Hey all, just trying to install PureOS to my home desktop. I would very much like to use hard drive encryption for this fresh install. I seem to have issues post install, where I get the prompt to input my encryption password. I put in the password, and I’m then greeted with errors to the effect of not seeing the drive. It will loop every 60 seconds, error out, and do this until I power off. I have seen prior posts, including stuff tracked in the past. They allude to this being a known issue, but unless I’m reading things wrong, this has already been corrected? I am able to install the OS with no encryption with ease.
Just wondering if anyone has tips for a non Librem computer running PureOS. I am a layman at best, but wondering if this is a known issue with the current iso?
When I was testing PureOS before I had this same problem. You can, of course, install without encryption but that’s probably not what you want.
What I ended up doing was using the regular installer, not the live system installer. But, that had the issue where it failed “detecting my cdrom” drive. To get past that error dialog, I told it not to load modules and allow me to specify the cdrom device. I then entered /dev/sdb1 and off it went without a hitch. Depending on your system, it might be /dev/sda1 or /dev/sdc1 or somesuch, but enough guesses and you should find it.
I had difficulties running PureOS on an old MacBook Pro I had here too. I think Purism’s focus is on supporting their own machines though. With an older machine like a T400, I’d probably install a stripped down Debian [freedom-only mode, of course] or I think many with such a setup use Trisquel.
I’m trying to use the PureOS, because I’m helping a friend who is new to GNU and got purism.
I think supporting only own hardware (besides it’s against the free software philosophy) is a step in a wrong direction. The more people will use PureOS on more diverse hardware the better the system will get.
This is true. Purism spends their money on making an operating system for their own computers.
This is unfair to Purism. Purism spends their own money on supporting their own hardware. Nothing wrong with that. What hardware are you spending money to support?
If you think PureOS lacks support for specific hardware they will gladly take patches to increase support.
However, their resources will go towards their product and we will all be more free for it.
One main issue is that most machines have hardware which only works with non-free drivers/firmware, so PureOS is very unlikely to work (at least perfectly) on any given machine. Purism has gone to great lengths to make a machine (the Librem devices) that works with entirely free software. It’s not something you’re going to easily find from other companies (except old Thinkpads).
So, it makes sense for Purism to mainly support Librem devices, because those are the ones that have been crafted for PureOS to work on. Trying to install it on another machine is most likely going to require non-free software, which is not what Purism is interested in, so it’s not what they want to try to support. Purism is doing a lot of work to improve the world of free software, but they can’t be expected to develop open source drivers for all the different possible hardware configurations out there.
Secondly, privacy generally comes at the cost of convenience. The general user is accustomed to the convenience provided by turning all their data over to a large company and having the company do everything for them. Privacy means being in control of your own data, which means being in control of the systems that handle your data, which means doing more stuff yourself, which is intimidating for beginners and non-tech-savvy people.
The loss of convenience for the sake of privacy and the fact that most hardware is designed to use proprietary software/firmware makes PureOS a bit more difficult for the general layperson than Ubuntu or others, but I don’t see a way around that at the moment.
I’m actually running it on one of the old Thinkpads (the same model that is certified by RYF when the bootloader is refleshed). So there should be no issue with non-free drivers.
Anyway. The installation with encryption does not work for me, but there must be a way to make it work. Does anyone have any other suggestion how to?
Thank you for the reply.