LINux on MOBile

NFC integration is landing in Plasma Mobile, and Bazaar has been accepted into GNOME Circle, an official Signal Desktop ARM64 beta (.deb + AppImage only). On the hardware side, Dawndrums has received the Divine D MainPCB Rev. 1.1 and is sharing early DawnOS test results, mainlining progress on other (used) devices and more!

Collected on Saturday, August 15th 2026, 20:38 UTC and finished (in multiple chunks) on Sunday, August 16th.

Commentary in italics.

Worth Reading

• Volker Krause: NFC Integration for Plasma Mobile
• runarcn.no: Reconsidering SailfishOS as my daily driver
• mattp: Daily driving postmarketOS (Summer 2026)
  • Lemmy.ca - linuxphones: Daily driving postmarketOS (Summer 2026)
• Moses Izumi: Lamenting the demise of Keyboard Phones. Still missing my HTC Dream over here.

Worth Listening

• Tech Over Tea: #338 The State Of Pine64 | Camden

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.

• Continuum Gaming: The Jolla Phone 2026 – Unboxing Phone & Accesories (Continuum Gaming E534)
• Continuum Gaming: Advanced Camera - The better camera app for your Sailfish OS Device (Continuum Gaming E533)
• Jolla: Jolla Phone - Official CTO dust test
• Luca Weiss: Automated testing of a phone operating system
• Daniel Kulesz: DigiZiege - A Progressive Web App for Goat Farmers
• Daniel Gultsch: Push-Benachrichtigungen. Dezentral und OpenSource
• Marvin W: App-Kompatibilität für alle
• Linux Nation: 4 Jahre kein Support: Rettet Linux das OnePlus 6?

Worth Noting

• carlrichell: COSMIC on a oneplus 6 at the Warsaw meetup.
• justsoup: "If you use a OnePlus 6T with postmarketOS and want to help out with catching bugs and making it better, please test https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/merge_requests/9326. The instructions for testing are in the descriptionThat merge request finally enforces using Pipewire for the device for audio after years of working towards that. I want to ensure that the merge causes no regressions, so on-device testing by different people with different devices is the only way to do so.#PostMarketOS"
• UndeadLeech: I think I might have figured out why calls on my #Fairphone 5 were muting the bottom speaker on #Archlinux, but not on #postmarketOS: https://github.com/sc7280-mainline/linux/pull/32#issuecomment-5247866014This kind of stuff is exactly why it's a good thing to have multiple distro choices. I never would have found this if I hadn't been running ArchLinux with a different Kernel version.Now hopefully everyone can enjoy this.#linuxmobile
• Lemmy.ca - linuxphones: Its you guys fault.

Hardware (enablement)

• dawndrums: dawndrums: "We received Divine D’s MainPCB Rev. 1.1 and we have been conducting several tests for past few weeks. So far we have the following running with DawnOS (mobian base, mainline Kernel 7.1 + patches) […] Documentation will soon include further details and test results.…"
• dawndrums: "We introduce the first accessory board Acc-DBG Rev 1.0 that pairs with Divine D., allowing debug features and interface expansion to external hardware. The board supports:- Magnetic and Hot-plug Pogo interface- Enables Maskrom mode to allow flashing/reading the internal eMMC over USB-C- USB-to-Serial Port for the System Terminal- 40-pin exposing several interfaces, including I2C, SPI, GPIOs…- External aux power supply - JTAG for SoC and LoRa- USB2#Dawndrums #DivineD #LinuxMobile #foss"
• r/MobileLinux: I’ve been bringing mainline Linux / postmarketOS to the OnePlus 7T Pro — it’s getting surprisingly far
• joeycastillo: "the Open Book Touch campaign is drawing to a close next week, and this week I shared some preliminary photographs of the enclosures we've designed for it, including a 3D printed prototype of the Author's Edition — now available in the UK and EU! — which I'm hoping will be an aluminum extrusion that looks something like this: https://www.crowdsupply.com/oddly-specific-objects/open-book-touch/updates/a-case-of-ones-own-open-book-enclosures-and-the-authors-edition-debut-in-the-uk-and-eu"
• tiol: "Thanks @okias we are now going to have working panel+touchscreen on google-crosshatch (Google Pixel 3 XL, sdm845)! 🎉 After adapting the s6e3ha8 panel driver (already driving samsung-starqltechn) to also support crosshatch's panelhttps://codeberg.org/sdm845/linux/commits/branch/b4/crosshatch-panelhe guided (well... "step-by-step hand-guided" is more realistic) me into adapting s6sy761 touchscreen driver (again, starqltechn) for crosshatch's .https://salsa.debian.org/Mobian-team/devices/kernels/qcom-linux/-/commits/wip/tiol/7.2-sdm845_crosshatchStill a lot of work ahead, of course, but... hey, I did a thing! 😎"
  • David Heidelberg: "@tiol Very happy to see Mobian running on the 3 XL! 🎉It may not be obvious at first glance, but doing kernel work—even with guidance—is incredibly valuable. Growing kernel knowledge in the community is essential to building a good product like Mobian, which spans the full stack: kernel ↔ middleware ↔ user spaceAnd the best part? The work done for the Pixel 3 can be reused on the 3 XL, with the differences being the panel and touch.Every new contributor makes the whole community stronger. 😎"
• awai: "MediaTek going more and more open (source) as time goes by is extremely exciting, and hopefully something we can leverage in the #LinuxMobile space in the not-so-distant future :linux: On a personal level, being part of this effort is incredibly rewarding, although quite challenging at times 😉https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/mediatek-genio-upstream-update-from-hdmi-20-to-booting-uboot-trusted-firmware-a.html#OpenSource"
• r/MobileLinux: Droidian for Note10 Lite is here. Repo and release.

More Software News

Gnome Ecosystem

• This Week in GNOME: #262 Minor Major Update
• GNOME Shell & Mutter: GNOME Shell Design Dreams
• Hylke Bons: NLnet funds SparkleShare. No idea if the re-write is going to be adaptive, but if it was, that would be seriously cool.
• Laureen Caliman: Vocab-style Crosswords Update | Final Stretch
• Peter Eisenmann: Fellowship Report July 2026 (The Shire)
• Philipp Sauberzweig: Fellowship Update, 2026-08-13
• Ivan Molodetskikh: Easy Sandboxing on Linux with Bubblewrap

Phosh

• Phosh (gotosocial): Dear distro maintainers and "I build my own stuff" people: In case you want to check out Phosh's 0.57 release upfront: we've... If you tested something, hit a problem and don't know where to put the issue, please add a comment to https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/meta-phosh/-/work_items/39 .Reports of successful tests are super useful too as they give us confidence in the release.To try out things without installing anything on your device: Grab our BengalOS virtual machine images from https://bengalos.phosh.mobi/#phosh #VirtualMachine #BengalOS #ReleaseTesting
• nikodunk: Wahooo a smooth 60fps thanks to @agx sugggestions on how to implement this with the #phosh @phosh compositor on #pocketblue and #postmarketos #mobilelinux #linuxmobile

Plasma Ecosystem

• Nate Graham: This Week in Plasma: UI Improvements Galore
• KDE Announcements: KDE Ships Frameworks 6.29.0
• Roshani's KDE & GSoC Blog: Weeks 9 & 10: Multi-Select and Mobile Selection Mode. About KeepSecret.
• Nate Graham: Keep your community afloat with the right defense tokens
• Volker Krause: NFC Integration for Plasma Mobile
• Nuno-Icons: About time…

Maui Project

• Nitrux: A Modern Desktop: The Workspace Envrionment
  • Linuxiac: Nitrux Linux Unveils New Workspace Environment Built Around Hyprland
• Nitrux: Over the past months, we’ve been dropping hints about what we’ve been working on: Valenz, Marina, Workspace Settings.Presenting the new concept for Nitrux: The Workspace Environment.Read More: https://nxos.org/news/a-modern-desktop-the-workspace-envrionment/#Nitrux #Workspace #Linux #News. Quite sad to see the death of Maui Shell for a pivot to that particular tiling WM; I suppose this is the last Maui Project section for a while.

Sxmo

• #sxmo: relaxing before bed like it's 2005
• #sxmo: You can find the build instructions for postmarketOS Edge here: https://termbin.com/2zdbLet me know if it works for your#postmarketOS #Stamp #linuxmobile #sxmo

Catacombing

• UndeadLeech: I have been avoiding the flashlight on my Fairphone 5, since it seemed pretty bright at max brightness, thereby possibly burning out pretty quickly over extended use.With Epitaph 1.4.0, I've finally gotten around to fixing that, by changing the flashlight from a button to a slider.https://git.sr.ht/~undeadleech/epitaph/refs/v1.4.0#linuxmobile #catacomb #fairphone

Sailfish OS

• Community News - Sailfish OS Forum: Sailfish Community News, 13 August 2026 - Jolla Phone delivery update
• Announcements - Sailfish OS Forum: Community meeting on August 20, 2026
• pedro_mateus: Today I get to play with a new toy! If everything goes to plan, @jolla 's new phone is going to be the final nail in the Android coffin for me. I'll still need to use a few Android apps, but the compatibility layer seems to be good enough for what I need.Quick first impressions: - Hefty and solid, considering you can just take the back right off. - It's about the same size as a Nothing Phone 1, similar camera setup as well. The camera app is by far the least impressive thing about it.- 90hz AMOLED screen that looks spectacular. Funnily enough, it's the Android apps that refuse to render at 90Hz, making scrolling through them a little choppy. -The battery life seems amazing, even with the Android compatibility running and Wireguard connected to Proton VPN all the time. After about 10 hours with heavy use, it came down from 72% to 33%. That's spectacular, if you ask me.It is a nice phone. Genuinely!#Linux #Phone #Jolla #Sailfishos #Android #European #Technology
• ilpianista: It’s been a while since we last met, sailors! I’ve been busy with a new hobby: gardening!And that’s why I’d now like to introduce you to Ortolano 🍅🥕 🍆 It helps me plan my activities, and I hope #SailfishOS users will find it useful too. Very soon on Chum and hopefully soon on Harbour!@frankps don’t worry, translations will be coming soon, but I wanted to give you a preview 😉
• frankps: Have you ever visited the SailfishOS.app service?It shows what Android apps work on Sailfish OS, and when there is a native option. The service got a nice upgrade today and is out in v1.1.https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/sailfishos-app-compatibility-database-feedback-thread/27284/60?u=frankps#SailfishOS #AndroidApps #Jolla
• Antti98: @nextcloud #SailfishOS . There is already quite neat #Nextcloud integrations made for it, but would love to see it to be even better. Maybe even collaboration between #Jolla and #Nextcloud ? Anyway, loving both!

Ubuntu Touch

• Ubuntu Touch Forums News: Froscon Aug 15th and 16th Germany
• Ubuntu Touch Forums News: Today is Q&A Day
• UBports - Development - Merge Requests: Draft: Add Guix paths to writable-paths
• #UbuntuTouch: @Tutanota Hopefully this will encourage at least a few prople on to #postmarketOS and #UbuntuTouch - never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake, I say.

Distributions

• Lemmy - postmarketOS: run postmarket on a 2016 galaxy A5
• postmarketOS pmaports issues: Add last 2 mobile-config-* packages
• postmarketOS pmaports issues: Phosh: add user service for better UI  responsiveness [systemd] [uclamp]

Apps

• allpurposemat: "Reiterating how good #KDE Itinerary is; I was able to find an alternative to a canceled alternative to my original train, and catch it, without any troubles. And I knew it was canceled ahead of time because it told me!Very high quality app, thankful to have it on #LinuxMobile !#KDEItinerary"
• janvlug: Beta test Signal Desktop for Linux ARM64:https://community.signalusers.org/t/beta-test-signal-desktop-for-linux-arm64/76184I will try on my test #Librem5 soon.#Signal #SignalApp #privacy #opensource #FOSS
• bragefuglseth: "Today #Bazaar by @kolunmi and @AlexanderVanhee was accepted into GNOME Circle. Bazaar is a new app store for #GNOME with a focus on discovering and installing apps and add-ons from #Flatpak remotes, particularly #Flathub. Congratulations!"
• Björn: Gnome Maps (51-beta) auf Mobian (Forky) hat jetzt Offline-Karten Support. Sehr praktisch! Vielen Dank an die Entwickler:innen #gnome #linuxmobile #mobilelinux #phosh #op6 #linux. Offline Maps coming to GNOME Maps 51.
• meshy: We treat mobile #Linux as a first-class citizen. We have phones with Linux that we have for more than just testing; we use #Meshy on them regularly.#MeshCore #mobilelinux #postmarketos
• #LinuxMobile: I have successfully compiled and configured Stamp on postmarketOS Edge with sxmo. Stamp is a GTK4 Mail client and could become a valuable alternative to Thunderbird on Linux Mobile.https://gitlab.gnome.org/jbrummer/stampCurrently it is not yet available as a package or Flatpak and it requires gnome-online-accounts to set up the mail account.#postmarketos #smxo #linuxmobile #gnome. Daily driving Stamp for weeks now, feels good!
• LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Parla
• LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Chorus

Kernel

• phone-devel: Re: [PATCH v3 2/2] usb: typec: Add support for Parade PS5169 USB Type-C redriver
• phone-devel: Re: [PATCH] wifi: rsi: Fix types to appease CFI
• phone-devel: Re: [PATCH 1/2] dt-bindings: display: panel: Add bindings for Novatek NT37703
• phone-devel: Re: [PATCH v6 0/3] Samsung Expressatt: Camera Flash
• phone-devel: Re: [PATCH 1/2] dt-bindings: display: panel: Add bindings for Novatek NT37703
• phone-devel: Re: [PATCH v3 1/2] dt-bindings: usb: Add Parade PS5169 redriver bindings
• phone-devel: Re: [PATCH 1/4] media: dt-bindings: dongwoon,dw9714: Example shouldn't imply 1.8 V

Matrix

• Matrix.org: This Week in Matrix 2026-08-14

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!