LINux on MOBile

A huge week for Fairphone 6 mainline kernel hardware enablement: first the main camera, then all three cameras, then audio — and VoLTE emergency calling has been tested end-to-end. Also: Phosh 0.57.0 is out, Sailfish OS gets a 5.2 Jolla Phone update, Tuba 0.11.0 ships UnifiedPush support, and someone is running Minecraft at a stable 25fps on a OnePlus 8T with postmarketOS.

Collected on Saturday, August 22th 2026, 21:09 UTC and finished (in multiple chunks) on Sunday, August 23rd. So happy Fairphone have dropped the ball with the Gen. 6 USB situation (no DP alt mode, 2.0 speeds and not undone that for the 6+)... otherwise I would have been financially irresponsible and ordered yet another phone I don't really need.

Commentary in italics.

Worth Reading

• FuriLabs: Guest Blog Post: A phone for the non-tech enthusiast

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.

• Phosh.mobi: What's new in Phosh 0.57?
• Luca Weiss: Open Source Summit Japan 2025 - We need an open-source phone OS - postmarketOS!. _Now with subtitles
• Continuum Gaming: Jolla Phone 2026: Apply the screen protector (Continuum Gaming E535)
• UBports: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 197. Just Marius.

Worth Noting

• inlovewithpda: "Sometimes you find a really #PDA treasure, even when it is broken: Agenda VR3The first true #Linux #PDA with a #MIPS CPU. Time was not kind to that little fellow: the plastic is very brittle"
• kolunmi: https://github.com/ximion/appstream/issues/744 I hope this is rediscussed at some point. Adding llm disclaimers to appstream data would be a great move. It would save a lot of time for a lot of folks and I personally want it in Bazaar. Steam also started doing this iirc
• agx: "I've you're maintaining a program, service or library and want to help #LinuxMobile without much effort: Please make your program, library and services work without needing a default config in /etc. This allows us to have hermetic /usr for safe A/B upgrades without having to care about the programs defaults. We can then also reset to sane defaults more easily.It also makes it easier on any system to spot what's actually different form system defaults.#systemd #LinuxMobile"
• r/MobileLinux: I got a real Linux kernel running as a userspace process on Android — no root, no KVM. Docker runs inside it. (UML ARM64)

Hardware (enablement)

• dawndrums: Rev. 1.1 test results are online now. Few more components are left to test. Further results and observations will be added on a daily basis.https://docs.dawndrums.tn/docs/Divine/D/PCB/Hannibal#dawndrums #divined #linuxmobile #foss
• CNX-Software: Pine64 hits pause on Linux devices due to RAM and eMMC shortage/high prices - CNX Software
  • David Heidelberg: "PINE64 stopped producing devices dependent on RAM/storage chips — so, for example, no more PinePhones. What did we lose? From a phone perspective not much. Low-end hardware with no software support from the vendor. To be fair, we did lose FOSS modem firmware — on a device that is hardly usable. Today, companies like Fairphone produce phones of far higher quality than the PinePhone or PinePhone Pro, while also supporting Linux kernel development for their devices. #MobileLinux #LinuxMobile"
    • agx: "@okias Let me grab that click bait 🤭 :There are people that have other priorities like the amount of firmware on the device, separation of components on the PCB, no proprietary hypervisors, full control over all bootloaders, etc. So I think as a community we have interest in devices like the @pine64 #PinePhone's or @purism 's #Librem5 to continue. It's also good to have devices that ship Linux out of the box."

Fairphone 6

• TheMightyCat: Fairphone 6 + PostmarketOS working main camera!
  • Related discussion on: Lemmy, r/mobilelinux, r/fairphone, HackerNews
• Rapid progress on bringing FP6 to linux
• nmcmildotcom: Camera working (ish) on the Fairphone 6 running Linux. Wide and telephoto. Linux = Fedora.
• nmcmildotcom: All 3 cameras working on the Fairphone 6 running Linux
• Catcrafts: imsd 112 emergency calling end to end tested successfully! (Linux phone VoLTE)
• Lemmy.ca - linuxphones: Audio now working on the Fairphone 6 running Linux
• Lemmy.ca - linuxphones: All 3 cameras working on the Fairphone 6 running Linux
  • r/MobileLinux: All 3 cameras now working on Fairphone 6 running Linux

Pixel 9a

• sd: "The first picture taken (with a very crude script, no libcamera) on the Pixel 9a ultrawide camera. #mobilelinux #pixel9a"
• sd: "So there we go, first picture taken on postmarketOS with decent colors. There are a lot of issues still, for example, the camera app gets stuck after taking a couple of pictures. The preview jumps around weirdly and despite using GPU debayering, the CPU is quite busy, which means the phone gets pretty warm quickly. Also, the code is a mess. I am amazed it works at all though. As mentioned at the beginning, it’s mostly Claude coding #mobilelinux #pixel9a"

More Software News

Gnome Ecosystem

• Engagement Team: Engagement team introduction blog post
• Tobias Bernard: GUADEC 2026 in A Coruña
• Christian Hergert: Recent Developments Part III
• Felipe Borges: Decoupling Boxes from the OS Release Cycle

Phosh

• Phosh Releases: Phosh 0.57.0
• Phosh.mobi e.V. News: Phosh.mobi @ FrOSCon 2026

Plasma Ecosystem

• Nate Graham: This Week in Plasma: Bi-Directional RDP Clipboard Sync
• KDE Announcements: KDE Gear ⚙️ 26.08
• Volker Krause: NFC Integration for Plasma Mobile. In case you missed this last week, good enough to have this twice.
• roshani: Final week: Wrapping Up My GSoC Journey
• bharadwajratu: Btrfs Snapshot Integration in KDE

Sxmo

• #sxmo: In der aktuellen Podcast-Folge reden Ralf und ich über Linux Mobile und die FrOSCon:https://gnulinux.ch/ciw192-podcast#linux #linuxmobile #postmarketOS #froscon #podcast #stamp #sxmo #catacomb. Worth listening if you understand German.
• #sxmo: @meshy using meshy on my #p3a under #postmarketos / #sxmo ... Worked like a charm from the first versions !

Sailfish OS

• Announcements - Sailfish OS Forum: Community meeting on September 3, 2026
• Announcements - Sailfish OS Forum: [Release notes] Finlayson 5.2.0.17 - Jolla Phone only
• The Official Jolla Blog: Jolla Phone update - Pre-orders shipping status and progress
• adampigg: Am very pleased that today a dev from @volla has helped greatly in tidying up and refactoring my kernel builds for #sailfishos, adding CI builds too!
• adampigg: If anyone has installed #SailfishOS for the @furilabs FLX1 ... if you zypper ref && zypper dup you will get working GPS and better config for the curved corners 😃
• frankps: I just had to try it! Wow! A sailor has ported Gecko ESR140 (Firefox) and released it in a first alpha.Fantastic!!!https://openrepos.net/content/aviarus/sailfish-browser-next#SailfishOS #Firefox #Gecko #Browser #SailfishCommunity #LinuxMobile
• nobodyinperson: After the usual grind re-setting everything up again, restoring backups, etc. I have everything I need set up now (except #nix 🤓)I am very happy with this phone. It's such a massive upgrade to the broken (or non-broken) Xperia 10iii phones I have been daily-driving with #SailfishOS for far too long now. 😅- 🤩 double-tap to wake like in good old times- 🤩 fingerprint unlock- 🤩 dang it's fast and smooth!- 🤩 configurable (privacy) switch on the side#JollaPhone
• thoe: I’ve been using the new Jolla Phone as my primary phone for almost three weeks now and I honestly have to say it's been a really pleasant experience.…
• bluraf: I wrote down my initial impressions with the new #Jolla Phone (2026)https://md.sakamoto.pl/s/MfRGLycwrtl;dr It feels polished for a Linux-based mobile OS, but some parts are undercooked. In the meantime hostile Android applications will ruin the experience.cc @jolla #linuxmobile #sailfishos
• adampigg: "Created a port of #SailfishOS for the @furilabs #FLX1. Feedback welcome, instructions and downloads are at https://github.com/sailfish-on-furiphone/sailfish-release-halium-krypton/tree/main"

Ubuntu Touch

• UBports News: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 196
• Ubuntu Touch Forums News: Q&A 196 blog and audio available
• Ubuntu Touch Forums News: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 197 Saturday 22nd Aug 19:00 UTC
• Ubuntu Touch Forums News: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 197 call for questions
• cibersheep: "Would you like to test a new version of PodCat?-Don't use it on your main installation (it will update DataBase version)-Create a backup of your DataBase if it's not your first instal·lation on device (under ~/.local/share/podcat.cibersheep/Databases)What is to test?- Daily use: Add podcast, update, download episode, listen to episodes not downloaded, etc@ubports #UbuntuTouch #PodCat"
• UBports - Mastodon: We had a blast at #FROSCON! Thank you to all that came out to have a chat, try out #ubuntutouch, and grab some stickers. Thanks also to FrOSCon and the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences for hosting!#opensource
• UBports - Mastodon: @debian is now 33 years old! Here's to many more!🥂 #Debian #OpenSource #Linux
• UBports - Mastodon: Today and tomorrow we will be at #FROSCON at the computer science department of the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg.Come and say to us on our joing @ubuntu and UBports booth, and bring your friends and your curiosity with you.

Distributions

• Mobian (Mastodon): Dear Mobian users, we've noticed some issues in Debian testing breaking our login manager. The relevant fixes are in the release pipeline already. In the meanwhile, the weekly images (all platforms, all graphical environments) since 20260801 are to be considered broken. Please use older one 20260726 until futher notice. We'll post an update as soon as all relevant fixes are in place.
• Breaking updates in pmOS edge: device-mapper upgrade leads to FDE installs stuck at boot. Resolved!
• postmarketOS (Mastodon): Ready for day 2 at FrOSCon! 2 t-shirts left (size M) so be quick if you want one 😉We have more stickers, devices to show off and this time including pickles!#postmarketOS #FrOSCon #FrOSCon2026
• postmarketOS Wiki New Pages: Fairphone 4 audio development documentation (AlexL)
• postmarketOS Wiki New Pages: AYN Odin 3 (ayn-odin-3)
• postmarketOS Wiki New Pages: Calls
• sohrab: Hi Mastodon! 👋 As a developer of Parch Linux (https://parchlinux.com), I need some advice. Does anyone know how DistroWatch tracks updates, or how to properly reach out to Linux news sites? It's FOSS reviewed us once, but we’ve made massive changes since: new custom tools, a rewritten installer UI, and more!Tomorrow marks our 5th anniversary! 🎉 But despite publishing our updates, we're facing total radio silence. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but after 5 years, it honestly feels like a media boycott simply because of our project's origin (Iran). I didn't choose my nationality, and despite heavy restrictions, our team has built something we're proud of.We even have Server and Mobile editions in active development, yet the mobile efforts seem ignored even here among FOSS enthusiasts.How can we break this silence? Any advice is appreciated! 🐧❤️#Linux #FOSS #OpenSource #LinuxMobile #LinuxDistro #TechNews #TechJournalism #ParchLinux
• Purism community: Kernel 6.18 available for testing
• @dos@librem.one: Phosh 0.56.0 and Linux 7.2 on PureOS Dawn. Getting there....and speaking of the kernel, the latest LTS (6.18) is now available for testing on Crimson: https://forums.puri.sm/t/kernel-6-18-available-for-testing/31104#pureos #crimson #dawn #gnu #linux #phone #librem5 #linuxphone #linuxphones #mobilelinux #linuxmobile #phosh #linuxonmobile #mainline #kernel #shotonlibrem5

Apps

• mlundblad: Tomorrow I'll celebrate 10 years maintaining Maps.https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-maps/-/commit/07e362c52d1fb06786af982554a21f409103c52e#gnomemaps #mapstodon.
• hugoposnic: "My first PR to the wonderful "Jogger" app merged! 🥳If you don't know it yet, it's an app to track physical activities with support for GPX imports...https://codeberg.org/baarkerlounger/jogger/pulls/151#LinuxMobile"
• opensourceopenmind: @stepan @kayla This is how the #Bitwarden flatpak UI appears on the #phosh shipped in #PureOS with default settings (scale down apps is not enabled).#Librem5
• Tuba: "#Tuba 0.11.0 is now available, with many new features and bug fixes!✨️ Highlights:- Tuba moved to Codeberg!- Full Mastodon quotes support- Collections- Hashtag Lists- UnifiedPush- Android builds- Better custom emoji picker- Improved media viewer- More compact narrow layout- Custom thumbnail support for media- Font-size slider🧵As usual, the release notes go into more detail, but this time they are even more informative, check them out: https://codeberg.org/GeopJr/Tuba/releases/tag/v0.11.0#GNOME #GTK #Vala"
• meshy: The development version of #Meshy got a significantly improved QR code scanning. It supports camera enumeration and switching between cameras which should be particularly useful for #mobileLinux users.If you have more than one camera in your device, we would love to hear how it works for you.#meshcore
• krille: #FluffyChat 2.9.0 has been released: https://ko-fi.com/post/FluffyChat-2-9-0-has-been-released-J1P725897F
• knievelcat: Guess what? If your phone runs mainline #Linux, you can just play #Minecraft Java Edition on it. This is a Oneplus 8T running #PostmarketOS and Minecraft runs at a stable 25 FPS with 16 chunks render distance.Some folks in the sm8250-mainline matrix channel and I have been working on getting this phone mainlined and so far we have a lot working. These changes are not merged into PostmarketOS yet but that is something I intend to do soon. This video was also shot on PostmarketOS so this is a end-to-end Linux video production. #mobilelinux #mainline #oneplus8t #sm8250
• postmarketOS: Apps by Category: Gdstr: /* Password Managers */ Fix links / name for GNOME Secrets

Kernel

• phone-devel: [PATCH 0/3] Add Himax HX83112A support for Fairphone 4 touchscreen
• phone-devel: [PATCH v2 00/13] dmaengine: ste_dma40: Fix probe and allocation bugs
• Phoronix: Linux 7.3 Cleans Up Stack Randomization, Ensures It Happen As Early As Possible
• Phoronix: FSCRYPT Sees Cleanup With Linux 7.3 To Open Door For More Features Like Btrfs Encryption
• Phoronix: Linus Torvalds Endures A Debug Session From Hell, "Enormously Helped" By AI. Oof.
• collabora: "Linux kernel 7.2 brings broad updates across the core kernel, Rust, and hardware support.Collabora engineers contributed 102 patches this cycle, spanning graphics, media, virtualization, networking, power management, SoC enablement, and more.Explore our team’s contributions: https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/kernel-7.2-rk3588-media,-smarter-gpu-memory,-and-rust-foundations.html #LinuxKernel #OpenSource #RustForLinux #EmbeddedLinux"

Releases

• Phoronix: Rust 1.98 Adds Algebraic Floating-Point Methods Akin To "-ffast-math"
• Phoronix: Proton 11.0-2 Enables More Titles With Steam Play / Linux Gaming
• Phoronix: Wine 11.16 Released With VA-API Hardware Decoding, Better ARM64 Support
• Phoronix: RPM 6.1 Released With Clang Build Fixes, New Release Model

Matrix

• Matrix.org: This Week in Matrix 2026-08-21

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!