The world of Linux on mobile phones and tablets is experiencing a moment of real effervescenceNames like PinePhone, Librem 5, postmarketOS, Ubuntu Touch, and Fedora Mobility are increasingly common among those seeking a more open and controllable smartphone. Amidst this landscape, two clear protagonists have emerged when it comes to bringing GNOME to your pocket: GNOME Shell adapted for mobile devices (GNOME Mobile) and Phosh, two different but closely related paths to offer a touch experience based on GNOME technologies.
Despite all this movement, Most users have barely seen GNOME on mobile devices outside of forums, blogs, or YouTube videos.There are no television ads or big campaigns, and the prevailing idea is usually something like "putting the computer's GNOME on your phone." The reasonable question is whether it's really the same desktop GNOME adapted or something closer to Android or iOS, with its own particularities, limitations, and advantages.
The current challenge of bringing Linux to smartphones
Today, installing A complete GNU/Linux system on a phone is still a small adventure.The overall maturity of mobile offerings is still below that of desktop environments; manufacturers rarely provide open documentation or drivers, and the enormous diversity of ARM SoCs makes it extremely difficult to have homogeneous support for modems, cameras, sensors, and other components that we already take for granted in Android.
If we stop by the The postmarketOS wiki has a long list of supported models.However, very few devices fall into the category of "recommended for daily use without major drawbacks." Many phones are still in the experimental stage, others are halfway there, and a few can already serve as a primary mobile phone, albeit with some compromises. Even so, Each new release, like postmarketOS 25.12, pushes the usability barrier a little further..
Until we reach the point where a GNU/Linux mobile device is completely plug and play, Many users are testing the GNOME mobile experience from their desktop.Thanks to GNOME's adaptive design philosophy and libraries like Libadwaita, simply narrowing the window of applications like Settings, Files, Maps, or GNOME Web will automatically rearrange them as if they were on a phone screen in portrait mode.
This approach allows that GNOME can function as a testbed for mobile interfaces without needing a PinePhone or a Librem 5The developers designed the app to look good on both a 27-inch monitor and a 6,5-inch panel, and the user can already get an idea of how that software would behave on a real touch device.
In parallel, Flathub is establishing itself as a “universal app store” where desktop and mobile applications packaged in Flatpak coexist. There we already find projects clearly designed for small screens, such as the Portfolio file manager or the Iotas notepad, in addition to many classic GNOME applications that are being remade with responsive design.
GNOME Mobile: a GNOME Shell that learns to be touch-enabled
At the project level, “GNOME Mobile” is not a separate product but the evolution of GNOME Shell to work smoothly on mobile phones and tabletsIn the documentation and on the official GitLab, it is usually referred to as "GNOME Shell on mobile", making it clear that it is the same shell as always, but with profound changes in interaction, gestures and distribution of elements to adapt to small screens.
The turning point was GNOME 40, where much of the experience was redesignedThe application grid was reorganized horizontally with pagination; folders were introduced that were easier to manage via drag and drop; and workspaces were redesigned to better accommodate landscape and portrait orientations. Although many desktop users viewed these changes as purely aesthetic, The reality is that they were laying the groundwork for a truly usable GNOME Shell on mobile devices..
Developers like Jonas Dressler have commented on several occasions that It won't be long before GNOME Shell can run reasonably well on phones.However, it still lacks all the features of a modern smartphone. Elements such as advanced call management, PIN and emergency lock screen handling, and quick access to the flashlight and camera still require lower-level integrations that go beyond GNOME itself.
The GNOME Shell for Mobile roadmap includes a battery of ambitious changes, some already in place and others still in the design phase. Among the most notable are:
- New gesture API and form factor detectionto distinguish whether it is on a desktop, tablet or smartphone and adapt gestures and interface density.
- Top and bottom panel layers In the style of current mobile systems, with a notification area, quick statuses (WiFi, data, brightness, etc.) and gesture strips from the bottom to switch apps or show the grid.
- Reinterpreting mobile workspacesmaking each full-screen application a workspace, something much more understandable for those coming from Android or iOS.
- Adaptive application grid with pagination and folders optimized for narrow screens, inherited from the redesigns of GNOME 40 and later.
- Redesigned on-screen keyboardwith the idea of offering a smooth and consistent touch experience, overcoming the limitations of current desktop-based solutions.
- Quick settings and notification system refocused for vertical usewith special emphasis on critical access and visual clarity.
Parallel, The team is working on basic shell navigation using gestures.Accessing Activities, switching between recent apps, activating the global search box, or launching the grid without relying on physical buttons. All of this is being partially funded by the German Prototype Fund, a program that supports software projects of public interest, which has accelerated development but doesn't come close to covering all the effort needed to achieve a truly polished "GNOME Phone."
Within the GNOME GitLab we can find the set of designs under the tag “Mobile shell”where mockups and concepts are showcased, exploring everything from new launchers to touch keyboards and unprecedented multitasking displays. They aren't firm promises, but they do They clearly indicate the direction of convergence in the medium and long term, and they point to a major evolution of GNOME Shell in the coming years that could be equated to a significant generational leap for the environment.
Libhandy, Libadwaita and the responsive app ecosystem
For GNOME to make sense on a mobile device, It's not enough for the shell to be touch-sensitive: the applications must also adapt smoothly.This is where libraries like Libhandy and, more recently, Libadwaita come into play, providing widgets and design patterns specifically designed for adaptive interfaces.
Thanks to these bookstores, Many GNOME apps can reconfigure their structure on the flySidebars that become swipeable menus, toolbars that compact, tabbed bottom navigation, etc. Portfolio, Iotas, Maps, Web, and Settings are examples of programs that already offer quite decent experiences on smartphones and tablets, which reinforces the idea of a single codebase for desktop and mobile.
In this context, The camera has become a key element of GNOME's mobile strategyGNOME Camera has started working on devices like the PinePhone Pro, leveraging drivers present in recent kernels (such as 6.3) and integrating with libcamera and PipeWire. Although the image quality is far from that of an Android flagship, This is a clear sign that the camera stack in GNU/Linux is maturing..
Furthermore, it has been presented Snapshot, a camera application designed for computers, tablets, and phonesIts understated, touch-oriented interface is reminiscent of what we see on commercial mobile phones, and although it is currently quite simple (timer and little else), it is already part of the official GNOME incubator, with the idea of gaining capabilities as it is tested on more devices and compatibility with common sensors improves.
Phosh: the mobile shell that's already on the street
As GNOME Shell moves towards convergence, Phosh has become the "workhorse" of the GNOME mobile ecosystemOriginally developed for Purism as Phone Shell for the Librem 5, it uses GNOME and GTK+3 technologies and relies on its own compositor called Phoc, which runs on Wayland. From there, it has expanded to postmarketOS, Mobian, Fedora Mobility, various Pine64 device images, and other distributions.
Phosh is designed thinking from day one about touchscreens and modest hardwareIts interface offers a simple launcher, a top panel with indicators and quick access tools, integrated notifications, and gesture navigation designed for one-handed use. Unlike a traditional desktop, It does not attempt to replicate the metaphor of stacked windows, but rather the behavior of a modern smartphone. but with the GNU/Linux philosophy underneath.
The shell is complemented by phosh.session, which launches Phosh, Phoc, and the necessary GNOME componentsand with a dedicated on-screen keyboard. Initially, phosh-osk-stub was used, which in recent versions has been renamed Stevia. For text input, many systems also use Squeekboard, a keyboard designed for touch devices with multilingual support and some optimizations for small screens.
One of Phosh's strengths is that Its CPU and RAM requirements are containedThis makes it ideal for phones with modest hardware like the PinePhone or the Librem 5. While not yet comparable to Android or iOS, battery management is reasonable within the context of mobile GNU/Linux and allows Use these devices as your main phone if you accept some limitations..
Regarding security, Phosh opting for Wayland as the graphics server, reducing some attack surfaces associated with X11Added to components such as feedbackd, callaudiod, mmsd-tng and other pieces of the telephony and notification stack, a relatively modern environment is being built, aligned with the needs of an always-connected device.
Recent updates to Phosh: from 0.22.0 to 0.51.0
The development of Phosh has not stopped for a moment. Versions like 0.22.0 introduced significant visual changesThe overall style was tweaked, the button layout was reorganized, the battery indicator now shows the status in 10% increments, and notifications on the lock screen gained action buttons to respond to or manage alerts without fully unlocking the device.
In that same line, phosh-mobile-settings and the phosh-osk-stub virtual keyboard debugger They were updated to facilitate the configuration of mobile options and the diagnosis of problems with the touch keyboard. At the same time, a proposal emerged from the Fedora ecosystem to Create complete Fedora Linux mobile images with Phosh pre-installedStarting with Fedora 38 for x86_64 and aarch64 architectures, with the idea of bringing a "nearly ready-to-use" solution to any device supported by the standard kernel.
Jumping through time, The 0.48 branch provided another boostAmong other things, it integrated a screensaver plugin capable of controlling multimedia playback via MPRIS from the lock screen, allowed writing plugins in Vala to extend the shell, enabled the reception of cell broadcast messages by default, and added a panel in phosh-mobile-settings to configure which categories of alerts to show and how to present them, in addition to improving the keyboard indicator.
The composer Phoc also evolved with support for wlroots 0.19.0Adding compatibility with modern Wayland protocols such as shortcuts-inhibit and image capture extensions (ext-image-capture-source-v1 and ext-image-capture-copy-v1), and improving integration with wp_presentation_time_v2. support for adaptive-sync refresh ratewhich helps balance fluidity and energy consumption, and the ability to save and restore video output configurations.
On the hardware side, The gmobile project incorporated support for power buttons from models such as the Fairphone 5 and FLX1It also included utilities for converting MCC country codes to ISO format, useful for managing mobile networks. The on-screen keyboard phosh-osk-stub was renamed Stevia, the "us+dvorak" distribution was incorporated, and the entire stack was aligned with Recent versions of GNOME (48), Calls 48.2, cellbroadcastd 0.0.2, feedbackd 0.8.3, callaudiod 0.1.10, wys 0.1.12 and mmsd-tng 2.6.3, among others.
The series Version 0.51.0 arrived with an even more polished ecosystemPhosh 0.51.0 added quick location adjustments (currently as a demo), significant improvements to automatic brightness using a "bucket" algorithm, a brightness control that acts as an offset around the automatic value, gradual brightness transitions, and an icon next to the slider to indicate whether automatic mode is active. It also introduced the ability to configure specific flashlight settings with minimum brightness levels and fixed visual issues such as the "Open settings" button on devices with rounded corners.
In this cycle, phosh-mobile-settings 0.51.0 brought improvements to the feedback panel (such as choosing an alarm sound when the clock app supports it and fine-tuning the volume according to role: notifications, calls, alarms…), displayed icons for quick settings plugins in the top bar, and added a “conf-tweaks” block with improved error handling and the inclusion of Gtk3Settings. Internationalization also progressed with more translations into Swedish, Romanian, Russian, Persian, Greek, Georgian, Czech, Dutch, Slovenian, Hebrew, Ukrainian, Turkish, and Brazilian Portuguese.
Other components associated with this wave include phoc 0.51.0, stevia 0.51.0, xdg-desktop-portal-phosh 0.51.0, libcall-ui 0.1.5, gmobile 0.5.0, libphosh-rs 0.0.7 and pfs 0.0.5Among the highlights are internal cleanup, improved robustness, the addition of thumbnail and CLI services in the xdg portal, screen information support for Fairphone 6, the transition from pfs to gtk-rs 0.10, and the option to install via cargo. Other complementary, though not essential, projects include phom (virtual mouse), phosh-osk-data, phosh-wallpapers, phrog (welcome screen), phosh-antispam, vvmd, vvmplayer, livi, and chatty. They expand the capabilities of the mobile environment based on Phosh..
Phosh 0.51 and Sxmo 1.18.1 on postmarketOS 25.12
The distribution postmarketOS 25.12 is a good example of how these advances are integrated into a real systemNow based on Alpine Linux 3.23 and with the new APK 3 package manager, the distro introduces a more robust update mode that downloads all packages before installing them, reducing the risk of leaving the device in an inconsistent state if the data connection is cut off.
On the visual plane, postmarketOS 25.12 relies on GNOME 49 components adapted for mobile, with improvements such as direct MTP support for file sharing with other computers, and updates KDE Plasma Mobile to version 6.5.3, fine-tuning the lock screen, the Plasma Camera app and integration with Waydroid to run Android apps.
Within the interfaces available to the user, Phosh occupies a leading roleThis version includes Phosh 0.51, which adds improved auto-brightness management, more adaptive Rust portals, thumbnails in the file selector, and support for controlling multiple media players from the lock screen. It also incorporates new interface scaling options and a pop-up typing indicator in Stevia, which helps you understand when the system is registering keystrokes.
The Phosh mobile settings app on postmarketOS It also begins to integrate options from the distribution settings themselves.This allows you to configure, for example, terminal design shortcuts directly from the graphical preferences without having to struggle with text files or unfriendly commands.
As an alternative or complement to Phosh, Sxmo is updated to version 1.18.1This minimalist environment, much loved by advanced users, introduces support for the i3 and River window managers, a new Quick Actions menu for common tasks, and replaces callaudiod with WirePlumber to better manage switching to "Call" audio mode during phone conversations, improving overall reliability.
Hardware support, Firefox Mobile, and new devices in postmarketOS
Beyond the graphical environment, postmarketOS 25.12 reorganizes how it categorizes hardware supportThe generic MSM8916 kernel and the terminals that depend on it are now in the "testing" category, indicating that they can function reasonably well but without guaranteeing the same polished experience as on devices marked as stable. Other hardware trees, such as those based on MSM8226 or APQ8064, have been restructured for clearer maintenance.
The new version comes with a long list of kernel patches and compatibility improvementsThese improvements benefit devices like the Fairphone 5, the Librem 5, the PinePhone family, and specific models such as the Acer Chromebook Tab 10, whose camera and webcam have been significantly enhanced. Call audio on devices like the OnePlus 6 has also been refined, one of the areas where Linux phones typically lag behind Android.
Among the new devices, the following stands out: Lenovo ThinkSmart View, a tablet originally designed for video conferencingIn this first phase with postmarketOS, boot, touchscreen, Wi-Fi, and 3D acceleration are available, while audio, camera, Bluetooth, and light sensors are still under development. This type of support reinforces the idea of Reuse abandoned or specialized hardware to give it a second life with GNU/Linux.
The browser also receives some love with mobile-config-firefox 5.1.0A set of tweaks to improve Firefox's performance on mobile devices, with a greater focus on privacy. It includes an about:mobile page to enable or disable options, the ability to move the address bar up or down, the option to choose whether to display close buttons in tabs, and an adjustable open tab counter, as well as improvements to pop-up windows and support for fractional scaling in Wayland.
All of this fits with the target audience of postmarketOS: users who value durability, the right to repair, and software freedomIn Europe, where regulation increasingly favors technological sustainability, the Fairphone + postmarketOS combo, or PinePhone + Phosh, is becoming a very serious alternative for those willing to sacrifice convenience in exchange for control and transparency.
Phosh in Arch Linux and the role of other mobile interfaces
Another interesting option for those who want to experiment is Installing Phosh on Arch LinuxArch is characterized by offering a minimal, almost bare-bones base system, where the user installs only what they need. This perfectly aligns with Phosh's philosophy, allowing users to create a customized mobile experience by combining the touchscreen interface with their preferred applications.
The installation is done by pacman, adding the Phosh package and, optionally, virtual keyboards like Squeekboard or complementary mobile tools. A specific Wayland session is then created for Phosh, so that when the login manager starts, the option to enter a touch environment on Arch appears. However, a certain level of experience with Linux is assumed, since Driver configuration, touch input, and composer fine-tuning are not trivial.
Other projects are running in parallel: KDE's Plasma Mobile, UBports' Lomiri (formerly Unity8), or more experimental options like JingOS and CDEEach offers its own vision of a convergent interface, present in devices like PinePhone, ARM tablets, or some x86_64 images. The general perception among many users is that, as of today, Phosh typically offers the strongest combination of stability, usability, and community supportwithout diminishing the merits of what KDE or UBports have achieved.
Distributions like Fedora have taken clear steps with projects such as Fedora Mobility and the intention to offer official images with PhoshMeanwhile, GNOME continues to refine Mutter (its compositor) to better suit mobile and tablet formats. On devices like the Steam Deck or x86-64 tablets, a more touch-oriented GNOME could compete head-to-head with Windows or ChromeOS in that area where it currently lags somewhat behind.
Although the famous 2022 article “GNOME Shell on mobile: an update” remains a reference point for understanding how things are progressing, In recent years, there hasn't been a flood of new commercial releases about GNOME Mobile.Much of the work continues in the background on GitLab, commits and prototypes, while Phosh and projects like postmarketOS or Fedora Mobility are the ones teaching the general public what it means to use GNOME on a real mobile device.
As of today, the picture they paint GNOME Mobile, Phosh, and distributions like postmarketOS or Fedora Mobility represent an ecosystem still under construction but already usable.GNOME Shell is advancing with gesture APIs, flexible layouts, and adaptive applications like Snapshot; Phosh is establishing itself as the practical option in Librem 5, PinePhone, Fairphone, Arch, postmarketOS, and others; and support for hardware, cameras, audio, and mobile browsers is improving with each version. We're still a ways off from a "perfect Linux mobile" on par with Android or iOS in terms of polish and ease of use, but Each new automatic brightness adjustment, each camera improvement, or each polished touch panel brings us a little closer to that scenario where using a GNU/Linux smartphone as your main device will no longer be a rarity..