So you don’t put everything on a SD card? I have a 128gb drive that I am using for most media and documents.
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I have a lot of music and videos on a 128gb SD card. But for games I tend to use flatpaks. I haven’t wired up flatpaks over to an SD card.
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I actually do use the Librem 5 as my main computer. I don’t generally do anything resource intensive. I basically use a computer for web browsing, word processing, and listen to music.
I am interested in tech stuff as a hobby, but when I looked at my resource usage I realized my desktop and laptops were overpowered for my needs.
That’s why I was excited about the convergence feature of the Librem 5. I have an all in one device that covers 99% of my needs. There is the very rare occasion where I want to edit a video or something, and for that I boot up an old laptop.
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I do not use it as my main computer. It is not quite fast enough to have as many web-browser tabs open that I need and run word processing, cloud file hosting, and an online web interface for meetings, like Zoom (not to mention that things like Zoom do not work at all for video). There is not a enough RAM.
However, I do run it simultaneously via a monitor on my desk. I can have a browser open, listen to music, do odd jobs. Very useful.
I can also work out of the car with only the Librem 5, in a pinch. My next goal is to have a readily available monitor/keyboard setup in the car for working on-the-go.
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Web browsing is (excessively) resource intensive.
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That is true. Although with an ad blocker and me keeping the number of open tabs to about 3 or so, the L5 seems able to handle it.
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To answer the question from OP:
No. I would probably be waiting for an 8GB RAM model before that would be realistic. So: next generation.
What I hope for now is that the Librem 5 + lapdock can replace phone + laptop for “on the go” use - which tends to be mostly checking emails, light web browsing and shuffling files around. I’m really only just dipping my toe in the water with this so far though.
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I was tempted at the thought of this when I first got my L5, at least for my non-work personal device. But after the Louis Rossman video claiming that he had a leak from a Purism-related insider saying that the only way Purism could honor refunds was through the influx of new cache from product sales, I decided to buy a Librem 14 when I had some disposable income as a way to both support Purism and see what else they had to offer.
I have generally been pleasantly surprised, and find myself preferring to do tasks with the Librem 14 rather than bothering to dock the Librem 5 on my old usb C docks with a keyboard and monitor. In particular, moving around the monitors that I have is a little bit cumbersome because I was currently using rather large 4k monitors, and when I dock the L5 to them I always have to start by fiddling with settings to reduce resolution to 1280x720 [any more than that and it starts to commonly overheat].
Other issues that dissuade me from only using the Librem 5 are:
- the lack of OpenGL 4-ish support. I’ve been working for a few years on an open source OpenGL based toy program that uses a lot of RAM and newer OpenGL APIs, and the project is able to run on the Android Samsung I was using prior to getting a L5, and is also able to run beautifully on the Intel HD graphics of the Librem 14. But on the L5, it does not run because my shader programs are not compliant with the older versions of OpenGL and probably include novice mistakes that cause incompatibility – and even when I tried hacking around some of the mistakes, creating a black screen with some flashing colors as a benchmark, the Librem 5 was still getting 7 fps when these other devices were getting 60 FPS, perhaps because of the memory requirements of my project
- I’ve been using
vinagreas a VNC solution, and for some reason the controls that work great on the L14 are kind of junk on the docked L5. This might be solved by getting a different VNC solution, but I haven’t put in the time - Another one of my hobby projects includes an archaic desktop Java program (AWT/Swing + OpenGL) and for some reason that is again something that runs beautifully on the L14 but shows a blank window on the L5. It’s still amazing to me how the L5 has a working Java virtual machine and can run the Java code and is only hickupping on some visual thing – I can literally click buttons in the GUI and interact with the code even though it doesn’t allow me to see anything – but this is obviously less ideal than on an x86 machine.
- It is quite frustrating that I cannot dock my Librem 5 to a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and charger in a configuration that works when the Librem 5 battery is completely removed. Being able to completely remove the battery would mean that I could use the device as though it were a desktop PC for arbitrarily long periods of time without any concern for over-charging batteries. The closest I got to this was a high-powered dock where I can plug in everything and start the convergent docked mode, then remove the battery while it is running and have it continue running without the battery in the configuration I desire – as if things were fine – for 10-25 minutes. However, after time passes, the device will randomly die and power off as if from some voltage issue.
All of the above issues are solvable and mostly user-created problems, so I am almost able to imagine in a few years if I spent more time on it and/or got a more powerful version of the L5 that it could conceivably become my MAIN computer as discussed here. Come to think of it, that 7 FPS issue mentioned above was only on the Librem 5; more recently I have a Liberty Phone with the 4 GB ram, and I might not have tested that project on it, having been simply preferring to the use L14 instead.
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I have L5 connected to power all the time when I’m at home without removing battery. That means it charges up to 100% and then just ignores battery completely. So no concern about battery health at all. In additional when I leave my home I always have a fully charged device.
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I like the idea, but believe the performance isn’t good enough for my needs yet. Also, until this issue is fixed.
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I use it as my main computer and really like the possibility to switch from desktop mode to phone mode.
I use for light task : email, browsing, personnel excel file (budgeting…)…
I just use a cooling system found in an other post.
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I’m writing this on a PineBook Pro running Armbian, not so very different specs than a MNT Reform or Liberty phone. I use the PBP more than my other desktop/laptop computers. If convergence worked as well as I’m sure it eventually will, I’d have no problem using the L5 when I needed a big screen.
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I’ve been daily driving the L5 as my phone for a while now and have stretched its capabilities when using it as my work computer for on the go lighter tasks. However, I have just today implemented a swap file as described in this post by @alexmarkley and it’s made such a difference it literally feels as though the phone has leveled up; I’m seeing snappier performance across the board and even higher framerates in streaming video.
I have to do some heavy-duty CAD for work from time to time so for the moment I won’t ever be able to use the L5 as my sole computer, but it is actually bidding fair to become my primary one. Color me astounded.
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One more unexpected benefit of the swap file: it seems the L5 is running cooler!
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On active usage or also on idling system? Could you give some data (usage app temperatures)? Would be nice to get some hard facts about it.
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Here’s temperature data from the L5 running on battery at “idle” with Thunderbird, multiple Firefox tabs (including Discord), and assorted other small-footprint apps open.
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I carry my Librem 5 and lapdock only in short and long trips, but agree with the crowd that it’s too underpowered for being my only device. When programming, it’s too slow to be comfortable. Can’t do Zoom (I never tried with an external webcam though), constantly running out of disk and memory space, and so on. There’s also the thing that the lapdock doesn’t supply enough power so eventually the phone runs out of battery. So I probably would not be able to do long sessions with the lapdock. I tried a dock in between and same story.
Still much closer to a real computer than my old Android phone though! It’s always great to pull out the lapdock and get that full-sized keyboard and screen.
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Yeah to me the Liberty Phone 4gb RAM and 128 GB eMMC should be offered to the OG L5 crowd because that is a far more useful configuration. You would actually have room on the eMMC to make the swap not so vampiric to the remaining storage space.
If the board was under a grand and the instruction for upgrading were clear, I think this would net Purism a significant amount of influx cash as well.
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My L5USA / Oct/21 is my MAIN computer. By choice I do not have residential ISP service; the L5USA is entirely satisfactory for internet access. It’s docked to an Asus PA247CV with a Logi wireless keyboard & mouse and 500Gb USB SSD for backups - no problems. Nonconvergent apps are GIMP and Claws-Mail. It behaves itself most of the time. I do not use the app store. The phone has been mostly reliable with heat and early modem reliability being the biggest issues. Many thanks to the Purism team for their dedication, patience, tough skin, and ongoing tweaks. We’re getting there.
IMHO success of Purism phones will be realized only with adoption of a SOC redesign. FWIW
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