Linux Phones

The Other Half (TOH) is a swappable back cover that does more than protect your phone — it transforms it. The original Jolla Phone (2013) pioneered this with open I2C interface and NFC-enabled covers that changed themes and behaviour just by snapping on

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With the new Jolla Phone, we’re taking TOH even further — and we’ll open source the hardware and software interface specs so anyone can design, 3D-print, or produce their own modules. Primarily we plan that the new The Other Half interface would be based on I³C.

Just a few days ago, we reported on Jolla’s push for a new Linux phone, which needed at least 2,000 pre-orders to move forward. Now, only days later, there’s good news: interest in the device has surpassed all expectations.

Jolla’s community-funded smartphone project has cleared its production threshold, securing more than 3,200 pre-orders. The strong response ensures that the new Linux phone, developed under the Do It Together (DIT) model, will move forward into manufacturing, with Batch #1 already sold out and Batch #2 now available.

This past week: Jolla Phone pre-orders open for €499 with MediaTek 5G, 12GB RAM, replaceable battery, and physical privacy switch—hitting the 2,000-unit goal in under a week, (some) audio finally works on Fairphone 5 with postmarketOS, Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.1 and 20.04 OTA-11 expand VoLTE to Fairphone 4 and remaining Volla Phone 22 variants, Divine D reveals Rev 1.1 hardware architecture, Phosh contributors meeting dates confirmed for May 2026, and Alpine Linux 3.23.0 arrives. Enjoy!

Audio through speakers support for the FP5 on PostmarketOS also made a big breakthrough this week.

Finnish company Jolla started out 14 years ago where Nokia left off with MeeGo and developed Sailfish OS as a new Linux smartphone platform. Jolla released their first smartphone in 2013 after crowdfunding but ultimately the Sailfish OS focus the past number of years now has been offering their software stack for use on other smartphone devices. But now it seems they are trying again with a new crowd-funded smartphone.

Sailfish OS has supported a number of Sony Xperia smartphones and a variety of OnePlus / Samsung / Google / Xiaomi devices and more maintained by the community. Last year Jolla also announced an "AI computer" as part of the AI hardware craze. Now though they are apparently trying again at their own in-house smartphone.

This past week: RK3588's phone news: Liberux NEXX secures new funding after failed crowdfunding, dawndrums wraps up a major Divine D development phase; Wayland Protocols 1.46 brings experimental text input improvements, Flathub explores sustainable app maintenance that respects developers rather than exploiting them, postmarketOS seeks wallpaper votes for v25.12, Ubuntu Touch Q&A 179 delivers, a Phosh meetup happening Thursday in Bonn, some FOSDEM foreshadowing, and more. Enjoy!

This past week: Waydroid 1.6.0 adds native Android notification forwarding to the host, FEX makes running x86 Steam games on ARM phones remarkably easy, the farphone project shows how to repurpose smartphones as tiny web servers, postmarketOS calls for immutable Duranium testers, Fairphone 4 camera produces "90s-style" photos with mainline kernel, Ubuntu Touch working on move to Qt6, and a new mainlining community launches on the threadiverse. Enjoy!

The UBports team has officially released Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.1 and Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-11 as maintenance updates for supported devices.

The 24.04-1.1 update expands VoLTE support to additional hardware, including Fairphone 4 and the remaining Volla Phone 22 variants. Startup performance has been improved for users upgrading from the 20.04 series, reducing the first-boot delay.

Several long-standing issues have also been resolved, such as the media scanning daemon getting stuck at 100% CPU, notification badges not appearing for Phone and Messaging apps, and applications being unable to clear old notifications before posting new ones.

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!

Linux on mobile devices remains a niche effort in a world dominated by iOS and Android, but projects aiming to build a true alternative continue to move forward.

One of the newest of these is Marathon OS, a new mobile Linux system built around a Qt6-based Wayland compositor and a QML interface modeled directly on BlackBerry 10’s gesture navigation. The project inherits its core userspace from postmarketOS, which itself is built on Alpine Linux.

Hello all!

Due to the recent statements by Google (as well as their track record the last few years) I've decided I do not want to use Android as a phone operating system anymore. But Apple is just as bad, if not worse. So I've decided to build my own custom device.

I am working on building a phone using a single board computer, right now I'm using the raspberry pi 5. This is still a proof of concept, but I want to share my ideas with others, so like minded individuals can start messing around with this idea in their own homes to further this goal.

You can view more images of the device here, as well as the step by step instructions here (these are still very rough and incomplete) https://github.com/muhammadmanwar/cheaphone OR https://codeberg.org/muhammadmanwar/cheaphone

Right now it just runs raspberry pi OS, with a different desktop look and feel. Everything that normally works in a pi 5 works on this device, additionally I am experimenting with a Mobile Broadband modem, to allow the device to text and call, as well as access internet, like a normal phone off wifi

The total cost is around 200 dollars, not including the 3d printer to make the custom case.

This project is barely off the ground, and I've got a lot to learn before I can stop relying strictly on the raspberry pi 5, my end goal is to custom design SBCs, and release those designs for free alongside the plans for the device, so that interested parties can select their own System on a Chip to use for the device. I need to get into designing boards, I'm interested in trying Stephen Hawes' Lumen PnP (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlkTcxh-9gA) for that phase.

But that's for the future, for now, I'm hoping to get more people interested in the prototype so that I'm not the only one noodling around on this idea. I'd love some feedback, and if anyone was willing to put one together for testing, I would appreciate it greatly!

He will visit the great white north someday.