Weekly GNU-like Mobile Linux Update (35/2026): Funded Flatpaks
Table of Contents
Camera support progress on the Shift6mq and Pixel 9a, The Sovereign Tech Agency announcing a major investment in Flatpak. The Jolla Phone has passed 15,000 preorders with 2,500 units already delivered, and gets an OS update with Sailfish OS 5.2.0.17. Also: independent volume control for media, notifications and calls landing in postmarketOS Phosh... and more!
Collected on Saturday, August 29th 2026, 20:33 UTC and finished haphazardly (in multiple chunks) on Sunday, August 30th. Commentary in italics.
Worth Reading
- bjoreman: Jolla phone, day 1
- Modal: Announcing Sovereign Tech Agency Investment in Flatpak
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.
- agx at MiniDebConf Winterthur: 🐅 The Phosh BengalOS Roadshow 🐅 lq Schedule
- Luca Weiss: FOSDEM 2026 - Mainline kernel for Fairphones - 2026 update
- Continuum Gaming: Getting started with the Jolla Phone 2026 (Continuum Gaming E536)
Worth Noting
- Oleksii: How I see current state of #linuxmobile #mobileLinux Often people are asking if banking apps are working, but I believe it's a wrong question. Banks are private structure and you have the right to choose your service provider. What comes to to government or municipalities services it's not the case. For this reason I started this project. https://codeberg.org/oleksiidn/equality
- allpurposemat: Some easy progress: the map is full-size now :D#CoMaps #AndroidTranslationLayer #postmarketOS
- r/MobileLinux: Fingerprint sensor / unlock now working on the Fairphone 6 on Linux Mobile
- r/MobileLinux: I've got NixOS running on Mi A3 with mainline kernel — and created a linux-phone-porting skill for AI coding agents while doing so
- r/MobileLinux: Fedora Atomic by Pocketblue
- r/MobileLinux: Mobile OSes, research for NON google AnDroid alternatives
Events
- postmarketOS: "If you are attending The postmarketOS and Alpine Linux Conference, or are just interested in following what people might get up to there, please join
#conference:postmarketos.orgon Matrix or#postmarketos-conferenceon OFTC IRC#PostMarketOS #MobileLinux #LinuxMobile." - modal: "Believe it or not, @allsystemsgo is already in 5 weeks 🙀️And just like last year we're organizing a #BoilingTheOcean event on the weekend after the conference. Join us October 3-4 at the @amutable offices in Berlin Mitte for hacking and discussions about image-based, mobile, local-first, and more :)Sign up here: https://pad.gnome.org/RPyp9zD-STue3bo0RZGC-g#allsystemsgo #systemd #imagebased #gnome #gtk #linuxmobile #localfirst"
- modal: "Some impressions from #BoilingTheOcean 12 last weekend 🌈 Thanks for joining everyone, and see you next time!"
Hardware enablement
- David Heidelberg: SHIFT 6MQ.cameras working 6 months ago: zero.with today release of sdm845-next kernel (tag sdm845-next-20260820-3): - main 16MP rear camera (Sony IMX519), incl. focus - secondary 24MP (Samsung S5K2X7SP), incl. focus - front 16MP (Samsung S5K3P9SP)works. Seems to work reliably so far.Beware, Tux is watching.Tomorrow the 6MQ going with me to the Winterthur for the MiniDebConf.#MiniDebConf #SHIFT #SHIFT6mq #MobileLinux #LinuxMobile #sdm845
- Lemmy.ca - linuxphones: Fingerprint sensor / unlock now working on the Fairphone 6 on Linux Mobile
- Catcrafts: Fairphone 6 + PostmarketOS offline charging mode!
- #LinuxMobile: @linmob Seeing all the progress from TheMightyCat kind of pisses me off. They Vibe-mainline everything with AI and don't do it correctly. I've only looked at sensors but there they use bit-banged i2c to talk to the sensors directly instead of using the SLPI coprocessor which is made for this and already has mainline infrastructure.PostmarketOS has a AI policy that explicitly forbids it so these changes won't be merged and it just kinda sucks seeing someone build a vibe-coded project ontop.#LinuxMobile #Fairphone6 #postmarketOS. Feedback to last weeks weekly update.
- sd: And the pipeline works for the front camera too. Front and ultrawide are both Sony IMX712 sensors, so the whole pipeline “just worked” after some minor changes. The main camera will probably be much more difficult, because it is not fixed focus. It’s a Samsung Isocell GN8.But when I started this a couple of months ago, I would never have thought to ever have a working camera. So let’s see how far I’ll get. #mobilelinux #pixel9a
- sd: I don’t have any pictures to share right now, because I don’t want to accidentally reveal my location, but the quality of the ultrawide really is comparable to Android in daylight. It does not have any of googles ML processing for fancy HDR or night mode, but it is genuinely good, very usable. Compared to the previous software path (even GPU accelerated), the phone also only needs about half as much power while showing the 30fps viewfinder. #mobilelinux #pixel9a
- sd: Ok, this is some major progress: I (or rather the LLM) spent the last week after work (it also "worked" quite a bit unattended while I was working) and created a fully working hardware ISP integration for the Exynos ISP frontend (sensor raw Bayer, lens shading, demosaic) and backend core (RGB and YUV postprocessing, denoise, sharpening, etc.) integrated with a custom libcamera IPA. The code is likely absolute slop, but it’s slop that lets me take actual good photos 1/2 #mobilelinux #pixel9a
- r/MobileLinux: Nothing phone 1 spacewar ALARM update
More Software News
Distributions
- postmarketOS pmaports issues: Add last 2 mobile-config-* packages
- newbyte: "As of yesterday you can finally adjust media, notification, and call volume independently in #postmarketOS #Phosh! The Phosh shell currently lacks support for configuring this, but Phosh Mobile Settings has sliders for it in the "Feedback" page.This was made possible by lots of upstream work—I only flipped a switch in feedbackd. See https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/work_items/3666 for more information."
- DanctNIX (Mastodon): SXMO 1.18.1 is now available in the testing repo, please give it a test!Thanks to Raezroth for becoming the new SXMO UI maintainer! 🥳 #DanctNIX #LinuxMobile #MobileLinux
- awai: "As a #Debian developer I feel compelled to react : either pro- or anti-LLMs, the important part is that the project members agreed to disagree and not take any significant measure.It is an acknowledgement of the times we live through as much as the recognition that we have no actual power over it.In a polarized world, I welcome the fact that we didn't go to one extreme or the other, while regretting that the world is f**ked to the point that we had to take that (meaningless) vote."
Gnome Ecosystem
- This Week in GNOME: #263 Reset Recovering
- Philip Withnall: Flatpak repository key rotation
- Matthias Klumpp: Sovereign Tech Fellowship for Freedesktop Tasks
- vixalien: Adding Debug Adapter Protocol Support to GJS
- Michael Catanzaro: Change in Timeline to “Some Changes to GNOME Security Tracking”
- Sebastian Wick: Announcing Sovereign Tech Agency Investment in Flatpak
- Phoronix: GPU Reset Recovery Merge Request For GNOME Mutter Submitted
Phosh
- Phosh (gotosocial): 🐅🇨🇭🐅 On my way to MiniDebconf Winterhur 🐅🇨🇭🐅 #Debian #LinuxMobile #phosh #winterthur
- newbyte: "As of yesterday you can finally adjust media, notification, and call volume independently in #postmarketOS #Phosh! The Phosh shell currently lacks support for configuring this, but Phosh Mobile Settings has sliders for it in the "Feedback" page.This was made possible by lots of upstream work—I only flipped a switch in feedbackd. See https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/work_items/3666 for more information."
Plasma Ecosystem
- Nate Graham: This Week in Plasma: QtWidgets Apps Join the Union
- Nate Graham: This Week in Plasma: UI and Performance Improvements
- jbb: Tickets in Transitous
Sxmo
- #sxmo: If you are stuck in an elevater, and you would have to choose would you rather...#linuxmobile #postmarketos #sxmo #mobian #humorHave no phone at allTrust that you can call help with your Linux PhoneTake the Linux Phone to fix outstanding bugs
- #sxmo: works great on oneplus 6
Sailfish OS
- Community News - Sailfish OS Forum: Sailfish Community News, August 27, 2026
- #sailfishOS: @wheaty73 I wanted to ditch android fully, but knew I still need some android apps in my daily life like banking. This is why I went with #JollaPhone and #SailfishOS as I got both. Native side is really independent from android, but I can run basically all of my needed android apps in their Android App Support. Have been super happy with the choice!
- #sailfishOS: I had to write down some very unsorted impressions from my first day of playing with my Jolla phone. Fun times!https://bjoreman.com/thoughts/jollaDayOne.html#jolla #blog #sailfishOs
- #sailfishOS: It’s Thursday and a newsletter has just been published: https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/sailfish-community-news-august-27-2026/32526?u=frankpsThe Jolla Phone has passed 15.000 preorders and 2.500 phones already delivered! And if I understood it correctly, SFOS 5.2.0.17 is coming to us all!#sailfishos #JollaPhone #SailfishCommunity #Jolla
Ubuntu Touch
- UBports News: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 197
- fredldotme: "Have you ever tried to debug Ubuntu Touch OS components, Click apps or Snaps, and wondered how to prepare your device for this task?I've written up a guide on how to set up your Ubuntu Touch device for debugging with the gdb-static and strace-static Snaps for general-purpose debugging needs.Have fun reading!https://forums.ubports.com/topic/12536/how-to-debug-clicks-snaps-and-os-components-on-an-ubuntu-touch-device"
- fredldotme: Here's a selling point for the git-scm Snap:I just ran
sudo apt remove gitand fell back to the Snap variant instead:sudo snap install git-scmMy Git info in my Bash prompt wasn't showing anymore in the meantime.sudo snap alias git-scm gitCurrent repo details shown in the prompt again!I realized this now makes my terminal a little more secure as attacking a login shell's prompt handling with malicious git commands would be blocked by all of Snap's security mechanisms.Yay! - #UbuntuTouch: spent hours trying to port #meshy to #ubuntutouch i might need more time and coffee or buy claude subscription, since its free version has gave me best ideas today (compared to free models or gemini or my brain)
- #UbuntuTouch: Mwaaaahahahahaaaahttps://open-store.io/app/wander.cibersheep/Nou experiment experimental. Coneixeu Wander? Com que no? Si és un projecte des 1974. Ara, amb aplicació per s'Ubuntu Touch.@ubports @ubportsnews #UbuntuTouch
- #UbuntuTouch: @wild1145 There is now a working native app for #UBports #UbuntuTouch in the Open Store, called Mastodon Native. So that's one issue resolved.
i#### Apps
- kolunmi: "Bazaar is now on the gnome nightly repos!! Now you can install the latest git version of Bazaar very easily. If you haven't added the gnome nightly repos, they are an easy way to beta test gnome apps!https://nightly.gnome.org/
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists gnome-nightly https://nightly.gnome.org/gnome-nightly.flatpakrepothenflatpak install gnome-nightly io.github.kolunmi.Bazaar😎" - nekohayo: "Y'all, @jeb2's "Stamp" email client is now available in the GNOME Nightly flatpak repository! Go ahead and test it! :blobnom:You can find details about the nightly repository here: https://nightly.gnome.org#GNOME #Stamp #email #Flatpak #Linux"
- enzenb: I worked on improving my #Blokus app Pentobi (https://pentobi.sourceforge.io) to support #postmarketOS better. It should now work a lot better on both #Phosh and #PlasmaMobile. The new version will be released on Flathub once Debian/Sid made the transition to Qt 6.11 (hopefully in a few weeks)..
- matk: "AppStream-Generator has backends for more than just Debian, so more distributions can benefit from this too 🎉 Check out https://github.com/ximion/appstream-generator"
- matk: "#Debian Developers can now view the AppStream metadata that their packages have produced, and any issues that occurred using a much better web interface: https://appstream.debian.org/sid/All part of the just-released appstream-generator 1.0.0(you may want to enable JPEG-XL in your browser to view pages for anything newer than trixie (13) 😉 - blogpost about that soon!)"
- fiaxh: I'm currently working on a feature in @dino that allows you to send multiple files together in the same message. Multiple photos will then be displayed as a group. The implementation is based on Stateless File Sharing (XEP-0447).#xmpp #gtk #dino
Kernel
- Phoronix: Linux 7.3 Will Begin Checking USB-C Cables For Alt-Mode Support
- Phoronix: Linux 7.3 MGLRU Change Helps Executable Code Stays In Memory, Improving Performance
- Phoronix: Linux 7.3 Adds RWF_DONTCACHE Support For Block Devices
- Phoronix: AppArmor In Linux 7.3 Adds Support For User-Space Compressed Policies
- phone-devel: [PATCH] media: i2c: imx258: Add reset-gpio support
- phone-devel: [PATCH] mfd: Fix MAX77705 dependency on regmap
- phone-devel: [PATCH] mfd: wcd934x: set DMA mask on parent to silence "DMA mask not set"
- phone-devel: [PATCH v5 0/3] Enable DW9714V camera focus coils on SHIFT 6MQ
- phone-devel: [PATCH] clk: qcom: camcc-sdm845/670: Raise CSIPHY timer clock limit
Stack
- Phoronix: Sovereign Tech Agency Providing Massive Investment Into Flatpak
- etbe – Russell Coker: Links August 2026
- Phoronix: The Linux Kernel Is Approaching 2,000 CVEs Per Release
- Phoronix: Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS Released With Initial Collection Of Fixes
Matrix
- Matrix.org: This Week in Matrix 2026-08-28
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!