So I ordered a new USB hub from Purism but the one I received was not the one they show on their website. See here: USB-C Hub – Purism What brand is your hub from Purism, if I might ask? A little frustrating since it was expensive to order and ship from Purism.
I have not tried it yet, but I am a little dubious that it is any different than the two hubs I have already tried as they look very similar. I will report back if it makes any difference.
As an update to this post, I wanted to let everyone know that the USB Hub I ordered directly from Purism, from their website, works very well. It is not perfect but the flaky power issues and constant shutting off are gone. I am happy.
It still works well. Sounds transfers via HDMI. Not buggy. Sometimes the display has trouble recognizing the different monitors and I have to fiddle with it, but it works eventually.
My only complaint is that, with this hub, there is no SD card slot. The picture on the website shows an SD card slot. Small potatoes.
Update. I paid about $70.00 with Purism for this hub and I just found it on Amazon for $30.00. Annoying. Oh well.
Update 2. Sorry, one more update. I have been running the hub all day and streaming music. The power management on the hub is much improved from my prior experiences. The battery is fully charged and the phone temperature is still relatively low for all the activity. That is a plus.
Right now for me the Purism shop is showing the Hoyoki hub but I vaguely thought that you can’t get them any more (from Purism or from anyone else) and hence the photo may be out of date?
@JCS I don’t know whether you can escalate to get that checked out and fixed if necessary. Maybe it would be better for Purism just to erase the brand from the photo in the shop - so that over time the actual make and model that is supplied can be changed to whatever is available at the time without generating queries.
Thanks, I escalated to the appropriate department.
Update: We may consider using more generic imagery to reduce future maintenance issues/questions but, for the time being, the product page has been updated to reflect the correct product offering.
On both the Librem5 and PinePhonePro I’ve had issues of some docks not working and problems with 4K display not working or not working with touch. I’ve also had a problem at one time with a dock triggering kernel panics in a Mobian kernel (that one seems fixed).
I recommend that anyone who wants to do this starts by buying a couple of cheap docks from eBay, Amazon, or AliExpress so you can just change to a different dock when you have issues. Also use a monitor with resolution less than 4K.
I don’t think that what I really want to do with convergence is going to be possible on Librem5 type hardware, but it is a good platform for software development so later on I can move to a Librem6 or PinePhone2 or something.
Quite apart from dock issues, I find that vanilla desktop Linux has some annoyances with a 4K monitor. That at least can be fixed in software.
A 4K monitor won’t work for use with a dock, with 4K resolution, unless both the source (the Librem 5) and the dock support 4K.
For my use in docked mode, FHD (1920x1080) is satisfactory.
The dock that Purism sells claims to be 4K capable but unfortunately that is inadequate specification. You need to know whether that’s 4K @ 30Hz or 4K @ 60Hz.
Sorry, I didn’t get back to you, and I still haven’t checked closely. The one I have does at least match the pictures on the Purism website; not like the pictures you’ve posted here.
At least with a multiple source product, you can keep backorder time down. I’m now stuck behind whatever is holding up the lapdock kit. (Assuming Nexdock?)