Thanks @zstocs that means you have a recent release, one of 4.21-Purism-1 to 4.21-Purism-4. Please let me know what the memory test reports and we’ll go from there.
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@jonathon.hall ran memtest on my mini over the weekend and it passed. Ran three passes and all of them looked good.
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@jonathon.hall @FranklyFlawless are the any developments on what could be wrong with my mini? I currently have $1000 door stop. Tried all the usb ports and I get the same error. Wondering if I need to update the bios? That is probably the last option as far as I can see.
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You will not be able to update Coreboot unless you perform a hardware reflash or successfully boot into an operating system using the Librem Mini. You may want to disassemble it and ensure that the hardware components within them are securely mounted, otherwise I suggest contacting Purism Support (support@puri.sm) for an RMA.
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@zstocs Sorry for the radio silence, I’ve been working on this issue most of this week, 4 days went by faster than I expected.
I do have an idea of what may be going wrong and some suggestions. While you are welcome to disassemble if you want, I don’t think there is much you will find on USB 2.0 signaling from inspection.
I have another report of issues with USB 2.0 devices and I think this is similar - it appears that the transmitter configuration in coreboot may not be optimized enough for all Minis. (This is a very “analog” problem, even if the transmitters tuning is a bit off many devices will work, some may be more marginal than others, it may depend on the USB device as well.) This prompted the preview builds I posted (Librem Mini v1/v2: Feedback request for USB tuning preview build but those changes were not enough based on the feedback I got.
I’ve been working on getting more optimized tunings, and I aim to have a build soon to try. But in your case, we need to get a booting OS since you are unable to flash firmware otherwise.
- Do you have a USB 3.0 flash drive you can try? I believe the Cruzer Blade you mentioned is USB 2.0. If this allows you to boot, go ahead and reinstall the OS while we get the USB tunings sorted out.
- Otherwise, you can get a working OS by swapping the SSD. Either move the Mini’s SSD to another PC and install an OS, or borrow an SSD with an installed OS from another PC. The OS must be installed in BIOS mode to work with SeaBIOS on the Mini. This will allow us to flash new firmware to test USB tunings. If the “other PC” requires proprietary device firmware, I’d recommend using Debian 12 for this process, and you can go back to PureOS on the mini once USB is sorted out.
If you prefer, you can also contact support (support@puri.sm) to discuss all available options to solve this. You can let them know that you’ve been working with me on this issue via the forum and I will sync up the ticket with where we are so far. (Please mention the thread, it’s not always obvious to match up forum handles with emails.)
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I got the new build together and posted it to that same thread: Librem Mini v1/v2: Feedback request for USB tuning preview build - #2 by jonathon.hall
@zstocs If you are able to get a booting OS on your Mini v2, I would appreciate it if you can try that build and let me know if the USB 2.0 connectivity is improved on the blue ports. If you are not able to get a booting OS or would like to discuss any other ways to solve the problem, please contact support.
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@jonathon.hall @FranklyFlawless I will see if I can find a USB 3.0 drive and try that first. If not, I will have another machine by the end of next week that I can use for installing an OS on the SSD. Will keep you posted. Appreciate the help. I really like the device and I would rather not have to send the it back if I can avoid it.
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Hey @jonathon.hall good news! Got a USB 3.0 drive yesterday and put Debian 12 on it and it booted up and I was able to install it. Everything went perfectly.
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Great, if you want instructions for updating Coreboot or PureBoot, decide which one you prefer. After that, you can reinstall Qubes OS and finally solve your main issue.
@jonathon.hall already posted about a new Coreboot build earlier in this thread, so try it out and report back here and/or in the other thread:
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@FranklyFlawless I looked through the docs on how to update Coreboot. Got a stupid question. Do I need to boot to PureOS Live from USB to run the script? Looked through the docs and it looks like there a couple dependencies to check if running from Debian. Is there a preferred way to do it?
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You can run it from your Debian installation if you want, I test that regularly. The script installs any dependencies that are needed automatically on PureOS, Debian, Fedora, and similar distributions.
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I definitely prefer using PureOS Live for various reasons, but you do not need to. Feel free to use whatever works for you to get the task done.
@jonathon.hall @FranklyFlawless just wanted to report back that I did flash the coreboot firmware and that went off without a hitch. However, the USB 2.0 ports still will not read a USB 2.0 drive. Tried booting to several diffferent USB 2.0 drives and none of them worked. Still getting the same message. Also, tried booting up my Debian 12 installation with my keyboard and mouse plugged into the USB 2.0 ports and that works fine.
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Okay, well if your USB 3.0 drive works fine, you can probably install Qubes OS with it, so try that and see if your USB ports change their behavior. Otherwise, I suggest contacting Purism Support (support@puri.sm) and referencing your initial post in this thread.
I’m glad to hear you got the firmware flashed!
With the USB tuning preview firmware, does the USB 2.0 drive work in the USB 3.0 ports? I only adjusted the tunings of the blue 3.0 ports when used with USB 2.0 devices.
The black 2.0-only ports can be adjusted too, but I left them alone for now to ensure you’d still be able to connect a keyboard in case the new tunings were no good.
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Hi @jonathon.hall I tried to boot with a usb 2.0 drive from each of the blue 3.0 ports and there was no read error but the booting from usb message came up and then I think a ISOLinux message or something and the process stopped there. I left the machine in that state for a while and nothing happened. There was no sector read error.
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That’s great @zstocs ! I think the adjusted tunings helped, since it failed before that point before.
On the ISOLINUX menu, just press Enter to boot the default boot option. It’d be helpful to know that it can boot all the way to the OS, there will be a lot more USB traffic during the OS boot than just to get to the ISOLINUX menu.
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@jonathon.hall so basically the prompt says Booting from USB device… then the ISOLinux line comes next and a blinking cursor. But if I hit Enter nothing happens. Eventually the system reboots. Then my Debian installation boots up. So the ISOLinux line does not give me a menu.
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