LINux on MOBile

Here's what happened from the 19th to 25th of May, 2025: A RaspBerry Pi CM5-based handheld, successful experiments with a 5G modem plugged into a Librem 5, phosh-osk-stub gets a sweet new name, and more! Enjoy!

Again, apologies for the delay and thank you for understanding. In case you missed it:

• @linmob: I am on holidays in Rome, and have roamed Rome too much - I won't be able to come up with a Weekly #MobileLinux Update tonight.Depending on how things go, I may be able to compile it tomorrow - if not, we're going to have a double feature next Sunday. (BTW: Can't recommend Rome enough, had a great time!

The update for the past week (May 26th - June 1st, 2025) will be published later today. Commentary in italics.

Worth Reading

• Sohrab Behdani: Linux on mobile, my experience so far

Worth Watching

• Salih Altuntaş: Ubuntu Touch yükleniyor… #ubuntu #ubuntutouch
• Rico YoTekno: Install postmarketOS on Xiaomi Redmi 2 prime without PC
• Quick FAQ: Installing Ubuntu Touch on Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 P3100
• Samsung PortRoms: Droidian 11 Linux on Redmi Note 8 -Tutorial/Full stable+Review+Smooth🫨
• Samsung PortRoms: Ubuntu touch 16.7 LTS Experience on Redmi note 8/8T Review+Full Smooth
• Alexander The Tech Guy: Photos - Every App on KDE Plasma Mobile on the PinePhone Pro
• Alexander The Tech Guy: Terminal - Every App on KDE Plasma Mobile on the PinePhone Pro
• Alexander The Tech Guy: Recorder - Every App on KDE Plasma Mobile on the PinePhone Pro
• Alexander The Tech Guy: Weather - Every App on KDE Plasma Mobile on the PinePhone Pro
• Alexander The Tech Guy: Spacebar - Every App on KDE Plasma Mobile on the PinePhone Pro
• Alexander The Tech Guy: Settings - Every App on KDE Plasma Mobile on the PinePhone Pro

Worth Noting

• Sturmflut: "If someone were to invest development resources into the Open Source ecosystem right now, improvements to which area would benefit the user experience across all device form factors (desktop, laptop, mobile etc.) the most? You can name both individual applications, libraries and subsystems as well as broader topics like e.g. "messaging".#linuxmobile #linuxdesktop #opensource #mobilelinux #linux"
• josch: … I watched the talk by @devrtz at minidebconf hamburg yesterday and I think I saw that for the PP you need to set { box-shadow: none; } in ~/.config/gtk-4.0/gtk.css as a workaround.For the other platforms there are good news: Timo Aaltonen merged the etnaviv texelfetch support by @austriancoder into mesa for Trixie with the upload of mesa 25.0.5-2 just now 🥳
• Lemmy.ca - linuxphones: Catima is a great loyalty card app for android. The developer would like to know if it works on non android OSes

Hardware (enablement)

• liliputing_: HackBerryPi CM5 is an open source, Raspberry Pi-powered handheld PC with a BlackBerry keyboard
• Purism community: Librem5 5G is here! Working alternative modem setup tested successfully Modularity has some real advantages! Great work!
• starlabssystems: "We’ve just given the StarLite Mk V a little upgrade, it now comes with a better processor! It’s the same trusted design you know, now with improved performance.If you’re curious, we’ve put together a quick video with all the details.Let us know what you think, and help spread the word by giving it a boost.#linux #linuxgaming #laptop #tablet #starlabssystems #developers"
• ungeskriptet: U-Boot now runs on the Pixel 3a! Even the integrated eMMC works :Dhttps://github.com/ungeskriptet/u-boot/commits/sdm670/#uboot #postmarketos

Conferences

• VolkerKrause: "In October we'll have the first dedicated conference for the Open Transport community in Vienna, and it's Call for Participation is now out: https://volkerkrause.eu/2025/05/24/open-transport-community-conference-2025-call-for-participation.html#OpenTransport2025 #Transitous"
• tbernard: "Today is day two of #BoilingTheOcean 5! Yesterday we were at @101lab in Kreuzberg, hacking on (among other things):- Tested Aardvark and fixed some p2panda bugs- Tested GNOME OS on real hardware- Played with systemd TPM tooling- Designed a network inspector dev tool for p2panda apps- Experiments towards a new/modernized Waydroid- pmbootstrap cleanup- And more!Today we're at X-Hain in Friedrichshain! Join us: https://pad.gnome.org/enwydsh2RO2Dv4oOXBz4CQ#gnome #berlin #p2panda"
• cas: "today is another rendition of @tbernard 's wonderful #BoilingTheOcean hackathon in #Berlin ! (and i'm finally back in town at the same time it's happening) there will be a lot of local-first peer to peer related work, systemd/mkosi topics, and hopefully some #postmarketOS stuff tooi'll be hacking on pmbootstrap unshare support (removing the need for root access to use pmb), and maybe looking into pmb/mkosi integration (building on the mkosi support for pmOS that @craftyguy has been working on the last few days)totally forgot to post about this before but if you're in town and wanna stop by do come along, details are herehttps://pad.gnome.org/enwydsh2RO2Dv4oOXBz4CQ"

More Software News

Gnome Ecosystem

• This Week in GNOME: #201 Dithered Images. Tuner looks like an app I should have a look at.
• Who-t: libinput and Lua plugins
• Cassidy James Blaede: Elect the next GNOME Foundation Board of Directors for 2025!
• Steven Deobald: 2025-05-23 Foundation Report
• Phoronix: GNOME Web Making It Easier To Toggle WebKit Features
• Phoronix: GNOME Help & Documentation Are In Need Of Help
• xjuan: Blueprint support just landed in Cambalache main branch!Cambalache a GUI designer for @GTK and @gnome

Phosh

• agx: #phosh-osk-stub is now #stevia 🎹. The rename wants to reflect that- it's not just a stub- typing should hopefully be "sweet" (and it allows us to keep the "pos_" symbol prefix).https://gitlab.gnome.org/guidog/steviaThanks to @newbyte for the help in finding the name!

Plasma Ecosystem

• Nate Graham: This Week in Plasma: time-of-day wallpapers
• Carl Schwan et al.: This Week in KDE Apps. Nice to see progress on Whale!
• Volker Krause: Open Transport Community Conference 2025 Call for Participation
• Carl Schwan: Kirigami Addons 1.8.0
• Planet KDE: GSoC 2025 Project Intro: Developing Karton, the KDE Virtual Machine Manager!
• Phoronix: KDE Plasma 6.4 Adds Time-Of-Day Wallpapers, Disabling Adaptive-Sync By Default
• VolkerKrause: @akademy @akademy@lemmy.kde.social Going to #KDE #Akademy2025 by train from within Germany? Then also check the event discount offered by Deutsche Bahn for Akademy attendees (which nowadays also seems combinable with BahnCard discounts): https://www.veranstaltungsticket-bahn.de/?event=32119&language=en

Sxmo

• #sxmo: @privacy_guru #pinephone as a daily-driver for 5.5y for me. 6 months of mobian (loved it) and #postmarketOS edge with #sxmo since.💗perfect hackability for customisation and perfect (frugal) usage of resources. i use it for all my mobile computing needs:- calls / sms- mastodon (tut)- simplex (-tui) and matrix (gomuks)- email (aerc)- calendar (calcurse)- web (links -g, sometimes librewolf)- ssh i cut down the distraction and the addiction, and considerably reduced usage. #mobilelinux

Sailfish OS

• flypig's NewPipe log: Day 76
• flypig's NewPipe log: Day 75
• flypig's NewPipe log: Day 74
• flypig's NewPipe log: Day 73
• flypig's NewPipe log: Day 72
• flypig's NewPipe log: Day 71
• #sailfishOS: Unfortunately I’ve been unable to install the national e-ID on the phone due to a combination of lack of NFC on the #jolla phone - and a lack of what seems to be sufficient Bluetooth support for Android apps that are running on #sailfishos (based on the forums that I’ve found). Any suggestions on how to proceed here?The national e-ID is kind of a basic requirement for a main driver phone here in Sweden.Feels like tripping just before the finishing line!

Ubuntu Touch

• UBports - Development - Issues: Tracking issue for minor release: 20.04 OTA-9
• fredldotme: Since Snaps on Ubuntu Touch can now spawn an OSK, should I move more Touch apps over to a Snap world?Would include the likes of ISODrive, Mimi Browser, and all future works.YesNoDon't care (but care enough to click this)
• #UbuntuTouch: Experience wanted: Is anybody running #UbuntuTouch on a #Fairphone5?https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/device/fp5/

Kernel

• phone-devel: [PATCH v2 0/4] CAMSS support for MSM8939
• phone-devel: [PATCH v4 0/5] media: i2c: imx214: Add support for more clock frequencies

Non-Linux

• hnygd: "I know, many have been asking for this and even more out there didn’t even dare to ask. But finally, the wait is over: You can now use your #PinephonePro running #FreeBSD to do all your #Borland C++ #OS2 development while waiting for 1997 to arrive.#RetroComputing"

Stack

• Phoronix: Rust Coreutils 0.1 Released With Big Performance Gains - Can Match Or Exceed GNU Speed
• Phoronix: GCC 14.3 Compiler Released With 200+ Bug Fixes
• Phoronix: Wayland 1.24 Release Candidate Brings Few Changes
• Phoronix: PoCL 7.0 Released With Official OpenCL 3.0 Conformance On x86_64 CPUs

Distributions

• postmarketOS pmaports Merge Requests: linux-purism-librem5: upgrade to 6.6.83pureos2
• postmarketOS pmaports Merge Requests: temp/gtk4.0: switch to fork for old gl renderer
• postmarketOS pmbootstrap tags: 3.4.1
• Aaron's Blog: Welcome to Hydra

Apps

• omgubuntu: "If you're a TIDAL music subscriber and using Linux, there's no reason to not use High Tide, a slick GTK4/libadwaita client - now supporting more TIDAL features https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/05/high-tide-linux-tidal-client-updates#linux #foss #tidal"
• pi_crew: hacking on the #Monophony YouTube music GTK4 app to query my #Jellyfin music server instead. really would love to have a native client for #postmarketOS 🤗
• Sturmflut: #Newsflash is a great @gnome app that supports synchronization with #NextCloud #News. The new 4.0 Beta release now works much better on my @furilabs #FLX1 phone. Especially the web view is so much smoother.#linuxmobile
• LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Nostalgia
• LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Packet
• LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Dolphin

Matrix

• Matrix.org: This Week in Matrix 2025-05-23
• Matrix.org: Announcing the Matrix Conference 2025

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!