Sxmo: Simple X Mobile

“minimal. mobile. hackable.”
Image link to libreplanet video

Sxmo is a minimalist environment for Linux mobile devices

Note: Your old Android phone/tablet may work with Sxmo with some minor configuration! For example, Sxmo works great on the Oneplus 6 and Poco f1. For demos on these more powerful devices, watch - Thoughts after daily driving postmarketOS for 3 years. For information about device support click here.

Getting started?

  • Just getting started with Sxmo on your device? No clue how it works? Check the getting started guide to get you going quickly!
Getting started with sxmo

Minimal — Simple tools yet powerful interfaces

  • We use a simple menu-based interface on a tiling window manager (e.g. sway)
  • We use simple, interoperating and easily exchangable tools
  • Sxmo supports both wayland as well as Xorg (legacy)
  • Touch and gesture support
  • Menu controllable via hardware buttons as well
  • Community sourced context menu that changes according to the active application (CLI or GUI)
“I really like this; I've been using this for about a week now. I appreciate the developers' willingness to design something with a slight learning curve that works very well, and in part because of this. This demonstrates a level of respect for their end users which I value. I am not saying that this mobile computing environment is hard to use, I am saying that it is highly efficient and effective, and that I have learned things by using it because the people who made this do not condescend through oversimplification.”

— KoryMac
Screenshot of the sxmo menu (wofi in this case)

Mobile — Focus on Mobile Linux

  • Modem, call/texting functionality
    • Read notifications, texts, etc.
  • Lightweight with optimizations for battery-powered devices and smaller screens
  • SSH is a first class citizen!
    • Access all menus over ssh
    • Send texts via ssh using your favorite text editor (vis, emacs, vim, etc.)
“Being able to SSH into my phone and treat it just like any other Alpine Linux machine adds a tremendous amount of value. Leaving it in my pocket and using it from my computer is very convenient. I don't have to treat my phone like an alien in my otherwise uniform computing setup anymore.”

— Drew Devault, FLOSS pioneer and creator of Sourcehut and Sway
Screenshot of vismenu on ssh

Hackable — Everything is Scriptable

  • Launch user defined scripts at phone calls, texts, etc.
  • Bind certain scripts to gestures using lisgd
  • Bind device's physical buttons (single/double/triple click) to trigger scripts
  • Plain text modem logs, contact list, and sms texts
“Phone calls and text messages are routed through shell scripts, a feature I didn’t know I needed until I saw it in action. Sxmo probably is the killer app for running an actual Linux distribution on your phone.”

— Ariadne Conill, Alpine Linux Security Team Chair
Screenshot of vim on sxmo, editing a hook

Use the same FOSS apps you use on the desktop

  • No locked-down app ecosystem
  • Runs on traditional Linux distributions like Alpine Linux and postmarketOS optimized for mobile devices
  • Use terminal-based applications on a smartphone
“Running a tiling WM on your phone sounds like a stupid idea... until you discover #Sxmo. The whole thing is simple but amazing - it takes one or two days to get used to it, but then you know it inside out. Thanks to the built-in extensibility and simple codebase, you can change everything to your liking. This interface and its skilled community have become a great asset in the wider #linux smartphone ecosystem!”

— Oliver Smith, Creator of postmarketOS
Screenshot of firefox on sxmo with the postmarketos website