I bought two librem 14 laptops last year. I have opened one nad begun using it. I am super green and the first time i used it it locked up on me and kept going to the recovery shell. It took me a couple of months and many arduous back and forth emails to get it back up and running then a week later it did the same thing again but what i did last time did not fix it. I lost my daughter in December ad the events brought a grinding halt to my progress. I have not yet begun the arduous process to try and get back into my $2000 machine and am a bit daunted. I am considering selling my other unopened Librem !4 without delay rather than return it for a refund that may take another 6 to 8 months to fulfill. Any suggestions?
Sorry to hear about the loss of your daughter.
Suggestions could include:
- if you don’t need the money then keep the second laptop - it is always good to have spares and backups
- it is doubtful that you would have a consumer right to a refund in what is essentially a change-of-mind scenario
- that is not to say that Purism wouldn’t entertain a request for a refund - the only way to know is to ask them(!)
- if a refund for whatever reason is not going to happen then selling the second laptop is an option but you should expect to make at least a small loss
As far as the first laptop goes, it may help to clarify which boot firmware you are using i.e. Coreboot v. Pureboot. If you are using Pureboot, it may be that it is too complicated for your needs and you could ask Purism to walk you through downgrading to Coreboot.
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Another suggestion would be to ask for help here on the forum. Many knowledgeable and helpful people could try to guide you through the necessary steps and help you fix the machine. Knowing how your laptop works will definitely help you a lot in the future and make you more independent.
You simply tell us which errors you have on the screen and what (if anything) you try to achieve.
Thank you for the ideas and suggestions. Thank you for the sympathy as well. My system runs on Pureboot. I am pretty sure I will be able, with your help to figure it all out. I was reading somewhere that pureboot needed to be updated. I am sure once I learn how to use this thing, I will be extremely happy and am by no means anxious to sell it, I also know there is a long wait for anyone to get one of these machines. So perhaps I was putting feelers out for a market for it but not stressing over it necessarily. I appreciate your reply.
You can flip-flop the firmware. So you could change to Coreboot now and have a simpler boot experience, without of course the boot integrity features that Pureboot gives you, and then go back to Pureboot at a future time when you want to take on that learning experience.
Purism is currently quoting the Librem 14 as “In Stock, Lead Time 10 days” i.e. the long delays are claimed to be a thing of the past.
As a general rule, it is always a good idea to be running up-to-date software (firmware in this case).
So the first two questions that you would need to answer are:
- What version do you have?
- What is the latest generally-available version?
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Relevant instructions: https://puri.sm/projects/coreboot/.
See also: https://puri.sm/posts/pureboot-101-first-boot-first-update-and-detecting-software-tampering/
I have the same issue, maybe the laptop is a bit to tech for me. I did initial start up, then starting the second time it’s saying (found verified kexec boot params, verify signature failed, failed default boot. Starting recovery shell.
Can’t get past this now. The first start up I was online. I want to download the brave browser and get using this laptop.
If anyone can help I’d really appreciate it.
before that message there is infomration to press any key to abort autoboot.
menu will apear
go advanced
select: update checkums and sign /boot - follow onscreen instructions
then select boot options -> show os boot menu
select which kernel should be default (first on the list should be fine), select make default, follow instructions
then reboot
Thanks for that, I appreciate your help. I want to down load the brave browser. On the brave site you can’t just click to download, it gives some text that you use to manually download the browser. Where do I copy that text to? Do I need to download the version for Debian/Ubuntu?
Yes, you want the Debian/Ubuntu/Mint version. (PureOS is based on Debian.)
I guess you’re asking about the commands listed there. There are 5 of them. Copy and paste each one in its entirety, one at a time, to the command line in the terminal, and hit Enter after each one.
That will download, verify, and store the key for the Brave browser package (to ensure file integrity/lack of tampering) in your keyring, and add its repository to your software repository list. The next-to-last command performs a system update (always best to do this before adding packages); if any available updates are found at this step, perform a sudo apt upgrade before proceeding to the final command.
Finally, install the browser with the last command.
I would love to go at this again 
My life is suddenly taming enough to give it a try again. So, I tried doing a manual boot and using the Check sums method, but it still will not boot properly. Keeps taking me to the recovery shell