Here is more information I forgot to post from the “general” Matrix room (this should answer some of the questions asked here).
First, the summary:
- It will ship with Crimson.
- The compositor/UI will be Wayland with Phosh.
- Jonathon is optimistic the battery runtime performance can be improved 2x, though don’t take this as a promise. More may be possible but disabling ME tends to limit power saving.
- It supports ACPI S3.
- PureBoot provides firmware to the OS via the PureBoot “Blob Jail” feature.
- Here is a refresher on what the blob jail is (source):
The firmware jail is a region in NOR flash that is read only from the kernel. We flash the jail during phone production and it gets loaded into /lib/firmware/ by the initramfs. This way, the firmware shows up in the rootfs, while allowing PureOS to stay pure.
- Here is a refresher on what the blob jail is (source):
- CPU throttling is set to start at 60 C at the die but this is customizable from the firmware. Reportedly, the device gets warm but not uncomfortably hot.
- Known issues include:
- Fingerprint reader is not supported by fprint yet.
- Using TV HDMI audio when plugged from boot
- Intermittent issues with Bluetooth audio
- Dragging tabs with touch in Firefox doesn’t work
- Keyboard cover doesn’t work in SeaBIOS (but these devices ship PureBoot anyway which works)
Note: There are jumps between some of the quotes because those messages aren’t significant to this thread so I’ve also attached screenshots at the bottom.
The Librem 11 will also be the first Librem device to ship with Crimson by default
beside the battery life,what is not working well yet?
That is a question for Jonathon Hall but I believe that with the newer kernel from Crimson, everything is working pretty smoothly. I think the fingerprint reader is not fully supported yet.
Yes that’s right, I’ve tested a ton of things like USB-C (2.x/3.x/DP alt mode/PD), SD card, cameras, touch, pen, keyboard, audio in/out, accelerometer, etc. We’ve just added support in Phosh to automatically show the virtual keyboard when the physical keyboard is detached and vice versa.
Some of the things I have noted that have issues are: using TV HDMI audio when plugged from boot (works if plugged later, works on my PC monitors but has issues with some actual TVs), intermittent issues with Bluetooth audio (may depend on the audio device), fingerprint reader isn’t supported by fprint, dragging tabs with touch in Firefox doesn’t work, keyboard cover doesn’t work in SeaBIOS (but these devices ship PureBoot anyway which works).
What sort of battery performance can be expected once optimisations are done? Threefold? Fourfold?
That’s pretty hard to guess
Disabling ME also tends to limit power saving. My wild guess, please don’t quote me, I am pretty optimistic we can get to roughly 2x the current run time. More may be possible, hard to say.
I will throw out there that it works great with a USB-C battery pack on flights with 12V PD
Under X and touch Firefox needs MOZ_USE_XINPUT2=1 but you will have done that already.
This is Wayland with Phosh
Does the tablet support ACPI S3? Not many devices nowadays do, that’s why I am asking. S0 runs down the battery fast on (non-) standby.
Yes it does support S3. Currently we’re getting about 24 hours runtime there, I think that can be improved also.
I noticed it has Intel WiFi, is the firmware handled similarly to the SparkLAN Librem5 WiFi cards, with some firmware jail?
Yes, PureBoot provides firmware to the OS via the PureBoot “Blob Jail” feature
how’s the heat generation? does the tablet become hotter than it should?
I have it set to 60 C right now, which is a very good balance IMO, it has enough thermal headroom for good interactive performance without getting uncomfortable if you really crank it. If you crank it, it’ll get warm but not crazy hot.
(Firmware can set the thermal control circuit activation temperature, default is 100 C but we can basically choose when the CPU starts to throttle to control heat, it’s pretty good at holding that temperature)
That’s 60 C at the CPU die by the way, so the surface isn’t that warm
