Weekly GNU-like Mobile Linux Update (29/2025): Immutable Release Dates
Table of Contents
Better late than never - here's what happened from the last one until 2025-07-22, 06:25 UTC: Ubuntu Touch 24.04 and Debian 13 "Trixie" now have release dates, another progress report for PureOS Crimson, progress on immutable postmarketOS, initial Shift8 support coming to Mobian, and more! Enjoy!
- @linmob@linuxmobile.social: "Due to (good and happy) personal events I am unable to publish the Weekly #MobileLInux Update tonight, and i am not sure if I'll be able to do so tomorrow. If you want to have a glimpse beforehand, here is a..."
Commentary in italics.
Worth Reading
- Martin Chang: FuriLabs FLX1: actually usable Linux phone - Martin's website/blog thingy
- Tyler August: 8-Core ARM Pocket Computer Runs NixOS
- Purism: PureOS Crimson Development Report: June 2025
- Purism community: PureOS Crimson Development Report: June 2025
- Phoronix: 8-Way Linux OS Comparison On The Framework 12: Squeezing More Performance Out Of Raptor Lake
Worth Watching
- CyberPunkEdu: GNOME Mobile 48 (bengaluru) - postmarketOS v25.06 - OnePlus6t (fajita) 2025-07-17
- GT 220: Fairphone 5 dual boot Android 14 + PostmarketOS - Standalone switching OS
- Jim Chen: OnePlus6 PostMarketOS KDE (2024 April)
- pentekimi: Ubuntu touch on OnePlus Nord N10 5G
- The IT Guy Show: Lomiri - The Linux Shell That Goes Anywhere | The IT Guy Show 009
- MWLabs: Raspberry Pi alternative? 8-Core, 8GB RAM, OLED, Battery – Runs NixOS Under $100!
Worth Noting
- craftyguy: "Today I reached a pretty cool milestone in my work to build an immutable #postmarketOS: the first configurable bootup with an encrypted user data partition and read-only /usr (for A/B updates)Still lots more work to do though, but please enjoy this janky recording of me trying it out in a VM 🥳Thanks to @nlnet for sponsoring this work :D"
- strypey: ""I’m particularly interested in hearing from institutional designers interested in alternative models for tech financing, hardware developers who’ve struggled with the challenges of open hardware projects, manufacturers who are frustrated by proprietary tooling and licencing fees, policy researchers thinking about the regulatory and economic dimensions, and anyone who’s frustrated with the current state of proprietary hardware dominance."#TaraKiyee, 2025https://tarakiyee.com/how-can-open-hardware-catch-up-with-open-source-software/#OpenHardware"
- pavel: " #phonecamera #linuxphone #librem5Librem 5 camera/kernel can do three possible resolutions, ~1024x768 @ ~24fps, ~2048x.. @ ~31 fps and ~4096x.. @ ~15fps. Debayering is actually easier and better quality if we downscale at the same time, and that allows best framerate, so we do that (2048x.. resolution)…"
- craftyguy: "This feels super awkward to ask, but I'm trying to crowdfund a used M2 MacBook for #postmarketOS development. My current ARM laptop can't safely run VMs (have to choose between virtualization or battery monitoring 😅). Daily-driving new hardware has helped me improve other ports (e.g. ThinkPad X13s), so this would help me work more efficiently and advance the M-series port in pmOS! https://ko-fi.com/craftyguy/goal"
- pi_crew: One Linux phone to rule them all 😈 Booting iOS 14 on #postmarketOS using #QEMU 🚀 #LinuxMobile
- Sturmflut: "The (poor...) way #Linux handles Out Of Memory situations, and the lack of sophisticated application lifecycle management in FOSS toolkits, can make life on #LinuxMobile not so much fun. When memory fills up too much, devices lag and random stuff breaks.@fakeshell from @furilabs ported #lmkd from Android to "pure" Linux and improved it in many ways. It consumes much less resources than #earlyoom and took my #FLX1 to over 5 days uptime for the first time!https://github.com/FuriLabs/lmkd#mobilelinux"
- pi_crew: Tried to setup a virtual camera for #Waydroid on #postmarketOS following this guide https://www.testdevlab.com/blog/android-virtual-camera-setupRooting #Android works well, even registering VCam for the specific app seems to work but I cant get the video stream to show up :( Maybe not the correct video resolution or codec?#LinuxMobile
- meanmicio: "It's now basically impossible to log in to @EUCommission portal if you use GNU/Linux or other libre platforms. The "EU Login Mobile App" is closed-source, which I refuse to install. No passwd or libre OTP option available. It's a disgrace that the #EU forces their citizens to use propietary, closed source operating systems and applications. Now we can not update news or releases of #GNUhealth in OSOR/JoinUP/Interoperable Europe until they change this rubbish portal. And we've been there since 2011.@fsfe @victorhck#OpenScience #PublicCode"
Events
- KDE Akademy: The Akademy 2025 Program is now live!
- oxidize: "How is Rust making its way into a large, established C++ ecosystem like KDE? At Oxidize 2025, @nicofee (@kde) talks about C++/Rust interoperability, packaging, community maintenance, and how Rust fits into the future of KDE: https://oxidizeconf.com/ #RustLang #Cpp #FOSS"
- devrtz: 📢 Calling for submissions to the FOSS on Mobile devroom at #FrOSCon 2025 in slightly under a month! 📢You can find the description and instructions below in english and german.Looking forward to seeing you!#LinuxMobile #FrOSCon2025
- gnome: "🌀 "State of the Shell"with core Shell & Mutter devs at #GUADEC2025📅 25 July 🕒 10:35 CEST 📍 Brescia🚀 Yearly update time! Join Carlos, Florian, Georges, Jonas, Philip & Sebastian for a look at what’s new—and what’s next—in GNOME Shell.🔗 https://events.gnome.org/event/259/contributions/1210/#GNOME #Shell #Mutter #Wayland #FOSS"
- gnome: "🧱 "The state of GTK"with Matthias Clasen at #GUADEC2025📅 24 July 🕒 14:15 CEST 📍 Brescia🎯 What's new in GTK? Color mgmt, Android, text rendering & more—plus what’s next for devs & contributors.🔗 https://events.gnome.org/event/259/contributions/1199/#GTK #GNOME #Linux #FOSS"
Hardware
- barni2000: linux-postmarketos-qcom-msm89x7: upgrade to v6.15.7-r0 SDM429Changes:- Add Fossil Gen 6- Add initial support for SDM429https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/merge_requests/6809
- mntmn: me: grinding for days on QCS6490/QCS8550 SoC integration for MNT Reform seriesrockchip: here's 10-core RK3668 with A730
- cnxsoft: "Rockchip unveils RK3668 10-core Arm Cortex-A730/Cortex-A530 SoC with 16 TOPS NPU, RK182X LLM/VLM co-processorThe Rockchip Developer Conference 2025 (RKDC!2025) is now taking place in Fuzhou, China, with some interesting announcements such as the Rockchip RK3668 10-core Arm Cortex-A730/A530 processor with a 16 TOPS NPU and the RK182X RISC-V co-p…https://www.cnx-software.com/2025/07/18/rockchip-unveils-rk3668-10-core-arm-cortex-a730-cortex-a530-soc-with-16-tops-npu-rk182x-llm-vlm-co-processor/"
- Hibernate on the pocket reform 8/n
More Software News
Gnome Ecosystem
- Planet GNOME: Steven Deobald: 2025-07-18 Foundation Update
- Planet GNOME: Alley Chaggar: YAML Research
- Planet GNOME: Sam Thursfield: Status update, 15/07/2025
- Planet GNOME: Victor Ma: My first design doc
- Planet GNOME: Toluwaleke Ogundipe: Profiling Crosswords’ Rendering Pipeline
- Planet GNOME: Sebastian Wick: Blender HDR and the reference white issue
Phosh
- agx: You can configure #stevia's scaling features via phosh-mobile-settings now too:#LinuxMobile #phosh
- #phosh: Again: how to disable random MAC addresses in #postmarketos #phosh version reliably ?This seems to be a random feature - no pun intended☺Sometimes it seems to work, sometimes it doesn't.After a reboot it sometimes uses the real MAC address. After a while the NetworkManager chooses a different (random) MAC as the real one shown in the command"ip address show".If I restart the NetworkManager service it overrides the real one previously shown in the cli with the one it has chosen prior to the restart. After a reboot it is, again, a different MAC address😬🙃😦
- #phosh: @NekoCWD @phosh @WildPowerHammer@mastodon.ml Nice!We went for a separate plugin page for #Phosh's builtin player so you have them all at a glance: https://social.phosh.mobi/@phosh/statuses/01JZ0RJ7RF14B7DJPP1N76K724 as otherwise switching status can become a bit fiddly (and harder to discover)
Plasma Ecosystem
- Nate Graham: This Week in Plasma: rounded bottom corners
- KDE Announcements: KDE Plasma 6.4.3, Bugfix Release for July
- Volker Krause: Transitous Hack Weekend July 2025
- KDE Akademy: The Akademy 2025 Program is now live!
- Pablo Arino: Week 6 on Merkuro (GSoC 2025)
- @sebulon: So mostly on a whim and with Googles recent pushes towards AI this and AI that I bought a second hand OnePlus 6T and decided to go wild and run PostMarketOS with Plasma Mobile on it!It's not only a little rough around the edges- there are frikkin knives sticking out of them! 😀But here I am writing this with Tokodon! Hello world!#DeGoogle #PostMarketOS #PlasmaMobile #Tokodon #Linux #FLOSS
- Phoronix: KDE Plasma 6.5 Brings Rounded Bottom Corners For Windows By Default
Sxmo
- #sxmo: @aren once i finish splitting up the login1 api, and have a rough draft of ideas for the session and power manager, i could message #sxmo or shoot you an email, whatever you'd like
- #sxmo: like, wtf am i doing with my life?
Sailfish OS
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 119
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 118
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 117
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 116
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 115
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 114
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 113
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 112
Ubuntu Touch
- peat_psuwit: Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.0 is scheduled to be released on 24 September
- sunweaver: "As announced in my #DebConf25 talk, there are bounties out now for fixing bugs in #Lomiri in #Debian / on Desktop / on #Mir (v2.20.x): https://os-sci.com/lomiri (scroll to the bottom of the page). Please chime in and claim your bounty!!!"
- UBports - Development - Issues: Launcher: Coordinate and create a way to categorize / cluster / subfolderize apps in the drawer
Distributions
- Phoronix: Debian 13.0 "Trixie" Planning For Release On August 9
- Phoronix: Debian 13.0 Ready To Introduce Formal RISC-V Support But Still Bound By Slow Hardware
- Mobian mobian-recipes Merge Requests: build: Couple crypt_root option to crypt_password (and README updates)
- Mobian mobian-recipes Merge Requests: Draft: devices: qcom: configs: sc7280: add support for SHIFT 8
- Mobian mobian-recipes Merge Requests: devices: librem5: bootloader stop installing u-boot
- postmarketOS: In case you missed the last #GNOME foundation update: we're excited to share that we have officially joined the @gnome advisory board! We hope this will help us bring more attention to the #LinuxMobile effort and let us make GNOME on postmarketOS even better across all form factors.https://blogs.gnome.org/steven/2025/07/12/2025-07-12-foundation-update/
- postmarketOS Wiki New Pages: Anbernic RG35XX SP (anbernic-rg35xx-sp)
- postmarketOS Wiki New Pages: Power Management
- postmarketOS Wiki New Pages: Mecha Comet (mecha-comet-m)
- Phoronix: Arch Linux AUR Packages For Firefox & Other Browsers Removed For Containing Malware
- craftyguy: "Today I reached a pretty cool milestone in my work to build an immutable #postmarketOS: the first configurable bootup with an encrypted user data partition and read-only /usr (for A/B updates)Still lots more work to do though, but please enjoy this janky recording of me trying it out in a VM 🥳Thanks to @nlnet for sponsoring this work :D"
Apps
- erebion: "Why does @flathub not prominently show that a package is severely outdated for an architecture?Something like "1 month ago" is not helpful if ONLY the ARM64 package has not been updated for four years.I'll install that on my phone or laptop by accident and immediately have a security risk. Yes, that happened multiple times.That's why I now read the issue tracker AND build manifest before installing any Flatpak packages.Also, please cleanup abandonware.#Flathub #Flatpak #security"
- schmiddionmobile: "Flare version 0.17.0 was now released. This switches how Flare (or more accurately presage) stores its data to sqlite. This change is not backwards compatible, you will therefore need to relink after updating Flare. This also fixes a bug where contacts were displayed as phone numbers or "Unknown Contact" instead of their profile name."
Kernel
- phone-devel: Re: [PATCH v2 0/5] Enable USB audio offloading on Fairphone 4 smartphone
- phone-devel: [PATCH RFC 0/2] mmc: sdhci-pxav3: pinctrl setting for fast bus clocks
- phone-devel: [PATCH 0/3] Remove double colon from description in dt-bindings
- phone-devel: Re: [PATCH v3 00/11] Add clock drivers for Milos
- Phoronix: Linux Kernel Patches Speed-Up CRC32 Performance For CPUs With "Good" AVX-512
- Phoronix: Imagination Kernel Graphics Driver Being Extended To AM62P/AM67A/J722S SoCs
- Phoronix: Linux 6.16-rc7 Bringing Fix For Possible Bogus/Miscalculated Load Averages
- Phoronix: Linux 6.16-rc7 Released: "I Think We're In Good Shape"
- Phoronix: Linux 6.17 To Upstream Support For The Decade Old Marvell PXA1908 SoC
Stack
- Phoronix: Firefox 141 Release Brings Lower RAM Usage On Linux
- Phoronix: Wayland Color Management For HDR Under Review For Chrome/Chromium
- Phoronix: Servo Web Engine Further Tuning Performance, Screen Reader & Other New Features
- Phoronix: HarfBuzz 11.3 Delivers Significant Performance Improvements
- Phoronix: Google Continues Working On "Magma" For Mesa Cross-Platform System Call Interface
- Phoronix: Mesa 25.2-rc1 Released: Faster RADV Ray-Tracing, NVK Blackwell & More Optimizations
Matrix
- Matrix.org: This Week in Matrix 2025-07-18
- Matrix.org: Pre-disclosure: Upcoming coordinated security fix for all Matrix server implementations
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!