LINux on MOBile

It was Cell Broadcast Test week in Germany, Droidian 101 was released, Jolla launch a voluntary subscription, Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.0 Call for Testing and more! Enjoy!

Commentary in italics.

Worth Reading

• Hackaday: A Look At Not An Android Emulator
• LinuxLinks: Volla Phone Quintus running Ubuntu Touch: Linux Desktop Applications
• Purism: Closing the App Gap; Focus and Momentum
• Purism: Mousai App Now Available
• Ulrich@feddit.org: Linux phones are more important now than ever

Worth Watching

• Luigi Tech: THE YEAR OF LINUX ON SMARTPHONE.. MAYBE. If it gets a MAYBE on just about the slowest hardware, that's a win, correct?
• NextLVLProgramming: What Is Jolla's Role In Sailfish OS? - Next LVL Programming
• Nostalgitech: Linux Mobile smartphone with Ubuntu Touch Demo on LG Nexus 5
• Helpdroid: HACKER SMARTPHONE! Pixel on Ubuntu Touch #helpdroid
• Nostalgitech: My surprise at FOSDEM2025 - FuriPhone FLX1 a 5G Linux Mobile
• Hack Around: "$5, 9-Year-Old Phone… Running AI?!"
• Yazılım Teknisyeni: Ubuntu Touch Update

Worth Noting

• phosh: "There were successful tests of #Cellbroadcast at Bundesweiter #Warntag 2025 on @postmarketOS ( https://fosstodon.org/@z3ntu/115184859174052676 ) (by @z3ntu) and on @mobian ( https://ruhr.social/@agx/115184872311438441 ) (by @agx) on three different 📱models (with and without Qualcomm SoCs) with #Phosh 0.49. 🎉For things to work out of the box: On Qualcomm SoCs you need at least #ModemManager 1.25.1 , Debian/Mobian waits for cellbroadcastd to enter the archive #LinuxMobile"
• z3ntu: Cell broadcast is working flawlessly with the latest ModemManager with #Phosh on #postmarketOS!#MobileLinux #LinuxMobile
• VolkerKrause: #KDE's upcoming emergency alert integration based on @foss_public_alert_server seems to have worked flawlessly for Germany's nationwide test alert.
• tbernard: "Congratulations to the winners of our Summer of GNOME OS challenge 🎉🎉1. Ada Magicat (40 points)2. Ignacy Kuchciński (37 points)3. Forteller (26 points)This was very much an experiment, but everyone I talked to said it was surprisingly smooth, and they'll continue to daily drive GNOME OS.Thanks to everyone who participated, it was a lot of fun! And thanks even more to the GNOME OS team for getting us this far, especially @Valentin, Abderrahim, @alatiera, @AdrianVovk, and @jjardon!"
• austriancoder: "And here we go! Took a bit longer than expected to clean things up, but I’m pretty happy with the result.https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/merge_requests/37320#etnaviv #mesa3d"
• MishaalRahman: "🗃Android 16 QPR1’s source code is nowhere to be found, but Google swears it’s comingGoogle's latest AOSP delay has reignited fears about Android's open source future. Hopefully this delay doesn't become the new norm!🔗 https://www.androidauthority.com/android-16-qpr1-source-code-delay-3596650/"
• foss_warn: "📢 #FOSSWarn 1.0.0 is now released. We've put a lot of work into this, and now it is time to share it with everyone. After about one year of development, we finally have:- completely new server infrastructure- Push notifications with UnifiedPush- a cleaned-up codebase- experimental Linux supportPlease open the app after the upgrade and set it up again.Read the full release notes here:https://github.com/nucleus-ffm/foss_warn/wiki/Release-notes-for-FOSSWarn-1.0.0And here you can find the GitHub release:https://github.com/nucleus-ffm/foss_warn/releasesIt will take some days until this update arrives on F-Droid.#fdroid #nlnet #fosspublicalertserver"
• okias: "People often ask me: How can you “sell a Linux phone” to a regular user? In Europe, the answer is simple — just look at the software options and who controls them: - Apple (US)- Google (US)- Huawei (China) Now compare that with:Linux and its community — independent and open.In the long run, Linux phones aren’t just an alternative, they’re the smarter choice for anyone who values sovereignty, privacy, and true digital freedom.#LinuxMobile #Mobian #postmarketOS #Linux #smartphone"
• NGIZero: "The European Commission has issued a survey on the Governance and Sustainability of Critical Open Source Software.The survey hopes to identify "pathways for collective efforts" and make "actionable recommendations for public administrations".It's a relatively short survey, takes max 15 minutes & provides lots of opportunities to rate FOSS as 'very important' 😛https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/FOSSEPS_Governance_and_Sustainability_Survey#FOSS #governance #NGI #NGI0"
• katzenmann: Hey #postmarketOS community. I need some help finishing my driver for the rear camera focus on the Google Pixel 3a.Please feel free to test this code here: https://gitlab.com/sdm670-mainline/linux/-/merge_requests/8and leave feedback and suggestions. Thank you!#Pixel3a #mobilelinux
• transpute: Delayed Security Patches for AOSP (Android Open Source Project)

More Software News

Gnome Ecosystem

• This Week in GNOME: #216 Growing Community
• GNOME Shell & Mutter: GNOME Kiosk Updates
• Allan Day: GNOME Foundation Update, 2025-09-12
• Alice Mikhaylenko: Libadwaita 1.8
• Marcus Lundblad: Maps and GNOME 49
• Georges Basile Stavracas Neto: Marks and counters in Sysprof
• Phoronix: libadwaita 1.8 Released Ahead Of GNOME 49

Phosh

• agx: Finally got to add support for getting emergency numbers from mobile-broadband-provider-info into #gnome #calls. I guess once that landed we can turn emergency calling on by default in #phosh .
• #phosh: Which of these two smartphones should I buy to run postmarketOS?#postmarketos #mobilelinux #phosh #gnomeonmobileXiaomi POCO X3 NFCXiaomi Mi 9T / Redmi K20
• #phosh: @phosh @z3ntu @agx @postmarketOS @mobianCongratulations!Unfortunately, my #PinePhone was switched off that day, i.e. I couldn't check, if it works. Esp. without #SIM.#Mobian #Phosh
• #phosh: @markgrieveson I'm using the OnePlus 6T with #postmarketos as second phone and it look every day better. You can use it (almost) as a daily driver. The PITA was and is the camera. Brw: this message was written on Tuba (a really nice Mastodon client on #phosh).

Plasma Ecosystem

• KDE Announcements: KDE Ships Frameworks 6.18.0
• KDE Announcements: KDE Gear 25.08.1
• KDE Announcements: KDE Plasma 6.4.5, Bugfix Release for September

Sxmo

• #sxmo: OK. So I've dug my #pinephone back out, with an eye towards using it with a VoIP softphone. Does anybody have recommendations for one that works happily under #postmarketos #sxmo ?
• @pocketvj@fosstodon.org: is there any nice and simple terminal based guitar tuner for #linuxmobile ?@orhun

Sailfish OS

• jolla: "We’ve opened a voluntary subscription for Sailfish OS This is your chance to support the development and the community services that keep Sailfish OS alive and independent. Your contribution helps:⚓ Keep Sailfish OS open and improving⚓ Maintain essential services like the Forum, OBS & translations⚓ Provide a real alternative outside of big techEvery contribution matters. Together, we can secure the future of Sailfish OS.Join the discussion here: https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/sailfish-os-voluntary-subscription/24697Support directly at the Jolla Shop: https://commerce.jolla.com/products/sailfish-os-voluntary-subscription#SailfishOS #Jolla"
• #sailfishOS: Skipped the Friday beer and signed a subscription for supporting the Sailfish OS development and running community services. Europe needs a thriving and vibrant alternative to Android and iOS.Sailfish woke the little geek in me ...#SailfishOS #OpenSource
• #sailfishOS: @daniel have you tried any of the Linux based systems out there? I liked sailfish, but the lack of native applications stops me from daily driving it. #linux #sailfishos

Ubuntu Touch

• UBports News: Ubuntu Touch 24.04 1.0 Call for Testing
• UBports News: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 172
• UBports - Development - Issues: Fill in 24.04-1.x changelog

Distributions

• droidian: Droidian 101 released! Get it while it's hot... https://github.com/droidian-images/droidian/releases/tag/droidian%2F101.20250906 OTA update pushed to everyone tracking the current update channel. Have fun! #MobileLinux #Droidian #phosh #gtk #plasma #plasmamobile
• droidian: "This took a while... some highlights:* Debian sid, as of 2025-08-08* phosh 0.49.0:* GNOME 48* (Experimental!) Plasma Mobile 6.3* Android 13-based images for Waydroid* New devices: Lenovo Thinkphone by Motorola (bronco), Volla Phone Quintus (algiz), Volla Tablet (mimir)* Countless bug fixes... others introduced"
• droidian: A big THANK YOU to everyone who contributed for this release! See you soon for Droidian 102...
• Phoronix: Fedora 43 Beta Being Released Next Week
• postmarketOS Blog: The CoC Team are here
• postmarketOS (Mastodon): Happy to announce that @adrianyyy is our latest Trusted Contributor!He has been active in the pmOS community for almost two years and is known for maintaining Qualcomm SM7150 devices, doing kernel development and U-Boot bringup, making more devices boot generic images and even Improving musl support in the Rust compiler.Furthermore he runs a monthly mainlining meetup at the CCCAC 🥳 📜 TC page:https://postmarketos.org/trusted-contributors/#jens-reidel-adrian🐧 Mainlining meetup:https://ccc.ac/post/2025-03-09-mainlining-evenings
• postmarketOS mobile-config-firefox tags: 4.6.1
• collabora: "The @debian Trixie release is jam-packed with new features thanks to the efforts of many. See where Collabora contributed to upgraded @gnome components, newer @pipewire versions, and more! https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/debian-trixie-the-2025-flavor-release.html#OpenSource"

Apps

• strypey: "If you use mobile apps, I strongly encourage you to figure out how to pay app developers who publish full source code, under free licenses.Especially those who go to the effort to make their apps work on the Mobile GNU OS, as well as the duopoly mobile OS (Android and iOS). So you can keep using them if you escape Goggle and grApple's clutches, by getting a Mobile GNU device like the PinePhone or Librem5 (and hopefully many more to come)(1/?)#SoftwareFreedom #MobileApps #MobileGNU"
• LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Inspector
• LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Mini Text
• LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Sudoku
• LinuxPhoneApps.org: Apps: Apostrophe
• #MobileLinux: Check out this website with LibAdwaita Apps in One Place:https://arewelibadwaitayet.com/#MobileLinux #GNOME #LibAdwaita #opensource #FOSS #apps #Linux #CloseTheAppGap #AppGap

Kernel

• phone-devel: [PATCH RESEND 0/9] samsung,coreprimevelte DTS additions
• phone-devel: [PATCH v4 0/4] Marvell PXA1908 power domains
• phone-devel: [PATCH v4 0/3] Marvell 88PM886 PMIC GPADC driver
• Phoronix: 62 Patches Posted For Stripping Classic Initrd Support From The Linux Kernel
• Phoronix: Bcachefs Outlines Plans For Shipping As A DKMS Out-Of-Tree Kernel Module
• Phoronix: GCC Rust Compiler Continues Quest To Compile The Linux Kernel Crate
• Phoronix: Linux 6.17 Fix Lands To Address Regression With "Serious Breakage" In Hibernation
• Phoronix: Linux 6.18 Will Further Complicate Non-GPL Out-Of-Tree File-Systems
• Phoronix: Linux 6.18 To Introduce Pixpaper DRM Driver, boot_display DRM Attribute

Stack

• Phoronix: Firefox Finally Introducing Matroska / MKV Playback Support
• Phoronix: PipeWire 1.4.8 Improves Compatibility With Apple Home Pod Mini Speakers
• Phoronix: Mesa Drops VDPAU Video Acceleration In Favor Of VA-API
• Phoronix: Samba 4.23 Released With SMB3 Over QUIC, SMB3 Unix Extensions By Default
• Phoronix: Fwupd 2.0.16 Released With New Search Feature, Fixes For FreeBSD Firmware Updates

Matrix

• Matrix.org: This Week in Matrix 2025-09-12

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?

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