Weekly GNU-like Mobile Linux Update (13/2025): Crossing Platforms, Breaking Barriers
Table of Contents
This past week in #LinuxMobile:
- FuriOS now runs Ubuntu Touch apps,
- Phosh 0.46 release candidates tagged (final release expected March 31st),
- Megapixels 2.0 progress,
- postmarketOS announces 2025 priorities: reliability, audio, cameras,
... and more, including a mobile-config-firefox release!
Commentary in italics.
Worth Reading
- postmarketOS blog: postmarketOS // 2025 Priorities: Reliability, Audio, Cameras and More
- Martijn Braam: Megapixels 2.0: Small fixes and GTK breakage
- CNX-Software: Linux 6.14 release - Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architecture
- Android Authority: Exclusive: Google will develop the Android OS fully in private, and here's why. _Gut feeling: "Insert name of web application used to manage the localisation of GNOME here". ;-) _
Worth Listening
- Linux After Dark – Episode 92. Nice episode!
- Lemmy - postmarketOS: Linux After Dark - Episode 92 looks at postmarketos
Worth Watching
- Nicco Loves Linux: Is Android your next Linux Desktop?, (PeerTube)
- Continuum Gaming: Continuum Gaming E462: SFOS – Battery health, Charging helper apps
- Cards By The Hill: KALI NETHUNTER PRO FULLY LOADED ON PINE PHONE 64!
- Microlabs: Run Alpine Linux in Nokia N900
- Никита Армагеддонов: nexus 5 Ubuntu touch #nexus #ubuntu #ubuntutouch
Worth Noting
- osmocom: "Make VoWiFi calls from an open source client using asterisk: https://osmocom.org/news/297 - osmocom main contributor @sysmocom has recently released a forked version of asterisk that can be used to make VoWiFi calls using nothing but FOSS, a smart card reader and a SIM card. #foss #opensource #telecom #3gpp"
- ariadne: help @alpinelinux build a war chest to ensure it remains for the foreseeable future: https://opencollective.com/alpinelinux
Events
- LAS: "The #LAS2025 schedule is here!Get ready for the Linux App Summit in Tirana, Albania, and explore all the exciting talks and panels: https://conf.linuxappsummit.org/event/7/timetable/#all"
- craftyguy: "I'll be talking about #postmarketOS at the next Portland Linux/Unix Group (PLUG) meeting on Thursday April 3rd, come on down if you're in the area 😁https://lists.pdxlinux.org/pipermail/plug-announce/2025q1/001232.html#pdx"
FuriOS running Ubuntu Touch apps
- fakeshell: "in an attempt to achieve the highest app compatibility known to man, i ended up writing a daemon that allows to install, configure and run #UbuntuTouch applications on our beloved #flx1 and it actually turned out pretty nice.this is yet another service/client setup where now the store server is refactored to work alongside android-store (used to install android apps) to lower memory usage and the client is a #GNOME software plugin #ubports #furilabs #LinuxOnMobile #LinuxMobile #furiphoneflx1". I've been hoping for something like this for years, (see here for evidence). Awesome work!
Hardware
- Liberux: "🔧 Update on Liberux Nexx Prototypes 🔧After a major delay due to the Chinese New Year and an issue in production, we had to look for a new manufacturer for our prototypes. Fortunately, we found a company in Spain that will take over the production. 🚀In the meantime, we took the opportunity to make some redesigns to the board. The new prototypes will arrive in the coming days, and we’re excited to share more updates soon.Cheers! ❤️#Liberux #OpenHardware #Privacy #Linux"
- mntmn: "lets say someone made an OSHW touch device running linux that's intended to fit in your pant/dress/jacket/handbag pocket. what would be the maximum display size (diagonal, inches) you would tolerate? bonus if you like rabbitholes like this: maximum thickness and weight?" extremely low-fi and thicc protoype to test some dimensions and weight (crafted with cardboard and tape by @theawesomerandomness around pocket reform electronics) @theawesomerandomness short video clip
- linuxgizmos: T-Display K230 Combines RISC-V Processing with LoRa, Wi-Fi, and AMOLED Display Added by an anonymous contributor.
- tizen.org: RISC-V Support Update Added by an anonymous contributor.
More Software News
Gnome Ecosystem
- This Week in GNOME: #193 Image Loading
- GNOME Foundation: GUADEC 2025 Registrations are Open!
- Curiosity-driven development: GNOME Calculator updates
- GTK: "GTK 4.18.3 is now available; this is a bug fix release of the stable branch of GTK, including fixes for Vulkan, accessibility, introspection annotations, HiDPI GL rendering on Windows, and macOS event handling.You can read all the changes here: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/commit/a4033016969298dfedb5b96ae6fde41c332e3675The main branch is now open for the next development cycle.#gtk #gtk4"
Phosh
- phosh: Dear distro maintainers and "i build my own stuff" people: In case you want to check out 0.46 relesae upfront: we've tagged the first releases candidates (0.46~rc1) of #phosh and related components today. 🎉 Release is planned 2025-03-31 (https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/phosh/-/wikis/Releases)The bulk of the changes landed already so hopefully it's only bugfixes from here on.#LinuxMobile
- agx: Nice, just a small fix and #phosh's compositor #phoc runs with #wlroots #vulkan renderer on the OnePlus6T. This needs some more work regarding e.g. alpha blending but it's already usable.#LinuxMobile
- agx: @fsfe are you in touch with the EU regarding the digital wallet (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240223IPR18095/meps-back-plans-for-an-eu-wide-digital-wallet) already? This will/can e.g. be used for the driver license in the future? I skimmed through the documents and didn't read anything on OpenSource/ #FreeSoftware there. Would be great if we could ensure first class support for #LinuxMobile. Is that on your list? Otherwise I could at least write to the contact address given there.
Plasma Ecosystem
- Nate Graham: This Week in Plasma: zero VHI bugs and much more
- Carl Schwan et al.: This Week in KDE Apps
- KDE Mentorship: The Open Source Promotion Program
- Volker Krause: February/March in KDE Itinerary
- Nate Graham: 2025 15-Minute Bug Initiative update
- KDE Eco: KdeGuiTest (KdeEcoTest) in SoK25: Debugging, Building an Interactive User Interface, and More
Sailfish OS
- #sailfishOS: There is an update for Sailfish OS to version 5.0.0.62. my xperia 10III showed me the update option so i think updating is ok. the update went smoothly, no problems right afterwards. let's hope this lack of problems persists ...#^https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/release-notes-tampella-5-0-0-62/22378#smartphone #handy #SailfishOS #android #FreeOfGoogle #jolla
- flypig's NewPipe Diary: Day 20
- flypig's NewPipe Diary: Day 19
- flypig's NewPipe Diary: Day 18
- flypig's NewPipe Diary: Day 17
- flypig's NewPipe Diary: Day 16
- flypig's NewPipe Diary: Day 15
- flypig's NewPipe Diary: Day 14
Ubuntu Touch
Distributions
- Phoronix: Debian 13 "Trixie" Freeze Process Begins. This is definitely going to affect Mobian, Droidian and co.
- postmarketOS blog: postmarketOS // 2025 Priorities: Reliability, Audio, Cameras and More
- Breaking updates in pmOS edge: Alpine repositories are broken due to the ICU upgrade. Be aware. You have never heard of icu, but ... so much depends on it!
- postmarketOS pmaports Merge Requests: GNOME Mobile 48
- postmarketOS pmaports Merge Requests: device-apple-tonga: GPU fixed by adding proper mesa and gallium packages (mesa-asahi)
- postmarketOS: "Update regarding the Matrix / OFTC IRC bridge for postmarketOS channels (+ related like Sxmo): We will keep a bridge around. We have set up a selfhosted bridge and are waiting on OFTC to increase our connection limit before we can start using it, which will probably happen any day now."
Chimera Mobile
- adrianyyy: it's coming together
- adrianyyy: "on that note, here's some more Chimera Mobile progress"
Apps
- CalcProgrammer1: "I submitted a merge request to #AlpineLinux aports to get #TouchpadEmulator added."
- YaLTeR: "Published Video Trimmer and Identity v25.03.…"
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Cashbox
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Ignition
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: SaveDesktop
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Hunt
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Bustle
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: D-Spy
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Frigoligo
- postmarketOS: Apps by Category: Fossdd: /* IRC */ goguma aport
- Martijn Braam: Megapixels 2.0: Small fixes and GTK breakage
mobile-config-firefox
- postmarketOS mobile-config-firefox tags: 4.5.0
- ollieparanoid: ":firefoxnew: mobile-config-firefox 4.5.0 is out. This release mostly contains fixes and adjustments for FF >= 133.Thanks to everybody who contributed, especially @linmob and @dannycolin!https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/mobile-config-firefox/-/tags/4.5.0See also https://linmob.net/mcf17-getting-back-into-userchrome/ with some development background from @linmob."
- linmob: "@pocketvj It's not really different. It's mostly fixes to make stuff work with current Firefox 136. Before this release, you would get "Failed to read the configuration file. Please contact your system administrator." with Firefox 136. Aside from that, it's minor cosmetic things, see screenshots. @ollieparanoid @dannycolin"
Kernel
- CNX-Software: Linux 6.14 release - Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architecture
- phone-devel: [PATCH v3] rpmsg: qcom_smd: Improve error handling for qcom_smd_parse_edge
- phone-devel: [PATCH v2 0/4] Add video clock controller for SM6350
- Phoronix: Linux 6.15 Landing Backlight Driver For Various Apple iPhones & iPads
- Phoronix: Linux 6.15 SoC/DT Additions: Arm Morello, Versal NET, Apple T2, MNT Reform 2 & More
- Phoronix: EXT4 Better Hardened Against Maliciously-Fuzzed File-Systems
Stack
- Phoronix: Chromium Web Browser Lands Support For Wayland XDG-Session-Management
- Phoronix: Mesa's Exciting Q1 With More Ray-Tracing, NVK Progress & Performance Optimizations
- Phoronix: Xiph.Org's Theora libtheora 1.2 Officially Released: 16 Years After v1.0
Matrix
- Matrix.org: This Week in Matrix 2025-03-28
- Matrix.org: Matrix v1.14 release
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 via email (see below)! It would really help to have someone else taking on the responsibility for this collection every once in a while!