LINux on MOBile

The last Weekly Update of the Year is surprisingly nurturing:

• postmarketOS have put out a new stable release,
• DanctNIX released new install images of their Arch Linux ARM tailored to PINE64 devices,
• Megapixels 2.0 Alpha supports a lot of additional devices,
• libcamera 0.4 delivers some nice improvments,
• a new Phosh release just around the corner + a retrospective, ... and way, way more!

Just in case you don't make it to the end: Thank you for your continued support, have a great new year 2025!¹

Commentary in italics.

Worth Reading

• Phosh.mobi blog: Phosh 2024 in Retrospect
• postmarketOS Blog: v24.12: The One With Androids & Cameras, But It's Mainline Linux
• Martijn Braam: BodgeOS pt.3: Graphical desktop. Mobile support wen? ;-)
• PINE64: Please refrain from installing WASP-OS on new PineTimes for the moment

Worth Watching

• magdesign: sxmop6_libretranslate.sh demo
• RTP Tech Tips: Concerns / Simple Drone Tracking Idea... (Tested)
• Anino Ni Kugi: Outer Wilds Lockscreen + Media Player | Ubuntu Touch with Lomiri Plus
• 9to5Linux: Linux Phones Just Got Better! postmarketOS 24.12 - Camera Breakthrough #linux #postmarketos #shorts
• SomaliBall Edits (Winatech): Samsung really copied Ubuntu Touch ☠️ #shorts#samsung#tech#subscribe#ubuntu
• Rikerlinux: Is Ubuntu Touch the best mobile Linux for Smartphones? See Sailfish OS running Android Apps

38C3

• dcz: libobscura: Cameras are difficult - media.ccc.de
  • ollieparanoid: "Just watched the #38c3 #libobscura talk from @dcz. I especially liked the idea form, very visual explanation of feedback loop and credits roll. Great project and awesome presentation! 😀https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-libobscura-cameras-are-difficult"
• minute: 7 Years Later: Why And How To Make Portable Open Hardware Computers - media.ccc.de

Worth Noting

• pi_crew: Looking at #38c3 for differences of two PCB boards of Xperia #XA2. One phone was confiscated by police from an #climatejustice activist and released more than 2 years later with the notes by prosecution that they couldn't get it unlocked. It is encrypted with #sailfishos#linuxphone #crypto @jolla
• beacondb: We just hit 800k cell towers?!? This jump in new cell towers being discovered is actually crazy. Thanks everyone ❤️Graph by @pinguin: https://beacondb.derpingu.in/cell.svg
• cas: "folks, can we pick between #LinuxMobile and #MobileLinux and not have to use both?I prefer the first one, and i think its more popular too, but im ok with putting it to a vote :p"
• #MobileLinux: This week's donation went to the Waydroid project.
• foss_public_alert_server: "Are you curious about our new infrastructure and can't wait to see what's possible? Yes? Now, you get your hands on an early testing version. We have set up a first test instance of the FOSS Public Alert Server for you to play with under https://alerts.volkerkrause.eu. To use it, you can install a pre-release of #FOSSWarn https://github.com/nucleus-ffm/foss_warn/releases/tag/pre-1.0.0-alpha_0 (Be aware that this release is not yet ready for production and is for testing only)Any questions? Find us on the #38c3#FPAS"
  • VolkerKrause: "And in case you couldn't follow it live yesterday, here is the recording of @Jbb's great #Transitous talk at #38C3: https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-transitous-offener-routingdienst-fr-ffentliche-verkehrsmittel (with #KDE Itinerary also briefly appearing in a live demo)"

Hardware Enablement

• #LinuxMobile: After this mr is merged, there will be at least 3 ex-android devices on postmarketOS with rear and front camera working, this is awesome!!!https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/merge_requests/5941#postmarketOS #LinuxMobile
• adrianyyy: "Obligatory "camera is beginning to work on my PostmarketOS device" post (yes, it's the 5MP macro without actuator at the moment, but hey!)"
• adrianyyy: "I finally managed to get panel working on the Xiaomi 12. I would like to curse at Qualcomm for the mistake I had in my panel driver for the last year, because it was not obvious at all. Anyways, time to get SM8450 working in all its glory from here! So much is already done :D"
• hexaheximal: https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/merge_requests/5949 ODROID C4 postmarketOS!!!#PostMarketOS #MobileLinux #Linux #FLOSS #Amlogic #ODROID

More Software News

Distributions

• postmarketOS Blog: v24.12: The One With Androids & Cameras, But It's Mainline Linux
  • Lemmy - postmarketOS: v24.12: The One With Androids & Cameras, But It's Mainline Linux
• Mobian mobian-recipes Merge Requests: build: Bail on error
• DanctNIX: Arch Linux ARM - 2024/12/23
• osnews: "A systemd-sysupdate Plugin for GNOME Software In late June 2024 I got asked to take over the work started by Jerry Wu creating a systemd-sysupdate plugin for Software. The goal was to allow Software to update sysupdate targets, such as base system images or system extension images, all while respecting the user’s preferences such as whether to download updates on metered connections. To do sohttps://www.osnews.com/story/141427/a-systemd-sysupdate-plugin-for-gnome-software/#Gnome"

Apps

• martijnbraam: "And tadaa, I've tagged the first release of Megapixels 2.0 :Dhttps://blog.brixit.nl/megapixels-2-0-alpha-release/"
• kop316: "Hi all!In time for the holidays, I released a 1.0 release of GTK-Mesgtastic-Client: https://gitlab.com/kop316/gtk-meshtastic-client/-/tags/1.0 . I decided on the 1.0 release as I think several folks have been using it (to success), and I have likewise been using it with success."
• tpikonen: "Hey, check out the new gPodder #podcatcher release 3.11.5 featuring a new subscription statistics extension, Podverse search and system dark/light mode support on Linux.Download the installer, get it from #Flathub on Linux, or wait a while for packages in your distro. Also available as an adaptive version for #mobileLinux.https://github.com/gpodder/gpodder/releases#gpodder #podcasts"
• martijnbraam: I keep doing Megapixels releases this week :P Now there's also Megapixels 1.8.3 to import fixes for libtiff 4.7.0 from libdng into the old Megapixels 1.x codebase
• martijnbraam: "Got the full-color YUV preview pipeline working in Megapixels 2, Should help a lot on the platforms where getting bayer-encoded camera streams is not working. This means postprocessing isn't really possible but it's better than nothing. Here running with an UVC webcam for testing."
• afranke: ❄️ are not the only kind of fractals that drop in winter. Here’s #Fractal 10.beta!https://discourse.gnome.org/t/fractal-10-beta-released/25842#Matrix #GNOME
• pi_crew: "Got the Flutter app Maily running on Linux, probably the first mail app which could be useable on mobile phones 🤩 #postmarketOS #38C3"
• pi_crew: Oh wow K9/Thunderbird Android apps running with Android Translation Layer as GTK-apps on @postmarketOS . Until now only setting up the mail account works.
• pi_crew: It builds now \o/ But fails to run :( https://gitlab.com/dekkan/dekko/-/merge_requests/148#note_2276133074 #38C3 #postmarketOS #mobileLinux. This is about flatpak-ing Dekko, the Ubuntu Touch Mail app.
• anderslund: "Logical pencilmark errors in #PuMoKu :D(A logical pencilmark error is that a pencilmark is set for a digit that is present in either of the cells houses.)The entire cell is highlighted, so you are still required to look around and figure out which mark causes the error. Displaying the error in the culprit pencilmark only is easy to do - do you think I should make that possible, or even default for displaying such errors?#plasmamobile #plasma #kde #sudoku #linuxphone #fossphone"
• jmlich: Improved pairing and graphs in #Amazfish for Amazfit Neo 🎉https://github.com/piggz/harbour-amazfish/pull/442https://github.com/piggz/harbour-amazfish/pull/444

Gnome Ecosystem

• This Week in GNOME: #180 Image Editing
• Planet GNOME: Everybody Struggles: Struggles, Lessons And Growth
• Phoronix: GNOME Image Viewer Adds Image Editing Support
• Phoronix: GNOME Added Many New Features This Year Amid Foundation Woes

Phosh

• Phosh.mobi blog: Phosh 2024 in Retrospect
  • Lemmy - linuxphones: Phosh 2024 in Retrospect
• Phosh (Mastodon): Dear distro, maintainers and "I build my own stuff" people: In case you want to check out 0.44.0 upfront: we've tagged the first releases candidates (0.44~rc1) of #phosh and related components today. 🎉 Release is planned 2024-12-31 (https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/phosh/-/wikis/Releases) There's some rough edges still but we still aim to make the release date.
• #phosh: Looks like the latest @phosh -rc brings in some nice eye candy improvements: visible background in the app overview, background transparency on the quick settings/notifications page, it almost feels like a christmas present! 😃️🌲️#Phosh #LinuxMobile #MobileLinux #LinuxOnMobile

Plasma Ecosystem

• Carl Schwan et al.: This Week in KDE Apps: #38c3
• Volker Krause: KDE @ 38C3
• #plasmamobile: Boxing day fun: constructing a simple undo stack :p#plasmamobile #pumoku #sudoku #plasma #kde #linux #linuxphone #postmarketos

Sxmo

• #sxmo: this one nearly drove me crazy... since years we have a very ugly, non mobile friendly, filepicker in #sxmo #linuxmobile (image1).after countless hours and asking so many people for help (thx @agx ) finally a writeup on how to configure yazi (image2) as your default filepicker. https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/User:Magdesign#Filepicker
• pocketvj: "finally two nice language translators landed in #sxmo #pmos #linuxmobile.i was so annoyed about not having a decent offline translator on my phone that i finally created my own.running with #apertium or #libretranslate,having a conversation mode (to flip languages), a speak module reading out loud the translations (to learn!), and automaticaly put translations into clipboard (see https://odysee.com/@sharinggoodmoments:2/sxmop6_translate).time to learn some spanish..,"

Sailfish OS

• #sailfishOS: @jackdaniel 👍ECL keeps delivering. I'm currently working on an app that works on desktop, #SailfishOS, Android and (probably) iOS thanks to LQML¹.I can just develop and preview on desktop and 95% will just work on the other platforms.¹) https://gitlab.com/eql/lqml
• #sailfishOS: My #JollaC2 Community Edition phone is finally fully working and I'm spending a bit of time getting to know it.I like the physical feel, although some aspects will take a little getting used to (big screen, rounded corners, notch). I do appreciate the subtle touches like "Privacy from Finland" printed on the camera bump. Captures the spirit of #SailfishOS.Can't deny I'm thrilled to see #Gecko ESR91 running on it.Now to spend some time getting the software set up just right!
• pi_crew: "Finally installed and trying the new #gecko browser 91.13.1 for #SailfishOS ported by @flypig on Xperia #XA2 Therefore we switched from Sauna-release (4.6.0.15) to Tampella release (5.0.0.43), which is officially only available for the new #JollaC2 but after dist-upgrade the XA2, phone and gecko browser is luckily working! 😃 #38c3"

Ubuntu Touch

• Ubuntu Touch Forums News: Seasons Greetings come 24.04 shaped
• UBports - Development - Issues: Contact's photo to be enlarged while receiving a phone call
• UBports - Development - Issues: [devel-noble] Lomiri stutters when entering/exitting full screen mode
• UBports - Development - Issues: [devel-noble] provide a mechanism for UT major release upgrade
• UBports - Development - Issues: [devel-noble] provide a way for ports to provide additional parameters for pa-modules-droid (via Deviceinfo preferably)
• UBports - Development - Issues: [devel-noble] set QT_LOGGING_RULES to silence Connections and Binding.restoreMode deprecations warning
• UBports - Development - Issues: Create a replacement for upstart-watchdog
• #UbuntuTouch: @deltatouch Thanks for this awesome app - my daily messenger on #UbuntuTouch :-)
• Phoronix: Ubuntu's Great Year From 24.04 LTS To Focusing More On Performance Optimizations

Kernel

• phone-devel: Re: [PATCH] arm64: dts: qcom: sm7225-fairphone-fp4: Drop extra qcom,msm-id value
• phone-devel: Re: [PATCH] arm64: dts: qcom: sm6350: Fix uart1 interconnect path

Stack

• dylanvanassche: "iio-sensor-proxy 3.6-RC1 is just released! Just in time before Christmas! 🥳🥳🥳Me and @agx took over the maintenance from @hadessuk a while back and this is our first release.This release is packed with many nice features and bugfixes! If all turns out well, we will tag a final 3.6 release soon.https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/hadess/iio-sensor-proxy/-/releases/3.6-RC1#sensors #Linux #linuxmobile"
• libcamera: libcamera v0.4.0
• Martijn Braam: Megapixels 2.0 alpha release
• Phoronix: Linux 6.13-rc5 Released To Cap Off Linus Torvalds' Birthday Week
• Phoronix: Mesa's Terrific Year With Better Vulkan Ray-Tracing, NVK Progress & Same-Day Vulkan 1.4

Matrix

• Matrix.org: The Matrix Holiday Special 2024

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 the hedgedoc 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!