[MyL5] Australia/New Zealand

Hardware Librem 5
102

So the score at the moment is:

Before the update: failures 2 / 2
After the update: successes 1 / 1

with the caution that the phone software is changing all the time too (and did change), so any observed improvement may be bogus / chance / coincidence / unrelated / real. Clearly I need more data.

If charging via the dock holds up then that gives me another win because it means I can connect the phone via ethernet while charging and work around the WiFi signal problems that I have at the charging station - thereby allowing me to be logged in remotely during charging, doing things, and to monitor the progress of charging remotely.

1 Like
103

Perhaps that will be of any use…?

2 Likes
104

Maybe. We’ll see. The actual topic for that is: Librem 5 Wi-Fi performance

105

Today I tested … Jumpdrive and doing a reliable backup

TLDR: Nice one, @dos. Worked like a treat.

As with updating the USB-C PD controller firmware, this is a little untidy because I am using Ubuntu. Now multiply that untidiness by 10. Ubuntu certainly doesn’t come with the necessary toolchain packages installed and nor is there a definitive list of what needs to be installed. So there is an element of trial and error. If anyone else wants to do this, I suggest replying here for more info.

This is a multi-hour odyssey (basically 5 hours). It involves downloading around half a gigabyte of stuff - and then compiling a lot of stuff. If you don’t have a fourth-world internet connection and if you have a faster computer, you may do a lot better than 5 hours. Of course all of this is one-off pain.

Once it is all built … Jumpdrive boots in an embarrassingly short amount of time, perhaps a second or two. :slight_smile: So fight the toolchain for 5 hours and then two seconds later your phone is running Jumpdrive. :joy:

As before, the one line shell script to load Jumpdrive into the Librem 5 requires root access. (sudo ...)

With Jumpdrive booted on the phone, on my computer sda was the eMMC drive and sdb was the uSD card. YMMV.

Warning: Ubuntu automounts both drives and in the case of the eMMC drive both partitions. So if you intend to backup the eMMC drive then make sure that you umount it (sda1 and sda2) before starting the backup.

I chose to do the backup by piping dd through gzip. For me that meant that I could backup the 31 GB eMMC drive in 9 minutes at 58 MB/s producing a 2.9 GB file. That is fast enough to encourage backups actually to be done. No doubt as I put more ‘stuff’ on the phone, it will take longer and produce a larger file.

I consider a reliable backup to be essential. I would not put information on a computer that I couldn’t reliably backup.

Warning … off the top of my head: gunzip --list malfunctions (presents incorrect information) when the original file exceeds 4 GB (as it does here). That can be safely ignored.

It looked to me (big disclaimers apply) that Jumpdrive contains most of an entire Linux kernel. As a consequence, it is possible to telnet in to the Librem 5 and look around and do stuff. This could be quite useful if your Linux install on the eMMC drive is broken but not so broken that you just want to restore from backup.

For example, if you forget the password for the purism account and haven’t created another account, you could fix the password. Of course you could also do that directly on the main computer since it can mount the eMMC drive, and assuming that your main computer is running Linux.

3 Likes
106

@irvinewade, If you have the time, it would be cool it you wrote down all the steps for doing a backup on the community wiki.

I wonder if this is possible on Windows and Mac computers. Eventually we are going to have people using the L5 who don’t have Linux PCs. I see that uuu is a package in bullseye so eventually it will get to the Debian derivatives. We need to get it into all the major parent distros (Arch, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Gentoo). Is there a way to suggest packages for inclusion in Arch, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Gentoo, etc?

1 Like
107

It doesn’t really matter - in the sense that I built uuu myself in an earlier step (needed for updating the USB-C PD controller firmware). That was the easy part.

:open_mouth: :slight_smile:

Obviously if Purism did all the building of the software to run on the Librem 5, that would be a straight download for anyone not running Linux or for someone running Linux who doesn’t want to build binaries. Then all that would be needed is uuu for “your platform”.

I’ll try to write something up for the Wiki next week. It will be fairly long.

Just between you and me, I would prefer it if the Librem 5 could boot from uSD card (even when the eMMC drive is hosed - so chain booting doesn’t count). Then you could create an install / backup / restore / recovery uSD card on any platform using a wealth of tools that already exist. Or you could order one from Purism if you don’t want to download a uSD disk image and make your own.

1 Like
108

I think you should create a new topic for this nice diagram. By the way, its vice versa: the speaker is on the left and the mic on the right.

2 Likes
109

Updated (in situ). Maybe it should go into the Wiki. However, as you can see, it is still being debugged.

2 Likes
110

Damn it! I made a leather pouch with the wrong information…

image
image738×618 107 KB

3 Likes
111

Damn it, indeed. Sorry about that. Although I would have done both sides of the bottom edge anyway.

1 Like
112

OK, first things first. I’ve written up my procedure for building uuu and Jumpdrive. https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Building-uuu-and-Jumpdrive

Could you be a guinea pig for me and test out those instructions? I guess a new VM would be ideal, so that you have a cleanskin starting point - and can throw it all away afterwards if the result is a mess. :slight_smile: However if you don’t do any development work on Linux, your starting point may be fairly accurate anyway.

I know you don’t have your phone yet, but the build instructions should be OK for anyone with Linux to try.

Once we’re happy with the build instructions, I will write something up for using this software (which will be much fewer steps!).

113

No worries, it’s more balanced with holes on both sides :wink:

1 Like
114

@amosbatto? ⇒ [MyL5] Australia/New Zealand

115

Anyone willing to test these instructions?

116

@irvinewade,
I added your diagram to the community FAQ:

I found it helpful because it has more detail than the diagrams in the Librem 5 User’s Manual.

1 Like
117

Today I got around to testing my Bluetooth speakers with the Librem 5. Works out-of-the-box. I was using the A2DP Sink profile (which it defaulted to). I was using Lollypop as the source of sound, i.e. just playing music.

With my speakers it is possible to use a single speaker as a mono sink or to pair the speakers to each other first and then to use the pair of speakers as a stereo sink (i.e. the speakers elect one speaker as ‘master’ and only the master pairs via Bluetooth to the host - and then the speakers work out the channels amongst themselves). I only tested the stereo configuration because, well, we wouldn’t want to make things too easy. :wink:

It did seem to be a bit fiddly and confusing getting that all set up (e.g. the speakers seemed to get bored waiting for me to mess around in the Sound Settings on the phone, and so the speakers shut down) but once everything was in the right state, it seemed reliable.

It wasn’t obvious to me that the speakers consistently choose one speaker as the left channel (and the other as the right channel). That problem may be unique to my setup and in any case perhaps most users won’t care.

I noted also that when I put the screen to sleep (Lollypop keeps running in the background and you can control the playing without unlocking) the sound seemed to glitch momentarily at the instant that the screen is put to sleep. Not a major drama. Just a quirk to note.

5 Likes
118

Motivated by the fact that my existing vintage Logitech compact Bluetooth keyboard probably can’t be purchased any more today and hence can’t be replaced if and when the rechargeable battery finally dies, I went looking for a current alternative.

I tried out the iClever IC-BK08 and it seems to work well out-of-the-box on the Librem 5. They pair normally and the keyboard works and the phone recognises the pointing device (touchpad) and throws up a cursor, which also works.

Obviously with any of these compact keyboards some compromises are made with keyboard layouts.

Weirdly, the Amazon Australia web site lists this keyboard as compatible with Linux (and it does seem to be!) while the US Amazon web site does not mention Linux. I doubt the products are different (same ASIN) but I guess caveat emptor.

This tri-folding keyboard is not much bigger than the Librem 5 when the keyboard is folded up.

The keyboard offers multiple simultaneous pairings (up to 3) but I have not tested that functionality. So theoretically the keyboard can be used as a KM switch. :wink: I guess that could be useful if you use a Librem Mini, or similar form factor, or a SBC, as a portable computer, or you use a tablet - in addition to a smartphone.

Accessory added at: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Tested%20Accessories#keyboards

1 Like
119

Have you been using that charger regularly? If so, how has it held up?

1 Like
120

Not regularly - and I think that someone in this forum more knowledgeable than I suggested that it will overcharge the battery if left to charge fully - so, if that’s correct, best to know how long a full charge as per the charger’s LED takes and then always take the battery off charge somewhat before that (could use a timer between the power point and the charger I guess).

This is one of the differences between charging internally and charging externally. Internally, you have a chip controlling the charging process where you can communicate with the chip and alter its parameters (at your own risk of course).

Long term it would be great if Purism could source and sell a suitable external charger - and I would have bought one with the phone if they had done that at the time.

3 Likes
121

5 posts were split to a new topic: Dangers of Lithium batteries