Weekly GNU-like Mobile Linux Update (32/2026): Sensor Bonanza
Table of Contents
A postmarketOS July update, Fairphone 6 "sensor bonanza", Jolla Phone batch deliveries continue with people sharing first impressions of Sailfish OS 5.2, non-adaptive apps are now hidden in Phosh by default on pmOS edge, and more!
Collected on Saturday, August 8th 2026, 18:51 UTC and finished (in multiple tiny chunks) on Sunday, August 9th. Commentary in italics.
Worth Reading
- runarcn.no: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux.
- Lemmy.ca - linuxphones: [I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux](https://lemmy.ca/post/689430, HN discussion
- Drakulix' Blog: Taming the Steam arm64 client (on pmOS)
- postmarketOS Blog: postmarketOS in 2026-07: libcamera 0.7.2
- Lemmy.ca - linuxphones: Fairhone 6 + PostmarketOS sensor bonanza!
- seg6: my server is a phone now
Worth Watching
Note: This video section is based on select feeds and fediverse accounts and thus very likely incomplete. See the "Personal Note" in 25/2026 for reasons - please help out and add relevant videos you enjoy to the pad.
- GNOME: Lightning Talk: GNOME OS on Mobile | Abderrahim Kitouni @ GUADEC 2026
- Lemmy.ca - linuxphones: Lightning Talk: GNOME OS on Mobile | Abderrahim Kitouni @ GUADEC 2026
- Embedded Recipes: [ER2026] A Distributed Phone CI for postmarketOS (Pablo Correa Gomez)
- Continuum Gaming: Bitsailor – Password Storage Manager (Continuum Gaming E532)
- UBports: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 196
Worth Noting
- hugoposnic: Worked on three MRs the last few days to fix some issues I encountered in the #LinuxMobile space:#1 - Fix compatibility of GNOME Ressources with musl distributions (e.g.: @postmarketOS):https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/Incubator/resources/-/merge_requests/705#2 - Exclude technical processes of @phosh from the GNOME Resources "Apps" panel:https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/Incubator/resources/-/merge_requests/706#3 - Add a missing dependency on malcontent for gnome-control-center in @alpinelinux that made the "Applications" panel of GNOME Settings looks empty:https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/aports/-/merge_requests/106204
- senderolinux: RE: https://freeradical.zone/@craftyguy/117045091081107281Software bugs happen. Luckily, immutable systems like #Duranium automatically roll back to the last working image if a new update fails.Also, major kudos to @craftyguy for so quickly pinpointing this elusive issue and sending a patch upstream!#mobilelinux
- #LibrePhone: Rob Savoye is covering topics including how the radio subsystem functions, the protocol layers, and identifying the functionality of many of the binary blobs, and how the #LibrePhone project will replace them utilizing clean room techniques at #FOSSY 2026: https://u.fsf.org/4bx #FreeSoftware
- r/MobileLinux: Keyboards
- r/MobileLinux: Making desktop environment on snapdragon?
Events
- ev: "Übernächstes Wochenende ist die @FrOSCon in Sankt Augustin.Kommt gerne an unserem Stand vorbei um Linux auf Mobiletelefonen auszuprobieren, Fragen zu stellen oder über digitale Unabhängigkeit zu diskutieren. Ihr erkennt uns an der Fahne und dem Handy-Shop Flair 😄.#phosh #LinuxMobile #froscon2026". Sadly, Peter won't make it (… at least it's highly unlikely).
- Modal: More details on upcoming #BoilingTheOcean events 📣️For Boiling The Ocean 12 on August 22/23 we now have a location thanks to @amutable, who will be hosting us at their brand-new office 💚Sign up here: https://pad.gnome.org/C6FAHLFkQUSmujkvSGz2tQ Also: We already decided the dates for Boiling the Ocean 13, so might as well announce them: October 3 and 4, the weekend after All Systems Go. Save the date :)
- sajattack: Booth all set for #fossy #fossy2026 !Come see @postmarketOS in action in room 2030 of the Fred Kaiser building at UBC
- #LibrePhone: First day of #FOSSY was great. #3GoodThings 1. Learned about @ultramarine GNU/Linux, a #Fedora based #GNU / #Linux distro. My only disappointment is that the OS uses #Discord exclusively.2. #FSF #LibrePhone project is going well and is still making progress that will help #LineageOS, #postmarketOS and other #FreeSoftware mobile OSes.3. @conservancy is selling #OpenWRT routers. Free routers are an essential item in every home. Don't let your ISP control your home network.Can't wait for tomorrow!. Missed the LibrePhone live stream, looking forward to a recording to get a better idea of what that effort actually encompasses.
- sajattack: @kde brought a #valve #steamdeck to demo at #FOSSY. How is #postmarketos supposed to compete with that?Well...Thanks for the MR https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/merge_requests/8979 @drakulix @cas
- gnome: "Save the date: GNOME Asia 2026 will happen from 31st October to 2nd November in Terengganu, Malaysia!Read full annoucement here 👉 https://discourse.gnome.org/t/gnome-asia-2026-is-coming-to-terengganu-malaysia/37317#GNOMEAsia #GNOMEAsia2026 #Asia #Events"
Hardware (enablement)
- Lemmy.ca - linuxphones: Fairhone 6 + PostmarketOS sensor bonanza!
- David Heidelberg: "Wanted to unwind this evening, so I pulled my trusty old Motorola Moto G4 out of the drawer. It had become completely useless running 32-bit Android 7.0 these days... and then, somehow, a Linux kernel accidentally fell onto it. 😄Time to see how much life this old device still has left. Definitely it can run 64-bit Linux.#Linux #Motorola #OpenSource #LinuxKernel #MobileLinux #FOSS #OldHardware" "Code: https://github.com/okias/linux/tree/b4/motorola-athene (with the MSM8952 support implemented by clanker with a bit of supervision)Boot log: https://paste.sr.ht/~okias/1921125ae1d07f811b1e223ccf6c6243947b6e42If there's enough interest, I'm happy to help anyone get this running or contribute to the effort. I should be clear, though: I don't plan to upstream MSM8952 support myself (maybe except the drm/msm bits), but I'm more than willing to help anyone working on upstreaming it."
- sd: "This is very cool: today I looked into the AoC‘s handling of tap to wake / lift to wake. I can now wake the device from sleep just like on Android by either tapping the screen or doing a lift gesture. The nice thing is that all the raw sensor handling is done by the AoC. It exposes a special proximity gated tap sensor, that automatically disables itself when the proximity sensor indicates the screen is covered (to prevent it from waking in your pocket) #mobilelinux #pixel9a"
- mntmn: "Hey somehow it's August, and a brand new MNT Update article is out, written by @holo_memory! Enjoy: https://mntre.com/media/reform_md/2026-07-31-july-update.html"
More Software News
Gnome Ecosystem
- This Week in GNOME: #261 Sushi Boxes
- Felipe Borges: The Future of GNOME Boxes
- Philipp Sauberzweig: Sovereign Tech Fellowship for GNOME Design & Community Management
- Sophie Herold: GNOME Fellowship July 2026
Phosh
- schmiddionmobile: "For those Railway users on #phosh: In the last few days, I have written two Phosh plugins that display bookmarked journeys as well as allow searching for journeys for your bookmarked searches on your lock-screen without even looking at your phone. It's still quite early, but I already find it pretty useful.In case you are a Rust programmer and want to write your own Phosh plugins, I have also written a general template.Repository: https://gitlab.com/schmiddi-on-mobile/phosh-plugin-template-rustTemplate: https://gitlab.com/schmiddi-on-mobile/phosh-plugin-template-rust"
- #phosh: @postmarketOS Great to read that #duranium uses #phosh's OSUpdater now. It's driving updates in our #BengalOS too. Let us know what's missing, contributions appreciated.See you at @FrOSCon
- ev: "Übernächstes Wochenende ist die @FrOSCon in Sankt Augustin.Kommt gerne an unserem Stand vorbei um Linux auf Mobiletelefonen auszuprobieren, Fragen zu stellen oder über digitale Unabhängigkeit zu diskutieren. Ihr erkennt uns an der Fahne und dem Handy-Shop Flair 😄.#phosh #LinuxMobile #froscon2026". Sadly, Peter won't make it (… at least it's highly unlikely).
Plasma Ecosystem
- Nate Graham: This Week in Plasma: Emoji Resizing
- KDE Announcements: KDE Plasma 6.7.4, Bugfix Release for August
- Volker Krause: June/July in KDE Itinerary
- Carl Schwan: What's new with SAML support in Nextcloud
- Planet KDE: This Quarter in KDE Digital Sovereignty: Q2 2026
- Quantum Productions: Union: Summer 2026 Update
- Planet KDE: Wayland pain points – kgamma
Sxmo
Catacomb
Sailfish OS
- #sailfishOS: Back running Sailfish OS on a Jolla phone 😍 Left is the original Jolla for comparison.#linux #sailfishos #digitalindependence
- #sailfishOS: How do you build #sailfishos apps for 5.2 that is installed on new #jolla phone?
- #sailfishOS: Two days and a few hours ago I powered my brand new Jolla phone running Sailfish OS 5.2 on for the very first time. …
- #sailfishOS: Today Immich for Sailfish OS got a new release, v0.7.0. The new version fixes an issue with the new Jolla J2 (2026) phone, adds a people page (browse the assets per person recognized by image recognition) and adds support for video playback.https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/immich-a-native-immich-application-for-sailfish-os/28066/48?u=frankps#SailfishOS #Immich #Photography #Jolla
- frankps: A community port of SailfishOS for Sony Xperia 10 V is progressing nicely, and will hopefully soon be released.#SailfishOS #LinuxMobile #SailfishOSCommunityhttps://forum.sailfishos.org/t/lineage-based-port-for-xperia-10-v-zambezi/31348/6?u=frankps
Ubuntu Touch
- UBports News: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 195
- Ubuntu Touch Forums News: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 196 Saturday 8th Aug at 19:00 UTC
- Ubuntu Touch Forums News: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 196 Call for questions
- Ubuntu Touch Forums News: System-image fixed.
- Ubuntu Touch Forums News: System-image issue
- Ubuntu Touch Forums News: Q&A 195 blog and audio available.
- #UbuntuTouch: @Tutanota #fairphone also runs #UbuntuTouch
- Lemmy.ca - linuxphones: Ubuntu Touch Making Progress Toward Ubuntu 26.04, Vulkan & App Updates
Distributions
- Mobian mobian-recipes Merge Requests: Draft: Improve devices/qcom/bootloader.sh by making sure BASE and a complete set of bootimg parameters is passed to mkbootimg
- postmarketOS Blog: postmarketOS in 2026-07: libcamera 0.7.2
- Lemmy - postmarketOS: postmarketOS in 2026-07: libcamera 0.7.2
- Lemmy.ca - linuxphones: postmarketOS in 2026-07: libcamera 0.7.2
- janvlug: @postmarketOS @RannyBergamotte Nice to read this: "The Librem 5 kernel was upgraded from 6.6 to 6.12 in !8959, importing fixes from upstream so that freezes on wakeup from suspend (#4207) no longer happen. Thanks Daniel K., dos and people who tested and helped finishing this up!"I'm going to give postmarketOS a try on one of my Librem 5's!#Librem5 #postmarketOS #MobileLinux
- Breaking updates in pmOS edge: Non-adaptive apps hidden in Phosh by default. _Mixed feelings;
- Breaking updates in pmOS edge: Steam Deck (valve-jupiter) Device Port Dropped
- postmarketOS (Mastodon): Thrilled to announce that @elly is now a trusted contributor in postmarketOS!She is an active coreboot contributor, wrote some U-Boot patches, mainlines and maintains support for ChromeOS devices, is hacking on the Zinwa Q25 and Moto G72 and in general enjoys low-level development (firmware, kernel) and reverse-engineering, porting coreboot to random motherboards and more!📜 TC page:https://postmarketos.org/team/#alicja-michalska-ellyq#postmarketos
- pabloyoyoista: "On #postmarketOS crazy adventures: 18 hour trip starting at 4 am from Hamburg to Amsterdam, to Brussels and back to Hamburg to get one signature and hand over some documents to a lawyer.I'm kinda missing the days when I was just writing code and dealing with the general social friction from reviews, instead of having to play
Whack A Molemanagement with lawyers and money xD" - postmarketOS pmaports issues: Add a Song to PostmarketOS installs
Apps
- Lemmy.ml - linuxphones: Can VLC be configured to be more mobile friendly?
- Lemmy.ca - linuxphones: [ANN] chelydra v0.0.6: a snapcast client launcher
- gnome: "Explore and play internet radio with Shortwave 📻, the radio app that adapts to your laptop and Linux phone screen with an ultra-cool retro look!https://apps.gnome.org/Shortwave/Thanks @haeckerfelix for maintaining this cool app!Become a Friend of GNOME 👉 https://donate.gnome.org#Internet #Radio #InternetRadio #WebRadio"
- JF: "#ITD v1.1.1 is now available!ITD is a daemon and a CLI and GUI companion app for #InfiniTime. This new release fixes a few bugs and is also now built for RISC-V in addition to ARM64, ARM, i386, x86_64 !https://git.elara.ws/elara6331/itd/releases/tag/v1.1.1#PineTime @pine64"
- webbeef: "We can now build Beaver packages for @alpinelinux , both for x86_64 and aarch64 targets.The package offers both a regular desktop app mode, and a full session mode, with cage being used as a kiosk wayland compositor.Works pretty well when installed on a @postmarketOS device! We started to implement hardware APIs: so far we have screen control as well as device shutdown & reboot.Next on the list is power source status and a idle detection API."
- pi_crew: Just discovered the new #Gnome app Chorus which will display lyrics of the current playing song 🎶 Works great on #LinuxMobile too!https://flathub.org/en/apps/space.f1nn.chorus
- schmiddionmobile: "For those Railway users on #phosh: In the last few days, I have written two Phosh plugins that display bookmarked journeys as well as allow searching for journeys for your bookmarked searches on your lock-screen without even looking at your phone. It's still quite early, but I already find it pretty useful.In case you are a Rust programmer and want to write your own Phosh plugins, I have also written a general template.Repository: https://gitlab.com/schmiddi-on-mobile/phosh-plugin-template-rustTemplate: https://gitlab.com/schmiddi-on-mobile/phosh-plugin-template-rust"
- agx: "@craftyguy AFAIK there's something coming to GNOME Settings per the GNOME OS room. Regarding a single settings app @ollieparanoid suggested https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/phosh-mobile-settings/-/work_items/103 which we have a working p-o-c so if someone wants to pick that up, that would be great. That would help postmarketOS in particular as you have the tweaks there too.That would also allow us to contribute to the shared panels easily.@phosh @postmarketOS"
Kernel
- phone-devel: Re: [PATCH v2 0/3] Initial PCIe0 PHY support for SM8475
- phone-devel: [PATCH v3 1/3] dt-bindings: arm: qcom: Document Samsung Galaxy A52/A72
- phone-devel: [PATCH v2] Input: rmi4 - Use platform data instead of query, when available
- Phoronix: TTM Memory Management For Graphics To Be More Aggresive With Linux 7.3
- Phoronix: Linux Networking Continues Being Bombarded With AI Patches
- Phoronix: Linux Patched For Safe RET Interrupt Vulnerability
- Phoronix: Linux Wireless Maintainer Takes Firm Stance Against AI/LLM Generated Slop Patches
Releases
- Phoronix: GCC 16.2 Released With More Than 100 Fixes
- Phoronix: Vulkan 1.4.359 Expands Cooperative Matrix Capabilities
Matrix
- Matrix.org: This Week in Matrix 2026-08-07
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 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!