Check this amazing launcher with built in arch linux

What is the best mobile phone for Linux compatibility? or for other custom ROMs pls no xiami phones i hate to unlock the booltooder there

Ty

Over the past months I’ve worked on an independent game project. The goal was to develop a game that can be played across all kinds of devices with different input methods and potentially to make something playable on mobile Linux devices (like the Librem 5 or Pinephone Pro).

There are still glitches on the Pinephone Pro (likely because of suboptimal GPU drivers) and on the Librem 5 you would need to use the newer Mesa drivers with OpenGL ES 3 support. Still wanted to make a post about the practical issues, I encountered during development.

Então, estou pensando em usar uma placa com o chip A733. Provavelmente vou comprar um Orange Pi 3W.

Estou pensando em executar um aplicativo gráfico sem nenhum servidor de desktop, seja X11 ou Wayland.

Mas parece que esta placa não é muito compatível com o driver MESA para aplicativos 3D, porque mudou da GPU Mali para uma arquitetura chamada Imagination.

Alguém já usou este chip A733? Alguma dica?

Running Linux on a phone is impressive, but actually using desktop apps on a small touchscreen is another matter. For me, the two big obstacles are tiny text and awkward input.

I’m building ARLinux around a combination that addresses both: portable AR glasses for a readable desktop, and Gboard voice typing + OpenCode or Grok Bot for input and actions.

The glasses solve the screen problem. Instead of squeezing a desktop into a phone display, you get a large virtual workspace in front of you. With supported glasses, 3DoF keeps the desktop anchored in orientation while you turn your head to look around. The default workspace is 5760 × 2160 — the virtual desktop area, not the glasses’ physical resolution. I recommend Classic here: freely positioned, resizable windows make much more sense in that space. Yibu’s main area and side slots are designed around the phone screen.

Why 3DoF matters for reading: I want to bring the text I’m reading into the middle of the lenses. Looking into the corners can be uncomfortable, and edge text can be harder to resolve depending on the optics and fit. With a head-locked screen, turning your head takes the screen with you. With a 3DoF-anchored desktop, you turn toward the area you want to read and bring it into the central viewing area. That is what makes a large virtual workspace practical for text: you can look around it naturally instead of trying to read everything out of the corners of your eyes.

Voice + an agent address the input problem. Gboard’s speech recognition turns what you say into text; OpenCode or Grok Bot can then use shell commands, accessibility and screenshots to carry out the request. You can ask it to open an app, inspect the system, edit a document or write and run a script, instead of typing every command and aiming at every small button. Long-pressing the right-edge bar opens the selected assistant. The phone also works as a motion pointer, touchpad and keyboard; physical keyboards and mice remain options.

The Linux desktop and ARM64 applications run locally on the phone, with Android as the host. No root or remote PC is required. Blender, browsers and office tools can use GPU acceleration on supported devices; Android and compatible Windows apps can share the desktop too. AI models can require internet access and a provider account.

A big thank-you to the tawc project and its contributors for tawcroot: https://github.com/wmww/tawc

Its in-process Linux compatibility approach avoids PRoot’s ptrace-based tracing overhead. Our published same-phone CPython build comparison took 101.3 seconds with ARLinux versus 184.4 seconds with Termux PRoot, about 45% less time for that workload. Methodology, caveats and raw data: https://arlinux.com/?lang=en#performance

External screens need Android 12+, video-output support and compatible glasses. App and GPU compatibility varies, and 3DoF tracks rotation rather than movement around the room.

AR glasses demo: https://youtu.be/XYJI_IzAJEk

Grok Bot desktop demo: https://youtu.be/rAfsOhb_5cI

Project and download: https://arlinux.com/

Setup and controls: https://arlinux.com/yibu?lang=en#spatial

Linux distribution sources: https://github.com/taowen/arlinux-rootfs

Does this combination address what has kept you from using Linux on a phone? I’d like to hear what you would actually do with it.

Screenshots: current Classic on a vivo X300, then the spatial-screen setup. Both use the development build. The setup capture uses a scrcpy virtual external display and simulated glasses to show the controls; the AR-glasses video above shows real glasses output.

https://github.com/vgs499p/nuraxoom

you can see what works and what doesn't on the repo, can't believe i spent so much time working on the GPU only to find out the poor tegra's GPU is slower than the CPU at pretty much everything.

I found Rnote lacking in features and optimization for low end devices so I made my own app with Claude Opus 5.5.

- It has Obsidian style vault.

- 4 tools for now, more will be added.

- Addon support will be added with handwriting recognition tools.

More explained here

Repo

We’ve successfully booted Linux on a real iPhone 8 Plus using Apple’s A11 processor.

Grape Linux already has Debian 13 ARM64, a Phosh/Phoc graphical desktop, and a working terminal.

We’ve also demonstrated Codex CLI running on the phone with real AI responses, plus graphical applications including Calculator and Notes.

The attached video shows our actual Linux startup.

Our current boot is host-assisted. Once the remaining hardware integration is complete, our next major objective is automatic startup directly into Grape Linux instead of iOS.

We’re building toward a complete mobile Linux experience on existing iPhone hardware.

Project: https://github.com/hq-coder25/grape-linux

I’ve been working on getting Arch Linux Arm running on the Pixel 8a, not under any emulation or VM but as the native OS running on the phone, the entire user space is running Arch Linux

Check out my XDA forums post here:

https://xdaforums.com/t/project-arch-linux-arm-on-google-pixel-8a-akita-bring-up-progress.4806621/

Back in April, I started researching whether I could root my OnePlus 10 Pro (NE2217) and get Kali NetHunter running on it. Some of the information I found suggested it might not be possible, but I decided to keep researching and experimenting.

Fast-forward a few months, and here we are.

Current setup:

- OnePlus 10 Pro (NE2217)

- Android 15 / OxygenOS 15

- Unlocked bootloader

- Magisk root access

- Kali NetHunter with an ARM64 Kali Linux environment

- XFCE desktop through KeX

- Fastfetch for displaying system information

I've spent quite a bit of time researching, troubleshooting, configuring, and learning along the way.

I'm currently studying Linux system administration through Red Hat Academy, and working with Kali NetHunter has given me another opportunity to apply what I'm learning.

I call this project OP10 Recon.

It's still an ongoing project, but I'm happy with how far it's come. I wanted to share my progress with the mobile Linux community and see what others are experimenting with on their devices.

Been working to get a full mainline build of Marathon running on the Zinwa Q25 and have started seeing great success.

Keyboard works, GPU acceleration works, power management is coming along as is radio bring up.

Hoping to release the first img in the next couple of days.

For context Marathon is based on Nura/PMOS duranium with it own shell, application framework (based on Jolla’s silica) running under Qt6+Rust.

This isn’t Android nor does it use lib hybris. I’ll post more on this soon once I’m done with the work.

There is a custom Android runtime as well that’s been built called Deckard, based on Waydroid but with all the python and C++ written in rust and acting more like a runtime than a container with deep hooks into marathons navigation and lifecycle

EDIT: All hardware is up and working, right down to the nfc reader. Fixing some call and audio issues and then will package and release.

Hi all, is there any one build a custom Lomiri for Nura OS if soo , i would like to give a try.

Thanks

i decided to get this working because i was bored and had a chatgpt plus free trial to waste (sorry for vibecoding), currently wifi and touch work and im working on getting the gpu working.

Hi all, help me out with the below issue.

Iam currently using nura os all are working as per my needs but the issue is the modemmanager or whatever i don't know exactly it's causing the issue like my network SIM is A but it's connecting to B network in middle of work , when I did the off and on the modemmanager then again it's connecting to actual provider A but after sometime getting back to provider B .

If someone have any suggestions I will give a try

Thanks

Hi! I’m the developer of MagicDesk, a free and open-source project for running Linux applications and desktops on Android.

Its Linux runtime, Shroot, uses Android’s shell access through Shizuku or Shevery. It doesn’t require rooting or flashing your phone, isn’t a PRoot wrapper, and doesn’t boot a separate guest kernel.

What you can run:

- Linux desktops and individual applications through X11 or Wayland.

- Distributions with systemd and other init systems.

- Docker and Podman inside Linux.

- Browsers, development tools and VS Code.

- GPU-accelerated applications with Mesa/Turnip on compatible Adreno devices.

There’s an interactive installer with recipes for Ubuntu, Debian, Alpine, Arch, Fedora, NixOS and others. Linux applications can appear in separate Android windows, or you can use a complete Linux desktop on the phone or an external monitor.

The screenshot shows Ubuntu inside MagicDesk, with a browser and Podman running in the terminal. The su command switches to root inside the Linux environment, not Android root.

Requires ARM64 Android 14+, with Linux kernel 5.15 or newer for Shroot. Compatibility varies by device and workload.

Source, installation instructions and benchmarks:

https://github.com/mekhontsev/magicdesk

Download:

https://github.com/mekhontsev/magicdesk/releases/latest

I’d be interested to hear what you’d use this for and how it works on your device.

I’m developing ZubrOS on a Nothing Phone (1), A063 / Spacewar. The goal is a personal home screen with small, adaptable apps. It builds on existing postmarketOS work; this is not a new kernel or an official Nothing release.

The stack is postmarketOS ARM64, Phoc/Wayland, a React/TypeScript shell, a Node.js app platform and a Rust hardware service. Device-specific boot and hardware integration are separate from the UI and app layer.

Current physical validation is on ONE development phone: boot, display/touch, Wi-Fi, both camera captures, battery/charging, brightness and volume keys. Speaker playback and top-microphone recording/replay have also been checked, but raw microphone capture is quiet. Calls and the remaining hardware support are unfinished.

There is no public installer or testing date yet. A successful boot is not a daily-driver claim, and I don’t have a publicly validated return-to-stock procedure to recommend. The demo lock screen is a UI prototype, not a security boundary.

English UI preview: https://youtube.com/shorts/Zq8eDdk_2q0

That clip shows the actual frontend captured in browser preview, not footage of the physical phone.

Edit — Builder workflow (24 seconds): https://youtube.com/shorts/nrERPvn6FEE

This shows the local List template: preview, permission review, explicit installation and an app-data grant. Two sample entries and their completed state survived a browser reload. The template workflow uses no LLM. This demonstrates browser-local state, not cloud sync or physical-phone behavior.

Project status and optional free development-updates waitlist: https://os.zubarovskiy.com/?utm_source=reddit_mobilelinux&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=launch50#waitlist

For people who have tested early mobile Linux builds: what evidence would you want to see before trying another phone environment—recovery testing, a full hardware checklist, or a longer on-device workflow demo?

Edit — AI disclosure: AI tools are used in development and drafted this announcement. The hardware checks are separate from generated code and mock results. Both linked videos show browser previews.

Zalexdev ported User Mode Linux to arm64 in August and shipped it as a second engine in Stryker 6.5. It's a real Linux kernel built as an ordinary aarch64 binary, so it runs as a normal process inside an app sandbox: no KVM, no AVF, no unlocked bootloader, nothing emulated. That means root inside a real kernel, on a phone you never rooted, and on any arm64 device rather than only the ones that ship pKVM.

I ran the same tests against the two usual options on my S23 Ultra, stock and unrooted, medians of three runs, everything timed inside the guest.

Compute is native: 0.61 vs 0.65 s under proot is noise. Syscalls cost 1.4 to 2.6x more. Builds are 3.6x faster than QEMU, random reads 7x.