How can I update Coreboot on the Librem 14 that’s running Qubes? There is some discussion of it here:
but doesn’t the procedure I use need to take my particular hardware into account?
Also are apt, Coreboot, and EC all of the updates I should be watching for?
Well you can Burn a GNU OS in a Live USB then perform the purism scriptish to update coreboot.
Will the Coreboot update script work just as well from a LiveUSB? Will I need to enter the laptop’s serial number manually?
Is it possible to do this offline via flashrom?
Yes
No
Yes but becarefull in this way. I recommend you the Purism Script to update the coreboot.
I took the bottom cover off the Librem 14 with the battery charge problem and found that it is still making the electrical whine when turned off and unplugged despite having upgraded its EC and Coreboot. In a quiet room with the cover off I can hear it clearly from about 2 feet away. It seems to be loudest over the small electrical components that look manually soldered in under the black tape that also covers the wifi antenna wires. Disconnecting the battery eliminates the sound. I tried disconnecting the wifi chip and both fans but it did not change the sound.
I tried swapping batteries with my second Librem 14 which runs Qubes and the sound was greatly reduced but still present. With the swapped battery I could only hear the sound with my ear almost pressed against the area described above. I wonder if the difference in sound could be due to the different charge of the two batteries. The “louder” battery was almost fully discharged and the “quieter” battery was about 90% full. The Librem 14 with Qubes installed is dead quiet with either battery. No electrical whine there whatsoever even with my ear in the right spot.
Anything else I should try?
It is a big shame from Purism for that ugly repair. I really tired that gnu+linux company is gaming with gnu+linux user, as Pine64 does with theys trash electronics too.
I am very confident that with @francois-techene in front everything will change well for the free software user.
Contact Purism support. That unit sounds defective — some of those post-production-PCB changes were horrible solder jobs.
I am glad swapping batteries seemed to help you out, although I would contact Purism support too.
On the Librem 14, there are only three firmware images worth considering at any point in time:
I always use a live USB with PureOS to handle low-level tasks like these. Usually I flash the latest PureOS image using balenaEtcher.
Unfortunately the swapped battery also drains its charge rapidly in the problematic Librem 14. The non-problematic Librem 14 still holds its charge after the battery swap.
I’m having new power problems with the problematic laptop since the battery swap. It won’t turn on without being plugged into AC and it dies if I turn it on while plugged in and then unplug it while running. Battery shows 70% charge. This didn’t happen with either laptop before swapping batteries.
Can I swap the NVMe devices between the two laptops and expect the OSes (one PureOS and the other Qubes) to work just the same?
Definitely contact Purism support about the problematic laptop, since both batteries clearly function just fine.
Yes, I believe so as long as both laptops use Coreboot.
The two laptops each use a different version of Coreboot so it sounds like I should be able to swap the NVMe drives.
If the laptops used Pureboot or one Coreboot and the other Pureboot this wouldn’t work? I would have thought that wouldn’t come into play.
The issue with PureBoot is that if you have configured it to sign hashes for the boot partition, it will no longer match or be valid if you swap drives with a different laptop.
… and the root partition too if you have chosen to keep hashes for verification of selected files on the root partition.
Right, and any other configurations not mentioned. I referred to the boot partition only because PureBoot currently requires it to be unencrypted, so it was an easy example to mention.
I updated Coreboot on my second Librem 14 and for the system serial number I chose:
Extracted from your local system (System Serial Number)
but I think I remember that option being populated with the actual serial number when I ran this on the other laptop. How can I check to see if the serial number was recorded properly?
The serial number is injected into the firmware image before flashing, so after that you should be able to access it during the boot process.
At least, that is what happens when flashing PureBoot.
Any idea how to access it during the boot process? Or how to access any kind of BIOS config besides which device to boot?
Press the Esc key, that should bring up many options. I remember a few of them off of memory, one enables/activates the TPM, another one runs a memory diagnostics test, and one of them lists the Coreboot version as well as CPU supported parameters.
If you are not able to find it, you can use the Coreboot script and see if the options relating to the serial number have been updated. If there is no serial number set, you will need to set it manually with the script and reflash Coreboot.
I went into coreinfo that way and looked around thoroughly but I don’t see anywhere for the serial number. I would have to swap the NVMe drives between laptops to check them with the script so if anyone knows of another way to check Coreboot for the serial number please let me know.