Weekly GNU-like Mobile Linux Update (08/2026): Touch Your Wrist
Table of Contents
This past week: AsteroidOS 2.0 release blog post released, Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.2 and 20.04 OTA-12 released, Mecha Comet surpasses $1 million on Kickstarter, Jolla Phone 2026 reaches 9000+ pre-orders, and more! Enjoy!
Commentary in italics.
Worth Reading
- yuka.dev: Reviving a Nexus 9 with mainline Linux
- AsteroidOS: AsteroidOS 2.0 Released
- Neil Brown: Updating my TicWatch to AsteroidOS 2.0
- Linuxiac: Pocketblue Brings Fedora Atomic Linux to Mobile Devices
- Lemmy.ca - linuxphones: Pocketblue Brings Fedora Atomic Linux to Mobile Devices
- xda-developers: You can now download a Fedora Atomic OS for your Android device
Worth Watching
- Continuum Gaming: Continuum Gaming E509: Jolla Phone – Specs, TOH & Timeline Update
- Tomás: One decade with a Linux phone - Jolla Sailfish
- Manuel Eberle: Sony Xperia 10 III VS Jolla C2 - Sailfish OS 5.0.0.73
- Manuel Eberle: Xperia 10 iii vs Jolla C2 vs Fairphone 4 (Port)-- Sailfish OS 5.0.0.73
- moWerk: AsteroidOS 2.0 - New features tour
- UBports: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 184. With background music.
- Mecha: Ask me anything about the Mecha Comet - 20 February
- DistroTester: Pocketblue Brings Fedora Atomic Linux to Mobile Devices
- Tobias Bernard, Andreas Dzialocha: Towards a Local-First Linux Desktop with Modal, Reflection and p2panda
- Martijn Braam: FOSS Pi-based Broadcast camera (pt. 2)
Worth Noting
- eibriel: Linux Handheld reached 1 million in backing on Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mecha-systems/mecha-comet-modular-linux-handheld-computer/description#Linux #LinuxHandheld #MechaComet #LinuxMobile #OpenHardware. Impressive!
- UndeadLeech: Finally managed to get the modem working on my Fairphone 5. It's officially a phone now. #linuxmobile #fairphone #alarm #catacomb. If you're wondering "but didn't that work anyway?" - yes, it did, but not on Arch Linux ARM.
- ppisa: @Pavel Machek has rebased his #libcamera AutoFocus experimental branch above mainline v0.7.0 tag during @okias organized 6th #MobileLinux Hackday yesterday (thanks to #SUSE for hosting), and I have built it on my #oneplus6 #Qualcomm #sdm845 phone running my build of 6.19.0-rc4-next-20260106-sdm845-gdc7b19cffd9e kernel and #mobian. Then I have tested it with Pavel’s mcam and, probably the first time ever, with Gnome/Phosh snapshot application with a complete pipewire-libcamera stack. The simple SW AF prototype has been enabled by the addition of - Af: line into /usr/share/libcamera/ipa/simple/uncalibrated.yam. …
- julianwi: make WhatsApp voice calls functional by implementing AudioRecord class - WhatsApp calls should now be possible through Android Translation Layer. Should be possible to test this soon through the ATL Flatpak repo
Events
- modal: "The #ReflectionDeveloperLabs sessions are starting soon! It's a series of online events for GTK app developers to learn more about local-first, and give us feedback on what they need to add local-first sync to their apps 🪴🔃First session: March 3, 15:00 CET, onlineWe'll give an introduction to the stack and present the WIP new p2panda node/client APIs and GObject bindings to get early feedback.You can sign up here: https://pad.gnome.org/4uGYejbVSxO8LUPQRQZW-w#localfirst #p2panda #gnome #gtk"
- LAS: "We’re excited to announce that Linux App Summit 2026 will take place May 16–17 in Berlin, Germany. Join developers, designers, and open source contributors for two days focused on Linux apps.https://linuxappsummit.org/local/#Linux #opensource #Apps #KDE #GNOME #LinuxAppSummit #LAS2026"
More Software News
Gnome Ecosystem
- This Week in GNOME: #237 Article Rendering
- Allan Day: GNOME Foundation Update, 2026-02-19
- Jonathan Blandford: Crosswords 0.3.17: Circle Bound
- Adrian Vovk: GNOME OS Hackfest @ FOSDEM 2026. x86 flatpaks on ARM with FEX is particularly interesting!
- Federico Mena-Quintero: Librsvg got its first AI slop pull request
- Phoronix: GNOME 50 Lands Updated Wayland Color Management v2 Support
Phosh
- Phosh Releases: Phosh 0.53.0
- foss2go.com: Phosh 0.53.0: improved auto-brightness and app thumbnails
Plasma Ecosystem
- Nate Graham: This Week in Plasma: 6.6 is Here!
- KDE Announcements: Plasma 6.6
- KDE e.V. News: KDE endorses the UN's Open Source Principles
- shibe-bit: Guide: Building and Using the OMEMO Sync Client
- Phoronix: KDE Plasma 6.7 Preps More Improvements While Plasma 6.6.1 Fixes Begin Accumulating
Sailfish OS
- Community News - Sailfish OS Forum: Sailfish Community News, February 19th 2026 - Hackday
- Announcements - Sailfish OS Forum: Jolla Phone update - lights on, technical bits and the schedule
- #sailfishOS: 9,000 pre-orders. Time to celebrate. 🎉This is not just a number. It is 9,000 people who chose privacy, independence, and a different kind of phone. People who decided that their data is theirs. People who believe something better is possible.Secure your Jolla Phone at the special batch price before February ends. If you have been considering it, this is the moment.Let's make it together. ❤️https://jolla.com/phone#Jolla #SailfishOS #DigitalSovereignty #European #PrivacyFirst #Linux #CommunityPowered
- #sailfishOS: W00t, The #Jolla Phone will actually ship with The Other Half!https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/jolla-phone-update-lights-on-technical-bits-and-the-schedule/27821#TheOtherHalf #SailfishOS #LinuxOnMobile
- #sailfishOS: @Antti98 Thanks. So there are some hacky proof of concept eSim solutions, and hope for official support one day.I'd seen the frequency list before (was probably in a press release), would need to cross check with Japan info.The Jello website says #SailfishOS is "now enhanced for AI-driven applications" - hopefully minor and not distracting!
Ubuntu Touch
- UBports News: Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.2 and 20.04 OTA-12 release
- UBports Forums OS: Call for testing: calendar-app
- Ubuntu Touch Forums News: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 184 call for questions
- UBports - Development - Issues: MR !237 (Adjust logic for detecting tablet sizing) makes keyboard look too big for Volla Phone Quintus
- UBports - Development - Issues: Implement
.qmltypesfor Qt 6 (Follow-up from "Build QML modules with qt_add_qml_module") - UBports - Development - Issues: build test failures with gdk-pixbuf + glycin
- UBports - Development - Merge Requests: [ubports/focal] Jenkinsfile: use arch-specific nodes for building images
- UBports - Development - Merge Requests: [ubports/24.04-1.x] Jenkinsfile: use arch-specific nodes for building images
- UBports - Development - Merge Requests: Draft: Redesign workpspace implementation
- UBports - Development - Merge Requests: Draft: Implement separate default height for tall phones
- UBports - Development - Merge Requests: src/LomiriToolkit: Fix ListItem's touch event handling
- UBports - Development - Merge Requests: Split off lomiri-keyboard-qml from lomiri-keyboard
- UBports - Development - Merge Requests: plugins/WindowManager: Match Xwayland surfaces to their placeholders
- UBports - Development - Merge Requests: Increase timeout values to fix flaky tests
- UBports - Development - Merge Requests: Draft: ignore Only/NotShowIn in desktop files
- UBports - Development - Merge Requests: Update ru plugin
- UBports - Development - Merge Requests: Draft: Personal/lduboeuf/update upstream
- UBports - Development - Merge Requests: nmofono/wwan: enable mobile data with NetworkManager
- UBports - Development - Merge Requests: src: platforms: Fix synchronization bug with Mir2 crashing Mir (run on
- #UbuntuTouch: #Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.2 and 20.04 OTA-12 Roll Out With VoLTE and Xperia X Fixes https://linuxiac.com/ubuntu-touch-24-04-1-2-and-20-04-ota-12-released/#UbuntuTouch
- #UbuntuTouch: Day two on the #UBports #UbuntuTouch phone. The pro is that I spend less time scrolling, the con is that I spent more time doing trivial stuff. So that's in balance. My first impression: not ready for prime time yet. I can use it but it takes a lot of effort. All the basic stuff a phone should do can be done but all the things a regular smartphone can do, not so much.#Linux #SmartPhone
Distributions
- Mobian mobian-recipes Merge Requests: Draft: Remove phosh-session from plasma-mobile images, fix #56
- Mobian mobian-recipes Issues: Now with recommends enabled, plasma-mobile images include Phosh as well
- Breaking updates in pmOS edge: msm-modem package temporarily removed
- postmarketOS (Mastodon): Happy to announce that @ayakael is now a trusted contributor in postmarketOS!He is getting postmarketOS comfortable on eink and cyberdeck devices, improving rockchip support, maintaining Alpine Linux packages and learning how to mainline linux patches. Regarding eink devices, he made a bunch of improvements to the e-ink powered pine64-pinenote and moved it from the testing category to community.📜 TC page:https://postmarketos.org/team/#antoine-martin-ayakael
- postmarketOS Wiki New Pages: Nexphone (nex-nexphone)
Apps
- kolunmi: Made a new screenshot carousel widget from scratch for Bazaar! I wanted the act of scrolling screenshots to be as fluid and responsive as possible. This was very fun to work on.Bazaar: https://github.com/kolunmi/bazaarSupport Me: https://ko-fi.com/kolunmi
- newbyte: "#Megapixels 2.1.0 was just merged into #postmarketOS Edge, including a fix to make it work out-of-the-box again on the original #PinePhone! Performance is not as good as it used as it relies on software rendering but it can take photos at least, and it's markedly more usable than the main alternative Snapshot—which unfortunately runs at what seems to be less than 1 FPS on it."
- chfkch: "Ok, so i didn't have much time the past year to work on BitRitter, but recently at least i got the initial code working for translations.I will try to set it up in the next weeks, so we can use the Weblate instance from @Codeberg .Another thing i was working on in the rare free time was editing entries and saving them to the vault. I got bitten by framework specific stuff, so that will not be solved soon.#BitRitter #RustLang #LinuxMobile #MobileLinux #Weblate #CodeBerg"
- cassidy: I finally did a little UI rewrite for Dippi 👀#GNOME #Adwaita #libadwaita #Linux #LinuxMobile #OpenSource
Kernel
- phone-devel: [PATCH v2 0/3] Add wiko-chuppito devictree
- phone-devel: [PATCH v2 0/5] Battery temperature ADC plumbing on Qualcomm platforms
- phone-devel: Re: [PATCH v2 2/5] arm64: dts: qcom: sm6125: Add PRNG node
- phone-devel: Re: [PATCH 0/3] Bitmask logic fix and firmware-name support for AW88261 amplifier driver
- Phoronix: AppArmor Enhancements Merged For Linux 7.0
- Phoronix: eCryptfs Sees Renewed Patch Activity With Linux 7.0
- Phoronix: Linux 7.0 Brings Apple Type-C PHY, Snapdragon X2 & Rockchip HDMI 2.1 FRL Additions
- Phoronix: USB Driver For Google Tensor SoCs, UCSI Thunderbolt Alt Mode In Linux 7.0
- Phoronix: Turbostat With Linux 7.0 Can Report New L2 Cache Statistics
Stack
Matrix
- Matrix.org: This Week in Matrix 2026-02-20
- Matrix.org: Analysis of reported issues in vodozemac amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2026/02/20/nj-regulation-e-bikes/)
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!