# Mobian's 2022 review: migration to Debian, upstream contributions, and fewer device-specific tweaks

DevFeed: [Mobian's 2022 review: migration to Debian, upstream contributions, and fewer device-specific tweaks](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/a-look-back-in-the-mirror-and-a-glimpse-of-the-future-34230.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://blog.mobian.org/posts/2023/01/08/2022-review/>)

Author: Mobian team

Published: 2023-01-08T00:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Mobian's Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/mobian-s-blog.md>)

Topics: [Development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/development.md>), [Mobile](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/mobile.md>), [Debian](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/debian.md>), [GitLab](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/gitlab.md>), [migration](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/migration.md>), [systemd](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/systemd.md>), [Kernel](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/kernel.md>)

Tags: [debian](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/debian.md>), [developers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developers.md>), [development](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/development.md>), [gitlab](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/gitlab.md>), [kernel](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/kernel.md>), [migration](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/migration.md>), [mobile](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/mobile.md>), [systemd](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/systemd.md>)

## AI overview

Mobian's 2022 review describes its migration from GitLab.com to Debian's Salsa, contributions of packages to Debian, and efforts to replace custom scripts and device-specific tweaks with upstream solutions such as systemd services.

## Source excerpt

2022 has been an extremely busy year for Mobian developers, and a lot has happened throughout this period. As we're entering a new development cycle year, now is a good time to look back at what we achieved in 2022. Foundation work One of our goals has always been for Mobian to slowly dissolve into Debian. As such, we aim at moving packages from the downstream Mobian archive into the upstream Debian repositories. Summer migration As a consequence, we decided to move all the source code used in Mobian from gitlab.com to Salsa, Debian's own GitLab instance, during last summer. With the exception of non-free firmware blobs of unclear origins, Mobian is now fully maintained within Salsa's Mobian-team group. It should be noted that, thanks to GitLab's export/import features, this important migration has been mostly painless! Feeding the Debian package servers We also welcomed the contributions of Debian developers who helped us both for improving Mobian and for moving our downstream packages to Debian upstream. Together, we were able to push a great number of new packages to the Debian archive, including (but not limited to): calamares-extensions eg25-manager mobile-config-firefox numberstation passes phosh-antispam powersupply satellite sxmo-utils This past year also saw us upload calamares-settings-mobian and plymouth-theme-mobian to Debian, making those the first Mobian-specific packages to make it into the Debian archive! Less downstream tweaks Over the past year, one of our main areas of work was getting rid of as much custom scripts and tweaks as possible, and rely on existing upstream solutions instead. A good example of such improvements if the switch to systemd services for growing the root filesystem on initial boot: while previously relying on cloud-initramfs-tools and a downstream initramfs script, we now hand this task over to systemd-repart and systemd-growfs. We also got rid of device-specific kernel cmdline parameters, as we can now rely on the device tre