Weekly GNU-like Mobile Linux Update (11/2025): Libadwaita 1.7 and news from Sxmo
Table of Contents
This past week in #LinuxMobile:
- Purism share Librem 5 Crimson progress,
- Libadwaita 1.7 creating convergent GNOME apps even easier,
- Sxmo introduce an intuitive getting-started guide with gesture videos,
- Sailfish OS community ports now available for 10 different devices (and a NewPipe port),
- Lomiri on Mir 2.20 getting closer,
- postmarketOS adds the COSMIC desktop environment to edge repositories.
Plus: numerous app updates, kernel developments, and community contributions across the ecosystem! Enjoy!
Commentary in italics; and please check the last paragraph of this post.
Worth Reading
- FuriLabs: Spy-Free FuriOS
- Purism: PureOS Crimson Development Report: February 2025
- Ars Technica: RCS texting updates will bring end-to-end encryption to green bubble chats. With this, RCS will be a feature that people may actually miss when they don't have it. ... Now, how do we get proper RCS support for #LinuxMobile, be it ModemManager or Ofono based?
German PinePhone Corner
- Marius Welt: Pinephone: OOTB Full-HD Videoplayback
- Marius Welt: Pinephone – 4 Jahre später. Things are so good these days (even on Fedora). It's really sad that current GTK4 no longer offers GPU acceleration on GLES 2 hardware.
Worth Watching
- Sunshine: Testing PostMarketOS On MS Surface GO 2
- Continuum Gaming: Continuum Gaming E460: Kilometer & AppSupport for 10 IV / V
- Anino Ni Kugi: Ubuntu Touch Exclusive Games (?)
- Random Informative Videos: Unlocking Ubuntu Touch & A explanation !
- Ivo Xavier: Updating Fairphone4 with UbuntuTouch OTA-8 from UBports
- Bits & Bytes with Eliza: The Rise and Fall of Maemo: A Story of Innovation and Incompetence
Worth Noting
- Sturmflut: ""If it doesn't support #WhatsApp natively, it's going to be a failure" was one of the common criticisms during #UbuntuPhone times ten years ago."Does it support #Signal?" is a common question about #linuxphones.Good reminder that we still haven't figured out messaging at all and #lockin can easily happen even with solutions that look more free and open at first glance. There are still no good alternatives to Signal's iOS/Android apps.#linuxmobile #fossphones #mobilelinux"
- rmader: First try to create #libcamera swISP tuning files for the OnePlus6 with #ideasonboard folks at #embeddedworld. Unfortunately we hit an issue that we couldn't fix on-side - got a few todos to make sure things work out next time!#postmarketos #linuxmobile
- Liberux: "✨ New on our website: FAQ section!We’ve answered some of your most common questions about Liberux. Check it out https://liberux.net/#faqSoon, as devboard testing allows to define the prototype, details about: RAM, storage, battery, CPU, communications... and kill-switches, of course.What other FAQs would you like to see? 🤔💡#Liberux #FAQ #LinuxPhone"
- Purism community: Librem 5 + Arch Linux
- fakeshell: "after many days of work, here is another functional demo of #GNOME shell running on the secondary display connected to the #flx1. it took many hours to build the app and make everything act nice and not crash and integrate cleanly. still a long way to go but i think it is a good time to showcase the progress in the past 7 days.i hope to get this ready and done by 13.0.9 which is the next release but obviously no promises.#debian #furios #furilabs #FuriPhoneFLX1 #LinuxOnMobile"
Event corner
- craftyguy: Are there any folks out there who want to help organize a Mobile track with me at #FOSSY this year? 😁#fossy2025 #linuxmobile
- gnome: "📝 Linux App Summit 2025 registration is open! 🎉 Join us in Tirana, Albania, on April 25th-26th for two days of talks, and community gatherings. We welcome both in-person and online attendees—don’t forget to register! 👉 https://conf.linuxappsummit.org/event/7/registrations/"
- z3ntu: "My talk "Making Android phones Last" for #LinaroConnect 2025 has been accepted!Thursday, 15 May 12:30 - 12:55 (WEST/UTC+1), on location in Lisbon, Portugal (but at least the recording should be available afterwards, not sure if a live stream will be available for free)https://www.kitefor.events/events/linaro-connect-2025/submissions/323@LinaroLtd #LIS25"
- gnome: "🚀 Only 4 days left to submit your talk for GUADEC 2025! Don’t miss your chance to be part of our amazing event in Brescia, Italy, from July 24-29! ✨📅 Deadline: March 16📝 Submit here: https://events.gnome.org/event/259/abstracts/#submit-abstracts" Too late to submit something, but maybe Save The Date!
More Software News
Gnome Ecosystem
- This Week in GNOME: #191 Third Saturday Edition
- Alice: Libadwaita 1.7
- GNOME Foundation: GNOME Internship: Get Ready for GSoC and Outreachy!
- Marcus Lundblad: Maps and GNOME 48
- Phoronix: Paid XR Desktop For GNOME "Breezy Desktop" In Open Beta With Multi-Display Support
- GTK: "GTK 4.18.1 is out! This is the first stable release of the 4.18 cycle, and includes a few last minute additions:- fractional scaling support on macOS works again- the Android backend uses GL rendering for top level surfacesPlus, as usual, lots of bug fixes, performance improvements, and documentation updates.You can download the release archive from the usual place: https://download.gnome.org/sources/gtk/4.18/Or you can wait until your distribution of choice is updated to ship GNOME 48.#gtk #gtk4 #gnome"
Phosh
- agx: I didn't get the memo that there is "Landesweiter #Warntag" in RLP today and was surprised by the sirens. The #pinephone I use for testing catched the #cellbroadcast message 😅 :[/org/freedesktop/ModemManager1/CBM/4] new cbm: received 4383: TEST ALERT for Rheinland-Pfalz Thu 2025/03/13 - 10:00 am - Test alert - for Rheinland-Pfalz - There is no danger. - Further information: https://warnung.bund.de/m/VzsFymNy9PEW - Published by: Lagezentrum Bevölkerungsschutz Rheinland-Pfalz#phosh #LinuxMobile
- dos: whooosh#phosh #phoc #mobilelinux #linuxmobile
Plasma Ecosystem
- Nate Graham: This Week in Plasma: File Transfer Progress Graphs
- Carl Schwan et al.: This Week in KDE Apps
- KDE Announcements: KDE Ships Frameworks 6.12.0
- KDE Announcements: KDE Plasma 6.3.3, Bugfix Release for March
- Planet KDE: kwin_x11 and kwin_wayland split
- Nate Graham: Personal and professional updates — announcing Techpaladin Software
- anditosan: Plasma Design System – March 2025 Update
Sxmo
- Sxmo.org website and community update — sourcehut lists
- ollieparanoid: "If you always wanted to run a tiling window manager on your smartphone, give Sxmo a try. They just added a nice getting started guide to nicely illustrate how gestures are used to open the menu, bring up and close the keyboard, switch between workspaces and more:https://sxmo.org/docs/gettingstarted/Great work @pocketvj and Sxmo team!#postmarketos #sxmo #tiling #linux"
- #sxmo: We now have a short "getting started" page featuring nice gesture videos made by magdesign. These demo gestures to newcomers so they can quickly and visually grasp how Sxmo works and get going with it. It came to our attention at FOSDEM that this was something that people struggled with when they start out:https://sxmo.org/docs/gettingstarted/
- @pocketvj@fosstodon.org: maybe we should consider some sort of algo to enhance image quality on #linuxmobile #pmos phones:https://people.ee.ethz.ch/~ihnatova/https://github.com/HuiZeng/Image-Adaptive-3DLUTI am aware that there is a lot to gain with first fixing the camera drivers to take a correct photo. also working from the other direction as well makes sense to combine both techniques at some point ...experimenting with stable-diffusion.cpp on my #pocof1 (i miss pytorch support on alpine..), its soo slow 😂
Sailfish OS
- adampigg: Have updated the following #sailfishOS hardware ports to 5.0,@volla Phone, PhoneX, Phone22, 23X and Quintus, @PINE64 Pinephone, Tab, Pro, Pinetab2, and Fxtec Pro1x. Thats 10 in total, and 2 more on my todo list!
- adampigg: The amazing #sailfishos and #linux community have funded me a new watch which will mean ZeppOS support in amazfish is coming. I decided on the amazfit balance and it is on the way :) thankyou everyone. This is probably a form of nerd sniping, buy dev unsupported device to get it supported :)
- adampigg: Ive compiled a single page with the info you need to run @jolla #SailfishOS on @volla devices. https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/the-single-volla-thread/22553
- #sailfishOS: @elliotjmackness #SailfishOS is pretty good actually as a Mobile Linux on phone, is even comercially supported for a few models (from Sony and Reeder) and is based in Europe.(and even has solutions for apps that one absolute need, but only exists on Android)And this toot sent from a Pinephone Pro running a community build of SFOS.
- Turre: Life with Sailfish OS, day 1, hour 6-12
- Turre: Life with Sailfish OS, day 1, hour 2-4
- Turre: Life with Sailfish OS, day 1, hour 1
flypigs' NewPipe corner
- flypig: "Time to start a new project and a new daily dev diary 📔Following an inspiring discussion with Schabi from the #NewPipe team at #FOSDEM, I'm planning to build a YouTube client based on NewPipe for #SailfishOS. I plan to write about my progress every day ☀️ 🌔 Once again, mostly for my own benefit, but anyone interested to follow along is very welcome!https://www.flypig.co.uk/newpipe?&list_id=1227&list=newpipe"
- flypig: Day 2 of my #SailfishOS #NewPipe dev diary.Taking a look at the NewPipe user interface on Android to see what will transfer over to a #SailfishOS app.https://www.flypig.co.uk/newpipe?&list_id=1229&list=newpipe
- flypig: "Day 2 (actually Day 2 this time!) of my #SailfishOS #NewPipe dev diary.Still at the initial stages, taking things slowly and getting NewPipe Extractor built for Linux.https://www.flypig.co.uk/newpipe?&list_id=1230&list=newpipe"
- flypig: #NewPipe #SailfishOS dev diary Day 3. Using the Extractor to download videos! This feels like an early milestone 😃 https://www.flypig.co.uk/newpipe?&list_id=1231&list=newpipe
- #sailfishOS: #NewPipe #SailfishOS dev diary Day 4. Native Java with GraalVM and microTube.https://www.flypig.co.uk/newpipe?&list_id=1232&list=newpipe
- flypig: #NewPipe #SailfishOS dev diary Day 5. Dissecting @thigg's sailing-the-flood-to-java code 🌊 ☕ https://www.flypig.co.uk/newpipe?&list_id=1234&list=newpipe
- flypig: #NewPipe #SailfishOS dev diary Day 6. Attempting to get GraalVM working with scratchbox2 and the Sailfish SDK.https://www.flypig.co.uk/newpipe?&list_id=1235&list=newpipe
Ubuntu Touch
- fredldotme: "After a bit of fixing in Mir, QtMir & Lomiri I am happy to report better stability of the desktop with Mir 2.20.It's far from finished but needless to say it's nice that using Firefox doesn't crash the desktop anymore.Also some screenshots of the workspace management."
- UBports - Development - Issues: Expose more features through Wayland or other Linux-standard ways
- UBports - Development - Issues: screenshot from readme in mobile
- #UbuntuTouch: @sesivany I am currently for a year running on 40€ used Xiaomi Note 9 Pro from bazos.cz, flashed with #ubuntutouch :D
Distributions
- Lemmy - postmarketOS: Why postmarketOS and not Android forks?
- Breaking updates in pmOS edge: SSH client uninstalled when system upgraded
- Breaking updates in pmOS edge: Existing SM7150 device packages removed in favour of generic package
- postmarketOS: To users of the postmarketOS Matrix and IRC channels: Looks like Matrix is shutting down the IRC bridge to OFTC that we are currently using soon. We are considering whether to selfhost / possibly use an alternative public bridge instance / maaaybe it is not worth keeping a bridge around at all (meaning that we would move to matrix only) :blobthinkingeyes: Is it important to you that we keep a Matrix <> IRC bridge around?#postmarketos
- postmarketOS: "Documentation is very important - one of the reasons that we are happy to announce that @undefined is our newest Trusted Contributor!They currently do the following in postmarketOS:* Working on the postmarketOS wiki; making sure the docs are up-to-date, useful and easy to understand* Mainlining Broadcom Kona series chipsets (in pmOS soon!)* Co-maintaining the Exynos 4 close to mainline kernel fork* Occasionally tracking down bugs and regressions📜 TC page:https://postmarketos.org/trusted-contributors/#knuxify"
- craftyguy: #COSMIC is now available in #postmarketOS edge! I hope to have prebuilt images on our download site soon (patch just waiting for review)🤞Super big thank you to everyone who helped with review and testing 👍 (@sertonix @justsoup @newbyte @fossdd @whynothugo @ptrc )I also wrote some words about my thoughts on COSMIC so far: https://blog.craftyguy.net/cosmic/
Apps
- servo: "This month in Servo…🔍🌡️ ,
, - Lemmy - linuxphones: What are people usong as thei music player app nowadays?
- Purism forums: List of Apps that fit and function well: Demo of streamtuner2.
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: LPTK
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Geobug
- postmarketOS: Apps by Category: Eloitor: /* Images */ Add curtail
Kernel
- phone-devel: [PATCH 0/3] Fixes/improvements for SM6350 UFS
- phone-devel: [PATCH] remoteproc: qcom: pas: add minidump_id to SC7280 WPSS
- phone-devel: [PATCH] arm64: dts: qcom: sm8650: Fix domain-idle-state for CPU2
- phone-devel: [PATCH 1/2] dt-bindings: input: touchscreen: edt-ft5x06: Document FT8716 support
- Phoronix: Linux Kernel's Rust Support Being Expanded To HID Drivers
- Phoronix: Arm Changing Linux Default To Costly "KPTI" Mitigation For Some Newer CPUs
- Phoronix: Huawei Matebook E Go Laptops To Be Better Supported With Linux 6.15
- Phoronix: Mediatek DRM Driver Adding MT8365 "Genio 350" Support In Linux 6.15
- Phoronix: Arm Shows Off Great Performance Results For PGO & BOLT With LLVM/Clang
- Phoronix: Glibc's Hyperbolic Functions Score Nice Speed-Ups With FMA Optimizations
- phone-devel: [PATCH v4 0/6] Initial support of MSM8937 and Xiaomi Redmi 3S
Stack
- Phoronix: Rusticl Wins: Mesa Officially Deprecates Clover OpenCL
- Phoronix: Debian 12.10 Released With More Bugs Fixed & Security Updates
- Phoronix: digiKam 8.6 Released With Working To Better Its AI Integration
- Phoronix: Git 2.49 Released With Faster Packing, Rust Foreign Language Interface
- Phoronix: Free95 0.2 Alpha Released As Open-Source Windows Compatible OS
- Phoronix: IGT GPU Tools 2.0 Released For Helping To Develop DRM Drivers
- Phoronix: Shotcut 25.03 Beta Released For Advancing This Free Software Video Editor
Matrix
- Matrix.org: This Week in Matrix 2025-03-14
- FuriLabs: Docker on your FLX1
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 the hedgedoc 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!
If you can imagine to put this collection together (it's mostly deleting irrelevant stuff, after scripts have collected it), please get in touch! I (Peter) am struggling with stress-related health issues currently, and it would really put me at ease to have someone to just do this from time to time!