Librem 5 Too Full to do Anything

Hardware Librem (Other)
1

My Librem 5 is so full of data, software installations, and updates, that it won’t even take another update now. I don’t have any data on my Librem 5 that I care about keeping. It looks like I’ll have to connect my Librem 5 to a PC via a USB cable and walk through some significant procedures to wipe everything and start over with a fresh installation of the operating system. I tried to avoid that. But I think it’s time to do that now. One advantage of that procedure is that anything I’ve broken in the OS up until now, should be fixed in a fresh OS installation.

I have three PCs to work with as tools: 1.) Windows 10, 2.) Windows 11, 3.) Ubuntu 20.04.

The goal is to:
1.) Wipe the original OS that came installed on the phone
2.) Install the latest version of PureOS on to the phone
3.) Install the latest version of PureOS on to an SD card that can either boot the phone and/or can be imaged on to the phone if desired so that next time I want to start over with a fresh OS, the job will then be much easier.

Can someone here please point me to the documentation that I will need to follow instructions to perform these tasks?

Also, as long as I am taking some risks here by replacing the OS, now might be a good time to try out Plasma Mobile and/or UB Touch, especially if I can put them on an SD card and boot them on the fly from there as alternatives to PureOS.

My biggest concern is that I don’t want to brick my Librem 5. Hopefully the un-brick procedure on this phone is easy. I’ve been a Linux user long enough to not be overly afraid to do these actions by following instructions. But I lack the Linux skills to create the procedures myself unless by a lot of guess work and failed attempts along the way. I would be greatful for any applicable links.

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There are a number of forum threads for both of your topics which can be found by doing a forum search on
reflash
sd boot

I’m pretty sure that you can skip the wipe step by reflashing the OS.

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  • https://docs.puri.sm/Hardware/Librem_5/Maintenance/Reflashing.html
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Use the third one, although you are a bit behind the pace (that version is out of general support) - so you may be better off making a Ubuntu 24.04 Live Boot flash drive and working from that instead - or you might choose to update the third PC first. Or of course you can use a PureOs Live Boot flash drive.

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In case your phone is too well-configured and reconfiguring everything after the flash would be annoying, check my post:

I had the same problem as you did, moved my data around (it took me only a few hours), and the setup has been flawless.

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