Weekly GNU-like Mobile Linux Update (31/2025): Merged Users
Table of Contents
Jolla runs a poll for what their next Phone should have, two calls for pre-release-testing from UBports, new DanctNIX images (Arch Linux ARM for PINE64 devices), postmarketOS makes progress on /usr merge (among other things) and looks for help with German tax law, LinuxPhoneApps.org Q2 progress, and way more! Enjoy!
Commentary in italics.
Worth Reading
- postmarketOS Blog: postmarketOS in 2025-07: Fairphone 6, apk3, /usr merge, immutable, new plasma camera
- UBports News: Ubuntu Touch 24.04 1.0 and 20.04 OTA-10 Call for Testing
- CNX Software: Linux 6.16 Release - Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Q2/2025 Progress: Over 30 apps added, JSON API
- Lemmy.ca - linuxphones: Q2/2025 Progress: Over 30 apps added, JSON API
Worth Watching
- Nostalgitech: Jolla C2 - Sailfish OS 5.0
- Nostalgitech: Pixel 3a - postmarketOS with Plasma Mobile UI
- Nostalgitech: Sony Xperia 5 V with SailfishOS Three short FOSDEM 2025 clips ;-)
- All About Operating Systems: Are Linux Alternatives Compatible With Mobile Devices? | All About Operating Systems News
- erebion: "I don't know exactly what the FOSSY conference is, but I've stumbled across this stream for their XMPP track and accidentally ended up several hours late for bed as there are quite a few interesting talkshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DLYl3-qVTk#XMPP"
Worth Noting
- Jolla: "Help shape the next Jolla Phone! We’ve got access to a modern 5G smartphone platform, and we want to hear your take on what the next-gen Jolla Phone should be. What screen size makes sense? How much memory is enough? What are your must-have features? No strings attached, just cast your vote and help us explore the potential:…"
- NekoCWD: 🐱 Miau! I took some photos on front camera of my Xiaomi Redmi 4 (xiaomi-prada) running @postmarketOS@social.treehouse.systems.With some tweaks photos looks really great 😻#ShotOnMainline #linuxonmobile
- pi_crew: Added instruction to the #NixOS wiki on how to configure GPS/location forwarding to the #Waydroid container 🛰️ https://wiki.nixos.org/wiki/Waydroid#GPS/Location_forwarding#postmarketOS #LinuxMobile
- aud: "hot take: I don't want plasma or gnome mobile, I just want the desktop modes with configurable touchscreen/touchpad gestures and the mobile keyboard versionI don't know why "phone modes" are so hostile to the idea of workspaces/desktops?? KDE is hugely customizable; just add a "long press for right click" option on the touchscreen and that'd be gold... that would be it. It would be almost perfect right there."
- postmarketOS: "#askfedi (where our tax consultant followers at?)We are looking for a German tax consultant (Steuerberater) that is able to provide a one-off consultation related to how to invoice correctly and deal with taxes for some small amount of one-off money (<1000€) related to our legal status (fiscal host for an unincorporated group of individuals or "nicht eingetragener Verein"). We are very happy to pay for this work, but despite repeated attempts, we have not been able to find anybody willing to help us with something this specific as a one-off. If anybody in the fediverse happens to have some contact that might be able to, that would be extremely helpful."
Events
- pi_crew: Going to visit the next monthly #Linux mainlining meetup @ @cccac on August 5th 🚀 Of course bringing my basket of smartphones with me 😎#LinuxMobile #postmarketOS
- RannyBergamotte: "I'm running a table at DefCon33 for #postmarketos , and am looking for devices to show off (as I only have a pinephonepro with pmOS). If there are people going who would be willing to lend their postmarketos device to show off at the table, that'd be really well appreciated!Also if there are any volunteers to run the table a few occasional moments here and there, that'd also be amazing!Also cool stickers and maker coins made by yours truly (among other various stickers too) coming!"
More Software News
Gnome Ecosystem
- This Week in GNOME: #210 Periodic Updates
- Steven Deobald: 2025-07-25 Foundation Update
- Jonathan Blandford: GUADEC 2025: Thoughts and Reflections
Phosh
- agx: More bits of #phoc's upcoming workspace support falling into place. It can now show a small indicator in the top left corner when switching work spaces:#phosh #LinuxMobile
- #phosh: My #FreeSoftware Activities for July 2025: Quite a bit shorter than usual but here we go: https://honk.sigxcpu.org/con/Free_Software_Activities_July_2025.html🙏 to everyone supporting this!#phosh #Debian #LinuxMobile
Plasma Ecosystem
- Nate Graham: This Week in Plasma: day/night theme switching
- Volker Krause: June/July in KDE Itinerary
Sailfish OS
- Jolla: Next gen Jolla Phone - Announcements - Sailfish OS Forum
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 126
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 125
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 124
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 123
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 122
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 121
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 120
- #sailfishOS: Fun: the #netsurf #webbrowser can now be built with a #qt6 frontend.Lets see how it fares running on #SailfishOS, because fringe operating systems need fringe software!Last time I tried, there were issues with touch support, but I'm sure someone can patch that.
Ubuntu Touch
- UBports News: Ubuntu Touch 24.04 1.0 and 20.04 OTA-10 Call for Testing
- Ubuntu Touch Forums News: New Release Blog
- Ubuntu Touch Forums News: Ubuntu Touch New Releases
- UBports - Development - Issues: Lomiri restarts when powered through dock
- UBports - Development - Issues: [24.04-1.x] let Wizard pull version (tag) from system-image
- UBports - Development - Issues: Tracking issue for minor release: 20.04 OTA-10
- UBports - Development - Issues: Tracking issue for major release: 24.04-1.0
Distributions
- danctnix: "We've released new images for #PinePhone, #PinePhonePro and #PineTab2https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Pine64-Arch/releases/tag/20250728"
- Pine64-Arch: Arch Linux ARM - 2025/07/28
- danctnix: Factory image for #PineTab2 (20250731) released: https://echo.danctnix.org:7269/factory_images/pinetab2/20250731/Flash the image to your SD card using dd or Win32DiskImagerBoot with the SPI/eMMC disable switch (optional if the bootloader is working) and follow the instructions using the volume and power key.You may only use this if you need to reset the PineTab2 to factory defaults.
- postmarketOS Blog: postmarketOS in 2025-07: Fairphone 6, apk3, /usr merge, immutable, new plasma camera
- Breaking updates in pmOS edge: Call for testing: merged /usr migration
- postmarketOS (Mastodon): Excited to announce @sajattack is our newest Trusted Contributor!He is running postmarketOS on as many devices as he can, making new ports (e.g. for the BlackBerry KEY2 / KEY2 LE (!!), in the picture) and improving existing ports (e.g. LG G7) in the process. Furthermore he is active on Matrix, asking questions and helping out others.📜 TC page:https://postmarketos.org/trusted-contributors/#paul-sajna-sajattack
Apps
- afranke: #Fractal 12.rc is out! Try out Fractal 12 ahead of its stable release.https://discourse.gnome.org/t/fractal-12-rc-released/30449#GNOME #Matrix
- polycule: Hello #Fediverse !This is < polycule > - a geeky and efficient [matrix] client for power users.We finally made it to the Fediverse. We focus on a geeky and accessible user interface written in Flutter aiming to target Linux mobile and Android.If you're curious on past toots, check out @braid's toots on #PolyculeClient !@matrix#Introduction #NewHere #matrix #Flutter #LinuxMobile #postmarketOS #accessibility
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Digger
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: AAT Activity Tracker
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: GTK Meteo
- LinuxPhoneApps.org: Q2/2025 Progress: Over 30 apps added, JSON API
- @pocketvj@fosstodon.org: why is there still no fully featured image viewer on #linuxmobile #pmos ???am I missing something, how do you view your images?Gnome #Loupe = no scrolling backwards to newest picture, my issue got rejected🤮#Koko = displays super small, scaling goes offscreen#Kde Pix = no button to delete a picture#FuriOS = no bin/no flatpak#feh = no onscreen keyboard overlay#imv = (d)elete does not work#swayimg = no interaction#gthumb = does not fit mobile#nsxiv = no delete
Kernel
- CNX Software: Linux 6.16 Release - Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures
- phone-devel: [PATCH 0/2] Enable USB audio offloading on Fairphone 5
- phone-devel: [PATCH] arm64: dts: qcom: sm6350: Add rpmh-stats node
Stack
- Phoronix: FEX 2508 Delivers Major Speedups For x86_64 Binaries On ARM: 39% Faster Cyberpunk 2077
- Phoronix: Wayback 0.2 Brings More Enhancements For This X11 Compatibility Layer
- Phoronix: Steam Beta Brings Fix For UI Scaling On XWayland
Matrix
- Matrix.org: This Week in Matrix 2025-08-01
- Matrix.org: Matrix.org (Official Account) and Terms updates
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!