetaster/harbour-tooter/releases/tag/1.3.0 coming soon to harbour, chum .... @molan You'll like this releae."
- frankps: I hope new Norwegian users on the #SailfishOS will enjoy the translations, and I encourage others to translate the software they use to their language as a warm welcome of all the new community members we will get later this year when the new European Do It Together (DIT) Linux phone arrives: https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-preorder My recent translation work: https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/norwegian-bokmal-third-party-apps-that-can-be-translated/ #LinuxMobile #SailfishCommunity #NextGenJollaPhone @jolla
Ubuntu Touch
- UBports - Development - Issues: [Qt 6] fix tests for Qt 6 builds
- UBports - Development - Issues: [24.04-2.x.] nextcloud sync fails
- #UbuntuTouch: My Volla tablet has finally arrived. I'm not exactly excited, but I'm still looking forward to finally having a tablet with an up-to-date OS again.My plan is to first configure Volla OS (their Android OS) so I can replace my old Yoga Tab. Once that's up and running, I'm looking forward to giving Ubuntu Touch a try on it. I don't have many requirements for my tablets, so it might work well enough.#Volla #UbuntuTouch
- #UbuntuTouch: Glad to see #postmarketos immutability is still progressing. I think it’s the superior model for end users mobile phones as phone play such a massive role in our live. It ensure a repeatable base that can be tested and rolled back. It’s also why I think #ubuntutouch is such a great idea. This is especially true with something with such rapid changes like #mobilelinux still is. Being able to easily switch DE down the line and reducing the chance of components missing is great. Keep it up!
Distributions
- postmarketOS Blog: Quiet audio on systemd with GNOME/Phosh installs for stable and edge
- postmarketOS pmaports issues: Implement offline updates
- postmarketOS pmaports issues: evaluate default zram swap compression algorithm
- postmarketOS pmaports Merge Requests: main/postmarketos-release-upgrade-notification: new aport
- Mobian mobian-recipes Merge Requests: LUKS: fix bootonroot
- David Heidelberg: Why I Will No Longer Contribute to postmarketOS
- pabloyoyoista: "Massive kudos to @fossdd for going through the whole of the #postmarketos integration testing repo and fixing/improving documentation about maintainers, as well as to everybody in that stepped up to maintain and contribute to devices whose volunteer maintainers are no longer involved.It is incredible to be part of a community with so many helpful people wanting to contribute and make something better out of old and modern hardware. My deep appreciations"
Apps
- LinuxPhoneApps.org Blog: 2nd Half Q4 2025 Progress and 2026 Foreshadowing
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: NoMoreBackground
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Ricochlime
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Deliveries
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Emergency Alerts
- h3artbl33d: "… Heads-up: if you use gurk-rs, a Signal client for the terminal, you should update it to either the commit done an hour ago or to version 0.8.1 once it is out. It fixes missing incoming messages due to missing trusted roots :flan_hacker:#Signal #Gurk #OpenBSD #HardenedBSD #FreeBSD #Rust #Terminal". Flare users need to update too.
- Modal: The Reflection team is currently planning priorities for the next months, and we're interested in what developers would need to get started using the p2panda stack to add collaboration to their apps. For this, it'd be helpful to know how important GObject bindings are to you:Not important, my apps are in RustI need GObject bindings to get startedSomething else (e.g. make my own bindings)
- Modal: We're trying to gauge interest in developer events around local-first. If you're curious about adding local-first collaboration to your apps, which event format would you you prefer?A multi-day conference/hackfest in Berlin4 hour evening session in BerlinA series of 2-3 online sessionsSomething else (comment below)
- Modal: Calling all GTK app developers!As part of the Reflection project we want to lay the groundwork for an ecosystem of native GTK apps with local-first sync/collaboration features. To do this in the most effective way possible we're asking for your input!#gtk #gnome #localfirst #p2panda #berlin
Kernel
- phone-devel: [PATCH] clk: qcom: dispcc-sm7150: Fix dispcc_mdss_pclk1_clk_src
- phone-devel: [PATCH v3 0/8] media: camss: Add support for C-PHY configuration on Qualcomm platforms
- phone-devel: Re: [PATCH v7 5/5] arm64: dts: qcom: sdm670-google-sargo: add imx355 front camera
- Phoronix: Patches Positioned Ahead Of Linux 7.0 Cycle For Easy Custom Boot Logo In Place Of Tux
- Phoronix: Imagination Driver To Support The TI AM62P SoC In Linux 6.20~7.0
Stack
- Flathub Blog: What's new in Vorarbeiter
Matrix
- Matrix.org: This Week in Matrix 2026-01-16
Thanks
Huge thanks to Plata for the nifty set of Python scripts that speed up collecting links from feeds by a lot.
Something missing? Want to contribute?
If your project's cool story (or your awesome video or nifty blog post or ...) is missing and you don't want that to happen again, please just put it into this pad for the next one! Since I am collecting many things there, this get's you early access if you will ;-) If you just stumble on a thing, please put it in there too - all help is appreciated!