Anyone currently running Crimson

Hardware Librem 5
1

Anyone running the Crimson branch on the Librem 5? If so, what are your current findings? I will be testing on my other Librem 5 soon-ish

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2

There seems to be a lot of interest in Crimson recently.
What are the most important new or updated features or fixes that Crimson brings to the L5, over Byzantium?

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3

Iā€™m interested in potential features regarding the camera that might be in Crimson. Wanting to hear other peopleā€™s takes before I jump in. Still jumping in, but wanting to see other peopleā€™s findings thus far.

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4

No, I will update to Crimson when it is stable, similar to the situation with Qubes OS 4.2.0: I need production-ready experience.

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5

This evening I will switch me second L5 to Crimson from Byzantium

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6

Good luck. Please share your experience.

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7

This. Only having one Librem 5, I want it to be stable. If they cost one-third of what they do (random figure) then I might buy a spare that could be used for this kind of crash-and-burn experience. :wink:

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8

Just a friendly reminder to backup any important files before experimenting with a new unstable PureOS image.

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9

This. Just this. Everyone. Please.

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10

I am interested in doing the same on my second L5. Please share your steps to get there and your experience! Thank you

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11

If I didnā€™t get nerd7473 wrong heā€™s using his second device. So I guess there is no important file that needs to be saved.

However, wouldnā€™t it be better to flash it to crimson instead of updating? At least for people who want a ā€œproduction-readyā€ experience with stable crimson builds later. Or am I wrong?

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12

My opinion, yes. It is simpler and cleaner.

By cleaner, I mean, for example, that everyone installing crimson from scratch has an initially identical system.

As a data point, when a new LTS version of Ubuntu is released, they donā€™t even offer the upgrade from the previous LTS version until the first point release update to the new LTS version comes out. So the only way to run the LTS version immediately is to install from scratch (unless you really want to be on the bleeding edge and force the update before it is offered and are prepared to deal with whatever mess ensues).

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13

The steps are mostly the same as reflashing the Librem 5.

The major difference is downloading the landing image (plain variant only as of this time) instead of the Byzantium image.

https://arm01.puri.sm/job/Images/job/Image%20Builds%20landing/

After you download it, extract the file and put it in the root directory of librem5-flash-image. Also get the DAS U-Boot image (u-boot-librem5.imx) and place it in the same directory.

https://arm01.puri.sm/job/u-boot_builds/job/uboot_librem5_mainline_build/

Then open the Terminal in the directory, and run this command:

$ ./scripts/librem5-flash-image --skip-download

This only works on the Evergreen model; do not follow these steps if you are on any other Librem 5 revision.

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14

:open_mouth:

OK, thatā€™s another reason to limit this to a crash-and-burn phone, not a real-use phone.

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Well, since December 27th, 2018, whenever anyone followed the instructions to reflash the Librem 5, the plain variant was used as the default. It was only recently changed to LUKS in June 23rd, 2023, which my actions may have been a catalyst for: I mentioned about it to Purism support just before I decided to make a forum account on June 26th, 2023.

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16

Absoultely, thatā€™s why Iā€™m testing on my other L5

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17

If you are gonna make the jump perhaps you should image your current byzantium set up via Jumpdrive and gnome disk as described here:

I was experimenting with image restoration and was successful at reflashing an image backup from my L5 that was saved on my L13 laptop.

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18

@FranklyFlawless
Thanks for the instructions. I can reflash the L5 with byzantium no problem, but the git scripts mentioned above are for flashing byzantium, not crimson AFAICT. I am getting ā€˜image not foundā€™ errors when executing any of the flash-image scripts. The script needs modification for crimson but I have no idea how to change it.

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19

Here are the instructions:

20

OK. Followed instructions and still getting the no image error. The librem5r4.img and imx files are both located in the root folder.

Hereā€™s the terminal output:

pureos@pureos:~/librem5-flash-image$ ./scripts/librem5-flash-image --skip-download --dir ./
2024-07-06 22:46:40 INFO Looking for librem5r4 luks byzantium image
2024-07-06 22:46:46 ERROR No matching image found

Seems like the script is still attempting to download an image and ignoring the --skip-download flag.

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