Weekly GNU-like Mobile Linux Update (46/2025): Plasma Mobile 6.5 and new Jolla hardware
Table of Contents
This past week: Plasma Mobile 6.5 released with big updates, Updates on the progress of Ubuntu Touch, SailfishOS and PureOS, Marathon OS debuts as a BlackBerry 10-inspired mobile Linux shell/distro, Valve's Steam Frame VR headset could boost mobile Linux through FEX and Waydroid, FOSDEM 2026 stands approved for postmarketOS and friends, and more. Enjoy!
Commentary in italics.
Worth Reading
- Plasma Mobile: Plasma Mobile 6.5
- Purism: PureOS Crimson Development Report: October 2025
- The Privacy Dad: Using Droidian on a Google Pixel 3AXL Phone
- LinuxPhoneApps.org Blog: Mid Q4 Progress Report: 15 apps added, not much else
Worth Watching
- UBports: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 178. Nice one!
- CHANNEL RAMBLE: Installing Ubuntu Touch on the Google Pixel 2
- CHANNEL RAMBLE: Windowing on a Linux Phone…
- Blake Karbon: Review of Linux Phones
- Nostalgitech: KDE Plasma Mobile v6 before lunch - Tablet mimic experience #linux #raspberrypi
- Scientific Perspective: Kdenlive in action! | SDM845 | postmarketOS
- Phosh: Alert slider on a OnePlus 6T running Phosh
- Phosh: Thumnailing in Phosh's file selector
- Phosh: Phosh's location and caffeine quick settings
- sw7ft-tech: Hackberry Pi CM5 review with #marathon shell , feels like #BB10 #blackberry #linux #keyboard #phone. For more on that shell, check 'Worth Noting'.
- Schweem: Can Void Linux Dethrone Arch on the PinePhone? (A 2025 Deep Dive)
Worth Noting
- neil: "Google is starting to retreat on its "developer government ID verification" plan, thank goodness.But the devil will be in the detail, and Google's positioning that wanting to install software on your own device makes you a "power user" is concerning.The notion that you need to be an "experienced user" to use @fdroidorg, for instance, is nonsense.But still: keeping up the pressure appears to be working. A little.https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/11/android-developer-verification-early.html"
- Lemmy.ca - linuxphones: Building a Linux Phone
- kde: #Valve announces desktop machine and #VR goggles powered by KDE's #Plasma desktop.https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steammachinehttps://store.steampowered.com/sale/steamframe
- Lenni: Really excited about Valve's Steam Frame VR headset, but mostly because of its software. It runs Linux on a Snapdragon SoC and will be able to emulate x86 games through FEX and Android games most likely through #Waydroid, so they'll probably bring those projects much further like they did with Wine/Proton. Especially the Waydroid part might help #MobileLinux. Official FEX support and possibly a native ARM Steam Client would also be really nice obviously.#Valve #Frame #Deckard #linuxonmobile
- @luigi311: Not sure if any of the #mobilelinux people have seen it but looks like theres a new mobile linux distro out there with a new custom UI built on QT6 inspired by the blackberry days. It seems like a nice UI design, quickly ran on my PT2. Its immutable and looks like its enabling PREEMPT_RT to reduce latency in the UX. So far it looks like its only been tested on a #OnePlus6 but hopefully theres more and hopefully its shell makes it up to #postmarketos directly https://marathonos.xyz/ If you are curious it looks like they tested with and without that PREEMPT_RT kernel option and posted the results herehttps://github.com/patrickjquinn/Marathon-Shell/blob/main/docs/RT_SCHEDULING.md#expected-results-oneplus-6--librem-5Seems like a pretty good UX improvement. Wonder if it has any downsides and if it should be enabled on other mobile linux distros.
Camera
- pavel: "Got #megapixels to work on #oneplus6 (with some hacks). AE does something, AF does something, I apparently can take photo. Good start. (#postmarketos)"
- pavel: Front camera on OnePlus 6 now "works" with libmegapixels. Good. More work ahead.
- #MobileLinux: 🎉 Now focus works fine with #OnePlus6 main camera.Thanks to cool cats from sdm845 mainlining for camera, c-phy and other stuff 😻I will clean up my changes and push it in a few days ⬆️@postmarketOS@social.treehouse.systems#mainlining #shotonmainline #mobilelinux #linuxonmobile
Hardware
- Progress regarding one of the three last major obstacles for the Fairphone 5 IMHO. The cause for the non functioning speakers is currently investigated by Alexander Ferrieux and others. Thanks, antonamo, for sharing this detail!
- Jolla: Next gen Jolla Phone update - 11/25 - Announcements - Sailfish OS Forum
Events
- FOSDEM: FOSDEM 2026 Accepted Stands. While I know that some stands were not approved, it's nice to see stands by Furi Labs, KDE, Linux on Mobile and postmarketOS!
- postmarketOS (Mastodon): Excited to announce that the FOSS on Mobile devroom returns for #fosdem 2026! 🥳Communities from multiple Linux Mobile projects come together there and hold talks about what was achieved, what challenges lie ahead, how we can collaborate to solve them, as well as random interesting things happening when replacing Google's Android on our phones.If you have been doing cool stuff in this ecosystem, we want to hear from you - consider submitting a talk!https://lists.fosdem.org/pipermail/fosdem/2025q4/003687.htmlThanks to @flypig from the Sailfish OS community for organizing the CfP and thanks to @fosdem for having us again!#FossOnMobile #linuxmobile #postmarketos #mobian #sailfish #ubports #DanctNIX #furios #phosh #sxmo #plasmamobile #gnomemobile #lomiri
- akademy: "Time to reveal the mystery!The city behind all those clues is… Graz, Austria!With its iconic Uhrturm, lively historic centre and irresistible sweet treats, it is the perfect place for #Akademy2026.We will share the exact dates very soon. Stay tuned!#Akademy #KDE@akademy@lemmy.kde.social"
More Software News
Gnome Ecosystem
- This Week in GNOME: #225 Volume Levels
- Allan Day: GNOME Foundation Update, 2025-11-14
- Christian Hergert: Status Week 45
Phosh
- Phosh: Phosh 0.51.0
- phosh: "phosh 0.51.0 is out 🚀📱:Another 6️⃣ weeks have passed and we have some new features, quality of life improvements, and 🐛 fixes. Check out the full release notes at https://phosh.mobi/releases/rel-0.51.0/ for details or see 👇 for a short 🧵🙏 to everyone who contributed to this release.#phosh #Librem5 #PinePhone #gtk #wlroots #gnome #linux #mobile #LinuxMobile"
Plasma Ecosystem
- Nate Graham: This Week in Plasma: OCR in Spectacle and many UI improvements
- Plasma Mobile: Plasma Mobile 6.5
- Carl Schwan et al.: This Week in KDE Apps
- KDE Announcements: KDE Ships Frameworks 6.20.0
- KDE Announcements: KDE Plasma 6.4.6, Bugfix Release for November
- Volker Krause: OSM Hack Weekends October and November 2025
- Nicolas Fella: A new online accounts system?
- #plasmamobile: #PlasmaMobile 6.5 was released three weeks ago. Time to talk about what it delivers.* Better Waydroid integration (Waydroid is the virtual environment that let's you install and run Android apps)* A faster and more convenient lock screen* Halcyon and Folio, the two different interfaces you can choose from, improve blurs, navigation, and settingsAnd much, much more.https://plasma-mobile.org/2025/11/10/plasma-6-5/#mobile #linuxMobile #Plasma6
- Phoronix: Plasma 6.6 Will Avoid Running Out Of RAM When Something Crashes In A Loop
Sxmo
Sailfish OS
- Community News - Sailfish OS Forum: Sailfish Community News, 13th November 2025 - xdg-shell
- Jolla: Next gen Jolla Phone update - 11/25 - Announcements - Sailfish OS Forum
- adampigg: Updated my SubSonic mobile media player Supersonik to support internet radio streams stored on your server. #kde #plasma #sailfishos https://github.com/piggz/supersonik
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 195
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 194
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 193
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 192
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 191
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 190
- flypig's NewPipe log: Day 189
- #sailfishOS: Pawel.spoon has done a bunch of great updates to the Tidal player app for #SailfishOS https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/tidal-app-discussion/ I've got builds on github at https://github.com/poetaster/harbour-tidalplayer/releases and chum is in the pipeline (you can test 0.3.0 with chum testing).
- #sailfishOS: SailfishOS 5.0.0.71 is now available for Sony Xperia 1 IV, and we can most likely expect a build for Xperia 5 IV made available next week. What is perhaps most important is that these builds include a dedicated release for Lineage OS images for SFOS! That can open up an exciting future...https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/sony-nagara-xperia-1iv-and-5iv-port/25136/117#SailfishOS #LineageOS
Ubuntu Touch
- Ubuntu Touch Forums News: Ubuntu Touch Q&A 178 call for questions.
- UBports - Development - Issues: [Qt 6] Move away from Qt private APIs and use libpsl to determine top-level domain (Follow-up from "Port to Qt 6")
- UBports - Development - Issues: [24.04.1.x] audio playback nit working
- UBports - Development - Issues: Add support for building against Qt 6
- UBports - Development - Issues: Feature request: Add scrobbling support (tracking listening activity)
- #UbuntuTouch: A few years ago, I was laughing at people who tried to run LibreOffice on their phones. Today, I'm doing the same foolish thing — and it works! I'll be giving a presentation about mobile Linux, from mobile Linux.#MobileLinux #FP5 #UbuntuTouch #LibreOffice
Maemo Leste
Distributions
- postmarketOS Blog: postmarketOS in 2025-10: Fairphone Camera Streak, Sxmo 1.18.0, SDM660 Enablements, MCF Rework, FLOSS/fund, LLVM for kernels, Better Docs
- Breaking updates in pmOS edge: Migration to LLVM for kernel builds
Apps
- Carl Schwan et al.: This Week in KDE Apps
- neobrain: "Cat's out of the bag:FEX, an emulator I've been working on these past 4 years, is going to be part of the Steam Frame to bring x86 Windows games to an ARM Linux VR headset! 😊https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmKrKTwtukE&t=205sReally happy to have been part of the journey and of the team that got FEX to where it is today. Can't wait for the release and community reception!#steamframe"
- erebion: "I really enjoy the reliability of calls with @dino and Conversations.- quality is quite decent- calls reliably connect- have not experienced any interrupted calls- requires little bandwidth, perfect for developing countries such as Germany#xmpp"
- LinuxPhoneApps.org Blog: Mid Q4 Progress Report: 15 apps added, not much else
Kernel
- phone-devel: [PATCH v3] ASoC: qcom: sdm845: set quaternary MI2S codec DAI to I2S format
- phone-devel: [PATCH v2 0/3] Add CAMSS support for SM6350
- phone-devel: [PATCH v2 3/5] interconnect: qcom: sm6350: Remove empty BCM arrays
Stack
- Phoronix: Servo 0.0.2 Released For Those Wanting To Try Out This Example Rust Web Browser
- Phoronix: Mesa 25.3 Released With Many Open-Source Vulkan Driver Improvements
- Phoronix: Vulkan 1.4.333 Released With New Ray-Tracing Extension
- Phoronix: Servo Shell Improvements For macOS & Android, More Servo Browser Engine Progress
- Phoronix: The Headaches Supporting Content Protection With Linux GPU Drivers
Matrix
- Matrix.org: This Week in Matrix 2025-11-14
Thanks
Huge thanks to Plata for the nifty set of Python scripts that speed up collecting links from feeds by a lot.
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