i managed to lock up the gui after some minutes of use: there are dialogs you can’t close because those are wider than the screen and you can’t move it (hint: kick it from the task list which apears after swiping up)
the map program shows my location in hamburg, germany. so somehow the devive noticed it’s not in california anymore but GPS doest seem to work yet. but how does it know “germany”?
the modern gnome apps have a bar on top with the most important button: “back”. my thump is too short to reach that when lazily browsing through the dialogs. i would recommend to reconsider the position of the bar or button.
the sites get quite warm (no news) but not hot as others reported
i put the device (switched on) on the charger and removed the cable after some minutes which switched the dev off
thank you, purism for everything else! this is an amazing step!
p.s.: sorry about the “(15!)” in the topic, i was forced to reach 15 chars, whysoever
The fix for that didn’t make it into the shipping image, but it should be already available as an update (it’s part of the kernel version 5.13.16pureos1, which can be checked with dpkg -l linux-image-librem5)
You can get GPS to work by installing gnss-share package, although be aware that it still has some rough edges to fix which is why it’s not installed by default yet. And it likely knows about Germany because of the GSM network.
I remember from the libhandy demos that those bars actually go to the bottom when shrinking.
(Second video here)
So, either those apps are not fully adapted or it’s just not always the case?
The raw GNSS hardware seems to work but the integration with the rest of the system is probably lacking. However you need to spend some one-off time outside in order to download the ephemeris from the satellites: Librem 5 GPS/Location Tracking
There could be lots of answers:
from the details of the mobile carrier that you connected to
there is no sim in the L5 for now, so no GSM network to d etect location
i use a VPN which isnt terminated in Hamburg
we do not have that much wifi here, especially none that maps to hamburg
i wonder what methods are left. and i would assume we can find out deterministically on an L5 which is an open device. guessing should be ended, i do so with my android alot.
some more findings:
after installing gnss-share the maps program locates me in asia
Mine also thought I was in China first, before the first GPS fix which required being outdoors with lots of sky visible, for something like 15 minutes. After that, I was suddenly in Sweden.
that sounds like there is no AGPS to retrieve the satelite data
as far as i know, yes
i dont assume the device uses signals, especially not GSM because there is no SIM in my L5. i assume it’s in fact some settings but i wonder why hamburg and not berlin is used.
A phone without a SIM can still make emergency calls and most certainly is still capable of receiving mobile signals about available mobile networks (unless you have used the kill switch to kill the cellular modem).
So regarding WiFi, you are saying that you don’t have a wireless router or access point and none of your neighbours who are within receiving range of your Librem 5 has a wireless router or access point? (If you live in an urban area, that would be surprising.)
That is not to assert that the Librem 5 actually uses either approach, only that they are theoretically possible under the right conditions.
You could use the kill switches selectively to probe for how the phone is establishing your location.
no, not in germany, due to the many fake calls this feature was forbidden by regulations. anyway: funny that we start wild guessing when we look at a device that is considered open.
so stop guessing: i looked with dbus-monitor --system what happens. found that a “GeoClue2” sends a location. found a process running with that name. found a config file /etc/geoclue/geoclue.conf which has wifi enabled but doesnt send wifi data (mac i assume). the URL is https://location.services.mozilla.com/v1/geolocate?key=geoclue which gives a location - probably by IP. so the IP is listed in mozilla in hamburg where the error lies.
Yeah, that’s one of the above mentioned rough edges. Once GPS is enabled, Geoclue seems to often prefer using stale/invalid GPS data over valid but less precise GeoIP/WiFi/GSM positioning. You would have to put the phone with a good view on the sky for some 15 minutes and it should then get a fix[1]. Subsequent attempts should be much quicker, as ephemeris and almanac data gets stored so AGPS will be able to kick in.
[1] At least the GPS chip should get it - whether Geoclue would actually show it depends on some other rough edges
i dont understand that sentence. the 15min are needed to read that data from the sats and AGPS would speed up this by downloading it via internet connection instead. how does AGPS “kick in” after reading? and: does the L5 have AGPS function (i dont know of any open source project supporting that)?
Ephemeris and almanac data gets stored after downloading, so subsequent uses of GPS are faster even after fully power cycling the device (although ephemeris gets out of date fast, so it’s mostly almanac that matters there as it’s valid for months). You could also download that data externally from some source and it would be used as well, but nothing does it automatically so far.
(it’s part of the kernel version 
