Librem 5 Capabilities That No Other Phone Has

Hardware Librem 5
61

I have the same set of secrets:

purism@pureos:~$ find .password-store/ -type f | wc -l
335

on my FreeBSD laptop too, there protected also by another OpenPGP card in an USB stick.

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62

Cool things to do on L5:

  1. created a presentation slide using libre office which is a full blown office desktop program and saved it as a .docx file which was satisfying somehow,
  2. using file and disk manager to move, delete, copy, format and encrypt to your enjoyment,
  3. creating a direct phone to computer LAN network using a USB cable (pretty sure the iphone doesnt have that feature),
  4. you can use any desktop linux program on the L5, you just have to deal with small buttons and menues and text,
  5. using a terminal on the phone to install, delete, modify and edit files is somehow satisfying.
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63

Or you can run any program over ssh and use a normal screen and keyboard. (With -X flag also graphical applications!).

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64

It most definitely does. If you use the iPhone for tethering then you can tether via WiFi, Bluetooth or USB.

But maybe this still illustrates the point because if you said that you want networking over USB to the iPhone without tethering, I would have no idea where to start, nothing is documented, it may not be possible, tinkering is not encouraged, …

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65

I know you aren’t claiming these are exclusive to the L5. It’s still worth pointing out that most of these are doable on Android/iPhone phones.

Cool things to do on L5:

  1. created a presentation slide using libre office which is a full blown office desktop program and saved it as a .docx file which was satisfying somehow,

You and I have different ideas of cool. But, of course, one can run LibreOffice on an iphone and/or Android phone https://www.collaboraoffice.com/collabora-office-android-ios-release-notes/

  1. using file and disk manager to move, delete, copy, format and encrypt to your enjoyment,

There are file managers on the iphone/Android. Because of containment features of Android, there are tricky aspects as to what they can see/do.

  1. creating a direct phone to computer LAN network using a USB cable (pretty sure the iphone doesnt have that feature),

I think you can do this on iPhone and Android

  1.  using a terminal on the phone to install, delete, modify and edit files is somehow satisfying.

Both iphone and Android have Terminal programs. Most of them contain ssh clients.

Also there are sshd servers: https://osxdaily.com/2011/08/04/ssh-to-iphone/

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66

If you could run Libhandy and Phosh, on your PC (versions compiled for x86), then you could remotely log in to your PC from your Librem 5, set the display back to your Librem 5, and have the full hardware resources (RAM, CPU, SSD), of the PC, available on your Librem 5 to execute programs and store data.

Try doing that on your Android or Apple phone. Theoretically, your Librem 5 could have nearly unlimited RAM, CPU, SSD resources available anywhere you are connected to the internet. If some authority takes away your phone then, keeping your data private would only require a severing of the internet connection.

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67

You can use any Linux program that’s compiled for arm64 on the Librem 5. There are many programs not currently compiled for arm, some of them closed source so you can’t even re-compile them yourself.

Discord, while there are open source alternatives, there are still quite a few good communities on there.

Zoom, Teams, etc, sure it would be nice to always use open source alternatives but that’s not always feasible when collaborating with others.

So no, even ignoring that many open source programs are infeasible to use on the Librem 5’s screen, you cannot run just any Linux desktop program on it.

68

thats only partially true, first you have to jailbreak your iphone (which i used to do, but more often than not did not work as well as in its non jail broken setup - not sure why, plus comes with all the other caveats that go along with jailbreaking). So based on a stock iphone you cannot ssh.

69

Both iphone and Android have Terminal programs. Most of them contain ssh clients.

thats only partially true, first you have to jailbreak your iphone (which i used to do, but more often than not did not work as well as in its non jail broken setup - not sure why, plus comes with all the other caveats that go along with jailbreaking). So based on a stock iphone you cannot ssh.

Terminal with a ssh client does not require a jailbreak. You only need to jailbreak to have a ssh server.

70

Yes, so partially true. I find being able to ssh in to my Librem 5 a very useful feature. It means I can get in and check-and-change no matter where in the house my Librem 5 may be sitting from whatever device I happen to be using at the time.

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71

If you are logged in to a PC from your Librem 5 and if you then set the display of your PC back to the Librem 5, then you should be able to run any x86 program from your Librem 5 as though the program was installed to and running on the Librem 5. The trick would be to get the screen display server on the PC (in PureOS) properly set up first, so that it could properly output a display that matches the needs of a Librem 5 from an x86 environment. If you’ve ever done Android application development, then you’ve probably seen an Android program demo mode on your PC screen that is shaped like and that matches the appearance of an Android phone display, to test your new Android applications on the PC as you develop them. We just need an x86 display server that really does format a Librem 5 screen output to a real Librem 5 display that way as opposed to emulating a phone display on a PC screen.

I am guessing that if one were to compile any program to run in PHOSH in an x86 environment, and if PHOSH were also compiled to run and was running on that same PC, then that the display server on that PC could then format the PC display server as a phone display that matches the requirements of the Librem 5.

But under such an arrangement, you should be able to run from that PC, any x86 Linux program that any x86 PC should be able to run. If Libhandy compiles and runs on that same PC, then theoretically, the list of programs that can be compiled to run on that PC and output a Librem 5 display, should greatly exceed the number of programs that will run natively on the Librem 5 on its ARM processors.

My guess is that if Libhandy and PHOSH were simply compiled to run in an x86 environment and installed to a PC running PureOS, that after that, getting any x86 program to run in a remote login from a Librem 5 would require no more effort than getting any other Linux app to run in PHOSH on the Librem 5 itself. If the software development ever gets that far, then the limitations imposed by the ARM architecture on the Librem 5 should be relatively insignificant. Someone who knows more than I do would need to assess whether or not getting Libhandy and PHOSH to run in an x86 environment would require only require ‘re-compile and play’ or if a lot of work would be required.

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72

This is related to my comment about scheduled shutdowns above, but AFAIK, the spy-brick phone brands don’t have the capability to have scheduled process-kills of arbitrary apps. For example, on the Librem 5, if I want to listen to a podcast for 20 minutes and no more, I can schedule the podcast player to stop after 20 minutes. I am very interested in features that make it easier on me to control my phone rather than vice versa, and I think this feature might be a big win for me in that area.

3 Likes