Changelog

What changed in each Breadstick release, for the app on Google Play and for the Linux system it updates through apt.

Breadstick updates in two places. The app updates through Google Play. The Linux system inside it updates through apt, from Breadstick's own package repository, and the app offers those updates under Settings, System updates. A fix to the Linux side reaches you without a new app version, which is why the two lists below move at different speeds.

The app

2.0.0, October 8, 2026

• Intel Googlebooks and other x86-64 Android devices. Breadstick runs natively there: it installs a Debian 13 built for the processor (amd64), and nothing is translated. Before 2.0, Intel devices could install the app but setup stopped, because the ARM build ran translated and could not work; Google Play now offers them 2.0 instead. Breadstick needs Android 8 or newer, on ARM64 or x86-64. See Getting started.
• GPU acceleration on Intel graphics (Pro) drives the chip directly, with the Linux system's own Mesa (zink on Intel's Vulkan driver) and no graphics server. On a Lenovo Googlebook 15 (Intel Core Ultra 5 325), glmark2-es2 at 1280x720 ran build at 952 frames per second against 600 in software, terrain at 288 against 15 (about 19 times as fast), and refract at 547 against 44. See Intel graphics.
• GPU acceleration turns itself on only where its test shows it is faster than the processor, on every device. Graphics in Settings shows what the test found, and keeps the switch to turn it on yourself.
• Apps opened outside the desktop, from Floating windows, the Apps drawer or a Terminal tab, reach Linux's system services (the session bus), and use fewer processes doing it: one set of apps measured went from 34 processes to 25.
• Fewer apps closed by Android's process limit.
• Sandboxed Linux programs that use bubblewrap, such as Steam's runtime, work inside Breadstick.
• Linux tools that create archives or set timers work on Intel devices. Android's rules for x86-64 apps refuse some older system calls, and Breadstick now translates them.
• Steam on Intel devices (Pro), from Recommended apps, for native Linux games. Experimental and not supported: Windows games do not run, and it needs Android's child process limit switched off. See Steam.

1.9.9, October 6, 2026

• GPU acceleration for Linux apps (Pro). Linux apps can draw with your device's graphics chip instead of the processor. Breadstick tests the chip by itself, once, while Breadstick is open, and turns acceleration on where it runs stably. 3D-heavy apps gain the most: heavy drawing ran 1.8 to 8.8 times as fast as on the processor across the devices tested, and light drawing can be slower on some chips. Graphics in Settings shows the test's result, the apps using the GPU, and a switch. Web browsers stay on the processor for now. See GPU acceleration.
• If the graphics server crashes three times in ten minutes, or a desktop start with the GPU does not come up twice in a row, Breadstick goes back to the processor on its own. Turning the GPU off while apps are open lets them finish on it; apps opened after that use the processor.
• Googlebooks and Android desktop windowing. Every Linux app opens in its own window with its title and icon, at the right size, and dialogs keep their own size.
• Touchpads on Android 14 and later: two-finger scrolling and taps work.
• Alt+F4 closes a floating window.
• On a computer running Android, Full screen takes the whole display, and the warning before the process limit starts earlier, because the system's own virtual machines take part of the limit.
• Breadstick no longer needs a back camera, so Google Play offers it on laptops.
• Remembered window places (Pro) are no longer overwritten by an app's splash screen or dialogs. LibreOffice Writer used to reopen at the size of its splash screen.
• Ready for phones that use 16 KB memory pages.
• Installing packages with apt and sudo works in work profiles, Secure Folder and Private Space.
• Unpacking archives works on newer devices. tar and dpkg-deb failed with "Cannot change mode".
• Restoring a backup into another Linux system, a work profile or Secure Folder no longer affects the original. Systems restored that way before are repaired on their first start.
• An Alt key that Android took for one of its own shortcuts, such as Alt+Tab, no longer opens the menu of the Linux app underneath.
• Long window titles with accented or non-Latin characters are cut cleanly.
• The daily package refresh counts as done only when Breadstick's own packages came back.

1.3.0, September 26, 2026

• A resource monitor, for everyone. Resource monitor on the home screen shows, live, what Breadstick and its Linux system take from the device: processor, memory, the process count against Android's limit of 32, network, power and temperature, and the Linux system's size on disk. See Troubleshooting.
• If Android closes Linux while you have floating apps open, the next Floating start offers to reopen them. See The three modes.
• Restart after a crash works again. Since 1.2.0, once Android had closed the desktop, the automatic restart and the Restart button did nothing until you tapped Stop.
• Closing a floating window asks its program to close, so a "save changes?" question is answered before anything is lost. Chrome, LibreOffice and VS Code used to keep running with no window.
• A program with a window started in a Terminal tab opens on the running Desktop or Floating session. See The Terminal.
• Starting Linux after a restore works. It failed with "The display server didn't start" until the app was closed.
• On phones, the desktop and the Terminal make room for the on-screen keyboard, and floating windows keep clear of the status bar.
• The warning before Android's process limit works on phones that enforce the limit, where it could go quiet for good. When Android closes the session at the limit and Breadstick cannot restart it, a notification says why.
• The Terminal and floating windows no longer crash on Android 8 to 10.
• Settings shows a new Linux system as set up right after the first install.
• Starting the desktop no longer copies to your Android clipboard, with Android's clipboard notice, every time.
• The Apps drawer in Floating mode shows how many of the free version's two floating apps are open.
• Printing from Linux apps (Pro): LibreOffice, Chrome and every other Linux app print to any printer your device can use, or save a PDF, through Android's print dialog. See Printing.
• Layouts (Pro): save the floating apps you have open and where their windows are, then open them all again in one tap, from Breadstick or from your home screen. Floating windows reopen where you left them. See Layouts and widgets.
• Automatic backups while your device charges, to this device or a folder your cloud syncs, and backups encrypted with a password (Pro). Restoring any backup stays free. See Backup and restore.
• Open Android documents, photos and code files in Linux apps with Open with, and drag files from Android apps onto Linux windows (Pro). See Files and clipboard.
• Desks (Pro): up to four desktops in Desktop mode, switched from the shelf, the keyboard or a three-finger swipe. See The three modes.
• Keyboard remapping and shortcuts (Pro): Caps Lock as Ctrl or Escape, Alt and Super swapped, any key moved, and key combinations that open an app, a Layout or a command. See Keyboard and shortcuts.
• Home screen widgets (Pro): a live Linux monitor, and Run in Linux, a button that opens a Layout or runs a command. See Layouts and widgets.
• Terminal themes, fonts, split panes, saved SSH hosts and buttons for your own commands (Pro). See The Terminal.
• The x86 apps pack sets up Box64 in one tap (Pro), and no longer installs Wine, which Android does not let start. See x86 apps.

1.2.0, September 23, 2026

• Screen sharing works in a web browser: open the address Breadstick shows on port 6080 from another machine on your network, with no VNC app needed.
• Copy and paste images, formatted text and files between Android and Linux, in both directions.
• Floating windows take clicks everywhere. The right and bottom of a large window used to ignore the mouse. Back no longer closes a Linux app, and closing the last window closes it properly.
• Apps open at the right size at the default display scale. On high-resolution screens, browsers, VS Code and other Electron apps were drawn twice as large as they should have been, and text in many other apps was too large.
• Stop fully stops the Linux session, the SSH server and screen sharing. Each used to keep running in the background, and a session stopped and started again could end up running twice.
• A warning comes before Android's 32-process limit closes the desktop, and Settings shows a live count.
• Other apps can open Linux apps or run commands in Breadstick, only with a permission you grant. Settings, Other apps shows which apps have asked. See For app developers.
• The terminal brings its own monospace font, so text lines up on phones set to a custom font.
• An idle session no longer keeps your device awake, and saves battery. Settings, Power keeps Linux running with the screen off when you want that.
• An interrupted install or restore no longer leaves a half-written Linux system behind.
• Setup asks before downloading over mobile data.

1.1.0, September 18, 2026

• Touch gestures in both Desktop and Floating: two fingers scroll, and keep going when you let go; pinch zooms; a long press is a right-click; two- and three-finger taps are right and middle clicks.
• Mouse wheel direction fixed; it was reversed. Separate reverse-scrolling switches for the mouse wheel and the touchpad, under Settings, Input.
• DNS follows your device, so names on a VPN resolve inside Linux, or set your own servers under Settings, Network.
• Sound recovers on its own if the Linux sound server stops, and Settings has Restart audio.
• The desktop is sized for the screen it is drawn on, so a DeX monitor no longer gets a phone-sized desktop; floating apps open at a scale matched to the screen, and 100% is a choice of its own.
• The Windows list works in Floating mode.
• A browser you installed yourself is no longer replaced by the setup default at the first desktop start.
• Share diagnostics includes device details, input devices and the sound server's log.

1.0.0, September 15, 2026

The first release on Google Play.

• Three ways to use the same Debian system: Desktop, a full XFCE desktop with Breadstick's own look; Floating, every Linux application as its own Android window beside your Android apps; and Terminal, a plain shell with tabs.
• Install a browser during setup: Google Chrome, Chromium or Firefox, configured to run here, with extensions and sound.
• Your Android files inside Linux: Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music and the camera roll in your home directory, plus /mnt/android with full file access.
• Clipboard in both directions, sound, microphone, and links and notifications from Linux apps handed to Android.
• Camera, calendar and Android notifications inside Linux (Pro).
• Timezone, language and dark mode follow the device.
• Screen sharing with VNC, an SSH server on port 2222, and SSH key import.
• Snapshots, and backups you can export and restore on another device.
• Per-app display scale for high-resolution screens.
• Recommended app packs: development tools, browsers, x86 and Windows programs.
• Breadstick's own apps in the guest: About, Updates, System Monitor and Camera.
• Free runs two floating apps and two terminal tabs at a time; Pro is a one-time purchase.

The Linux system

1.0.29, October 12, 2026

• Microsoft Edge starts. Installed from Microsoft's download, it closed at once: like Chrome, it needs a few settings to run in Breadstick, and only Chrome got them. Edge now starts from its icon and from a terminal, and keeps working after Edge updates itself. Edge for Linux exists only for Intel and other x86-64 devices; it draws without the GPU for now.
• In Floating windows, Edge's welcome screen does not fit: its buttons sit below the window. Open Edge once in Desktop mode, go through the welcome screen there, and it works in Floating windows from then on.

1.0.28, October 10, 2026

• Firefox plays video and sound. YouTube said "Your browser can't play this video", and any video with sound failed: Firefox decodes audio in a separate process whose security sandbox cannot start in Breadstick, and that one sandbox had not been switched off with the others. It takes effect at the next desktop start; in Floating windows, the next time you open Firefox.
• With more than one browser installed, each browser's icon opens that browser. Until now every browser icon opened the browser you installed last. An Android home screen shortcut to a browser made before this update still opens the default browser; remove it and pin it again.

1.0.27, October 10, 2026

• Audacity starts. It stopped at "Unable to create shared memory segment" because its check for a copy already running uses a kind of shared memory Android does not give apps, and Breadstick's stand-in for it covered only the kind graphics use. It also opens again after you close it, which in Desktop mode needed a second fix: a lock Audacity holds is now given back when it quits. Audacity needs Breadstick 2.0 or later; on older versions it now stops one step later, at "Unable to create semaphores".
• The same change helps other programs that keep a small piece of shared memory under a fixed name, or that hold a lock until they quit.

1.0.26, October 9, 2026

• Steam started from the desktop's menu on an Intel device now starts. Its client is a 32-bit program, and on devices whose processor cannot run 32-bit code natively it needs the compatibility library Breadstick 2.0 sets up. Programs the app opened already had it; programs opened from the desktop now get it too, for Pro users, as Steam is part of Pro. It takes effect at the next desktop start. Steam in Breadstick stays experimental and not supported.
• Nothing changes on ARM devices.

1.0.25, October 7, 2026

• Linux programs started outside the desktop session, from Floating windows, the Apps drawer, a Terminal tab or SSH, reach the session's system services, its D-Bus session bus. Until now the bus turned them away: the desktop's app finder quit, settings changes were lost, and a program wrapped in dbus-run-session to get round it started a private bus and three or more extra processes. Such a program now joins the session's bus instead. One set of apps measured went from 34 processes to 25, and Linux apps in Floating windows can send notifications to Android this way too. It takes effect at the next desktop start.
• The other side of it: apps opened that way now depend on the session, so when Android closes the session at its process limit, most of them close with it. See The desktop closes on its own.
• The Linux half of GPU acceleration on Intel graphics, for the 2.0 app: the check that the chip, its driver and Mesa work together, and Mesa's Vulkan drivers, installed on x86-64 devices only. Graphics on ARM devices do not change.

1.0.24, October 6, 2026

• The Linux half of GPU acceleration, for the 1.9.9 app: the check each desktop start runs before it uses the graphics chip, Breadstick's test of the chip, and the lists of programs that stay on the processor, such as web browsers and programs that need OpenGL 3 or newer. See GPU acceleration.
• Nothing changes for anyone still on the 1.3.0 app: all of it stays off until the app that uses it is installed.
• New installs start with this version.

1.0.23, October 6, 2026

• No changes for existing devices: a packaging release. Nothing in a Linux system changes beyond the version number.

1.0.22, September 26, 2026

• The notification panel fits on a phone screen, a Fold's cover screen included. On a dense phone it was wider than the screen, and Clear all sat past its right-hand edge. It also follows the screen when you rotate or unfold the phone.
• The app launcher wraps long names that have no spaces. On a dense phone one such name made its column wider than the screen.
• A program that draws with OpenGL, run with sudo from a terminal, no longer risks hanging when it starts: the settings that keep it on a drawing path that works here now carry through sudo.
• The desktop's window manager no longer sets up an OpenGL context it never uses.

1.0.21, September 26, 2026

• Linux sound works after you stop and start the desktop. After a Stop, the next start could send the device's microphone into the sound Breadstick plays from Linux: with the microphone allowed that was heard as feedback, and without it Linux went silent. Start the desktop once after the update for the fix to take effect.
• The microphone works after the desktop was closed unexpectedly. A file left behind kept Linux from using it.
• Google Chrome opened from its own menu entry gets the same settings as Breadstick's browser launcher, and it starts even when a settings folder cannot be written.

1.0.20, September 25, 2026

• The shelf at the bottom of the desktop is full size on phones. On a screen of about 370 dpi or more, the desktop asked for a shelf taller than the panel accepts, so the panel ignored it and drew a thin bar with small icons. The update fixes the settings already written, so the next desktop start shows the full shelf.
• The status icons on the shelf (battery, network, notifications) are full size on phones and tablets from about 260 dpi. They were drawn at 22 pixels there, for the same reason.
• The app launcher fits on a phone screen. On a dense phone it was wider than the screen and cut off its right-hand columns; it now shows fewer columns instead.

1.0.19, September 25, 2026

• The SSH server starts on Debian 13. Turning it on under Settings, Remote access ended with "SSH server failed to start", because the system account the server needs was never created. The update creates it, including where the server was already installed, so SSH works the next time you turn it on.
• Starting Linux in Desktop or Floating mode no longer puts an old clip back on your Android clipboard. A clip passed from Android to Linux in an earlier session was passed again at every start, and came back to Android over whatever you had copied since.
• A graphical program run with sudo from a terminal on the desktop no longer starts a private session bus of its own: two extra processes that stayed as long as the terminal and counted against Android's 32-process limit.

1.0.18, September 24, 2026

• Linux apps draw faster in Desktop mode. Android gives apps no shared memory of the kind X11 programs use to hand their pixels to the display, so every Linux app sent each frame through the display's socket instead. Breadstick now provides that shared memory itself. OpenGL drawn in software ran about twice as fast at 1080p on a Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra, and GTK apps, SDL games and video players use the same path. It tests itself each time the desktop starts, and stays off on any device where the test does not pass.
• If a Linux app misbehaves with it, create the file /etc/breadstick/no-shm (for example with sudo touch /etc/breadstick/no-shm) and restart the desktop to turn it off.

1.0.17, September 23, 2026

• Breadstick Updates works again. Checking for updates had been failing with "Could not reach apt.breadstick.io" on every device.
• Breadstick Updates now installs every update, not just Breadstick's: Debian's, and those from other sources you added, like Chrome or VS Code. It runs apt update and apt full-upgrade, lists what will change before you install (updates, new packages they need, anything to be removed), and waits if another update is already running.

1.0.16, September 23, 2026

• apt update no longer prints "Missing Signed-By" notices for Debian's sources. Each Debian source now names Debian's signing keys, as current apt expects. Updates were always verified; only the notice is gone.
• curl is now part of every Breadstick system.

1.0.15, September 22, 2026

• Notifications from Linux apps reach Android again. Since 1.0.5 the bridge that forwards them started before the rest of the session was ready, and listened where no app was sending.
• Debian's security fixes now reach your Linux system. Updates from Settings or apt upgrade include them; before, fixes only arrived with Debian's occasional point releases.
• SSH no longer accepts root logins, and allows three password attempts per connection. Sign in as your own user and use sudo.
• Breadstick Updates can install updates again. It had been failing with "a password is required".
• SD cards and USB drives appear in the file manager's side bar and on the desktop.
• The desktop follows your display when you move between the phone screen and a monitor, or change the display size. Text, the shelf and its icons are resized; a shelf you resized yourself keeps its size.
• Fewer processes running in the background: opening the Apps drawer, the System Monitor and the status area all use less, which leaves more room under Android's 32-process limit.
• An update that was cut off, for example when Android closed the desktop, is now finished automatically the next time the desktop starts.
• A language and region combination Linux does not support, like English in Germany, now falls back cleanly instead of causing warnings in every terminal.

1.0.14, September 20, 2026

• The LibreOffice fix now steps in only on devices that need it. Where LibreOffice's own launcher works, as on Android 15 and later, it is used exactly as before.

1.0.13, September 20, 2026

• LibreOffice starts. It stopped at "ERROR: /proc not mounted", because its splash launcher checks a file Android does not let apps read. Breadstick now starts the office directly. The fix applies as soon as the update is installed, and to LibreOffice installed later.

1.0.12, September 18, 2026

• Notification center: Clear all now clears everything in the list, Android notifications included, not only the ones from Linux apps.
• A notification you answer, act on or dismiss leaves the list straight away, and an answered conversation comes back only when there is a new message in it.
• The panel updates while it is open, without interrupting a reply you are typing.
• The shelf's status area and Breadstick's own apps no longer fail to start on a system that has GTK 4's Python bindings installed.

1.0.9 to 1.0.11, September 18, 2026

• The sound server checks that it is actually running when the session starts, clears a stale state left by a session that was killed, and can be restarted in place. Fixes sound that went silent while the desktop kept running.

1.0.8, September 17, 2026

• Sign-in pages opened by a Linux application, such as Claude Desktop or GitHub, open in the Linux browser, so the login can return to the application that asked. Other links still open in your Android browser. ~/.config/breadstick/links forces one or the other.
• Files and application links opened from Linux apps now open, instead of being dropped.

1.0.5 to 1.0.7, September 16, 2026

• VS Code keeps you signed in: it uses its basic password store, so there is no keyring prompt.
• Fresh installs no longer start three extra processes on their first session.
• apt in the Terminal shows its configuration dialogs instead of a "no dialog program" error.

1.0.2 to 1.0.4, September 10 to 15, 2026

• Android limits an app to 32 processes, and a Linux desktop is made of processes. The session starts fewer background services, and Chrome and VS Code are set to share processes between tabs, so a normal session with a browser open stays inside the limit. This is the fix for a desktop that closed by itself when a browser was opened.