Will Linux telephones develop into a viable various to the Android/iOS duopoly?

October 12, 2026October 12, 2026 admin 11 Views

by Amos Batto (2026-10-05), License: CC BY 4.0, Download: PDF, ODT

Five years in the past, Linux telephones regarded like they have been poised to develop into a viable various to the Android/iOS duopoly that has an iron grip on the cell phone business. Sadly, after a short flash of exercise and neighborhood engagement with the discharge of the Purism Librem 5 and the PINE64 PinePhone in 2020, the Linux cellphone market has usually stagnated. This stagnation occurred partly due to the issues at Purism and PINE64, but in addition as a result of the obtainable Linux SoC’s weren’t as much as the duty of working a contemporary smartphone, and the {hardware} business wasn’t offering any good options with good free/open supply drivers. In addition, Plasma Mobile and Phosh have been nonetheless inchoate cellular interfaces on the time, and there wasn’t an excellent distro choice to run these interfaces on Android kernels with a standard built-in cellular SoC. The poor efficiency of the PinePhone and Librem 5 and the issues with the PinePhone Pro and the Librem 5 refunds sapped folks’s enthusiasm and willingness to take an opportunity on the following Linux cellphone.

Fortunately, all of those circumstances are altering, and I consider that there’s now the likelihood that Linux may lastly develop into a viable various to Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS within the cellular area, similar to desktop Linux has develop into a viable various to Windows and Mac OSX on the PC over the past three a long time. This isn’t to say that cellular Linux will essentially problem the industry of Google or Apple, however the circumstances are ripe for a small market to come up for Linux telephones, much like the way in which that individuals can at present purchase Linux PCs from plenty of small corporations, resembling TUXEDO, System76, Purism, Slimbook, ThinkPenguin, Ubuntushop.biz, Entroware, Star Labs, Juno, Laptop with Linux, Linux Certified, ArkPC, and so forth.

It isn’t unimaginable that one of many large cellphone manufacturers would possibly promote a number of fashions of telephones with cellular Linux sooner or later, similar to Lenovo and Dell at present promote a number of PC fashions with Linux preinstalled in some restricted financial hubs. Motorola simply announced that it’ll begin promoting some high-end phone models with GrapheneOS in 2027, which signifies that Google will permit the massive cellphone makers to promote options, most likely as a result of it fears anti-trust regulation. As the cellular business more and more shuts down the flexibility to unlock the bootloaders of Android telephones, extra folks shall be searching for a substitute for AOSP derivatives, and cellular Linux may present that various.

Five years in the past, it regarded like cellular Linux had lastly arrived. The Purism Librem 5 and PINE64 PinePhone had simply been launched, and even a giant tech reviewer like Linus Tech Tips was trying them out. Mrwhosetheboss’s video, “Are Linux Smartphones about to KILL Android?,” the place he held up the Librem 5, received 7.8 million views on YouTube. The Librem 5 had been ported to Mobian and postmarketOS, and the PinePhone had been ported to twenty completely different Linux distributions. There was a rising variety of cellphone fashions that would run Jolla’s Sailfish OS and Ubuntu Touch on prime of Android kernels, and many individuals have been testing postmarketOS on their old phones. Plasma Mobile and Phosh have been advancing quick as cellular interfaces. KDE had adopted Kirigami and GNOME was adopting Adwaita, so each KDE and GNOME apps may develop into adaptive between desktop and cellular interfaces. The Waydroid venture was making it attainable to run Android apps inside a Linux container. The future appeared vibrant for cellular Linux, however that future by no means appeared to reach. It is value inspecting what held again cellular Linux to grasp how these circumstances might be overcome sooner or later.

There has been nice deal of experimentation with completely different cellular working techniques primarily based on a Linux kernel over the past 25 years for the reason that first cellular Linux units have been launched—the Sharp Zaurus, the G.Mate Yopy and the Motorola A760. I rely 29 different varieties of business cellular Linux which have existed over time, and there are most likely many extra that I missed. There have been many various waves of cellular Linux, which on the time regarded like they may develop into the following large factor, together with EZX, MotoMagx, Maemo, LiMo, Moblin, Meego, Tizen, Firefox OS, webOS, Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish OS. For years Motorola experimented with completely different Linux varieties that have been primarily based on the concept of utilizing Java apps obtainable in a neighborhood retailer, so Google’s Android was hardly distinctive, however it was the flavour of cellular Linux which succeeded. Today, all of them are sometimes lumped collectively underneath the label of “Linux” as a separate class from Android, however Tizen and Firefox OS are simply as distinct architecturally as Android from a regular desktop Linux distro.

The cellular Linux working techniques stay on, though they’re much less seen immediately. Much of the MeeGo code that Nokia created for the N9, continues to be developed by the tiny Finnish firm, the Jolla Group, which is as soon as once more promoting telephones with its Sailfish OS. Firefox OS, which was deserted by Mozilla Foundation in 2016, was reborn in 2017 as proprietary KaiOS for low-end telephones with out contact screens, however that market is slowly disappearing as Android now reaches even the most affordable segments of the cell phone market. Ubuntu Touch, which was deserted by Canonical in 2017, lives on as a community-based venture underneath the volunteers at UBports. Even, webOS and Tizen nonetheless exist, though they’re now not used as cellular working techniques. webOS runs LG TVs and Tizen is utilized in Samsung TVs.

Although it doesn’t generate many headlines within the tech press, a tiny Linux cellphone market nonetheless exists. Purism, PINE64, FuriLabs, Jolla, Jolla-Devices, Volla and PrivacyPortal (plus Brax in the future) all promote telephones with some taste of Linux preinstalled. The variety of folks shopping for Linux telephones immediately is fewer than in 2020-22 when PINE64 was launching the PinePhone and PinePhone Pro, however there are literally extra corporations promoting Linux telephones than there was 5 years in the past. There are good causes to consider that most of the issues that plagued Linux telephones up to now are going to be overcome sooner or later.

The SoC dilemma: weak however lengthy lived vs highly effective however brief lived

In the previous, the obtainable {hardware} selections restricted the viability of Linux telephones. Systems-on-a-Chip (SoC’s) which help Linux are usually utilized in single-board-computers (SBC’s), TV setup bins, web of issues (IoT) units and embedded microprocessors in industrial and automotive purposes, the place the worth factors are decrease, so their efficiency is mostly weaker and they’re much less power environment friendly than the everyday cellular SoC designed for smartphones, as a result of they’re fabbed on older course of nodes. However, they provide long-term help, as a result of they’re utilized in purposes which have lengthy product life cycles. For instance, vehicles include dozens of SoC’s and so they sometimes takes 3 to five years simply to design and wish to have the ability to run for the following 20 years. In distinction, the cellular SoC’s with Android help are very highly effective, however they’re solely produced for 1 to three years.

If the designers of Linux telephones need to have the ability to run a Linux kernel (versus an Android kernel), most of their choices supply little processing energy, poor power effectivity and poor thermals. If they wish to keep away from proprietary blobs as a lot as attainable, they both have to decide on an older SoC which the neighborhood has been labored on for years to iron out the bugs within the free/open supply drivers (e.g., the Allwinner A64 within the PinePhone), or they should spend years patching the Linux kernel to correctly help a more moderen SoC (as Purism did with the NXP i.MX 8M Quad within the Librem 5). If they resolve that it’s an excessive amount of bother to ship their patches to mainline Linux, then it is going to be tougher to help their {hardware} sooner or later, as a result of they should preserve making use of those self same patches to every new Linux kernel launch. Purism selected to upstream their modifications to mainline Linux, whereas the volunteers engaged on the PinePhone’s kernel usually didn’t.

The chipmakers like NXP, Rockchip, Allwinner, Amlogic and Broadcom who make SoC’s with Linux help merely don’t generate sufficient proceeds to justify utilizing a modern course of node of their chips. Even thought they’ll promote a Linux SoC for 10 to fifteen years, they nonetheless received’t promote sufficient to recoup the additional $400 – $600 million that it could value to make use of a 3nm course of, and the prices preserve going up with every new era of course of node. It is enormously costly to design a chip on the slicing fringe of the silicon business. Silicon Analysts estimates that fabbing a wafer at TSMC prices a median of $19,500 at a 3nm node, however solely $3000 at a 28nm node. Most Linux SoC’s are low-priced chips with very skinny margins, in order that they should promote hundreds of thousands of them to make a lot revenue. Some Linux SoC makers like NXP deal with specialty financial hubs, in order that they they’ve increased margins, however they have a tendency to not promote lots of them, so the earnings are nonetheless restricted.

Another method that chipmakers scale back their prices is through the use of older generations of Cortex cores, which have decrease licensing charges from ARM, and through the use of numerous low-power Cortex-A5 sequence cores, somewhat than the higher-power Cortex-A7 and Cortex-X sequence cores, which have increased licensing charges. NXP was clearly using these value slicing methods with its i.MX 9 sequence processors. The strongest chip within the sequence is the i.MX 95, which incorporates six Cortex-A55 cores, when it could have made extra sense to make use of two Cortex-A78 cores for higher efficiency and 4 Cortex-A55 cores for low energy. The i.MX 95 was fabbed on a 16nm FinFET node, which is a slight regression in comparison with Samsung’s 14nm node used within the earlier i.MX 8M Plus processor. Another instance of this value slicing was the choice by Broadcom to make use of older Cortex cores and bigger course of nodes in its BCM2836 (40nm, 4x Cortex-A7), BCM2837 (40nm, 4x Cortex-A53), BCM2711 (28nm, 4x Cortex-A72) and BCM2712 (16nm, 4x Cortex-A76), regardless of realizing that hundreds of thousands of those chips can be offered (e.g. within the Raspberry Pi 2, 3, 4 and 5, respectively). Even Nvidia, which is the international stage’s richest chipmaker because of the AI growth, seems to be avoiding the prices of utilizing a modern course of node in its Tegra SoC. It canceled its deliberate Tegra Atlan sequence which was introduced in April 2021, and nonetheless hasn’t launched its Tegra Thor sequence, which was introduced in September 2022. Its Tegra Orin sequence which was introduced in March 2018 is now getting lengthy within the tooth utilizing an 8nm node.

In distinction, the smartphone market, which offered 1.25 billion units in 2025, has monumental volumes, and cellphone makers are keen to pay a lot increased costs for processors, particularly for higher-end fashions, which permits Qualcomm, MediaTek, Apple, Samsung, Google, Xiaomi and Huawei to make the big funding in designing cellular SoC’s for an costly 3nm course of node. Integrated cellular SoC’s such because the Qualcomm Snapdragon and MediaTek Dimensity have a lot quantity, that they’ll make a revenue even if they typically are solely produced for two to three years. The flagship fashions (e.g. the Snapdragon 8 sequence and Dimensity 9000 sequence) lose most of their market after the primary 12 months, so SoC makers should cost a lot increased costs to cowl the big prices of utilizing a modern course of node.

In addition, the built-in cellular SoC’s that run Android incorporate many further capabilities, resembling WiFi, Bluetooth, mobile modem, GPS/GNSS, audio DAC, cost controller and USB-C controller, which require separate chips on Linux telephones just like the PinePhone and Librem 5. This makes the circuit boards for these telephones way more costly to design, as a result of they’ll’t simply take a regular reference design from Qualcomm or MediaTek and tweak it. They should customized design their circuit boards, which requires two to a few occasions extra elements than the circuit board for a typical smartphone. The Librem 5 incorporates 74 built-in circuits (IC’s) and its 4 circuit boards have a complete of 1267 components, making it essentially the most complicated cellphone ever created. The six chips (i.MX 8M Quad, RS9116, BM818, Teseo-LIV3F, WM8962 and bq25895) that the Librem 5 makes use of instead of an built-in cellular SoC occupy a complete of 1483.2 mm2, which is 10 occasions the world of a Snapdragon 8. Purism had to make use of elements as small as 0201 and use 10 layers to cram every thing into the Librem 5’s foremost circuit board, which needed to undergo roughly a dozen iterations to get proper. Even a minimal Linux cellphone just like the PinePhone, which was designed to be as economical as attainable, has 24 ICs and a complete of 627 components on its circuit board, making it extra complicated than most Android smartphones, which usually have 300 to 400 elements.

Adding all these additional elements makes Linux telephones dearer to design and produce, however it additionally makes them suck extra energy, because it takes extra power to run half a dozen chips at bigger node sizes than one built-in cellular SoC fabbed on a ≤4nm node, which has been optimized for power effectivity. It is difficult to coordinate all the additional chips in Linux telephones to get them to enter decrease energy modes and sleep modes to preserve their batteries. Add in an SoC with an older node measurement between 28 and eight nm that hasn’t been optimized for battery utilization, and there’s no method that Linux telephones can match the battery lifetime of Android telephones.

The RK3588S modifications the sport for Linux telephones

Many of the Linux SoC makers have determined that they shouldn’t even hassle constructing chips with the CPU and GPU efficiency wanted for a contemporary computing gadget. NXP, Amlogic and Broadcom merely aren’t fascinated by constructing aggressive SoC’s. However, Rockchip essentially modified the prospects for making an honest Linux cellphone when it launched the RK3588 and its lower-power RK3588S variant in 2022. With 4 2.4Ghz Cortex-A76 cores and 4 1.8GHz Cortex-A55 cores and a Mali-G610 MC4 graphics, there lastly was a Linux SoC in the marketplace with sufficient processing energy in an SoC to make a suitable Linux smartphone.

The Liberux NEXX and the Dawndrums Divine D. are two Linux telephones at present being designed with the RK3588S. Purism simply announced on its discussion board that its subsequent gen cellphone “is actively being designed,” which received’t be primarily based on the i.MX platform just like the Librem 5 and Liberty, so it’s likely to be based on the RK3588S as nicely.

Of course, the RK3588S’s efficiency isn’t going to impress anybody used to an Android cellphone. The RK3588 and RK3588S are fabbed on a 8nm course of node, which is 4 generations behind immediately’s state-of-the-art at 2nm. Today’s low-end Snapdragon 4 Gen 4 fabbed at 4nm has 25% higher single core CPU efficiency than the RK3588. (See the desk of SoC’s beneath.) The RK3588S has related efficiency to the RK3588 over brief bursts, however its efficiency is 10%-15% much less over durations longer than 30 seconds. By the time the Linux telephones primarily based on the RK3588S hit the market in a pair years time, they are going to have considerably worse efficiency than each Android smartphone in the marketplace, however this distinction most likely received’t be a limiting issue for most individuals who aren’t 3D gaming or capturing high-resolution video. At a sure level, extra processing energy has diminishing utility, and the RK3588S crosses that threshold for most individuals.

Comparing obtainable SoC’s for Linux telephones
SoC	Process (nm)	Specs	Geekbench_6		Phones
SoC	Process (nm)	Specs	single	multi	Phones
Allwinner A64	40	4x 1.2GHz Cortex-A53, Mali-400 MP2	109	278	PinePhone
NXP i.MX 8M Quad	28	4x 1.5Ghz Cortex-A53, GC7000 Lite	146	477	Librem 5, Liberty
NXP i.MX 8M Plus	14	4x 1.8Ghz Cortex-A53, GC7000 UltraLite			deliberate Librem 5 fir
NXP i.MX 95	16	6x 2.0GHz Cortex-A55, Mali-G310	350	1300
Rockchip RK3399	28	2x 1.8GHz Cortex-A72, 4x 1.4GHz Cortex-A53, Mali-T860	278	708	PinePhone Pro
Rockchip RK3566	22	4x 2.0GHz Cortex-A55, Mali-G52 MP2	140	450	rumored PinePhone 2
Rockchip RK3588S	8	4x 2.4GHz Cortex-A76, 4x 1.8GHz Cortex-A55, Mali-G610 MP4	730	2250	Liberux NEXX, Dawndrums Divine D., seemingly Librem 5 v2
UNISOC Tiger T606	12	2x 1.6Ghz Cortex-A75, 6x 1.6Ghz Cortex-A55, Mali-G57 MP1	375	1350	Jolla C2
MediaTek Dimensity 900	6	2x 2.4GHz Cortex-A78, 6x 2.0GHz Cortex-A55, Mali-G68 MP4	1003	2423	Furilabs FLX1/s/s+
MediaTek Dimensity 6300	6	2x 2.4GHz Cortex-A76, 6x 2.0GHz Cortex-A55, Mali-G57 MC2	780	1940	Brax BraX3
MediaTek Dimensity 7050	6	2x 2.6GHz Cortex-A78, 6x 2.0GHz Cortex-A55, Mali-G68 MC4	970	2330	Volla Phone Quintus
MediaTek Dimensity 7100	4	4x 2.4GHz Cortex-A78, 4x 2.0GHz Cortex-A55, Mali-G610 MC2	995	2900	Jolla Phone (2026)
MediaTek Dimensity 7300	4	4x 2.5GHz Cortex-A78, 4x 2.0GHz Cortex-A55, Mali-G615 MC2	1040	3000	Volla Phone Plinius
Qualcomm QCM4490	4	2x 2.4GHz Cortex-A78, 6x 2.0GHz Cortex-A55, Adreno 613	900	2318
Qualcomm QCM6490	6	4x 2.7GHz Cortex-A78, 4x 1.95GHz Cortex-A55, Adreno 643L	950	2850	Fairphone 5, SHIFTphone 8
Qualcomm QCM8850	4	1x 3.2GHz Gold-Plus, 4x 2.8Ghz Gold, 3x 2.0GHz Silver, Adreno 740	1100	3300
Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 gen 4	4	2x 2.3GHz Cortex-A78, 6x 2.0GHz Cortex-A55, Adreno 613	920	2210
Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 gen 4	4	1x 2.3GHz Cortex-A720, 3x 2.2GHz Cortex-A720, 4x 1.8GHz Cortex-A520, Adreno 810	994	3082
Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 gen 4	4	1x 2.8GHz Cortex-A720, 4x 2.4GHz Cortex-A720, 3×1.84GHz Cortex-A520, Adreno 722	1150	3700
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 gen 5 Elite	3	2x 3.8GHz Oryon Prime, 6x 3.32GHz Oryon Performance, Adreno 829 or 840	2400	8700

Where the older course of tech shall be important is by way of their power consumption. A cellphone sporting the RK3588S will run hotter and have worse battery life than telephones utilizing built-in cellular SoC’s from Qualcomm, MediaTek, UNISOC, and so forth. The problem is to dissipate the additional warmth. The PinePhone’s SoC and mobile modem get very popular as a result of they don’t have an excellent warmth spreader. The Librem 5’s SoC is joined with thermal paste to the again plate of the LCD, which avoids overheating the SoC, however causes the touchscreen and aluminum body to develop into sizzling to the contact. A Linux cellphone with the RK3358S will want some form of warmth dissipation, however it’s unlikely {that a} Linux cellphone maker can afford to incorporate a vapor chamber, since these should be specifically designed and can be very costly for a cellphone of restricted manufacturing. The RK3588S will want throttling to suit inside the energy and thermal envelope of a cellphone.

At first, the mainline Linux help for the RK3588 was very restricted. Rockchip by no means printed the documentation for the chip on its opensource.rock-chips.com web site, and Rockchip took down that web site on the finish of 2025. On December 21, 2024, Jeff Geerling, essentially the most influential reviewer within the Raspberry Pi various area, reported on X:

I used to be informed Rockchip now not considers RK3588 to be an ‘open supply’ chip. In observe, which means Rockchip now not contributes RK3588 code to open-source tasks and so they additionally determined to not promote RK3588 on to SBC distributors.

On the opposite hand, Rockchip continues to be updating its public kernel code for the RK3588 at Github. Collabora has been toiling away for years so as to add mainline Linux help for the RK3588, and Collabora lists Rockchip as one in all its companions, so Rockchip hasn’t completely deserted the Linux neighborhood. Collabora not too long ago added mainline Linux help for the video seize unit and MIPI CSI2 interface within the RK3588. Now Collabora is working with Ideas on Board and Rockchip to create an new image signal processor (ISP) driver for all of the RK35xx chips. Collabora has gotten the hardware video decoder working for VP8, VP9, H.264 and H.265, and is now engaged on the hardware video encoder for H.264.

Four years after the RK3588S was launched, there’s now sufficient support for the chip in mainline Linux, that an RK3588S cellphone might be created working free/open supply drivers. The RK3588S must execute a proprietary Synopsys DDR timing coaching blob at boot. The RK3588S can now use the free Panthor driver for the GPU, however it requires the proprietary mali_csffw.bin firmware, which is loaded from the /lib/firmware/ listing at boot. All the opposite blobs for the RK3588S have both been changed or they aren’t vital. There is now a FOSS driver for the NPU. The proprietary MPP library for {hardware} video encoding might be changed with software program video encoding, and Collabora is engaged on free drivers for the ISP and {hardware} video encode, so software program video processing and encoding most likely received’t be vital sooner or later. Collabora has developed a FOSS version for the Trusted Firmware-A (TF-A), that may exchange the proprietary bl31.elf firmware. The HDMI blob within the bl31.elf isn’t vital if utilizing DisplayPort Alt Mode for video out. The proprietary bl32.bin firmware is just not vital if not utilizing the hardware-enforced security measures or encryption keys.

If Purism makes use of the RK3588S in its subsequent cellphone, it’s unlikely that Purism will try and acquire the FSF’s RYF certification by storing blobs on a separate NOR Flash chip and executing them with a secondary processor, prefer it did with the Librem 5, as a result of the RK3588S doesn’t have a secondary low-power processor just like the Cortex-M4 within the i.MX 8M Quad.

There are good prospects that Collabora will finally get all of the RK3588S’s {hardware} supported with mainline Linux drivers, and till then, the RK3588S has sufficient processing energy within the GPU and CPU to course of and encode photos and video in software program, so a cellphone constructed on the RK3588S can take photographs and shoot video like a standard smartphone, though it is going to be slower and use extra power. In distinction, earlier telephones utilizing a Linux kernel merely didn’t have sufficient processing energy to supply first rate cameras. Taking photographs on the PinePhone is painfully gradual, and the Millipixels app on the Librem 5 pauses for 3 to 4 seconds after taking every picture. Because the Librem 5’s i.MX 8M Quad processor lacks an ISP, audio DSP and {hardware} video encoder, it takes roughly 10 occasions as lengthy to course of and encode a 720p video on the Librem 5 because the size of the video, and it’s about 50 times longer on the PinePhone, resulting from its antiquated Allwinner A64 processor and considerably slower RAM and eMMC.

Aside from the RK3588S, there aren’t many different choices in the marketplace to make an excellent Linux cellphone. The closest possibility is Nvidia’s Tegra Orin NX or Orin Nano Super, which solely include Cortex-A78 cores. They lack low-power Cortex-A55 cores and so they aren’t very power environment friendly. They sport newer tech than the Cortex-A76 cores within the RK3588S, however the Tegra Orin was fabbed on a 8nm node similar to the RK3588S and the Tegra Orin’s decrease clock fee limits its single-core efficiency. The Tegra Orin can also be a lot worse by way of software program freedom, requiring proprietary blobs within the preliminary bootloader, the secondary bootloader, Boot Configuration Table, USB firmware, HDMI/DisplayPort configuration, ARM Trusted Firmware and the GPU userspace driver. Many Linux customers can ignore the blobs within the Linux gadget tree, however it tougher to disregard Nvidia’s GPU blob within the userspace.

Another possibility is the Allwinner A733 at 12nm, which presents much less efficiency with twin 2.0Ghz Cortex-A76 cores and 6 1.79GHz Cortex-A55 low-power cores. Allwinner stopped collaborating with the Linux neighborhood years in the past, and has incessantly violated the GPL 2.0 license by not publishing its Linux supply code, so the A733 most likely received’t be a viable possibility, though Allwinner has made some feedback about intending to collaborate with the neighborhood sooner or later. Another possibility is the NXP i.MX 95, which does have mainline Linux help, however its efficiency on a 16nm node with six low-power Cortex-A55 cores is poor and never an excellent worth for the cash.

The PinePhone 2 was anticipated to make use of the extra economical Rockchip RK3566, which is fabbed on an older 22nm node. However, so many volunteer builders abandoned PINE64 in 2022, that it’s unlikely that the Hong Kong-based firm shall be launching any new fashions within the foreseeable future. The manufacturing of PINE64’s Linux units are currently on hold because of the excessive RAM and eMMC costs brought on by the AI growth, however a part of the reason being that PINE64 can’t increase costs on lots of its units, that are solely half-functional, as a result of most of the neighborhood teams, who labored on the PinePhone, are now not growing the software program to help PINE64’s newer units.

Another purpose the RK3588 is the popular possibility is as a result of Rockchip is promising to supply a successor chip, the RK3668 with 4 Cortex-A730 cores and 6 Cortex-A530 cores at a 5 or 6 nm node in 2027, so it needs to be attainable to maintain upgrading the cellphone sooner or later. Purism invested closely in supporting the 28nm i.MX 8M Quad within the Librem 5, considering that it could be attainable to improve to a future 14nm model of the SoC, however NXP determined to get rid of half the cores within the GPU and take away DisplayPort help within the 14nm i.MX 8M Plus, so Purism couldn’t improve its cellphone in the identical processor household. Given that the price of fabbing on smaller course of nodes retains rising, it’s unlikely that any of the opposite chipmakers will launch a brand new chip to problem the RK3588’s efficiency within the close to future.

The new possibility of Linux telephones utilizing a Qualcomm IoT SoC

In the previous, the one strategy to create a cellphone working on a Linux kernel was to design a fancy gadget containing many separate chips. Historically Qualcomm didn’t hassle making highly effective processors for its SoC’s that supported Linux. However, there was growing demand for extra highly effective Internet of Things processors that may deal with AI and plenty of picture processing from a number of video feeds. Unlike short-lived smartphones and tablets, IoT units have lengthy product lives, so they’re higher suited to make use of Linux, somewhat than Android which is far tougher to help over time. In March 2023, Qualcomm dramatically improved the prospects for Linux telephones with the announcement that its upcoming 6nm QCM6490 processor with an built-in mobile modem would help 4 working techniques (Android, Linux, Ubuntu and Windows IoT Enterprise).

Then, the San Diego-based firm announced its new Product Longevity Program, which might each promote and supply software program help for the QCM6490 until July 2036. Both the TruthfulPhone 5 and SHIFTphone 8 have been designed across the QCM6490, because of the environmental advantages to its lengthy help, and that lengthy help is strictly what Linux telephones additionally want, as a result of it takes so lengthy to convey a Linux cellphone to market and it must promote for a few years to recoup the excessive funding in a product that has restricted annual gross sales. The Fairphone 5 with the QCM6490 (1x 2.7Ghz Cortex-A78, 3x 2.4GHz Cortex-A78, 4x 1.9Ghz Cortex-A55) was criticized for its poor benchmarks and poor battery life in comparison with different Android telephones. However, the QCM6490 presents considerably higher CPU and GPU efficiency and higher power effectivity than the RK3588S.

The subsequent QCM4490 and QCM8850, that are fabbed on a more moderen 4nm node, supply decrease and better energy choices than the QCM6490. The QCM4490 (2x 2.4GHz Cortex-A78, 6x 2.0GHz Cortex-A55) has virtually nearly as good single-core efficiency because the QCM6490 and is extra power environment friendly, however its help ends in April 2030, which is just too brief for a Linux cellphone. The QCM8850 most likely could possibly be downclocked to suit inside the energy envelope of a Linux cellphone, however its help ends in April 2033, so the longer-lived QCM6490 might be the higher possibility for a Linux cellphone.

The advantage of utilizing one in all these IoT processors, which Qualcomm has rebranded as “Dragonwing“, is that they make it considerably simpler to design a cellphone and convey it to market, since they incorporate a lot performance in a single chip, which reduces the complexity of the cellphone’s circuit board. Qualcomm supplies reference designs that may be custom-made, so designing a Linux cellphone with a Dragonwing processor needs to be a lot simpler and require fewer circuit board iterations and fewer testing.

An organization with restricted sources may contract with SHIFT or Fairphone to provide their telephones after which set up Linux, much like the way in which that each Murena and iodé promote Fairphones and SHIFTphones and set up their AOSP variants targeted on privateness on the telephones. Not solely would this keep away from the time and price of designing the {hardware}, however it could permit the Linux cellphone to be marketed for its environmental and moral advantages. Fairphone or SHIFT may be contracted to supply the guarantee service for the cellphone.

Qualcomm supplies free/open supply drivers for its Snapdragon and Dragonwing processors, and over time many of those processors shall be partially supported in mainline Linux. However, the Qualcomm drivers depend upon many proprietary blobs. The Adreno A660 GPU makes use of a blob to speed up the 3D graphics. The audio digital sign processor (aDSP) makes use of a blob to deal with audio decoding and processing. A compute blob is utilized by the DSP and NPU for duties like machine studying. The VPU wants a blob to do the {hardware} video decoding and encoding. The Inline Packet Accelerator (IPA) makes use of a blob to hurry up its community routing. These blobs permit the SoC to run cooler and be extra power environment friendly, however duties like audio processing, video encoding/decoding and compute might be dealt with in software program by the CPU and/or GPU with a view to keep away from utilizing these blobs.

While these blobs are non-compulsory, the blobs to function the WiFi, Bluetooth and mobile modem wouldn’t be non-compulsory on a cellphone which wants these capabilities. None of these blobs are required within the userspace, however the one strategy to keep away from them is to make use of separate WiFi/Bluetooth and mobile modem chips. Adding these chips to the cellphone’s circuit board would add important additional value and complexity and make the cellphone much less power environment friendly.

On the opposite hand, including these additional chips would additionally make it attainable to make use of a {hardware} kill change to close down the cellphone’s wi-fi communications, which might be a serious promoting level for the cellphone. However, the kind of buyer who needs to have the ability to lower the facility to the WiFi/Bluetooth and mobile modem will even most likely be frightened concerning the three blobs wanted as well the Qualcomm QCM chips, particularly the one which runs the hypervisor and the TrustZone that handles encryption. Although the RK3566, RK3588 and that i.MX 95 additionally require a blob as well, it’s a tiny file from Synopsys DesignWare that merely trains the DDR RAM’s reminiscence timing, whereas the Qualcomm blobs as well the QCM4490, QCM6490 and QCM8850 are way more intensive.

The drawback of utilizing an Android kernel in a Linux cellphone

What made the wave of cellular Linux from 2020 – 2022 with the discharge of the Librem 5, PinePhone and PinePhone Pro so thrilling was that these have been telephones that ran on a Linux kernel. In distinction, most different Linux telephones run their Linux stack on prime of libhybris, which masses Android libraries and drivers and interprets calls to libc and musl, to allow them to work with Android’s Bionic. The benefit of utilizing an Android kernel is that it permits Linux telephones to make use of a contemporary built-in cellular SoC like a Qualcomm Snapdragon or MediaTek Dimensity with good efficiency and power effectivity, so Linux telephones can compete with Android telephones.

The drawback is {that a} Linux cellphone that runs on an Android kernel will considerably shorten the lifespan of the cellphone. Historically Google solely supported every Android kernel for 4 years with safety updates, and it was essential to do at the very least one Android improve to get these 4 years of help, since Google normally solely helps every Android launch for 3.5 years.

It is a safety threat to make use of an Android cellphone that’s now not getting safety updates, as a result of there’s a lot Android malware within the international stage, including in Google’s official Play Store. A number of hackers are targeted on attacking Android, as a result of it’s so broadly used on units that carry worthwhile private data. AV-TEST counts 37.62 million distinct items of Android malware and 30.38 million doubtlessly undesirable purposes (PUA’s) that do issues that customers could not need resembling gathering their private information. In distinction, AV-TEST counts 5.29 million items of malware and 58,128 PUA’s in Linux, and most of it’s hardly ever put in, as a result of most Linux customers solely set up software program from the repository of their distro, the place free/open supply software program (FOSS) predominates and package deal maintainers would endure reputational harm for together with malware.

Companies like Qualcomm and MediaTek sometimes solely promote their SoC’s for smartphones for two to three years, and many of the demand for the high-end Snapdragon and Dimensity fashions dries up after the primary 12 months, so traditionally they solely offered Android updates for 1-3 years and safety updates for two to 4 years. They normally didn’t hassle upgrading the kernel and the drivers and the proprietary blobs that they offered have been designed to operate with a selected kernel and couldn’t be upgraded. Historically Google solely supported three years of kernels in every Android model, in order that restricted most telephones to getting used with a most of three Android variations.

In distinction to the 2-4 years of software program help for Android telephones, Purism advertised that the Librem 5 would get “lifetime updates that actually extend your phone’s life.” Likewise, PINE64 promised that it could promote the PinePhone and its alternative components for “at least 5 years.” These two Linux telephones might be supported for a lot longer than any Android gadget in the marketplace. They use free/open supply drivers and Linux kernels that may preserve being upgraded, as a result of they doesn’t depend on proprietary blobs which can be solely suitable with a selected kernel model. While they do include proprietary firmware, they don’t seem to be depending on the SoC producer to supply new blobs that permit using latest variations of the kernel.

The drawback with the brief lifespan of Android kernels is that Linux telephones sometimes take longer to develop and convey to market, after which they’re offered for extra years than most Android telephones. Given all of the challenges with utilizing Linux SoC’s, it isn’t shocking that FuriLabs determined to make use of a standard smartphone design sporting a MediaTek Dimensity 900 processor for its FLX1 phone, which began delivery in July 2024. The cellphone’s working system, FuriOS, relies on the Droidian venture, which runs a mobile Debian stack with Wayland + wlroots + GTK + GNOME libraries + Phosh on prime of an Android kernel utilizing libhybris. Unlike the Librem 5 and the PinePhone, the FLX1 has the processing energy to deal with all of the duties that individuals count on of a contemporary smartphone.

The drawback is that the Dimensity 900 was released in May 2021 with Android 11 utilizing the android11-5.4 kernel. Google stopped supporting this kernel on January 1, 2026, and Linux stopped offering updates for the 5.4 kernel on December 3, 2025. MediaTek doesn’t launch major-version kernel upgrades for its processors (though which will change sooner or later), and the drivers that MediaTek supplies for the Dimensity 900 incorporates proprietary blobs that may’t be upgraded to help newer kernels, so the FLX1, and its successors, the FLX1s and FLX1s+, are caught with an outdated kernel for Android 11 that isn’t getting safety patches and bug fixes. Since these telephones use Andromeda, which is a customized fork of Waydroid, to run Android apps inside FuriOS, they’re doubtlessly uncovered to quite a lot of Android malware. Waydroid has weakened the app sandbox and SELinux safety in commonplace Android, and it’s primarily based on outdated AOSP 13, which stopped getting safety updates in March 2026. Given the safety implications, it’s questionable whether or not FuriLabs ought to nonetheless be promoting the FLX1s+ utilizing an unsupported kernel.

The Jolla C2 Community Phone, which at present sells for €369, shares related safety considerations. The C2, which began delivery in September 2024, relies on the UNISOC Tiger T606 processor, which was introduced in September 2021. The C2 is working a customized kernel named “5.4.233-android12-9-g9c3a5d5b97e3.” Presumably, the Finnish firm took Linux 5.4.233, which was launched on 25 Feb 2023, and added Google’s Android 12 kernel modifications, so it’s basically utilizing the identical unsupported kernel because the FLX1/s/s+, which hasn’t acquired any safety updates from Google since January 1, 2026. Jolla hasn’t even bothered to replace the kernel to five.4.302, which was the last maintenance release from Linux for the 5.4 kernel on December 3, 2025. Jolla has not released the source code for the C2’s kernel, in order that Jolla’s so-called “Community Phone” can’t be upgraded by the neighborhood. Even if the neighborhood may improve the kernel to its final upkeep launch, if is vital to remember that Linux 5.4.302 had 1539 unfixed CVE’s (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) when launched, and new crucial CVE’s for Linux are discovered on common every 2.5 days.

Like the FuriLabs FLX1/s/s+, the Jolla C2 can also run Android apps, which can include malware, however it makes use of Jolla’s proprietary AppSupport (aka AlienDalvik), which runs AOSP inside an LXC container like Waydroid. With AppSupport, the Android apps have better integration into the host working system than Waydroid. Presumably Jolla is working a newer model of AOSP than Waydroid, since Jolla licenses using AppSupport to different corporations, so it most likely is making use of Google’s safety updates for AOSP, however not for the supported kernel on the C2 cellphone.

All the Linux telephones working Android kernels, such because the Volla telephones with Ubuntu Touch and the brand new Jolla Phone (2026) working Sailfish OS, will face this similar drawback that their lifespans are lower brief by their Android kernels that may solely get a serious model improve from the SoC producer resulting from their proprietary blobs solely being suitable with one main model of the kernel. Unfortunately, all these telephones are utilizing MediaTek processors, which both have little or no mainline Linux help, so their lifespan can’t be prolonged by switching to a mainline Linux kernel.

Linux telephones primarily based on Android will develop into extra viable resulting from longer help

Nonetheless, the deliberate obsolescence of the Android cellphone market has began to vary. Google needed its Android working system to higher compete with Apple’s iOS. Apple guarantees at the very least 5 years of help for its telephones and sometimes supplies over 6 years. Unlike the opposite Android cellphone makers, Google’s industry mannequin doesn’t depend upon deliberate obsolescence. The extra those who Google can persuade to make use of its working system, the extra information Google can acquire for its focused promoting, so extending the lifetime of Android telephones is a strategy to entice extra customers to its platform.

In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic prompted folks to purchase fewer new telephones, after which the next provide chain crunch prompted cellphone costs to rise because of the dearer elements. The world common promoting value of Apple’s iPhone elevated from $724 to $903 between 2020 and 2024. Global smartphone gross sales collapsed in 2020 and have by no means recovered to their pre-pandemic ranges. In order to persuade folks to open their wallets for dearer telephones, shoppers wanted to be satisfied that they might last more.

In August 2020, Samsung announced that its S, Note and Z sequence telephones beginning with the S10 would all get three years of OS updates and safety updates, similar to Google had been offering for its Pixels, for the reason that model was first launched in 2016. At the time when Samsung made this coverage change, the smartphone business had simply skilled the worst decline in its historical past, with unit gross sales dropping 23% YoY within the second quarter of 2020. In October 2021, Google introduced that it could considerably prolonged the lifespan of its Pixel units, promising 3 years of OS updates and 5 years of safety updates, starting with the Pixel 6. Samsung couldn’t permit its Galaxy units to usurped as one of the best Android model. In February 2022, Samsung introduced that it could surpass Google with a promise of 4 years of OS updates and 5 years of safety patches for its flagship fashions, beginning with the Galaxy S21, Z3 and Tab8.

This set off a contest between the 2 corporations to see which one may present the longest software program help for its cellular units. Google determined to leapfrog Samsung once more and set a brand new commonplace that will finest Apple’s help coverage. In October 2023, Google pledged that the Pixel 8 sequence would get 7 years of OS updates and safety updates, plus “Pixel Feature Drops” and “AI know-how from Google”. Google’s announcement that it could help the Pixel 8 into 2030 despatched shock waves by means of the cellular business. Samsung was decided to not be outdone by Google, and announced in January 2024 that its new Galaxy S24 and S24 Ultra would additionally get 7 years of OS updates and safety updates. In 2025, Samsung prolonged the software program help to 6 years for all its new Galaxy fashions, together with its low-end Galaxy A06 4G, which prices around $125.

In October 2024 throughout its Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm commented that it could offer 8 years of OS upgrades and safety updates for its high-end cellular processors, and in February 2025, it formally announced that its new 7, 8 and eight Elite processors launched that 12 months would all get this unprecedented stage of help. Just as vital, Qualcomm promised that its high-end Snapdragon processors would additionally get two kernel upgrades, so they might be utilizing kernels which can be formally supported by new Android releases. MediaTek couldn’t let Qualcomm nook the high-end cellular processor marketplace for the following era of flagship telephones. On May 27, 2025, MediaTek posted that its Dimensity 8400 and 9400 chips would additionally get 8 years of help.

Traditionally every new Android model solely helps three years of kernels, however in 2024 Google added a fourth 12 months with Android 15 (android12-5.10 to android15-6.6) and a fifth 12 months with Android 16 (android12-5.10 to android16-6.12) and a sixth 12 months with Android 17 (android12-5.10 to android17-6.18). However, these additional years of help in Android are seemingly a short lived repair that Google applied till it could possibly transfer the chipmakers into its Longevity Google Requirements Freeze (LGRF) program which Google began in October 2024. Under this program, chipmakers are anticipated to improve their kernels each 3 years so as to have the ability to help their SoC’s in the long run. After the Linux kernel maintainers announced that they might be lowering their help of their LTS kernels from 6 to 2 years, Google announced in July 2024 that it could present safety updates to its kernels for 4 years, so that means that future Android releases will return to solely supporting 3 years of kernels.

Qualcomm has promised to supply two kernel updates for its excessive finish processors, however Qualcomm has mentioned nothing about its lower-tier processors, apart from its announcement back in December 2020 that every one of its Snapdragon processors would get three years of OS updates and 4 years of safety updates. Other SoC producers have been equally mum on the help for his or her lower-tier processors. In all chance, most smartphones with mid-range and low-end processors will solely get 4 years of help, which implies that all the prevailing Linux telephones from Volla, FuriLabs, Jolla and Brax will most likely face the identical drawback of utilizing unsupported Android kernels that may’t be upgraded.

New Linux telephones, nevertheless, might be designed sooner or later to get 8 years of help in the event that they use a higher-end Snapdragon or Dimensity processor. Even if designing a customized cellphone just like the FLX1, which took three years to convey to market, as a result of it has three {hardware} kill switches for the microphone, cameras and mobile modem and it required quite a lot of software program dev work, the Linux cellphone ought to nonetheless be viable as a result of it should nonetheless have 5 extra years of software program help and might be offered for at the very least 3 years.

If deciding on the Snapdragon 8 or Dimensity 9000 sequence to make the most of its longer software program help, the cellphone will get the additional benefit of providing video out through DisplayPort Alt Mode over its USB-C port. That implies that the cellphone might be marketed as a convergent gadget that enables it for use as each a cellphone and a desktop PC. Unlike an Android desktop, a Linux desktop is much extra helpful as a PC. If the cellphone has sufficient RAM and cupboard space, it could possibly develop into a alternative for the normal PC for individuals who don’t want quite a lot of processing energy, however it has the comfort of being extra moveable than a laptop computer, and never needing to switch information between a number of units. For individuals who should work in a number of places and need to have the ability to carry their information round with them, a convergent cellphone could be a very engaging possibility.

If designing a extra economical cellphone, nevertheless, that doesn’t want video out, the Snapdragon 7 and Dimensity 8400 are processors designed for higher mid-range telephones, and so they nonetheless get the 8 years of help (if the cellphone maker is keen to pay Qualcomm or MediaTek for the prolonged help). This would be the most tasty possibility for Volla, Jolla, FuriLabs and Brax, which all promote mid-range telephones.

If a Snapdragon chip is chosen, there’s a first rate probability that the chip will finally acquire some mainline Linux help, so the cellphone can have a second life after the official help ends, though its capabilities requiring binary blobs most likely received’t work with the upgraded mainline Linux kernel. What is so irritating is that most of the makers of Linux telephones are deciding on MediaTek processors over Snapdragon processors, so there’s little hope for that second life.

Why software program was a serious problem for the Librem 5

When Purism announced the Librem 5 in August 2017, the California-based firm wasn’t simply dealing with a serious impediment in utilizing a brand new SoC, that hadn’t but been launched, which might considerably delay the phone. Purism, nevertheless, confronted a good greater problem within the software program to put in on the cellphone.

Purism had noticed how attempting to develop cellular Linux had humbled bigger corporations with way more sources, and it tried to keep away from their errors. Motorola developed half a dozen completely different forms of Linux, however couldn’t unify and direct its growth efforts, and finally adopted Android which commoditized its telephones, so it needed to be offered off to Google and finally Lenovo with a view to survive. Palm took too lengthy growing webOS and ran out of cash as Android ate its market, so it needed to promote itself off to HP in 2010 with a view to survive. Likewise, Nokia took too lengthy growing MeeGo as its industry collapsed resulting from Android, so it turned to Microsoft in 2010 to supply Windows Mobile for its telephones, which solely hastened the destruction of the Finnish firm. The Mozilla Foundation developed a whole working system primarily based on net requirements, however discovered that it didn’t have the sources to match Google’s Android, and deserted the event of Firefox OS for smartphones in December 2015, though it continued growth for TVs and Internet of Things for another 10 months. Canonical tried to unify the desktop and cellular areas with its Unity8 interface and develop Ubuntu Touch as a cellular OS with good convergence for the desktop. However, it proved to be a expensive endeavor with restricted industrial curiosity, and Canonical’s CEO, Mark Shuttleworth, announced that the corporate would abandon the event of Ubuntu Touch in April 2017.

This tragic historical past has taught Linux {hardware} distributors that they need to do as little software program growth as attainable, besides code to make their {hardware} work and a few distro upkeep. However, avoiding software program dev work was not viable technique in 2017 for the form of cellphone that Purism was trying to create.

All the obtainable cellular Linux interfaces in 2017 had main drawbacks, together with Sailfish OS’s Silica, Firefox OS’s Gaia, KDE’s Plasma Mobile, UBports’ Unity8→Lomiri, Maemo Leste’s Hildon, LuneOS’s Luna Next and Nemo Mobile’s Glacier UI. Jolla had spent years sharpening its Sailfish OS, however Purism’s objective of 100% free software program disqualified Jolla’s proprietary Silica interface, in addition to Samsung’s Tizen, whose problematic Flora License grants a patent license solely to “Tizen licensed platforms”. Nemo Mobile and Plasma Mobile have been nonetheless incomplete and would have required quite a lot of dev work on Purism’s half to provide all of the lacking components. LG had turned webOS into an working system for good TVs/projectors and vehicles, and changing LG’s proprietary bits would have taken fairly a bit of labor. Firefox OS and Ubuntu Touch have been full techniques, however each of them would have required an enormous dedication on Purism’s half to take care of their software program in the long run. Firefox OS’s code was deserted, and the volunteers at UBports didn’t have the manpower to take care of its big codebase. All of the obtainable interfaces have been primarily based on a separate cellular stack, whereas Purism needed to unify with the software stack in desktop Linux, as a result of one in all its introduced objectives was that the Librem 5 could possibly be used with the key distros, together with Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, SUSE and Arch.

Purism initially leaned towards adopting Plasma Mobile for its Librem 5 cellphone, however that will have required sustaining each a GNOME-based stack on the desktop and a separate KDE-based cellular stack in its PureOS distribution. At that time limit, Plasma Mobile was nonetheless an inchoate system, that will have required an enormous quantity of dev work to prepare for a industrial product launch. Plasma Mobile was primarily based on many issues that have been incapatible with a desktop stack, resembling oFono telephony and the Halium Project, which was additionally utilized by LG’s webOS and UBport’s Ubuntu Touch, with a view to run the system on prime of libhybris with a Android kernel and drivers.

Purism was already working with GTK and GNOME in PureOS, and it marketed the Librem 5 as a cellphone aligned with the beliefs of the Free Software Foundation, which sponsored GNOME, so it made sense for Purism to favor an interface primarily based on GTK and the GNOME ecosystem. However, the one obtainable GTK-based interface was Hildon, which was hopelessly outdated, and would have required quite a lot of work to improve from GTK 2 to GTK 3.

In the top, Purism determined that it could be simpler to create a brand new cellular interface, which it referred to as Phosh (phone + shell), as a thin overlay on prime of GTK plus GNOME middleware, than do dev work on one of many present cellular interfaces. By basing Phosh on the usual desktop stack consisting of Linux + Wayland + wlroots + GTK + GNOME and including code to roughly 20 GNOME purposes to make them adaptive, Purism was capable of make the most of all the company help offered by IBM/Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical and Google for this stack. Purism needed to submit code upstream to Linux, wlroots, ModemManager, GTK/GNOME and Matrix to help its cellular working system, however then it may depend on these tasks to take care of the code sooner or later. This was arguably a greater technique than serving to develop Plasma Mobile, which has minimal company help, and was targeted on the time on growing a separate stack than KDE’s desktop Plasma. Purism began working on its libhandy library in mid-2018 so as to add to straightforward GTK3/GNOME desktop purposes to make them adaptive for a smaller cellular interface. Then the Purism builders labored with the GNOME neighborhood to develop libadwaita in 2020, so GTK4/GNOME may develop into adaptive between cellular and desktop screens.

As detailed in my article, “The strategic advantages of Phosh for mobile Linux,” unifying with an present desktop stack and getting the broader neighborhood to undertake its software program to assist preserve it was arguably one of the best technique to scale back the long-term upkeep prices, particularly for a tiny firm like Purism that has restricted sources.

Unfortunately, growing a brand new cellular interface concerned increased prices upfront, and Purism bumped into monetary issues throughout the world COVID-19 pandemic. In early March of 2020, Purism stopped paying refunds to clients who cancelled their preorders, telling clients that they must wait until the cellphone began delivery with a view to get their refunds. Between February and May of 2020, 5 of the 14 builders engaged on the Librem 5 stop the venture, and there was a noticeable drop within the variety of software program commits by the Purism staff who stayed, indicating that Purism most likely wasn’t paying them.

Purism was caught in a hopeless scenario. If it publicly admitted in early 2020 that it was having monetary issues, all the orders for its merchandise would have dried up and the corporate would seemingly have gone bankrupt. If it paid out all of the refund requests, it additionally would have seemingly gone bankrupt, which might have harmed everybody who had put down $599 – $799 to pre-order the Librem 5. Purism held off on paying refunds, which most likely allowed the corporate to outlive and finally begin delivering its telephones in November 2020. However, it didn’t seem to have the funds available to fabricate all of the pre-ordered telephones, as a result of the manufacture of the Librem 5 was performed in small batches till it was caught by COVID’s world provide chain shortages and couldn’t procure the i.MX 8M Quad processors for 6 months during 2021.

Purism by no means repaid the refunds for the canceled Librem 5 orders. Angry clients ready for his or her refunds publicly denounced the corporate on public boards, which blackened the corporate’s public repute and suppressed gross sales of the Librem 5. The early opinions for the cellphone famous the poor battery life and the truth that crucial performance was nonetheless not applied, such because the cameras, VoLTE help within the modem and the flexibility to droop. In order to recoup its excessive growth prices, Purism stored elevating the cellphone’s value, till it reached an eye-watering $1299 in March 2022, which additional suppressed gross sales of the cellphone.

Instead of refunds, Purism supplied clients who had canceled their orders credit plus 20% extra to purchase one other product from Purism. Customers who acquired the Librem 5 have been capable of resell it for greater than they paid, however many shoppers who had canceled their orders refused to try this on principal. In a letter to Louis Rossmann in August 2023, Purism admitted that it nonetheless had 600 cancelled Librem 5 orders, which it nonetheless didn’t have the funds to refund.

The success of Phosh regardless of its restricted funding

Despite all of the controversy surrounding the California-based firm, its technique of constructing a sustainable cellular OS by unifying with a well-liked desktop stack with good company help and upstreaming its code so it could be maintained over the long run has confirmed to be right. Of the 469k traces of code within the software program tasks that Purism initiated for the Librem 5, 98.7% of that code is now managed by exterior organizations. GNOME adopted libhandy, Calls and Chat (i.e. chatty) as official tasks. In late 2020, the Purism builders began labored with the GNOME neighborhood to develop libadwaita to develop into the canonical implementation of GNOME’s human interface tips (HIG). Not solely did this make GNOME’s GTK4 purposes adaptive between the desktop and cellular environoments, however it gained options like in-app notifications, customizable animations and pace/fluidity enhancements. GNOME has continued growing its GNOME Shell on mobile primarily based Mutter, which is its unified show server, compositor and window supervisor. In distinction, Phosh makes use of wlroots (a Wayland compositor library created by Sway) and its phoc (a Wayland compositor), that are lighter weight than Mutter. However, GNOME has helped promote Phosh by internet hosting its code and documentation at GNOME World to foster its growth.

As Purism has lower its finances for code growth, Phosh’s growth has more and more moved outdoors the corporate. FreeDesktop.org adopted feedbackd, which is a D-Bus activated daemon that gives haptic, visible and audio suggestions in response to occasions. In February 2025, the non-profit affiliation Phosh.mobi e.V. was created in Germany to information the event of Phosh as an impartial entity. Three of the 9 founding members of Phosh.mobi have been former or present Purism staff/contractors, together with Guido Gunther, who’s Phosh’s foremost developer.

Over the final 5 years, the quantity of code within the tasks that Purism created for the Librem 5 has grown by 74.9%, and far of that new code is being written by people who find themselves now not employed or contracted by Purism. The solely code tasks nonetheless managed by Purism are gtherm, haegtesse and wys, that are DBus daemons for thermals, transfering modem audio and mentioning PulseAudio throughout calls, respectively. Together, these tasks solely signify 6173 traces or 1.3% of the entire code.

Lines of code over the past 5 years in tasks began by Purism for the Librem 5
Project	2021-12-15	% of complete	2026-09-16	% of complete	Growth
libhandy	47,730	17.8%	48,110	10.3%	0.8%
libadwaita	51,270	19.1%	128,067	27.3%	149.8%
chatty	49,661	18.5%	49,534	10.6%	-0.3%
calls	20,745	7.7%	28,964	6.2%	39.6%
libcall-ui	4,426	1.6%	5,093	1.1%	15.1%
phoc	15,277	5.7%	38,599	8.2%	152.7%
phosh	48,301	18.0%	96,357	20.5%	99.5%
phosh-mobile-settings			26,724	5.7%
phosh-tour			4,135	0.9%
squeekboard	17,993	6.7%	26,773	5.7%	48.8%
feedbackd	5,970	2.2%	9,768	2.1%	63.6%
feedbackd-device-themes	603	0.2%	940	0.2%	55.9%
gtherm	1,734	0.6%	1,763	0.4%	1.7%
haegtesse	2,105	0.8%	2,044	0.4%	-2.9%
wys	2,442	0.9%	2,366	0.5%	-3.1%
Total	268,257	100.0%	469,237	100.0%	74.9%
Code adopted by exterior organizations
GNOME	173,832	64.8%	259,768	55.4%	49.4%
Phosh.mobi			192,588	41.0%
FreeDesktop.org			10,708	2.3%
Total exterior	173,832	64.8%	463,064	98.7%	166.4%

In a survey that PINE64 took of 3079 PinePhone customers in January 2022, 39.3% chosen Phosh as their favourite interface, in comparison with 15.5% for Sxmo/Sxmo, 15.0% for Plasma Mobile and 6.7% for Lomiri (previously Unity8). Despite Phosh solely beginning its growth in April 2018, extra customers most well-liked it over Lomiri and Plasma Mobile, which have been underneath growth since March 2013 and July 2015, respectively. Purism’s technique of utilizing the prevailing roads and purposes from GNOME allowed the tiny firm to create a usable interface quicker than different competing interfaces.

It is shocking that Phosh turned the preferred cellular Linux interface, contemplating that the Qt toolkit and KDE had such a head begin over GTK and GNOME in supporting cellular environments. Qt Quick was launched with Qt 5.1 in June 2013 to make Qt controls adaptive for small screens, and Qt Mobile was launched in December 2013 to make them cross-platform, and KDE’s Kirigami library for adaptive purposes was introduced in March 2016. GTK didn’t acquire related talents till 2019 with libhandy and GNOME didn’t have a solution to Kirigami till libadwaita was introduced in 2021.

Phosh has some obvious limitations. Its default Squeekboard keyboard is primary and kludgy. Only in 2025 did Phosh acquire an alternative keyboard with phrase correction and phrase completion, plus the flexibility to pick from a number of characters by lengthy urgent a key. The desktop mode in Phosh to output video to an exterior monitor or projector has a really restricted interface. Phosh has no digicam app, and most installations depend on Megapixels developed by Martijn Braam for the PinePhone or its Millipixels fork developed by Purism for the Librem 5. Millipixels solely gained primary help for auto-focus and the flexibility to shoot video in January 2023.

Phosh doesn’t have the three buttons on the backside or the swipe gestures from Android that most individuals are used to. Plasma Mobile’s interface is far nearer to the acquainted Android interface, and it’s nicer visually. Phosh’s interface is far simplier. It doesn’t use system navigation buttons and has fewer configuration choices than Plasma Mobile. A swipe from the underside shows Phosh’s Overview screen the place apps might be opened or closed. A swipe from the highest shows a Quick-Setting panel, notifications, and buttons within the prime corners to lock or flip off the cellphone.

S
S Swipe from the underside for Phosh’s Overview display to open or shut apps. The open apps are at prime, then a search bar, the 4 favourite apps, and all of the obtainable apps on the backside.

Phosh turned the extra in style interface, partly as a result of Purism was paying builders to work on it, so it was extra steady, whereas Plasma Mobile was extra susceptible to stalls and crashes. Plasma depends on {hardware} acceleration from the GPU to hurry up its interface, which isn’t supported by the drivers for the A64 and that i.MX 8M Quad within the PinePhone and Librem 5, whereas Phosh is quicker and extra responsive simply utilizing software program rendering. Phosh additionally requires much less RAM, though it does run extra background processes that use extra CPU.

Adoption of cellular interfaces by Linux distros

Phosh succeeded as a result of its shut adherence to a standard desktop stack made it simpler to package deal and distribute in several distros. Phosh was first adopted by postmarketOS (now Nura) in September 2018, only a two months after Purism first debuted it. The shut ties between the Phosh builders and Debian helped get Phosh packaged into Debian in February 2020, the place it turned the idea of the brand new Mobian distro. Phosh allowed Debian, Arch, Manjaro, Fedora, OpenSUSE and NixOS to develop into cellular distros for the primary time, which in flip inspired Linux software builders to begin testing their software program in a cellular interface to see the way it functioned on smaller screens. Because Phosh didn’t keep remoted in a single Linux distro, it attracted extra volunteers to assist develop the software program and work on porting it.

Over time, Plasma Mobile has adopted Phosh’s instance and more and more unified with its Plasma desktop stack. Originally the Plasma Mobile stack was fairly completely different from the usual desktop Plasma stack, since Plasma Mobile was primarily based on the oFono telephony library and could possibly be run both on the usual Linux kernel or on the Halium Project, which permits Plasma Mobile to run in an LXC container on prime of an Android kernel and drivers, and utilizing libhybris to translate its Linux calls to libc into Android’s Bionic. Over time the KDE has jettisoned components of Plasma Mobile to unify it with its desktop stack. In December 2020, KDE announced that it could do away with Halium and solely run on a Linux kernel, as a result of that change would permit Plasma Mobile to make use of a standard Linux userspace with out blobs and improve their KWin composer. A 12 months later in December 2021, Plasma Mobile announced that it was switching from the oFono library to ModemManager, as a result of it was extra steady and higher maintained than oFono. Finally, in February 2026, Plasma Mobile announced it could be switching from the Maliit on-screen keyboard to the brand new Plasma Keyboard. Over time, KDE has included Kirigami into extra of its commonplace purposes, so it doesn’t want two completely different purposes for Plasma and Plasma Mobile.

The unification of the cellular and desktop stacks made it simpler for Plasma Mobile to observe Phosh’s instance in getting packaged and included into all the key Linux desktop distributions, in order that they may be used on cellular units. Nearly each main distro began testing its code on the PinePhone, which helped get extra folks testing and contributing to Phosh and Plasma Mobile.

Despite the truth that these two interfaces have fewer builders than desktop GNOME and desktop Plasma, they’ve don’t want practically as a lot manpower as a result of they’ll piggy again on the desktop stack and the convergent apps, to allow them to thrive with a lot much less dev work and upkeep than large siloed codebases like Ubuntu Touch, Firefox OS, Tizen, webOS, and so forth.

Sxmo (Simple X Mobile) has adopted easy technique of constructing on prime an present deskop stack. It was created by Miles Alan, as a “collection of simple programs and shell scripts” on prime of Sway and its wlroots library. It was first launched in February 2020, and shortly turned the second hottest interface on the PinePhone resulting from its lightweight and easy design, which made it straightforward to customise. Sxmo has been included into the cellular distros (postmarketOS, Mobian and DanctNIX), however the desktop distros haven’t adopted it, which has restricted its attain.

UBport’s Lomiri interface is quicker and extra responsive and consumes much less RAM than Phosh and Plasma Mobile, however it was initially remoted in Ubuntu Touch. Canonical spent years growing its Unity8 interface, which relies on Qt Quick and utilized in Ubuntu Touch. The UBports neighborhood renamed the interface as Lomiri in February 2020. UBports has adopted an analogous technique of attempting to draw extra folks to its Lomiri interface by getting it included into the key distros. UBports modified Ubuntu Touch and the Lomiri interface so they may run on both Halium or a regular Linux kernel, and switched to utilizing extra standardized libraries that have been simpler to improve over time. Nonetheless its small variety of volunteers has struggled to take care of its big codebase, and replace it to new variations of Qt.

Despite the pinnacle begin of Plasma Mobile and Lomiri, they stayed remoted for longer in KDE Neon and Ubuntu Touch. In distinction, Phosh received adopted virtually instantly by postmarketOS, and as soon as it received packaged by Debian in early 2020, many of the different main distros shortly adopted it. When postmarketOS was first launched in May 2017, it used Weston, which is Wayland’s reference compositor, however inside the first 100 days of its existence, postmarketOS adopted Plasma Mobile. However, postmarketOS selected to ship its PinePhone Community Edition with Phosh resulting from its larger stability.

Source link

Different approaches to designing a Linux cellphone
Approach	SoC	CPU / GPU	Battery life	Support	HW dev	SW dev	Price (1-5)	Notes
Community Linux	RK3566	Bad	Bad	Forever	laborious	none	1	software program outsourced to the neighborhood, poor high quality convergence
Expensive Linux	RK3588S	Sub-optimal	Poor	Forever	very laborious	very laborious	5	actual {hardware} kill switches, convergence attainable
Mid-range blobbed Linux	QCM6490	Good	Sub-optimal	until 2035	straightforward	laborious	4	numerous blobs, convergence attainable
Economic Android kernel	Snapdragon 4/6 Gen 4	OK	Good	4 years	straightforward	average	2	numerous blobs, no convergence
Mid-range Android kernel	Snapdragon 7 Gen 4	Good	Good	8 years	straightforward	average	3	numerous blobs, no convergence
Expensive Android kernel	Snapdragon 8 Gen 5	Stellar	OK	8 years	straightforward	average	5	numerous blobs, convergence attainable

Name	Price	24H (%)
Bitcoin(BTC)	$83,763.00	0.95%
Ethereum(ETH)	$2,558.04	2.33%
Tether(USDT)	$1.00	0.01%
BNB(BNB)	$752.78	0.81%
XRP(XRP)	$1.41	1.24%
USDC(USDC)	$1.00	0.00%
Solana(SOL)	$112.26	2.67%
TRON(TRX)	$0.331460	0.36%
Figure Heloc(FIGR_HELOC)	$1.06	-0.85%
Zcash(ZEC)	$1,313.40	7.24%

Will Linux telephones develop into a viable various to the Android/iOS duopoly?

The SoC dilemma: weak however lengthy lived vs highly effective however brief lived

The RK3588S modifications the sport for Linux telephones

The new possibility of Linux telephones utilizing a Qualcomm IoT SoC

The drawback of utilizing an Android kernel in a Linux cellphone

Linux telephones primarily based on Android will develop into extra viable resulting from longer help

Why software program was a serious problem for the Librem 5

The success of Phosh regardless of its restricted funding

Adoption of cellular interfaces by Linux distros

PINE64’s try and get round the price of growing software program

The waning enthusiasm for Linux telephones

Jolla exhibits that there’s nonetheless demand for Linux telephones

The cellular business is shutting down the AOSP various

Three varieties of Linux telephones are actually attainable

The actual barrier holding again Linux telephones is the businesses

You May Also Like