I bought my Librem USA phone around 2021 not sure of the exact date. I enjoyed tweaking it for a couple of of years. But due to life situations I needed a reliable phone. I don’t have the time to play around and tweak the settings to make this phone a daily driver. I still pay monthly to support the development of the os. But it’s just not fun anymore. Right now it just sits in a desk drawer waiting for crimson to come out. Is anyone feeling the same way? $5 a month isn’t a problem for me. I want to help this project succeed and I will continue my monthly payments. But at what point do you cut your losses? I really don’t want to just use this phone as a $2000 mp3 player, as it has been for the last year
Crimson is out, however the backport is disabled so crimson not much interesting as the age…however Dawn is on the way.
Mobian and Postmarket is SUCKING the development speed of Crimson and Dawn.
So i think that Gnu Dawn plus Backport will enable GLES3 a critical dep for gtk.
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I’m not a Linux guru. I like to tweek stuff and learn things. But until there is a stable version I can download and flash, and use as a daily driver. I just don’t have the time right now. I wish I did but life happens.
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What is your issue that you tweak it so much? What do you want to use your L5 for that you cannot right now? Or is your post just to complain about the development speed (which is understandable)? It is just hard to understand what you actually want to speak about.
@carlosgonz: What has Mobian and PostmarketOS to do with PureOS development speed?
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Not anymore, I have moved on.
Up to you.
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This OSes do not helping to develop Gnu PureOS, even worse Mobian and Posmarket it sucking users to get new buggy software for L5, so users do not need Gnu PureOS urgent so users do not invest on Gnu PureOS developments.
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I have found if you use debian for everything it helps because you are using it no matter what platform you are using. Also feels good getting away from windows tbh, and in desktop format it isn’t as difficult as android to GNU/Linux on a phone.
I did have to switch to reading a lot more and watching fewer videos on my phone though.
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Thanks for your constructive post @Guardrail, I think this type of feedback is very useful. Great that you keep your PureOS development subscription!
Could you please provide the top priorities for you that should be more reliable? Maybe this could also help Purism to set development priorities.
I wrote once this and this about my top priorities.
This is a very good and useful post regarding priorities.
Trustworthy calls are very important for me. And unfortunately, I recently had a few issues with that on Crimson. Once someone could not hear me, another time someone said that the audio quality was bad. Maybe these audio issues were related to using a headset or listening to podcasts or internet radio when I received the call. But, in general the Librem 5 with Crimson works well enough for me to keep it as my daily driver, but I can accept inconvenience for having freedom.
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PostmarketOS is older than the Librem 5 crowdfunding. So we could ask Purism “why not using PostmarketOS as main system instead of splitting the resources?”, but I am sure you agree that it has good reasons to go with PureOS. PostmarketOS has another, but also important goal. I would not want to miss any of these two systems (while I do not use PostmarketOS).
Mobian on the other hand is very important for the Debian based Linux mobile ecosystem as whole and also for Phosh and GNOME (in mobile context) in specific. That also means, it is important for PureOS, too. Changes Mobian does are getting merged into Debian at some point, which is the main reason for Mobian to exist. And those packages are directly delivered to PureOS Dawn and beyond. Moreover it provides an up to date platform to develop Phosh and mobile GNOME applications directly on the newest software stack. As example, that newer versions of Nautilus will fit into your 360px screen on landscape is a direct result of Mobians existence. Otherwise the bottom would be below the screen, which would make some elements inaccessible. The big advantages we will get on Dawn are in most cases a result of Mobian.
The majority of user base is not switching because Mobian exist, but because the PureOS progress is slow. Especially that year of no software development was delaying the progress a lot (I do not rate that situation) and you cannot blame other teams for that.
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Yes, I feel exactly the same, but the alternatives are worse IMO.
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I’ve considered buying a feature phone on the side just for reliable phone calls and text messages. But the hassle of carrying 2 phones and paying for 2 subscriptions has kept me from following through, even though it is the cheapest option.
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I’ve considered switching to an iPhone. But it’s expensive (not as expensive as the L5 though
) and I find Apple software obnoxious, even though it does work brilliantly. -
I’ve considered Android, but Google’s tightening of the OS rules out custom ROMs in the long run.
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You can look at the FLX1S. It is reputed to be more reliable, while still supporting Phosh. Still, it’s another $550 expense.
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Sure, enjoy the wait.
My main problem is incoming calls and texts. My mother is 88 years old and lives on her own. She calls me everyday to check in. My father is in a dementia facility, and they have to call when even the slightest things happen. If he slips and falls or just walks into something and it leaves a mark. I had to give them my wife’s phone number if they couldn’t reach me. There have been times when I was sitting next to her and her phone rang, and it was the facility calling. I restarted my phone, then the missed calls and voicemails would show up. Yesterday I put in my at&t sim card to see what would happen. It’s been about six months since I had tried this the last time. It had the yellow exclamation point in the signal strength area. I went into my mobile settings to check the settings and my imei was all zero’s. I have all the latest updates. So I put the sim card back in my other phone because I don’t have time to play around for hours trying to get it working. I’ll keep my subscription active, because I want to see this phone succeed. I really would like to just put in a sim card, set the APN settings and have it work. I’ll give it another try in a couple of months.
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I hear you. I regularly miss calls and texts. Sound quality for the receiver is almost always poor (works better with Bluetooth headphones if you have the SparkLAN card). I use my girlfriend’s iPhone for critical phone calls 
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I only use it to call my ‘droid when I misplace it in the house. Essentially it is an emergency backup phone now.
It is always sitting just inside my desk drawer with the charger on. Thanks to the heat, it keeps my coffee cup warm also. Here it is on top of a row of 3.5” floppies. Anyone need a copy of Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS? Still in the shrinkwrap!
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Give the thanks to GTK for keeping your coffee warm, not the Librem 5.
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I use the Librem 5 as my daily driver. I don’t have any issues with it. It might be because I am on AweSIM, but I’ve had no problems with calls whatsoever.
I am still running on Byzantium, patiently waiting for Crimson prod release. Byzantium is working fine for me. I tend to use it as a music player, podcast player, audiobook player, and ebook reader. In desktop mode I use Manuskript for writing.
Btw, my book, Shadows of the Upper Peninsula, might have the first literary reference to the Librem 5 
One of the Haunt Hunters (it’s a ghost story), Anja, uses it.
And that book was partly written on an L-5. It is a capable little computer Later editing took place on a mini.
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I do use my L5 in Europe and Cuba for years as my daily driver, IIRC since 2021. For sure, there are many issues to solve, but none of them prevent the daily usage.
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For those who miss calles and SMS, if you restart your phone more frequently, it should become better. I thought the issue was fixed, but recently I also recognize these issues again (not sure when it started).
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No worries Mobian and Postmarket will fixes all the issues. 
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I daily drive it without a problem. I was having a weird issue where the modem would freeze after several days (could be fixed by toggling the modem switch) but an update seems to have fixed it. The only other phone with an exposed physical mic/camera privacy switch runs Android, which is not an option for me. So I don’t mind dealing with the rough edges.
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