Does PureOS on Librem 5 automatically configure itself for AweSIM?

Services Librem AweSIM
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1

I bought my Librem 5 (Byzantium) bundled with AweSIM to minimize the number of out of the box problems, and I’m glad I did because I certainly had a number of problems getting started. But I have decided to flash Crimson rather then update, so now it is time to pay the piper.

I’ve always assumed that I would eventually have to learn all the various settings. But since I have learned of the existence of /usr/share/mobile-broadband-provider-info/* with entries for AweSIM therein, I’m wondering if a first boot of a freshly installed PureOS on a Librem 5 with an activated AweSIM will recognize the SIM and configure itself?

Is that what is supposed to happen for any carrier with a (correct) entry in /usr/share/mobile-broadband-provider-info/* ?

2

Why not do an in-place upgrade from byzantium to crimson rather than reflashing to put crimson on there? There are certainly legitimate reasons. I’m just asking since evidently you are anticipating that reflashing will give you at least one problem that you won’t have with an in-place upgrade.

Fun option if you want to know what’s in a reflash image: Download the disk image without reflashing, mount it locally on the host computer, then you can browse to the file in question and you can visually check it for the entry. I realise that that is not exactly what you asked - you asked about “first boot” - but the premise of the question is that the entry is not there before first boot, and you haven’t indicated that that is something that you have verified.

3

FWIW, I looked at serviceproviders.xml for a byzantium reflash image and it does mention AweSIM, as does apns-conf.xml.

4

As usual, I anticipate significant problems with either approach. In this case:

  1. I may have done things early on that would break an upgrade.
  2. Over time I may have made bad configuration decisions that would propagate.
  3. Over time I may have installed things that would break an upgrade.
  4. On my desktops and laptops I very nearly always do a fresh install, usually with a new disk. The only exception was earlier this year on a quite old Dell XPS 13 laptop which I took from debian buster to debian trixie one version major version at a time.

I think most x86 desktop distros have had them for some time. The web is full of problem reports on getting a SIM to work for all OS. My questions were:

  1. Do the files in mobile-broadband-provider-info/ provide hope that an activated SIM will “just work” without having to fiddle with configuration? (Of course problems can always crop up.)
  2. Has anyone ever bought an AweSIM, got Purism to activate it, put it in an already owned L5 running PureOS, and it “just worked” (in an area with good AT&T coverage)? I haven’t asked Purism whether that should work. I am asking for peoples experiences both ways. Reports of results with other carriers also welcome.
5

After you get those responses, you might also simply take note of the current fields in the APN settings and also in the Chatty SMS & MMS settings. If it doesn’t self-populate after reflashing, then you can just enter the data yourself.

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6

There is also the possibility that I’ve played with them in the past and made poor decisions.

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7

From the default files in crimson:

Network APN settings in: /usr/share/mobile-broadband-provider-info/serviceproviders.xml

	<provider>
		<!-- MVNO operating on AT&T's network -->
		<name>AweSIM</name>
		<gsm>
			<network-id mcc="310" mnc="410"/>
			<apn value="NXTGENPHONE">
				<plan type="prepaid"/>
				<usage type="internet"/>
				<name>AweSIM Internet</name>
			</apn>
			<apn value="NXTGENPHONE">
				<plan type="prepaid"/>
				<usage type="mms"/>
				<name>AweSIM MMS</name>
				<mmsc>http://mmsc.mobile.att.net</mmsc>
				<mmsproxy>proxy.mobile.att.net:80</mmsproxy>
			</apn>
		</gsm>
	</provider>

SMS/MMS settings in: /usr/share/mobile-broadband-provider-info/apns-conf.xml


	<apn carrier="AweSIM Internet" mcc="310" mnc="410" apn="NXTGENPHONE" type="default,supl"/>
	<apn carrier="AweSIM MMS" mcc="310" mnc="410" apn="NXTGENPHONE" mmsc="http://mmsc.mobile.att.net" mmsproxy="proxy.mobile.att.net" mmsport="80"
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8

Then I assume that you would image the internal disk of the Librem 5 before reflashing. If things are really pear-shaped after the reflash, that gives you the choice to go back, at least temporarily.

Also, if you are particularly concerned about success with either approach then you could flash crimson onto the µSD card and boot from that. That would then inform your decision. That is better than someone else’s experience in the sense that someone else’s experience need not match your experience.

Then you would be the ideal guinea pig candidate for an in-place upgrade i.e. to tease out some of the ways that the in-place upgrade can fail that are not already detected by the upgrade tool. :wink:

Maybe it is OK to run the upgrade tool just to see what things it complains about but not actually continue with the upgrade.

9

I am not going to attempt to upgrade from byzantium to crimson.

The first thing I did after I got my battery out was was boot into jumpdrive for the first time. Based on other contortion challenges, I expected difficulty, but it was surprisingly easy.

The next thing I did (yesterday, I think) was backup the EMMC with dd.

Today, I got an SD card and dd the (no LUKS) crimson image I downloaded some days ago to it. Getting the SD into the L5 was a bit fiddly, but I then was able to boot crimson from the SD card. The L5 got pretty warm pretty fast. (I thought there were supoosed to be significant power use improvements.) The mobile network was a mess, but I had forgotten that I happen to be in a poor AT&T reception area at the moment, which might be why it thought it was alternately connected to Tmobile and Verizon and trying to select AT&t from the menu just locked everything up.