Can't use L5 after update!

While you survived every advice within this thread (you do have courage). Thank you as well!

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We are taking steps to make that this bug does not happen again.

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Two suggestions:

  • Actually, take a rest. As you have now got your phone back to a working state(!), and it has been a difficult exercise, let your brain recover. It is not a good idea to take on additional tasks if you are mentally or physically tired.
  • Yes, you must continue to apply updates (eventually). It is not safe for a device that is connected to the internet to stop applying updates. Scammers, governments and other criminals do not stand still, so you also must not stand still. (In any case, there will be much useful functionality being added to the Librem 5 - so you want updates, as well as needing updates.)

Also, I recommend that you apply updates via the GUI. I normally let the GUI do the updates on my Librem 5 - and I am experienced with command line usage.

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The bug comes from the number of kernels being installed simultaneously - some updates were introducing a new kernel version, but the old ones were still kept installed. Having too many kernels could fill up your boot partition completely, at which point things started to break.

(there actually is a mechanism to autoremove old kernels, but several unfortunate coincidences made it not effective enough or even outright disabled in some cases)

So as long as you made the room for a new kernel (by, say, removing old kernels manually), updating is safe. However, feel free to wait it out until we make all necessary fixes to ensure that the system wonā€™t break even if your boot partition becomes full again (we already have such fixes being worked on, they should be out in a few days).

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This thread has been heartwarming to read.

@Quarnero and @irvinewade especially. Youā€™re inspirations to us all.

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This problem, of lack of space in the /boot partition was caused by several different factors that ā€œcoincidedā€:

  • In the case of installs with Full Disk Encryption, the package osk-sdl the virtual keyboard used to type the disk encryption passphrase, adds about 40MB to each image in /boot so if you have 3 kernels in /boot this adds approx ~120MB of used space to /boot. This is because osk-sdl is an application that needs to run from /boot because at that point of the booting process the root filesystem is encrypted, so it cannot access any dependencies in the root filesystem. Which means it needs to have them in /boot for it to work.

Thereā€™s a mechanism to autoremove old kernels in place, but:

  • The system it always keeps two latest kernels + the one already running, so there needs to be space for at least three kernels (plus one decompressed copy for the bootloader u-boot)
  • removal is done on next update, not the one that actually installs the new kernel
  • packagekit (the package that PureOS Store/GNOME Software use to do the updates and install packages) has a bug that marks all kernel packages as installed manually, (this matters with debian packages), due to this bug; if you install or update them with PureOS Store then they wonā€™t ever be automatically removed.

This is the Link for the package kit bug: https://github.com/PackageKit/PackageKit/issues/450

As for preventing this issue from happening again:

@dos is working on making osk-sdl take less space
@matthias.klumpp fixed the packagekit bug in upstream, and we will need to backport it to PureOS
Guido and Martin are working on: reducing amount of kernel copies stored in /boot and making flash-kernel more robust so it doesnā€™t fail like this again.

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You say that I should wait few days? Haha! And how can I be sure that I wait enough days? If I wait 1 week (7 days), can I be sure that I can update or I should wait more days. Do you understand that the L5 is my only phone, my only agenda, my only memory of all my appointement, all my phones.numbersā€¦ I was in BIG trouble during 2 very long days? I canā€™t take chance to lose the L5 another time.

And I use L5 and a L13 because I love Purism and when we know Purism, all GAFAM tech look mediocre compare to Purismā€¦ same after this 2 long days :slight_smile:

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I donā€™t know how to update with GUIā€¦ :confused:

You wait until Purism specifically announces that all the relevant issues have been addressed. You can see from the last few posts that the issues are understood and being worked on.

Whether your phone runs Linux or iOS or Android, you should back it up. Right?

After all, this particular problem was caused by a software problem - but what if you just lost your phone? or it was stolen? or it experienced a hardware fault?

The beauty of Linux (open source) is that you can do something with the backup - whereas when I back up my iPhone the result could be in some secret proprietary format that I am powerless to do anything with - so I am dependent on the whim of Apple.

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you say that I should
sudo apt update
???
But @dos just said to wait some days before update.
I think I should wait to do what you said. No?

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@Marts as for backups, if you are interested we do have this post on how to make and restore backups of a Librem 5:

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Use the PureOS Store app. It should be on the main screen. Thereā€™s a tab in that app for ā€œupdatesā€. It will tell you automatically when there are updates available (via that app and also via a notification). You just have to give it the go ahead. (It will often reboot in order to install the updates so you need to give it the go ahead when it is convenient for you.)

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Iā€™d say - if you already have your phone running again, then just leave it as is and use it normally. Updates should be safe (and in the worst case youā€™ll have to repeat the steps youā€™ve already done), but waiting with further updates until we announce here that the issues have been already fixed will probably take unnecessary stress away :stuck_out_tongue:

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ok I already use appstore for my update. Thanks!

I automaticaly backup on my memory card. But with my little kmowledge, I thing that it should take the same time to ask you how I can see the data, the phone numbers, the agendaā€¦ with the memory card connected on.my lap top than the time I took to repair the L5 -_-

so, do you think that I can wait before doing what you said to do? apt upgradeā€¦

One of the good aspects of Purismā€™s approach is that you should be able to run the same software on your laptop as you run on your phone. So there is at least some chance that a copy of a data file from the phone will be directly usable on the laptop. (Of course you need to be careful to have the same version of the software if the format of data files changes.)

Backing up to the uSD card in the phone has some limitations as a backup strategy e.g. if the phone is lost or stolen then so is the backup! However it wasnā€™t clear whether this is what you meant.

Current Linux Kernel that you run is what matters and there is no difference (upgrade through GUI from now on will provide as well better user experience from day to day ā€¦ for example having phosh 0.15.0-1pureos2 as already available, etc.), therefore only if you will proceed as I wrote down inside of post my #116. I think that there is some advantage of executing: sudo apt upgrade linux-image-librem5, before: sudo apt upgrade, as general CLI command that calls for all upgrades at once (for overview use: sudo apt list --upgradable). And that removing of all unnecessary Linux Kernels (like linux-image-5.15.0-1-librem5) helps greatly to gain significant amount of free ā€œroomā€ within /boot partition:

And, related to myself, as long as we have had Purism Staff involved here (and still have) I felt safe (and confident) as well (not to make any unnecessary mistake). Thank you all, especially to @mladen, @joao.azevedo and @dos!

EDIT: For example executing of:

Should give you the following output:
linux-image-5.16.0-1-librem5/byzantium in version 5.16.3pureos1 and this confirms to myself that versions of 5.16.2pureos1 (second one) and 5.16.1pureos1 (first one) already belong to previous apt upgrade. Simply put it is up to you to decide what to do, my thought was that that older linux-image-5.15.0-1-librem5/byzantium plays just static role within /boot, just by looking at its install date, as you posted it:

Here are already advices not to rush into anything, including official one from @joao.azevedo, so no need ā€¦ my recommendation was just my opinion, nothing that matters any more as of now, as of you run your Librem 5 as expected.

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I am very affraid. Pureos store say that updates are waiting and ready. I donā€™t want to live what Iā€™ve just lived this week. O.O

Which particular updates are listed as available?

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