LINux on MOBile

More specifically: Modem Manager supporting GPS without a SIM card, improvements coming to the PinePhone Pro's back camera, a release of mobile-config-firefox, postmarketOS trailblazers, micro-laptop news, FairPhone 4 upstreaming and more!

Commentary in italics.

Worth Reading

• Jeff Geerling: Sipeed's new handheld RISC-V Cyberdeck
• david-swift for Swift.org: Writing GNOME Apps with Swift
• Purism: Purism Differentiator Series, Part 8: Big Tech Avoidance
• LINux on MOBile: Sad news: A micro-laptop dream is ending (for now). Quick update, as I just noticed this during colleciting this update: It's likely not the keyboard, as the Keyboard still works with my OG PinePhone - looks like I need to try again with the Pro and another distribution and boot loader, to confirm it's not a software issue.

Worth Listening

• postmarketOS Podcast: #39 INTERVIEW: magdesign (of Cycling the World Fame) Travelling the world, on a bicycle, with a Linux Phone - amazing! Fascinating episode!

Worth Watching

• Jeff Geerling: This RISC-V cyberdeck is not for you
• Switched to Linux: Pinephone with Postmarket OS and Phosh
• CyberPunkEdu: KDE Plasma 6 - Plasma Mobile - PostmarketOS - OnePlus 6t (fajita) - edge (2024-03-29)
• Continuum Gaming: Continuum Gaming E409: Sailfish OS – "Scocadigo"
• UBports: UBports Q&A 137. Screen recorders and more!
• Switched to Linux: Pinephone with Postmarket OS and Phosh
• Gateway Star: Phosh on Microsoft Surface

Worth Noting

• tpikonen: "Do you have an old #PinePhone lying in the cupboard?Dev versions of #ModemManager now support #GPS without a SIM card. …". Great news!
• Luigi311: "For those of you curious this is what the #pinephonepro camera looks like with my autofocus #libcamera and that new driver. This was late at night with only my room light on so it is still pretty noisy but it looks decent enough.…"
• Qkall: "Uh, so I got a fan for my phone…". The molten plastic of the SIM card that's been in my PinePhone Pro agrees with this choice!
• Tobias Bernard: "Lots of apps have been adding brand colors, so we're getting closer to being able to launch featured banners on Flathub! …"
• Johannes Marbach: "The next version of #buffyboard will ship with theming support and reuse the existing themes from #unl0kr.…"
• Robert Mader: "I used the weekend for some spring cleaning in my brain, looking into a couple of camera issues in the #PipeWire #GStreamer #xdg_desktop_portal Gnome-Camera/Snapshot stack.…". Read this thread, Robert does amazing work!
• caleb: "had a lazy easter monday getting the touchscreen working on the #OnePlus 8T…"
• Sonny: "Witnessing @cas getting OnePlus 8 display working on Linux 📱…"
• pabloyoyoista: "Today is a very exciting day for me. My contract at day-job has changed, and I'm now working an average of 2-days a week.…" Thank you so much in advance!
• PINE64official (Reddit): Any new phones planned ? Short teaser goes here
• #LinuxMobile: #ArchLinuxARM for @PINE64 #PinePhone / #PinePhonePro / #PineTab2 (2024/03/26) has released.Release Notes + Downloads: https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Pine64-Arch/releases/tag/20240326#linuxmobile #mobilelinux #danctnix Nice!
• @justsoup: I really wish somebody continued the Suru icon theme or #Lomiri would switch over to Yaru. Having to hack together a way for the two to coexist is giving me a headache.#Linux #MobileLinux
• @linmob@fosstodon.org: New toy!(I blame talking to nice people from Fairphone at FOSDEM for this purchase decision. 😉You can find details about the current status of the device on https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Fairphone_5_(fairphone-fp5) for now, I'll share my detailed impressions (I'm happy!) later on.)

Lost and Found - Noteworthy Projects

• PinePhone Pro multi-distribution SD card creator. Just stumbled across this while looking for something else - should be interesting for everybody waiting for multi-boot image for the PinePhone Pro!

More Software News

Gnome Ecosystem

• This Week in GNOME: #141 Sleek Documentation
• jangernert: Newsflash 3.2
• chergert: GNOME 45/46 Retrospective
• seadve: Kooha 2.3 Released!

Phosh

• Phosh releases: Phosh 0.37.1
• Phosh (Mastodon): Heads up for distro maintainers: gnome-session 46 dropped support for the --systemd option. (https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-session/-/merge_requests/93)So if you want to use #phosh with gnome-session >= 46 make sure to drop that option from /usr/bin/phosh-session. A point release fixing this is in preparation: https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/phosh/-/merge_requests/1387 . Until then the safest thing is to stick with gnome-session << 46.

Plasma Ecosystem

• Nate Graham: This week in KDE: looking forward towards Plasma 6.1
• Nate Graham: Free software wisdom
• KDE Announcements: KDE Plasma 6.0.3, Bugfix Release for March
• Volker Krause: FOSSGIS Conference 2024
• redstrate: My work in KDE for March 2024
• KDE blogs: Marknote finally released!
• haruna: Haruna 1.0.2

Sxmo

• #sxmo: An update to these "contextual appmenus" I've been using for a month on #sxmo ...Now it will reopen the menu if I change workspace while menu is displayed ... an effective way to browse my apps https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/User:Fdelamotte/dogfooding#Reopen_application_menu_when_changing_workspace
• #sxmo: Finally a #convergence solution to my likings and needs. A pocketable machine that runs the OS I want ( #iusearchbtw ), looks how I want ( #sway #waybar #sxmo ), and does what I need (Citrix for work, Spotify on the web, and phone things).#blessthedevs#pinephonepro #pine64 #arch @linuxphones
• @pocketvj@fosstodon.org: so cool to have offline speech recognition on #linuxmobile thanks to ideasman42 github repo.next step is to create #sxmo gestures or even better a microphone key on the virtual keyboard to enable/disable spokenlanguage input.#postmarketos

Sailfish OS

• adampigg: #SailfishOS #ofono Day 17 - Tabs v Spaceshttps://www.piggz.co.uk/sites/pgz/blog/sailfish-ofono-17
• adampigg: #sailfishos #ofono day 16 - Mistakes were made.https://www.piggz.co.uk/sites/pgz/blog/sailfish-ofono-16
• adampigg: #sailfisho #ofono Day 15 - Lots of interactive rebasing :)https://www.piggz.co.uk/sites/pgz/blog/sailfish-ofono-15
• flypig's Gecko log: Day 202
• flypig's Gecko log: Day 201
• flypig's Gecko log: Day 200
• flypig's Gecko log: Day 199
• flypig's Gecko log: Day 198

Ubuntu Touch

• UBports News: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 135
• Ubuntu Touch Forums News: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 135 blog and audio available
• fredldotme: Canonical extending the 14.04 support period by 2 years means you get more Unity 7 goodness lasting for longer. Mentioning here because it was my first introduction to contributing to Ubuntu, while I was at school, refusing to learn because my laptop had a security vulnerability I wouldn't live with. :)
• fredldotme: New Screen recorder for Ubuntu Touch. Let people watch you kick some serious ass in an pwnage!
• fredldotme on twitter: To the Pixel 3a users complaining about battery life on Ubuntu Touch 20.04 right now: I hear you (telepathically), change is on the way.
• fredldotme on twitter: Furthermore, snapz0r 1.3.1 is out, now with OpenGL ES in strict Snaps! https://open-store.io/app/snapz0r.fredldotme
• fredldotme on twitter: New screen recorder for Ubuntu Touch incoming! Kick some ass and show the world!

Distributions

• Pine64-Arch: Arch Linux ARM - 2024/03/26 (XZ's Version)
• Pine64-Arch: Arch Linux ARM - 2024/03/26 (Zstd's Version)
• DanctNIX (Mastodon): Phosh is currently broken with gnome-session 46.Please do not update until further notice.#linuxmobile #mobilelinux #DanctNIX
• DanctNIX (Mastodon): #ArchLinuxARM for @PINE64 #PinePhone / #PinePhonePro / #PineTab2 (2024/03/26 - Zstd's Version) has released.Release Notes + Downloads: https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Pine64-Arch/releases/tag/20240326-zstd#linuxmobile #mobilelinux #danctnix
• DanctNIX (Mastodon): We're not affected by xz backdoor vulnerability (specifically CVE-2024-3094).Reason: not a debian/fedora based distribution and not a x86_64 target.
• postmarketOS pmaports Merge Requests: Trailblazer: bleeding edge generic ARM64 EFI port
• postmarketOS Wiki New Pages: PostmarketOS Trailblazer (postmarketos-trailblazer)
• postmarketOS Wiki New Pages: PINE64 PinePhone (pine64-pinephone)/Upstreaming
• postmarketOS Wiki New Pages: Generic MSM8916 (generic-msm8916)
• postmarketOS Wiki Recent Changes: Debugging the GNOME stack

Apps

• LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Folio
• LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Memorado
• Schmiddi on Mobile: "Flare 0.14.1 is now on Flathub and the AUR…"
• @chfkch: Making progress with #BitRitter. Slow, but steady.Today i implemented a password input to unlock the #BitWarden / #VaultWarden vault, so we can soon remove a part of the credentials.toml (which was just a workaround for faster testing) and make the app safer.#Relm4 feels nicer the more i get to work with it.Sadly my ARM CI did not work as nicely as the x86, so i can't package for my phone easily.#MobileLinux #LinuxMobile
• @chfkch: Again, a litte progress on #BitRitter. The Vault Item Detail Page - where passwords, URIs etc. are shown - is coming together nicely. Though i had some initial problems with the 4 different Item Types and their atttibutes, i found a non-elegant working solution. Merging the changes to main as soon as it is polished a little more.#LinuxMobile #MobileLinux #Relm4 #RustLang

Kernel

• phone-devel: [PATCH 0/5] initial support for Marvell 88PM886 PMIC
• phone-devel: [PATCH v2 0/3] Add TCPM support for PM7250B and Fairphone 4
• phone-devel: [PATCH v2 0/3] DisplayPort support for SM6350/SM7225
• Phoronix: Linux 6.9-rc2 Released As An Easter Test Kernel

Stack

• Phoronix: Servo Web Engine Adds WOFF2 Web Fonts, HTML Tables By Default
• Phoronix: Asahi AGX Gallium3D Driver Sees Big Sync For Mesa 24.1 To Improve Apple Silicon Graphics

mobile-config-firefox

• @ollieparanoid: mobile-config-firefox 4.3.0 is out, with many great fixes and improvements from @linmob!https://gitlab.com/postmarketOS/mobile-config-firefox/-/tags/4.3.0Related blog posts: https://linmob.net/tags/mobile-config-firefox/#firefox #linuxmobile #postmarketos. Debian people: Beware of this issue and apologies for only noticing this issue after the release was done!
• LINux on MOBile: MCF09: A Release! A Release!
• LINux on MOBile: MCF08: Merge Request Interruptus
• LINux on MOBile: MCF07: It's been too long

Matrix

• Matrix.org: This Week in Matrix 2024-03-29

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?

• Phones (Librem 5),- Purism community: The travails of updating and reflashing 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!