7.5 KiB
+++ title = "A 2025 review of Mobile Linux with postmarketOS v25.12" date = 2025-12-31 draft = false
[taxonomies] categories = [ "reviews", "mobile-linux", "aarch64" ] tags = [ "postmarketOS", "v25.12" ] +++
{% note(header="Note") %} This was tested on a OnePlus 6T using Phosh as the desktop/shell {% end %}
Hardware
This is an updated table based on my testing with v25.12:
| Core Feature | Status |
|---|---|
| Wi-Fi/Bluetooth | Works |
| Touchpad | Works |
| Touch Screen | Works |
| Fingerprint Reader | Works |
| Cameras | Basic |
| Speakers | Works |
| Headphone port | N/A |
| USB-C port | Works |
| SIM Slot | Not tested |
- work but not ideal quality
Cameras
Both work but they are not fully color and the quality is not best but I did not test them on Android using this hardware.
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
I was able to connect to my home network without issues including using scp (to transfer the screenshots in this post) and ssh without issue.
Speakers
The speakers work and sound great!
Battery
Checking upower -d shows the following information:
Device: /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_bq27411_0
native-path: bq27411-0
vendor: Texas Instruments
power supply: yes
updated: Sun Dec 28 09:43:56 2025 (14 seconds ago)
has history: yes
has statistics: yes
battery
present: yes
rechargeable: yes
state: discharging
warning-level: none
energy: 4.6904 Wh
energy-empty: 0 Wh
energy-full: 21.5776 Wh
energy-full-design: 16.016 Wh
voltage-min-design: 3.4 V
voltage-max-design: 4.4 V
capacity-level: Normal
energy-rate: 0.396 W
voltage: 3.744 V
charge-cycles: N/A
time to empty: 11.8 hours
percentage: 40%
temperature: 27.5 degrees C
capacity: 100%
technology: lithium-ion
icon-name: 'battery-good-symbolic'
History (charge):
1766940175 40.000 discharging
History (rate):
1766940236 0.396 discharging
1766940205 0.383 discharging
1766940175 0.405 discharging
1766940145 0.352 discharging
USB-C port
The port works for power and data as expected, I did not test any external docks and such though.
Fingerprint Reader
I was not able to test this, it is under the screen unlike the OnePlus 6 which is on the back.
Software
Phosh
The animations in Phosh are smoother than this video shows when shown in person.
NOTE: The empty space on the bottom of applications in the overview is because of the keyboard placeholder being there.
GNOME Software
After the shell the next most important for a mobile device (and desktop in my eyes) should be the software store/center and for that we have GNOME Software:
For an OS based on Alpine Linux I usually just do a sudo apk update; sudo apk upgrade but if you are used to a UI you can use GNOME Software for applying updates as well.
Social Media
For Mastodon usage Tuba is a great mobile (and desktop) client:
Smart Home
I personally use Home Assistant and thanks to my friend Cassidy there is a nice looking application called Butler (it is a webapp but it works really well!)
Navigation
GNOME Maps is included by default and it seems to be much better than the last time that I looked at navigation tools on Linux Mobile (there is also Pure Maps but you do need to get an API key to use it online I believe).
Music Player
The default music player in v25.12 is called Gapless and it works well on mobile plus it supports my FLAC files without issue.
Video decoding
YouTube works without issue though Netflix (and I suspect other streaming websites) do not work, I suspect it is because postmarketOS ships with Firefox ESR rather than default Firefox.
Closing marks
If you have seen my older blog posts about Linux Mobile (I lost a few posts with my move) then you may remember how the open dialog (like with the Audio Player application in this example) did not scale well for mobile and kinda made them impossible to use. With that in memory I'm happy to report that it has been fixed in this example:
I suspect this might depend on applications using a newer libadwaita version so your mileage may vary.
Now a new interesting one to replace that issue! The print dialog! I was able to do this when trying to print out directions:
Tips & Tricks
- To hide the keyboard press and hold the bar at the bottom of the screen
- For screenshots and video recording I used grim and wf-recorder for those tasks
Additional information
There are some more resources for updated information about Linux on this device:
- postmarketOS Installation
- [OnePlus 6 - postmarketOS Wiki](https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/OnePlus_6_(oneplus-enchilada) - The 6T uses the same steps just a different image due to a bit different hardware
- postmarketOS Wiki Apps
- linuxphoneapps list
- postmarketOS Donation page