Live booting an SD card

Hardware Librem 5
18

Did you reboot the Librem 5?

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19

multiple times

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20

Okay, to confirm, this is the process to update uboot:

  1. Download the .deb
  2. Install it
  3. Then execute this command:
sudo u-boot-install-librem5 /dev/mmcblk0
  1. Reboot the Librem 5
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21

This comes up as un-supported file

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22

This is what I used

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23

How about this one?

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24

Yeah I used that

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25

Alright, what happens when you execute the code as root?

26

How would I do that?

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27

PureOS on the Librem 5 does not support the account by default, so use a root shell instead:

sudo -s

For every command that uses sudo, omit it:

u-boot-install-librem5 /dev/mmcblk0

When you want to exit the root shell:

exit
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28 
sudo: account validation failure, is your account locked?
sudo: a password is required
root@pureos:/home/purism#
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29

The # means you are now using the root shell, so try using the command I provided in my earlier post:

u-boot-install-librem5 /dev/mmcblk0

If it works, remember to exit the root shell after:

exit
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30

This is incorrect.

I assume that you have done a Live Boot of Ubuntu on some computer that does not normally run Linux.

The correct value for of will be /dev/something where something has to be chosen very carefully - because you don’t want to overwrite the wrong disk! (and it is impossible to predict in advance, given the great diversity in people’s hardware configurations, what device name is the right disk).

Also, it is important that the empty or otherwise µSD card not be mounted when you do the dd - so usually you will want umount /media/ubuntu/something before doing the dd

If in doubt, do sudo fdisk -l /dev/something before doing the dd in order to confirm that the disk model and size are what you expect.

The disk image (uncompressed) is about 4.5 GB. So probably an 8 GB µSD card would be adequate for a Live Boot.

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31

True (I got that part figured out.)

Also true.

Now I have the .img on my SD card (with following all your intructions) but my phone still will not boot from it. The green light merely turns on and does not turn off, and the phone just stays in a black phase.

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32

You have copied the IMG to the SD card or written with dd ?

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33

dd I followed all the instructions on the second post.

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34

I figured it out. I wasn’t updating uboot right.

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35

Are there more up to date instructions for updating uboot? I can not find a .deb file for uboot, only an.img or .imx? Can I use the same commend with either of these?

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36

Contact Purism:

  • https://docs.puri.sm/Contact.html
37

I’ve been trying all day to boot my Librem 5 from an SD card with the aim of making a fresh install of PureOS. I am trying this because the phone’s been malfunctioning since I tried to install Anbox. Since that time, I have been unable to successfully update via the PureOS Store or via apt.

Here’s what I’ve tried for booting from an SD card with a PureOS bootable image:

– Turning off the phone, inserting the card into the tray that also includes the sim card, and turning the phone on again while holding down the volume down button. I have tried every variation of timing with pressing the volume down button that I can think of, but it doesn’t appear to affect the boot: without fail, it proceeds to the disk encryption password of my hard drive as usual, which I assume is past the point of altering the boot order.

– Taking out the SD card and putting it in again.

– Inserting the SD card into a USB-C adapter and plugging that into the USB-C port of the phone. (I have since read that the phone can’t be booted from that port).

–Verifying that the hash of the .iso file used in making the bootable SD card is what the download website says it should be.

–Praying.

I saw FranklyFlawless’ instructions about reflashing the Librem 5 with a new Byzantium image but I run into issues with this at step one: I can’t successfully install uuu. When I attempt it, I get errors saying I have unmet dependencies, and trying to fix those with sudo apt --fix-broken install gets an error in the certificate validation: “Certificate validation failed: The certificate is NOT trusted. The certificate chain uses not yet valid certificate. Could not handshake: error in the certificate verification. [IP: 49.13.57.135 443]”

Any input would be appreciated! I’m out of ideas.

(edited to avoid frying future forum users’ sim cards)

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