Weekly GNU-like Mobile Linux Update (21/2026): Crimson Landing and an Anniversary
Table of Contents
PureOS Crimson is out, Sailfish OS 5.1 is about to land next week, slides from the Phosh Contributor Meeting happened in Essen, with swipe typing in the works, and great talk recordings from past events. Enjoy!
Commentary in italics.
Worth Reading
- Luigi311: Furilabs FLX1s. Nice review!
- FuriLabs: FuriLabs Three Years On Congratulations!
- FuriLabs: Darling Harbour Three Years On
- PINE64: Quick update: May 2026
- Purism: PureOS Crimson Development Report: April 2026 - PureOS Crimson Released
Worth Watching
- Continuum Gaming: SFOS App "Infraview": Check your network (Continuum Gaming E522)
- OpenEvents (Conference Livestreams and Recordings): "NLUUG Voorjaar 2026: Bart Ribbers -- postmarketOS, freeing yourself from big tech...". Great talk!
- hawk: postmarketOS pocophone F1. Serious question: Which UI / mobile shell is that?
- OS-SCi: Getting Started with Lomiri App Development - by Sander Klootwijk
- OS-SCi: The Future of RISC-V and Lomiri - Yuning Liang
- OS-SCi: Inside Lomiri Development: Building the Core System - Mike Gabriel
- Nostalgitech: PINE64 hardware stand at FOSDEM'26
- Nostalgitech: Ubuntu on BlackBerry Classic
- Untitled Hacking Company: Building My ClockworkPi uConsole (with a CM5)
- Open Source Security: F-Droid the open app store with Hans
Worth Noting
- Xyn: "Little project I've been working on for the past two days. A reverse engineered implementation of the Android Auto server, running on my OnePlus 6 with PostmarketOS. The implementation is incredibly basic, only has basic video, but it's enough to display Sway and firefox :DNext major step is getting it to work on a "proper" headunit. It works with my generic Chinese portable Android Auto / CarPlay screen but on a proper Toyota headunit inside a 2019 Toyota Aygo it fails somewhere along the way on the authentication chain.#postmarketos #mobilelinux "
- gnome: "Bazaar's new release 0.8.0 supports installing .flatpak bundles, Gnome Commander saw a 2.0 release with rewrite in Rust, new embedded terminal and much more in This Week in GNOME!#250 Sideloadinghttps://thisweek.gnome.org/posts/2026/05/twig-250/#ThisWeekInGNOME #GNOME #TWIG"
- luana: "In around two weeks I’m migrating from iOS to a postmarketOS phone. Please leave app suggestions, I’m definitely going to need them!Waydroid is… fine,"
Hardware
- liliputing: "Orion PDA is a pocket-sized computer with a keyboard, sunlight-viewable display, and solar charging (crowdfunding)The Orion PDA is a modern handheld computer with a very retro-inspired design. that makes it look like a cross between a souped-up beeper and a pocket-sized laptop with a keyboard, display, and clamshell design. It has a 3.16 inch sunlight visible black and white…https://liliputing.com/orion-pda-is-a-pocket-sized-computer-with-a-keyboard-sunlight-viewable-display-and-solar-charging/"
- mechasystems: April had a lot going on in parallel! - i.MX95 is heading to manufacturing- Mainline Linux 7.0- Thermals had a breakthrough- WiFi still not where we want it 🫠- Testing the IO Connector - Public roadmap - Mecha is now also on MatrixRead it here: mecha.so/blog/the-comets-april-voyage
Events
- benedikt: "@linmob I gave a talk yesterday on the #eudi_wallet and feasibility of an implementation for #mobilelinux at the @phosh community meeting. Comments/corrections very welcome! Slides were intended to be presented with some additional comments, but might be interesting anyways: https://hardwarenahe-it.gitlab-ce-pages.hs-bochum.de/eudi-wallet/"
- modal: "Special announcement: We're doing a France edition of #BoilingTheOcean next month 🥐️🥐️🥐️More details to follow, but if you're near Lyon and have time the weekend of June 20+21, come join us to hack on GNOME, local-first, mobile, and other related things!Sign up here: https://pad.gnome.org/xR2ThFIfSOCeCRrS5uZ4vg#gnome #postmarketOS #linuxmobile #lyon"
More Software News
Gnome Ecosystem
- This Week in GNOME: #250 Sideloading
- Bart Piotrowski: Why are Flathub downloads so slow sometimes?
- Phoronix: GNOME Commander 2.0 Released Following Rewrite In Rust & GTK4
Phosh
- ev: Packing 📦 for the #Phosh Contributor Meeting at the #Linuxhotel in #Essen starting tomorrow: https://ev.phosh.mobi/pcm/pcm-2026/ :phosh:List of topics is also filling up: https://pad.debian.net/p/9tyskzLn4gQfr81dxwCB
- benedikt: "@linmob I gave a talk yesterday on the #eudi_wallet and feasibility of an implementation for #mobilelinux at the @phosh community meeting. Comments/corrections very welcome! Slides were intended to be presented with some additional comments, but might be interesting anyways: https://hardwarenahe-it.gitlab-ce-pages.hs-bochum.de/eudi-wallet/". Read the slides, I bet you'll learn something! (I did.)
- phosh: From the Saturday session at the #Phosh contributors meeting : prawn talking about his work on a swipe typing library.#pcm2026 #LinuxMobile
- r/MobileLinux: Would Phosh on a square screen be functional?
- foss2go.com: Phosh 0.55.0 Released: New Syncthing Quick Setting, wlroots 0.20.0, and Mobile Settings Updates
Plasma Ecosystem
- Nate Graham: This Week in Plasma: Xe Driver Support and Polishing Discover
- Carl Schwan: Kirigami Addons 1.12.1
- Nate Graham: “Long-Term Support” doesn’t mean what you think
- anditosan: Ocean Design for Plasma – May Updates
- tsdgeos: The KDE Qt5 Patch Collection has been rebased on top of Qt 5.15.19
- notmart: kirigami-app-components
- Qt blog: Qt Bridges: Public Beta for the C# Bridge Is Out!
- Nicolas Fella: Smoke tests for fun and profit
Sxmo
Sailfish OS
- Announcements - Sailfish OS Forum: Community meeting on 4th June 2026
- Announcements - Sailfish OS Forum: Jolla Phone update - The Other Half spec
- jolla: "Today part of the Jolla crew spent an inspiring day in Salo showcasing our flagship device, the Jolla Phone during Salo IoT Campus spring festival. The final assembly of Jolla Phones is set to take place at Salo IoT Campus this summer. 📱We had fantastic conversations throughout the day and many opportunities to showcase our truly European smartphone and our Sailfish OS. It was inspiring to meet so many curious and passionate people who stopped by our stand.A heartfelt thank you to everyone who took the time to talk with us and special thanks to the amazing team at Salo IoT Campus for inviting us to the spring festival! ❤️#Jolla #SailfishOS #DigitalSovereignty #PrivacyFirst #CommunityPowered #European #saloiotcampus"
- frankps: Yesterday at the Sailfish Community meeting Jolla could tell that they are targeting to release Sailfish OS 5.1 next week, and that Bluetooth support for Android App Support (AAS) will be released as a beta more or less the same time.You can read the meeting logs here: https://irclogs.sailfishos.org/meetings/sailfishos-meeting/2026/sailfishos-meeting.2026-05-21-16.08.log.html@jolla #SailfishCommunity #SailfishOS #LinuxMobile
- kokorins: Dodo’s Planner, my Trello client for my Sailfish OS phone, is now published on OpenRepos. It can show boards and cards, and manage labels, assignees, checklists, and start or due dates. The source code is open on Codeberg, and updates are shared in the Telegram channel. Feedback and contributions are welcome. #SailfishOS #Trello #OpenSource #Codeberg #OpenRepos
- ilpianista: Exciting news! Work in progress for gecko ESR 115 in #SailfishOS! https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/gecko-esr102-development/22245/16
- frankps: My favourite photo app, Immich for Sailfish OS, got an update today. Go grab it!https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/immich-a-native-immich-application-for-sailfish-os/28066/33?u=frankps#Immich #PhotoApp #Photography #SailfishOS #OpenSource
- RandySimons: @janvlug #sailfishos has this:> The Sailfish OS Secrets Library provides applications with API to access the secure storage functionality offered by the system's secure storage and cryptography service daemon as part of the Sailfish OS Secrets and Crypto Framework. https://sailfishos.org/develop/docs/sailfish-secrets/Also, the GitHub response says that without secure enclave, #Yivi won't work. Why is that?While it would be nice to store the secrets in some SHM, I'm not sure if I would like that as a requirement.
- poetaster: Announcing version 2.0.50 of Fahrplan for #SailfishOs ... updated API endpoints and corrections to header display for readability..... up on openrepos and github ... coming to chum.... https://github.com/poetaster/fahrplan/releases/tag/2.0.50
Ubuntu Touch
- UBports - Development - Merge Requests: Draft: Hello Widevine Wizard
- UBports - Development - Merge Requests: Add new scaling-factor setting to com.lomiri.touch.system
- UBports - Development - Merge Requests: Draft: mirserver: add support for tablet mode
- fredldotme: If the windowing system (not the themes, no fancy stuff, just the barebones framework) was in the kernel it would finally be called "Linux" as an OS, not only a kernel.But people wanna insist on calling it GNU+Linux+systemd+GNOME.
- #UbuntuTouch: If you've previously used #LineageOS on your mobile devices, and you then started using #UbuntuTouch, and you're willing to share your experience on how they compare, please do sound off below. Thank you!Boosts for reach appreciated, too.
- #UbuntuTouch: Thanks to upstream work, enabling Bluetooth was quite easy: https://github.com/mer-hybris/bluebinder/pull/40https://git.deusch.me/ubports/device-google-tegu/commit/590ef3acfa2acdb2ce47948c6a448f5ee5dbd6b8 #ubuntutouch #ubports #pixel9a #mobilelinux
- sunweaver: @os_sci @bhdouglass What an awesome event this was. I now know the perspective of #UbuntuTouch / #Lomiri app developers much better and became aware of how important it is to provide an easy approach to development. With the new documentation books (books!!!) published by OS-Sci.com it will be now sooo easy to develop apps for UT / Lomiri.
- fredldotme: This is what you can expect and what it looks like.
- fredldotme: Sidenote/mention that GL4ES can be used from a Click package if built yourself from upstream master if you enable -DHYBRIS=ON for cmake and add it's LD_LIBRARY_PATH at runtime. Useful if you ever wanna package a Desktop OpenGL 2.1 app.
- fredldotme: "What do you think about the upcoming hybris-2404 (the gpu-2404 support Snap for core24 snaps, and it's mix of X11 with GL4ES and Wayland with GLESv2?"
Distributions
- Purism: PureOS Crimson Development Report: April 2026 - PureOS Crimson Released
- postmarketOS pmaports issues: v26.06 Infrastructure
- postmarketOS pmaports issues: Install kernel under /usr/
- postmarketOS pmaports Merge Requests: Draft: main/postmarketos-duranium: add unit to install sd-boot on first boot
- postmarketOS pmbootstrap tags: 3.10.3
- danctnix: New factory image for PineTab2 (2026/05/24)https://echo.danctnix.org:7269/factory_images/pinetab2/20260524/#pine64 #pinetab2 #mobilelinux #linuxmobile
- mobian: "Testing request for Qualcomm devices on Mobian:We’d appreciate more testing of Linux 6.18 on Qualcomm devices before considering it as the default kernel for testing users.Relevant packages:linux-image-6.18-sdm845linux-image-6.18-sdm670If you’re running an SDM845 or SDM670 device, please test and report:boot success/failuressuspend/resumemodem/Wi-Fi/audio/camera statusregressions vs current kernelstability and battery lifeFeedback and test reports are very welcome."
- Lemmy.ml - linuxphones: Waydroid is now available in Debian
Apps
- chfkch: After some spontaneous hacking on BitRitters edit mode, i made some good progress: First time i could change values and save them to the database/server.It really means alot to le because after 2 failed applications for funding i ditched the topic for too long.It might need a major rework of the UI internals though, but now i am motivated again.#BitRitter #VaultWarden #BitWarden #PasswordManager #LinuxPhone #LinuxMobile #Relm4
- janvlug: Hey @signalapp, would it be possible to implement taking photos from within the #Signal #Desktop app?See this feature request:https://community.signalusers.org/t/feature-request-take-photo-in-signal-desktop/44829I use the #Librem5 as my daily #phone with #Signal. Quickly making and sending a #photo from within Signal Desktop is really something I miss.#SignalApp #MobileLinux #SignalDesktop #Desktop #MobileLinux
- r/MobileLinux: I Made a Touch-Friendly Music Player, I Hope Goes Well With Phones?
- r/MobileLinux: How do Linux mobile keyboards work? Testing OSK caller?
- gnome: "Bazaar's new release 0.8.0 supports installing .flatpak bundles, Gnome Commander saw a 2.0 release with rewrite in Rust, new embedded terminal and much more in This Week in GNOME!#250 Sideloadinghttps://thisweek.gnome.org/posts/2026/05/twig-250/#ThisWeekInGNOME #GNOME #TWIG"
- luana: "In around two weeks I’m migrating from iOS to a postmarketOS phone. Please leave app suggestions, I’m definitely going to need them!Waydroid is… fine,"
- sesivany: I completely forgot about this mode in #Adwaita apps. You can press Ctrl+Shift+M and test how your app works on phone screens from the comfort of your desktop. This is gold!#libadwaita #gtk #linux
- firefoxnightly: The new JPEG XL image format support was activated today in Firefox Nightlyhttps://bugzilla.mozilla.org/2040074
Kernel
- phone-devel: [PATCH v2 0/2] Introduce OnePlus 6/6T touchscreen compatible
- phone-devel: [PATCH] arm64: dts: qcom: kodiak: Elite-ify LPASS macros
- phone-devel: [PATCH RFC] arm64: dts: qcom: qcm6490-fairphone-fp5: Add AW88261 amplifiers
- Phoronix: Today's Linux Networking Fixes: "Craziness Continues With No End In Sight"
Stack
- Phoronix: Linux 7.1-rc5 Released With Fixes Ramping Up From AI Coding Agents
- Richard Hughes: LVFS Sponsorship Announcement: HP
- Phoronix: AV2 Codec Looks Like It Will Be Officially Released Next Week
- Phoronix: OpenCL 3.1.1 Released To Address A Possible Performance Regression
- Phoronix: systemd 261-rc1 Released With OS Installer, IMDS Subsystem & New storagectl
Matrix
- Matrix.org: This Week in Matrix 2026-05-22
Thanks
Thank you for reading - and another big 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!