I’ve been wondering how to get the best experience out of my Librem 5. Of course, I want everything to be working smoothly and have the latest software, but am aware that there are some obstacles on the way. FYI, I am comfortable with flashing a new distro and playing around with package sources.
I know there has been a regression in the linux kernel, which means we should stick to 6.6. I also read that increasing the amount of zram can greatly improve responsiveness and battery drain. So far so good. However, is there a way of using the (almost) latest Phosh and still have working calls, camera and suspend? For example, I can just install mobian testing and specify the correct kernel version or will that break something? Or how about PostmarketOS?
I have seen comments fromt @dos that he is still using his Librem 5 happily and have seen mastodon posts of @guido.gunther (although no longer with Librem 5) with the latest Phosh, but am not sure if this is possible/easy to setup.
Thanks for the help and sorry if I’m repeating questions already discussed elsewhere.
You probably are able to take a disc image, so you can test all kinds and then flash back that backup image if you don’t like what you get (jumpdrive connection + Discs app). No need to look for a solution from only one direction if it doesn’t suit you.
Have you looked at adding Byzantium backports as a solution? It updates byz and you get for instance latest phosh. It’s unofficial though.
Hi,
you could try out PostmarketOS by flashing it onto a SD-card. Then you can boot into this OS by holding the Volume down key while switching on your librem 5 and still keep the original PureOS and all your data at the internal memory.
I use PostmarketOS since several months as a second OS in the (unstable) edge version, which is a rolling release, so you’ll get all new software with each update. Phosh is in the most actual version 0.45.0 from 02-15-2025.
Of course it also has it’s quirks but works for me as a daily driver, at least not worse than the PureOS 10.3
There are a few -may be minor but nevertheless annoying- things that don’t work reliably: my installed and preferred ring tone is ignored; often sound is not working, because after shutting down the phone the sound balance is shifted to “right” and I have to bring it back to middle position again; sometimes the “Lollypop” music player stops multiple times during playback; the note taking app “Iotas” does not start, and the “KDE-connect” app is not available, which is very inconvenient for me because I use KDE Plasma on my PC.
On the other hand GPS supported navigation with “Pure Maps” and “OSM Scout Server” works very reliable out of the box (at least if there is clear sky!), which never worked for me on PureOS 10.3
Just an update no my side. I decided to go down the Mobian path. I kept the default zram of 1.5GB, created a swap of 6GB. I also installed flatpaks on the sd card and mounted my music and pictures folders to the sd card as well. I’m overall quite happy with having the up-to-date phosh, most programs work sufficiently fast, and the phone doesn’t get too hot.
The one problem I have is that I cannot use suspend. Something goes wrong when the phone wakes up from suspend and all my flatpak apps are gone. Note that my sd card is not encrypted and that I’m using the kernel from mobian testing (i.e., 6.6.0.75). Is this a known problem or is it something unexpected?
Would you recommend me to switch to Purism’s repo just for the kernel or is Mobian sufficiently fast with their updates that it is not worth the trouble?