Experiences with Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver) on Librem 13v2?

Software
4

On my purism librem 13v2 (US keyboard) I have now

  • updated my coreboot firmware to 4.7-Purism-4 (within PureOS)
  • reset my SSD (deleting PureOS) and
  • installed Ubuntu 18.04
  • by creating just one ext4 partition (that contains the boot, root, home and cache file folder inside)
  • with both micro switches switched on (enabled wifi, BT, web cam, micro)

without problems.

I know this is not encrypted but it is just for testing purposes.

What works:

  • All hardware components seem to be recognized.
  • The problem with the “|” key is solved (did produce the wrong character when pressed)
  • Fast boot process (takes about 20 seconds incl. auto-login)
  • Fn key does work to switch wifi on/of (airplane mode), change display brightness, mute/unmute, switch the keyboard light on/off
  • web cam works with cheese

Open issues:

  • closing the lid activates the suspense mode but the power consumption is still to high
    (loosing 50 % of battery capacity after 9 hours). This is a known problem of the purism firmware settings (coreboot).
    See also: Battery drain while suspended

  • the coreboot “BIOS” did not ask for my SSD password to unlock the SSD (hdparm --user-master u --security-set-pass mypassword /dev/sda). I had to live boot from USB and remove the password again with

    sudo hdmparm --user-master u --security-unlock mypassword /dev/sda
sudo hdmparm --user-master u --security-disable NULL /dev/sda

    Note that this is not an Ubuntu problem but a gap in the coreboot firmware.

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