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Greetings, and welcome to your April edition of the FOSSphones News Roundup!
This month, we have a few new things to get through, including, as usual, a new release of Phosh, some news on Liberux hardware, and software updates from the worlds of CalyxOS, PureOS, and FuriOS.
Ready to see what's new in this roundup? Let's get right into the news!
Phosh, the mobile Linux environment we all know and love, has seen its next major release.
This new Phosh update, 0.46.0, brings a host of new changes and updates, and as usual, we're going to cover the meat of it here, providing links to the detailed changelogs so you can explore what's new in Phosh even further if you'd like!
~ Phosh updates
mobile-settings.media-player downloads cover art when possible.layout-manager now handles notches and cutouts in indicator areas.phosh.gsettings(5) was added.media-player now uses can-play to determine whether a widget should be shown or not.The detailed list of changes for Phosh can be found here.
~ Phoc changes
ext-foreign-toplevel-info and alpha-modifier-v1.layer-surface and xdg-surface subsurface and popup handling are now unified.ID_INPUT_KEYBOARD is now checked for identifying hardware keyboards - handy for allowing something like flip phones to mark their T9 keyboards as such.gnome-session.The detailed list of changes for Phoc can be found here.
~ Phosh Mobile Settings updates
xdg-desktop-portal-phosh 0.46)..oga is now allowed as a sound file extension.A detailed list of changes for Phosh Mobile Settings can be found here.
~ Phosh Tour updates
A detailed list of changes for Phosh Tour can be found here.
~ gmobile 0.2.2 updates
This is the first time we're mentioning updates to gmobile here. It is library useful in the building of mobile glib-based projects.
A detailed list of changes for gmobile 0.2.2 can be found here.
If you want to dive deeper into this release of Phosh, please check out the 0.46.0 release announcement from the Phosh Team.
If you have a FuriPhone, you have some new bits waiting for you if you haven't updated in a few days!
Released April 20, FuriOS 13.0.9 includes some of the following improvements and changes:
debconf for noninteractive programs was fixed in APT.As you can see, there were a good amount of new additions and fixes in this new FuriOS update, and what we listed here is just a scratch of the surface - there is plenty more in the team's full update in their changelog, which I encourage you to read at the link below. Make sure you update your FuriPhone and these new changes will be waiting for you!
If you want to learn about all of the new stuff in this update, please see the changelog to learn more!
PureOS Crimson, the newest version of Purism's Debian-based GNU/Linux distribution, is making more headway. The Purism team made another post recently outlining some new stuff they've been working on to push the new update forward.
The latest happenings in Crimson
Ten more packages have seen improvements since the last update we got from the PureOS Team.
librem5-base is a crucial package for the Librem 5, and it is a critical part of bringing the entire operating system together to create a cohesive experience on the device. Some of the latest improvements to the librem5-base package bring in reliability fixes, deal with related package changes from upstream, and handle fixing partition sizing on the first boot of the device.
Additionally, improvements made to the librem5-flash-image package have simplified for the team to use and maintain it. Another two packages received fixes that were backported from later versions - these include gtk and gnss-share. Still other packages received further fixes and improvements, including millipixels, python-apt, phoc, wlroots-0.16, and osk-sdl.
New updates have also reached both Crimson and Byzantium, which is helpful for Librem 5 owners right now! Updating will get you new fixes, such as Image Viewer now opening the Pictures directory right away, letting users not have to manually open images. There have also been improvements which should make your phone feel more reliable, responsive, and robust.
Fixes are also ready for the next Librem 5 kernel release, which will be reaching both Crimson and Byzantium. Some of the improvements found here include things like:
The Purism team continues to chip away at some issues, testing more functionality with a better foundation with these new changes. The team notes that with all these improvements in the pipeline, we are inching our way closer to an alpha and general release of Crimson, so keep your eyes peeled for news if you use Purism devices!
To read the full update from the Purism Team, please check out this post on their website.
One forthcoming mobile GNU/Linux device we have our eyes on here at FOSSphones is the Liberux NEXX.
The team behind the device has been at work bringing it to fruition, and recently, they hit a new milestone: they have prototype dev boards in hand.
The story so far
Initially, the Liberux team had faced some challenges prepping for manufacturing the NEXX boards - delays around Chinese New Year and the shutting down of production lines put a damper on things, and to make matters worse, when the team finally got the assembled boards, they found issues such as critical components not being soldered to the board properly. Thankfully, the team found a local company willing to take on the job of manufacturing new NEXX dev boards.
The results of this new partnership were promising, and the Liberux team is now working with this local manufacturer from now on to bring the boards to life.
Since receiving the boards, the electronics team has been working hard to debug the board and get it recognized by a computer. After working through some minor problems, such as misoriented components and soldermask-covered pads, the team reached a big milestone in the journey - communicating with a computer using the processor. A note for the next revision has been documented involving reworking the charging circuit, an issue which has been fixed direclty on the board.
The team notes that this milestone is a big one for one simple fact - they are working with real hardware now, not simply simulations and schematics. The Liberux NEXX is beginning to look more and more like a reality! After checking the board for good assembly, verifying power supply lines, and working on validating the critical components needed, it's time to move onto the next phase of bringing this vision to fruition: generating a functional boot image, so that the team may begin testing the system's peripherals.
The team also notes that they have been working in parallel to build a tool that automates the generation of ARM images for boards based on RK3588 and RK3588S CPUs. This will allow the team to iterate with more speed, and makes it simple to test with similar hardware. Next on the roadmap? Validating peripherals including things like the cameras, the display, flash memory, and the RAM. The Liberux NEXX is beginning to take shape!
Check out some images of the Liberux NEXX dev boards and find out even more by reading the post shared by the team.
If you run CalyxOS on your mobile device, you have some new bits coming to you in the April feature update.
The CalyxOS 6.6.22 April 2025 feature update started rolling down the pipeline a few days ago on the usual Beta, Security express, and Stable channels. The Calyx team notes that it is one of the bigger releases yet, packed with features and long-standing bug fixes.
Which devices are supported by calyxOS 6.6.22?
If you have any of the following devices, you can run calyxOS 6.6.22:
~ For an entire list of devices supported by calyxOS, please check here.
When did the update begin rolling out?
CalyxOS has a few different update channels, so when you receive your update depends on which channel you're currently tracking. Over this last week, calyxOS channels began receiving the 6.6.22 update as follows:
- Beta channel received the update on Friday, April 25.
- Security express also received the update on Friday, April 25.
- Stable receives the update today, Tuesday, April 29.
What's new in this update?
There are a host of new changes and features in this update to get into. We're not going to cover everything here, as usual, but we are going to cover some of the main points. Let's highlight some of the changes to look out for in this update:
If you want to find out more about this update, please read the announcement from the CalyxOS Team.
As usual, we're going to wrap up our roundup by sharing some of our favorite FOSS mobile programs we've been finding this month.
Check out the apps we're highlighting this month, and see if they might be interesting for you to use on your own FOSS mobile device!
Are you building a FOSS mobile app, or have you been using one that's been really helpful for you that we haven't highlighted here before? If so, make sure you reach out to us and let us know about it - we'll be sure to include it in a future FOSSphones App Highlight!
That just about wraps it up for this April edition of the FOSSphones News Roundup. If you're aware of any developing stories in the world of open-source on mobile, be sure to reach out to us on email or on our social media accounts to let us know about it, and we will take a look at the story for our next roundup!
Until next time, thanks for stopping by, have a great rest of April, and we'll see you in May for the next roundup!