Is there a way to run latest Phosh without breaking functionality?

Hardware Librem 5
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Hello everyone,

I’ve been wondering how to get the best experience out of my Librem 5. Of course, I want everything to be working smoothly and have the latest software, but am aware that there are some obstacles on the way. FYI, I am comfortable with flashing a new distro and playing around with package sources.

I know there has been a regression in the linux kernel, which means we should stick to 6.6. I also read that increasing the amount of zram can greatly improve responsiveness and battery drain. So far so good. However, is there a way of using the (almost) latest Phosh and still have working calls, camera and suspend? For example, I can just install mobian testing and specify the correct kernel version or will that break something? Or how about PostmarketOS?

I have seen comments fromt @dos that he is still using his Librem 5 happily and have seen mastodon posts of @guido.gunther (although no longer with Librem 5) with the latest Phosh, but am not sure if this is possible/easy to setup.

Thanks for the help and sorry if I’m repeating questions already discussed elsewhere.

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You probably are able to take a disc image, so you can test all kinds and then flash back that backup image if you don’t like what you get (jumpdrive connection + Discs app). No need to look for a solution from only one direction if it doesn’t suit you.

Have you looked at adding Byzantium backports as a solution? It updates byz and you get for instance latest phosh. It’s unofficial though.

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Hi,
you could try out PostmarketOS by flashing it onto a SD-card. Then you can boot into this OS by holding the Volume down key while switching on your librem 5 and still keep the original PureOS and all your data at the internal memory.
I use PostmarketOS since several months as a second OS in the (unstable) edge version, which is a rolling release, so you’ll get all new software with each update. Phosh is in the most actual version 0.45.0 from 02-15-2025.
Of course it also has it’s quirks but works for me as a daily driver, at least not worse than the PureOS 10.3

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Thanks for the suggestion! Could you just tell me what doesn’t work under postmarkesOS?

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There are a few -may be minor but nevertheless annoying- things that don’t work reliably: my installed and preferred ring tone is ignored; often sound is not working, because after shutting down the phone the sound balance is shifted to “right” and I have to bring it back to middle position again; sometimes the “Lollypop” music player stops multiple times during playback; the note taking app “Iotas” does not start, and the “KDE-connect” app is not available, which is very inconvenient for me because I use KDE Plasma on my PC.

On the other hand GPS supported navigation with “Pure Maps” and “OSM Scout Server” works very reliable out of the box (at least if there is clear sky!), which never worked for me on PureOS 10.3

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Just an update no my side. I decided to go down the Mobian path. I kept the default zram of 1.5GB, created a swap of 6GB. I also installed flatpaks on the sd card and mounted my music and pictures folders to the sd card as well. I’m overall quite happy with having the up-to-date phosh, most programs work sufficiently fast, and the phone doesn’t get too hot.

The one problem I have is that I cannot use suspend. Something goes wrong when the phone wakes up from suspend and all my flatpak apps are gone. Note that my sd card is not encrypted and that I’m using the kernel from mobian testing (i.e., 6.6.0.75). Is this a known problem or is it something unexpected?

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This should get fixed once Mobian updates its kernel to include latest fixes from Purism’s tree:

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Would you recommend me to switch to Purism’s repo just for the kernel or is Mobian sufficiently fast with their updates that it is not worth the trouble?

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Mixing repos from different distributions is rarely a good idea.

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Do you know, whether these kernel updates including these latest fixes from Purism’s tree will also go into PostmarketOS updates?

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I hope they do, but you’ll have to ask pmOS people.

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After waiting for a few weeks for Mobian to update their kernel, I decided to just download and install the one from Purism. So in the end, I have suspend enabled.

I know there have been a few reviews around, but maybe I can also write a few lines of my impressions. I don’t think there will be anything new here, but doesn’t hurt to share them.

So first, Phosh is awesome. Kudos to all Phosh developers. It provides such a great experience and it interoperates just great with the gnome stack (as intended). It’s a joy to open it.

Second, I like libadwaita apps. They’re great. I like Pipeline, Podcasts, Dialect, Foliate, Cozy, Flare, etc. Lollypop works great. I think most apps that I use on my android phone already have equivalents.

In terms of apps, I really miss Whatsapp and a mail client. I’m using online whatsapp now and it’s just not great, it’s slow and not mobile friendly. Also, I’m struggling to find a mobile friendly mail client that works well with Microsoft exchange - my work email is there.

I haven’t used Puremaps so far, but it’s also not the fastest to load. I like that you can download maps, but a native GTK libadaita maps app with the same capability would be amazing. Or maybe porting organic maps?

Finally, we all know that the hardware is old and battery hungry. With suspend enabled, it’s kind of ok. The ram is enough after adding swap and zram. But the phone still gets warm whenever used and it lasts about 12 hours with modest use (about an hour of screen on time and the rest in suspend).

But it’s really fun to have linux on a phone and to use the same set of apps on my laptop and phone. I still have to see if it is feasible as a daily driver, but I see there is a lot of potential here. With slightly better and more efficient hardware, it can be a blast.

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I believe you can access Microsoft Exchange via IMAP - which then changes the task to finding any mobile friendly IMAP client - however it is possible that your work has disabled that option. And there is the challenge of the non-mail functions of Microsoft Exchange, which functions may be important to you in your work situation.

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Yes, indeed. It’s really a problem on my work’s side. They have disabled it. Also, it would be nice to share calendars and so on. It’s really a Linux problem in general. I need to use the web version of outlook there too.

Btw, one thing I forgot to mention is that the size of Librem 5 is actually pretty good as is the build quality. It feels nice in the hand.

And I also just came across this: NLnet; Organic Maps сonvergent UI with Qt Quick/Kirigami. It turns out there is already a funded project to create a convergent UI for Organic maps, so maybe soon we’ll be able to use them on linux generally and our phones specifically.

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