Since receiving my Librem 5 last week I’ve discovered that I can keep my Librem 5 charged when connected to my Nextdock 360 by setting the Librem to single display and selecting the Nextdock 360 as the single display. So far so good.
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Btw (taking the opportunity to ask for participation), anybody can ask for an account and help to fill the gaps! 
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Done for the i-tec nano dock station in the Hubs section 
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I’m curious, has anyone tried using xrdp as a means to interact with the L5? in lieu of a docking station?
In other words, leverage the L5 connected to the home network via wifi, and use xrdp, or something similar to access it’s desktop. Is this viable?
I ask, because, I noticed that Uperfect is actually developing a wireless lapdock?! https://www.uperfectmonitor.com/products/uperfect-x-14-pro-wireless-lapdock
having a wireless option would be so much nicer with the L5.
Maybe not with the current battery life. But then again it may not be so bad if you’re only using the dock’s screen?
Well, um, two questions:
- Would this work at all on the Librem 5? (May need both support within the operating system and support within the WiFi card. Would have to study the available modes of the WiFi card.)
- Assuming it does work at all, can the Librem 5 simultaneously communicate with the lapdock for its display (and keyboard and mouse) and with the local Wireless Access Point for networking? Apparently this is an optional feature, so it may not be available. (If it isn’t then this need not be fatal for all use cases - because the Librem 5 can still access the internet via the cellular modem - but for some use cases this would be a major problem.)
You would certainly want to ask some questions about security in this scenario (wireless display). However probably not worth asking unless someone finds that it works at all.
As far as power goes, this is a trade-off i.e. the Librem 5 then can’t be charged by the lapdock - but the USB-C port is free for another power source if one is available. Based on the discussion here: UPERFECT X Mini lapdock works with Librem 5 even without another power source for the Librem 5, the lack of charging for the Librem 5 may not be a major problem - but that doesn’t take into account the energy used in pumping the WiFi hard (minus the energy used in pumping the USB-C hard). You probably aren’t going to get a whole day out of it - so you would need a power bank (or spare battery) for the Librem 5.
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The wireless displays in most cases, I believe would rely on the same standard that is used by chromecast, etc. There is preliminary support in Linux and there is a GNOME project to allow wireless screencasting in display settings, but it’s pretty early days still, and apparently in many cases requires a patched wpa_supplicant.
I’ve thought about that use case a fair amount. At least for a lapdock the novelty is neat but I would actually much prefer my laptop dock actively charge my phone while I’m using it on the larger screen. With a magnetic mount on the side it’s not that clumsy to use and it’s nice to keep the Librem 5 battery topped off.
It was charging capability and the higher quality screen that ultimately made me switch back to using the nexdock 360 with my Librem 5 over the uperfect x mini.
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thanks for the info @Kyle_Rankin. It’s good to know that there is still a big lift involved on the tech side of things.
And, to your point about the value of a lapdock actively charging the L5. This is more of a temporary situation right? Meaning, as progress is made on power efficiency, this value will diminish over time?
Also, I wanted to offer another use case / scenario on this topic. Convergence is a tremendous value with the L5. But, inorder to take advantage of this, some investments are needed, such as a hub, monitor, cables, etc. A lapdock is a decent size investment in the broader scheme of things. So, It seems like a selling point for L5 would be for customers to be able to leverage convergence capabilities with minimal additional investments.
For example, I’m writing this post using my L15. And I can use this the L15 to connect to the L5 using ssh. but, that has limited capabilities. It would be really cool if I could also connect to the L5 using a graphical desktop connection without having to add an additional device (a lapdock) to my inventory. this is just to point out a potential use case.
No pressure here, I realize that there is some significant work to be done to make this a possibility so I understand this won’t be anytime soon, or a high priority. However, this could be a feature that helps sell the L5 to people by conveying the value they will receive without need for more investments to leverage convergence.
In theory you can already do that (with any Linux computer as the destination). However I couldn’t get it working with the Librem 5. I’m sure someone will get it working.
I guess, that is more of my question. What did you try? And was it while the L5 was on wifi, or hard-wired using a USB hub?
Refer: Librem5 vnc remote access
Yes, via WiFi. (It makes no difference though to the actual problem. I could have tried gigabit ethernet too.)
However someone did add a post subsequently to the above-linked topic and that post says that he found a way. Unfortunately it involves building a whole heap of software from source for ARM - so there is probably still no out-of-the-box solution and it is 50-50 whether, without detailed instructions, a random technical user could actually achieve the outcome.
Give it a go and let us know.
@kms
Would a streaming cable fit your needs?
As a use case I remember my Lattepanda Delta single board could interact with any hardware using this cable
https://www.dfrobot.com/product-1851.html
My cable must still be in a drawer somewhere, will have a look and report back when/if I found it.
When the Librem 5 is driving an additional display it requires extra power. That plus the fact that it can’t suspend in that state means that the level of power savings you can get (compared to when it can suspend) will be limited, so the ability to provide power to the Librem 5 when docked is pretty important.
By definition this means attaching the L5 to some sort of other, larger screen. The minimal level of investment here would be a USB-C hub that provides HDMI output. This is assuming you already have a monitor, keyboard and mouse to connect to. If not then you would need to invest in those things, at which point the $200-300 cost for a laptop dock would be comparable.
While everyone has different needs, I’m not sure how common a use case it would be for someone to run graphical programs on the L5 to display on their (presumably faster) Linux laptop. It seems like in that case you’d just run the same Linux application on your laptop instead.
The main benefit of convergence in my mind is being able to run standard Linux desktop applications on the L5 that aren’t yet adaptive to the small screen. In my case it plus a lapdock have completely replaced my need for a personal laptop.
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The one case that I have encountered a few times over the years - but not frequently enough to influence your thinking any time soon (in my opinion) is:
- There is a system administration function to be done (hence almost by definition you can’t just run the same application somewhere else), and
- I don’t know how to do that function from the command line (or it is just really really crappy trying to do it at the command line), and
- doing the function locally via a GUI is for some reason not an option.
To be clear, I am not talking about the Librem 5 here as far as my past experience goes.
However to illustrate the point for the Librem 5: If you want to add a new user, the GUI app for that is not adaptive and does not work adequately on the Librem 5 screen - and clearly it is not viable to add the user on another computer (unless you are using distributed authentication but let’s put that to one side). So the only option is adding users from the shell, which is fine for me but may be a showstopper for some customers.
But the answer in that specific case is to fix the GUI app that adds new users (and/or add the default user as part of the initial installation process, as for example Ubuntu does).
I got the CSV-1599 today after finding this thread and have mix results on things.
- PD 3.0 pass thru works and charges the L5 nicely IF the source ‘brick’ output is enough. In my first test with the Librem charger, the hub/dock itself consumes 15 of the 18W and the phone doesn’t charge. Switching to a HIGHSAY 100W GaN Charger I get the phone to charge while it’s connected.
- The HDMI display worked immediately after switching to the higher wattage power source.
- Ethernet jack lights up fine but… the L5 doesn’t recognize the device or automatically recognize the connection. Doing the lazy version of restarting networking (read rebooting) it still did not pick up the wired connection.
- NO MOUSE or KEYBOARD recognized by the L5 via USB-A or USB-C ports!! I thought for sure this would be the easy part but, that’s what I get for thinking.
- USB flash drive in one of the USB-A ports ALSO goes unrecognized by the L5
Checking lsusb output the L5 lists a hub but, does not change when these other devices are added or removed from the Club-3d CSV-1599 hub/dock.
@quarnero have you successfully used a wired mouse, keyboard, or network connection with this dock? Is there some hidden package I need to install or firmware update for the L5? It feels like I’m so close to having a phone and light duty workstation!!!
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Ethernet is still not working with Club-3d CSV-1599. Interestingly, as shown above,
Obda:8153 Ethernet adapter already works with PureOS out-of-the-box. Anyway, I admit that I wrongly presumed that even 0bda:8156 works with the Librem 5. Therefore I’ll take a look into some workaround for this driver (instead of getting: cdc_ncm with physical Ethernet connection through CSV-1599).
Also, all three data USB ports work for me (I have none mouse nor keyboard issues there), even without providing PD to this hub/dock auto-mounts my USB flash drive on Librem 5 (please test there few other USB flash drives as well).
EDIT:
@cyber_fu, please download related file from: https://github.com/wget/realtek-r8152-linux/releases/tag/v2.16.3.20221209 and extract it. Copy
50-usb-realtek-net.rules into /etc/udev/rules.d/, as admin and reboot.
My dock (different from yours) sometimes does not recognize attached USB-A peripherals with the dock’s integrated USB-C connector inserted one way into the L5 but will recognize them with the dock’s USB-C connector flipped 180 degrees when plugged into the L5. Anyway, this is something easy that you might try.
What test did you use to get these results?
