Weekly GNU-like Mobile Linux Update (36/2026): Pixel 3 calling
Table of Contents
A bunch of hardware enablement news, progress on the Commodore Callback and dawndrums Divine D, the schedule of the postmarketOS and Alpine Linux conference and more!
Collected on Sunday, September 6th 2026, 00:33 UTC and finished haphazardly (in multiple chunks) on the same day. Commentary in italics. Commentary in italics.
Worth Reading
- postmarketOS blog: postmarketOS // in 2026-08: Conferences
- Purism: PureOS Development Report: July 2026
- Ploum: I Don’t Have a Smartphone…
- Neil Brown: My views on genAI and F-Droid
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: Sailfish OS: How to Ad Block (Continuum Gaming E538)
- UBports: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 198
- sunweaver at MiniDebConf Winterthur: Debian Edu goes Lomiri - Tablets for Education in the Free World
Worth Noting
- cas: "I present the latest in U-Boot Qualcomm development. This is a pre-production Fairphone 5 running U-Boot as a full replacement to Qualcomms proprietary EDK2 stackit has working drivers for the DSI interface, display controller, panel, and a bunch more pesky prerequisites :DThis means unlike in the typical case on a phone where the display has already been configured for us by edk2, we have to turn on all the regulators, configure all the clocks and phys, program the display controller and basically do everything ourselves.This is the first command mode panel I have working and being a whole different soc to my initial bringup it proves that the drivers are flexible enough to enable broad support.i hope to eventually land these drivers upstream, starting with the common clock framework port."
- austriancoder: "Having vendor provided hwdb information helps to to find the possible correct feature bit for a broken feature on one GPU rev. I have the feeling, that there are more to come.Good example is the last one that landed in mesa: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/merge_requests/44166#etnaviv #mesa"
- fsf: "Together, we can free mobile phones from nonfree software: https://librephone.fsf.org/ #LibrePhone". Make sure to click this, the FSF actually managed to build a somewhat decent website, e.g., LibrePhone - Hardware - Fairphone6
- ondra: "RE: https://mamot.fr/@ploum/117202338350731080One of the benefits of daily-driving @postmarketOS is that you do have a smartphone but the crappy apps are not available for anything outside the Android/iOS duopoly. It's a great conversation starter about lock-in, sovereignty, software freedom etc."
- mobian: "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."
- Lemmy.ca - linuxphones: Jolla Phone 2 2026 : Unboxing and Accessories.
Events
- openSUSE News: Mobile Linux Hackday #8: Record Turnout in SUSE's New Prague Office
- postmarketOS (Mastodon): We are excited to have great speakers and a broad spectrum of topics for the upcoming postmarketOS and @alpinelinux conference! 😀The schedule is now live: https://pretalx.postmarketos.org/postmarketos-conference-2026/schedule/Matrix and IRC:#conference:postmarketos.org#postmarketos-conference on OFTC IRCMore information: https://postmarketos.org/conference/ These schedules are also available in KDE's Kongress app and Giggity for Android for easy viewing.#kde #kongress #giggity. Great schedule, hope I can make it - will figure this out ASAP so that I am not blocking someone else from attending. Update, Sept. 19th, 2026: I decided on 9/11 that I will not go and cancelled my ticket, hope it helps someone else!
- ifreund: I'll be giving a talk at the #postmarketOS conference coming up soon! https://pretalx.postmarketos.org/postmarketos-conference-2026/talk/XYZ383/
Hardware (enablement)
- dawndrums (Mastodon): The bring-up phase of Divine D. Rev. 1.1 is reaching its end. We ported the DMC driver (not upstreamed yet) to be working on the kernel 7.1.0. This enables dynamic DRAM frequency scaling based on workload, helping reduce substantial energy consumption.The NPU, LoRa and all sensors are working now.We’ve also cooked up Divine D. Live Monitor, an application that provides a real-time overview of the device’s hardware and OS. Next topics, soon. #dawndrums #divined #mobilelinux #foss
- Catcrafts: Fairphone 6 + PostmarketOS fully working fingerprint sensor!
- r/MobileLinux: Nick on X: "Phone calls now working on Fairphone 6 / Linux" / X
- sd: "Ok, so autofocus actually only took one day to implement. It is not flawless yet, especially in low light, but it’s definitely usable. The rest of the time since the last post I spent on local tone mapping. That’s what google uses to create an HDR-like effect based on only a single frame. It mostly lifts shadows while keeping bright parts. It uses a small ML model, which runs on the edgeTPU device 1/2 #mobilelinux #pixel9a" Now I could try to get the edgeTPU up and running on mainline, but it also runs a proprietary userspace for loading models etc.; So I did what the AI companies are doing, just on a much smaller scale: since I have root on Android, I can feed the model with a corpus of thumbnails and capture the created LTM grid. Doing that with ~1000 of my own RAW images and 3600 of Google’s open HDR plus dataset, I was able to distill the model into one that runs on CPU instead. #mobilelinux #pixel9a
- David Heidelberg: "Last few days, I’ve been working on the Pixel 3.Today, I managed to make the first calls. Most of the work should now be ready for upstreaming.This phone will become my daily driver with BengalOS.So far, here’s what works for me: - Stereo speakers and 3 microphones - Wireless charging - All 3 cameras, including autofocus - NFCNeeds testing and cleanup: - Powered USB-Chttps://bengalos.phosh.mobi/Not all changes have been pushed to sdm845-next yet.#BengalOS #MobileLinux #Phosh #Linux"
- r/MobileLinux: Arch Linux on a OnePlus 12R, powered by the Denial Wayland + Flutter compositor
- r/MobileLinux: Nothing Phone (1) Spacewar ALARM update 2 Nothing Phone 1 Spacewar ALARM update 4. No idea where that source code is at.
More Software News
Gnome Ecosystem
- This Week in GNOME: #264 Version Picking
- Felipe Borges: Modernizing Fingerprint Management in GNOME Settings
- Michael Catanzaro: Don’t Forget: Unset Confidentiality on Private Issue Reports
- Felipe Borges: Call for Mentors for Outreachy (Dec 2026)
- Peter Eisenmann: Fellowship Report August 2026 (Rivendell)
- Sophie Herold: GNOME Fellowship August 2026
- Sophie Herold: Introduction of GNOME RFC Process: Start of Final Comment Period
- Phoronix: GNOME Stakeholders Discussing RFC Process For Solving Major Technical Changes
Phosh
- Phosh.mobi Blog: Development News August 2026
- Phosh (gotosocial): Save the date: We're having our next real life community get together at 2026-10-09 to 2026-10-11 at @datenburg@bonn.social ...
- Phosh: @craftyguy We're glad @senderolinux uses #Phosh for that and Matt is also a supporting member of our @ev (https://ev.phosh.mobi/about/supporting-members/) association which is much appreciated.
- phosh: Phosh's caffeine quick setting (☕) can be used to prevent the system from going idle and from suspending.This can be tweaked now so that one can have the system go idle but not suspend.Very useful on Qualcomm based 📱 so one can prevent the system from suspending (to receive incoming phone calls and SMS) but still have blank and lock work as expected.#phosh #LinuxMobile #linux #mobile #gtk #caffeine
Plasma Ecosystem
- Nate Graham: This Week in Plasma: So Many Ways to Click and Scroll
- Volker Krause: State of the Map 2026
- Nate Graham: Bug triaging help needed
- Nate Graham and John Veness: This Month in KDE Linux: August 2026
- tintotint: KDE Connect redesign is ready for testing
- Phoronix: KDE Plasma 6.8 Lands Windows-Like Auto-Scrolling, Lower vRAM Usage For Breeze Theme
Sailfish OS
- Announcements - Sailfish OS Forum: Community meeting on September 17, 2026
- The Official Jolla Blog: Jolla Phone spare parts and accessories
- jolla: "More goodies for your Jolla Phone! We’ve just added the first Jolla Phone spare parts to our shop: the Original Replacement Battery and the Camera Lens Kit are now available for those looking to keep their Jolla Phone going strong for many years to come ⛵ And we’re not stopping there - we’ve also found promising suppliers for quality headsets, wallet cases and more, so stay tuned! Thanks for being part of the Jolla community and keeping the spirit of openness, curiosity and tinkering alive. 🫶Read more and join the discussion at the Official Jolla Blog: https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/32879 #Jolla #SailfishOS #DigitalSovereignty #PrivacyFirst #CommunityPowered #European"
- abranson: "Good news for Rustacians on Sailfish OS. PRs just opened to update Rust to 1.95 with LLVM and Clang to version 20, for building Gecko ESR153.https://github.com/sailfishos/rust/pull/27https://github.com/sailfishos/llvm/pull/8"
- #sailfishOS: Great attention to details by @jolla - high quality screen protector with privacy filter (really smooth for swipe gestures). It doesn't end there, the screen protector comes with an applicator! Great for someone like me who can never do a successful application on the first try. Lastly, decision paralysis on which TOH to outfit the #JollaPhone on my trip to Slovenia!#SailfishOS #privacyfirst
- Commodore: Callback Manufacturing Samples & an OS Demo
Ubuntu Touch
- UBports Forums OS: Call for testing: UBports Installer update
- Ubuntu Touch Forums News: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 198 call for questions
- Ubuntu Touch Forums News: Q&A 197 Blog and Audio now available
- fredldotme: "Flashing my Fairphone 5, an Ubuntu Touch device,from my JingPad, also an Ubuntu Touch device.This is fun and functional. :)"
- UBports - Development - Merge Requests: Add Halium 15+ detection, host HAL fragment and host binder patches
- #UbuntuTouch: With #UbuntuTouch on Lenovo Tab M8 with google maps in morph browser I actually get the "Layers" button that can enable the 3D Globe view. Google usually doesn't want you to have that in a mobile browser because... actually I have no idea why.
- #UbuntuTouch: Just got my first mobile device migrated from Android to Ubuntu Touch.I was expecting this Sunday project to take a few hours, but it didn't take even one. 👏 👏 Let's see what it has to offer and how it holds up in the coming weeks.#ubuntu #ubuntutouch #mobile #mobileos #alternatives
MarathonShell
Distributions
- postmarketOS blog: postmarketOS // in 2026-08: Conferences
- Breaking updates in pmOS edge: device-pine64-pinephonepro: Switching to u-boot and systemd-boot
- postmarketOS (Mastodon): We are excited to have great speakers and a broad spectrum of topics for the upcoming postmarketOS and @alpinelinux conference! 😀The schedule is now live:https://pretalx.postmarketos.org/postmarketos-conference-2026/schedule/Matrix and IRC:#conference:postmarketos.org#postmarketos-conference on OFTC IRCMore information:https://postmarketos.org/conference/ These schedules are also available in KDE's Kongress app and Giggity for Android for easy viewing.#kde #kongress #giggity
- craftyguy: "Upgrade complete! We can now build pmOS #duranium images for more devices. Starting slow to monitor builder scalability, so only going to add a few more initially.More devices mean more chances to try immutable #Linux on phones. More testers means faster bug spotting & feedback ❤Which device do you want to test? Only pmOS supported devices with EFI boot can be added. Have another in mind that's not in the poll? Let us know!The current list of devices/images is here: https://duranium.postmarketos.org/"
- postmarketOS pmaports Merge Requests: Draft: Add 10 Sony devices based on a single shared -next kernel
- @dos@librem.one: PureOS 10 Byzantium has now reached its end of life. No further updates, including security updates, will be provided for Byzantium.If you’re still on PureOS 10, please upgrade urgently.#pureos #librem5
- parchlinux: We’re currently working on Parch Immutable, an immutable edition of Parch GNU/Linux that is planned to become the foundation of our future commercial project, Apadana.Right now, Parch Immutable is built around bootc, and we’re testing its potential as a stable, lightweight, and modern operating system for personal desktops.In the initial beta release, software installation will primarily be handled through Flatpak.…
- danctnix: Arch Linux ARM / Ports for @pine64 #PinePhone / #PinePhonePro / #PineTab2 (2026/09/04) has released.https://codeberg.org/DanctNIX/Pine64-Arch/releases/tag/20260904------Intro for Linux/Win64/N64:https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=106983#DanctNIX #LinuxMobile #MobileLinux
- agx: "There were ppl interested in #immutable #Debian #OSImages for servers, clients and phones. We have an irc channel /matrix room for that now: https://matrix.to/#/#debian-immutable:matrix.debian.social . Join us if you're interested in that topic. Wiki page: https://wiki.debian.org/immutable#minidebconfch"
Apps
- Purism community: has anyone run bluebubbles on the librem 5
- anderslund: A small step for ... Pumoku at the #OP6T, and build on the very same device ❤️ Building went suprisingly swift, what took time was installing build dependencies, and finding courage in the first place ...If anyone is interrested, I could produce a tar archieve or stlt.#postmarketOS #pumoku #sudoku #plasmaMobile Posted using #tokodon on that same device too
- nekohayo: I've been looking for a #WiFi networks channels analyzer app for the #Linux desktop, like those found on F-Droid (such as WiFiAnalyzer), and couldn't find one on Flathub.Then, searching more broadly, I discovered that Daniel Nylander, oldtime Swedish translator in #GNOME, has built exactly such an app in recent months, in #Python + GTK4 + libadwaita!I tried it out (just do "cd src/ && python app.py"), it works well.Flatpak enthusiasts, see https://github.com/yeager/wifi-analyzer/issues/2#LinuxMobile #MobileLinux
- webbeef: "Trying a new design for Beaver's homescreen: a scrolling page with sections you can re-order, and a fixed header (dubbed the canopy) that gets smaller when you scroll up. Feel very webby, not just a boring icon grid.Still WIP (no way to add / remove content yet...) but I think I like it!"
- T. H. Wright: Paraphrase. Anonymous Contributor writes: A Christian prayer requests tracking app designed to fill this part of the mobile app gap. It is programmed in Python/PySide6.
Kernel
- phone-devel: Re: (subset) [PATCH 0/4] Add supply names for PM6350 RPMh regulators on Fairphone 4
- phone-devel: [PATCH v2 0/4] sdm845: Configure USB3/DP combo properly
- phone-devel: [PATCH RFC v2 0/6] Speakers for Pixel 3 / 3 XL
- phone-devel: Re: (subset) [PATCH 0/3] NFC fixes for Pixel 3 / 3 XL and support for Pixel 3a / 3a XL
- phone-devel: [PATCH v3 0/2] wcd934x fixes
- phone-devel: [PATCH v2] mfd: wcd934x: set DMA mask on parent to silence "DMA mask not set"
- Phoronix: Linux Patches Posted For Initial Enablement Of The Apple A18 Pro + MacBook Neo
Stack
- toscalix: SPDX Cryptographic Algorithm List: summer 2026 update
- Phoronix: NetworkManager Works To Enforce AI Policy By Tricking AI Agents To Add A Canary
- Phoronix: XDC 2026 Will Feature Many Interesting Talks: Vulkan Gallium, OpenCL On CUDA & More
- Phoronix: InputPlumber 0.79 Adds Support For More Handhelds
Matrix
- Matrix.org: This Week in Matrix 2026-09-04
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!