Byzantium backports unofficial

Hardware Librem 5
1

Hi for everyone!

A few month ago I started to rebuild some packages from debian bookworm/trixie into byzantium to get experience with newer software and make my L5 usable as my daily driver. I used qemu powered chroot environment, that was the reason, I believe, why unittests for some packages failed. So, I just disable it to finish builds…

Finally, I realized that my set of backported packages was never be good enough to share it. So, I decided to upload it AS IS. I’m NOT going to support this backports in future. I’m really excited by ALT Mobile project, but L5 is not supported yet just because developers still waiting their L5 ordered about 5 years ago… So, please consider this packages as a temporary solution just to test some newer packages without reflashing your L5 by another OS. I hope it will be useful for someone to get better experience with the phone.

This is the link (339 MB).

IMPORTANT: you should NOT be asked to remove some packages during update. Stop upgrade immediately if apt ask you to write Yes, do as I say! and put here the list of packages to remove. Also I do not know how to revert updates back. So, please backup your system and files.

How to APPLY backports: update Byzantium to the latest state, just extract the archive to some folder and add this line into /etc/apt/source.list:

deb [allow-insecure=yes] file:/path/to/debs ./

Next you will be able to use apt install to update the package that you need. If something went wrong please read update notes in the end of this post. Next, when some additional packages will come, it is necessary to update the indexes. Please follow instructions by the link.

What is INSIDE:

  • geary 44 (46 crashes for me), install together with folks-common
  • chatty 0.8.3
  • gnome-calls 46.3
  • gnome-contacts 46
  • gnome-calendar 46
  • gnome-maps 46 (see upd2)
  • gnome-books 40 (see upd2)
  • gnome-authenticator 3.32
  • phosh 0.39 (glitches during app switching)
  • phosh-osk-stub 0.38
  • linux-kernel-6.6.34 with the fix of sdcard suspend issue
    and much more!

Enjoy your freedom with Librem 5!

UPD1: It looks like the order of updates is important sometime. If you are requested to remove some packages with librem5 and/or gnome inside the name try to update them first. For example:

sudo apt install librem5-gnome gnome-shell

UPD2: link for the gnome-maps and gnome-books. Unpack the archive into the same dir and run next commands to rebuild the index:

apt-ftparchive packages . > Packages
apt-ftparchive release . > Release

6 Likes
2

Did they contact Purism, and ask what the reason is?

2 Likes
3

Yes, they did. I think the conversation in the progress, I do not know details…

2 Likes
4

Do you have some background info and/or links to this project?

2 Likes
5

There is official wiki (looks like only in Russian) and telegram group (Telegram: Contact @altlinux_mobile). Anbernic 552, Pinephone Pro and Pinetab2 are supported. The software is really close to the latest versions (that is extremely important for mobile linux). Sisyphus is like Debian unstable.

3 Likes
6

Can you please elaborate on this? Is it just a visual glitch? Or a crash?

This is very tempting to me. I really want some of the new things that have come in phosh, but I don’t want to cause issues on my daily driver, either.

2 Likes
7

It is a visual glitch, right. It appears when you try to scroll the list of opened apps (if more than three apps in the list) and also when you scroll the main menu with icons. Your finger moves slowly but the scroll bar jumps for some position back and front frequently… Usage app has the same bug but it disappear in the latest version.

1 Like
8

So I used your backports and after getting all the packages installed, I rebooted and it sent me to a tty shell. Is there any to fix this or will I just have to reflash?
(I don’t mind doing whatever, this is my spare L5😁)

2 Likes
9

Oh… interesting…
To be honestly I have the second OS on sdcard for this case, but I never used it…

How exactly you applied the backports? apt upgrade? Are you able to login into the system? Are you really not asked to remove something and write something like “shut up and do as I say”?

2 Likes
10

I did have to write that :neutral_face: I must have paid enough attention to your original post :laughing:

Yeah

Yeah but I don’t know how to fix it so I will probably just reflash. That is why I do all my testing on my spare phone :wink:

1 Like
11

Great idea! Where are the sources/scripts to reproduce your builds? I don’t think anyone should just blindly download and install these…

5 Likes
12

It looks like you have some additional packages installed or I missed some packages that are required for a complete update…

Are you able to login into the system with, may be, external keyboard? Could you provide the last apt transaction from /var/log/apt/history.log? it will help a lot to solve the issue.

2 Likes
13

Unfortunately I have no script to reproduce the build. As I said before, I’ve spent about three month to reach the current state, so it is just much faster to download the archieve ;). I also can share the complete list of built packages (including -dev and -dbg), so anyone could continue from the place were I stopped. But I think it make no sense as soon as Crimson was promised in the near future and we have to start from the beginning.

My build is completely handmade… First I decided to upgrade geary. It required to upgrade evolution first. Evolution required something else… I’m not a linux mantainer and not have a build server, so I just get the package in chroot (apt-source for bookworm or dget for trixie) ant try to rebuild it with the magic command:

dpkg-buildpackage -b -rfakeroot -us -uc

2 Likes
14

Oh, sorry, I already reflashed it. Once I am able to download a Jenkins image, I will try using your backports again and see what happens.

2 Likes
15

I’ve tried to perform complete update in my chroot and it worked partially, but without request to delete important packages. Also I’ve found that Geary should be updated together with folks-common (apt install geary folks-common). In this way libfolks25 will be successfully replaced to libfolks26. Other issues are possible… So, please, write here if you faced with some problem during apt install or apt update.

2 Likes
16

So when I did it, I just did sudo apt update and then sudo apt upgrade but then it hadn’t upgraded phosh so I did sudo apt full-upgrade and that is probably where my problem lies

2 Likes
17

Yes, you are right, full-upgrade failed. I lost one package, sorry. I’ve replaced the link to the archive. Please try again. Thank you a lot for your feedback!

3 Likes
18 
sudo apt upgrade phosh
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 chatty : Depends: libgnome-desktop-3-19 (>= 3.17.92) but it is not installable
 gnome-clocks : Depends: libgnome-desktop-3-19 (>= 3.17.92) but it is not installable
 gnome-control-center : Depends: libgnome-desktop-3-19 (>= 3.32.2-2ubuntu2) but it is not installable
 gnome-initial-setup : Depends: libgnome-desktop-3-19 (>= 3.17.92) but it is not installable
 gnome-settings-daemon : Depends: libgnome-desktop-3-19 (>= 3.34.2) but it is not installable
 nautilus : Depends: libgnome-desktop-3-19 (>= 3.17.92) but it is not installable
E: Broken packages

Edit:

purism@pureos:~$ sudo apt install libgnome-desktop-3-19
[sudo] password for purism: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
libgnome-desktop-3-19 is already the newest version (3.38.5-3pureos1).
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libllvm11 libvulkan1 libwpe-1.0-1
  libwpebackend-fdo-1.0-1
  mesa-vulkan-drivers
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 123 not upgraded.
purism@pureos:~$
1 Like
19

let’s try apt install phosh

2 Likes
20 
purism@pureos:~$ sudo apt install phosh
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 tracker-miner-fs : Breaks: rygel (< 0.40.1-3~) but 0.40.0-1 is to be installed
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
purism@pureos:~$
1 Like