SamJun 29, 2025

It is so cool!
I am by no means an expert in those things but I got a linux OS running on a new smartphone.
This is a Fairphone 6 running PostmarketOS with Phosh and I love it.
Thank you @postmarketOS @phosh for all the great work.

This post was sent from the fairphone with @Tuba 🥳
A really great software for the fediverse even on a small mobile screen.
#fairphone #fairphone6 #phosh #mobilelinux #postmarketos

Show threadSamJun 29, 2025

To be fair, there are still a few things missing to use it as a daily driver. Network and internet works only through USB and the OS runs on a SD-Card. The camera, audio, calls, mobile data etc. doesn't work right now.
On the postmarketOS wiki is a list with (not)working features: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Fairphone_(Gen._6)_(fairphone-fp6)

My experience is somewhat similar. The battery reporting is missing on my device but I think thats only because of missing knowledge on my side 😄

Fairphone (Gen. 6) (fairphone-fp6) - postmarketOS Wiki

Show threadgoebbeJun 29, 2025
@sam01 😂 Thank for sharing.
It's very good news, that the OS is booting and running - but without wireless/ calling/ camera this is not ready for prime-time. Not yet. 🤞
Show threadGamey  Jun 30, 2025
@goebbe @sam01 It ran on day one tho so I would expect a bright future for Linux on this device. Fairphones tend to spark a lot of interest from the Linux community in general and I wouldn't be surprised if those missing features get implemented relatively (for FOSS standards) soon!
Show threadAtiJun 30, 2025
@gamey @goebbe @sam01 Are you into Linux on mobile? Is there a working configuration available on the market now? I mean any phone running PM OS / Mobian / whichever distro, that could be used as a daily driver, with no proprietary shit like Whatsapp etc ofc but with working calls / texts / camera / data and linux apps?
Show threadFossman

@ati1 @gamey @goebbe @sam01 All of these (VoLTE calls, SMS, camera, data) work for me with #postmarketOS on a #Librem5 with the exception of no sound in video recordings.

Usable as a daily driver if you are used to desktop Linux, as it works the same way. If you can afford a #LibertyPhone for the extra memory and storage, the experience would be better.

That being said, I do encounter buggy behaviour from time to time but nothing that will prevent me from daily driving it.

Jul 8, 2025 at 10:13amWeb
Show threadAtiJul 8, 2025
@opensourceopenmind @gamey @goebbe @sam01 Wow, these are great news. How about apps? Can I assume that those Linux apps that have mobile interface would work fine? I am mainly after simple things like podcasts so say KDE Kasts? Elisa or VLC for music player? Any modern browser? Firefox? Librewolf? Vivaldi? Or just ...anything that is not based on 5 years old Chromium and not working anyways like Ubuntu Touch browser (sorry UT 🫣 but 🙄).
Show threadFossmanJul 9, 2025

@ati1 @gamey @goebbe @sam01 You can use #flatpak apps that have ARM builds on #Flathub. If the app is not optimised for small screens, you can scale it to fit using the Mobile Settings app that is preinstalled on #postmarketOS, #PureOS and others.

1. Podcasts: #Kasts works great in my experience.
2. Music player: #Elisa and Audio Player (Decibels) work great, but they don't play all types of files so you might need #VLC sometimes.
3. Browsers: #Firefox and #Brave work well. #Kumo, #GnomeWeb and KDE #Angelfish can work as minimalistic browsers for lightweight, trusted websites.
4. Feel free to ask about any other app category.

Show threadAtiJul 9, 2025
@opensourceopenmind @gamey @goebbe @sam01 Thanks. I see you also use Delta Chat so I guess it works. Good. Do you have usable solution for GPS/navi ? And cloud storage? Like Nextcloud or sth?
Show threadGamey  Jul 10, 2025
@ati1 @opensourceopenmind @goebbe @sam01 I'm not a big fan of Purism as a company and the device is pricy, especially for it's specs but it probably is your best bet for mainline if they actually managed to get the modem and wakeup stable enough without too much battery usage. I would highly recommend Angelfish or Gnome Web over desktop browsers tho since they are a pain to use even with all the hacks people use to get them to fit and work better, both should use up to date blink/webkit.
Show threadGamey  Jul 10, 2025
@ati1 @opensourceopenmind @goebbe @sam01 Not sure how things developed but another issue I faced was the lack of push notifications and while there was work on UnifiedPush it was still very early last time I used a linux phone. Furthermore I mostly communicate over signal and it was an absolute pain to get the third party clients you need working properly and none of them had push notifications except the SailfishOS specific one.
Show threadGamey  Jul 10, 2025
@ati1 @opensourceopenmind @goebbe @sam01 Delta Chat and XMPP should work well tho and Matrix works really well using Fractal too so that part is covered. Kasts for podcasts and Tuba for Mastodon work great too and most modern Libadwaita (used for all Gnome apps) and Kirigami (used for some KDE apps) work nicely too so you have a decent app selection over all. For Youtube the best solution is probably Freetube, it's an electron app but usually works good enough and scales relatively well.
Show threadGamey  Jul 10, 2025
@ati1 @opensourceopenmind @goebbe @sam01 Bitwarden was another big issue for me but by now there is a GTK app for it, I didn't try that one yet because it was still experimental back then but I know it scales well. My by far biggest issue was that wakeup for sms and especially calls had a delay and broke from time to time using my Pinephone tho
Show threadFossmanJul 14, 2025

@ati1 I tested @organicmaps desktop on it over a year ago. While it did work, getting the initial position lock required me to be in an open with a full view of the sky... that was right around the time #Mozilla was forced to shut down their location services... so will have to test again after I upgrade to 25.06... not sure if they replaced #MLS with @beacondb or something else. For now, I use Organic Maps on an old #degoogled Android.

For back, yes #Nextcloud works great especially for contacts. I've found @filen #filencli great as well although it's in beta I think. #Vorta from #Flathub can also work.