Same experience, most of the time, for me. PureMaps is a huge improvement over Gnome Maps, however. I have tried everything. Once PureMaps located me on GPS it works very well.
Exactly. When it works, it is as good as any phone out there. But often I don’t even try because it is too much of a hassle to get it working. It just takes too long before you can get on the road.
I still don’t have my L5 (although last week I have received and replied to the address confirmation email; by the way, the support team at Purism has been extremely helpful and patient with my questions about the additional parts to be ordered, thanks again!) but first thing I would do if my GPS misbehaved would be installing an app such as Satellite so I could better understand what the problem is: does the phone see any satellites at all? If so, does it see enough of them as to get a fix? Is their signal strong enough to get and update a fix when I am moving? I guess that would help me to better understand why the GPS is behaving randomly; maybe you guys have already tried that, but that’s where I would start. If GPS is not working properly, navigation is not going to be a pleasant experience…
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Today I gave it a try on the road. In the car.
Driving by car from Amsterdam to Fontainebleau, smack in the middle of Paris on the Peripherique, I switched on the GPS and started up PureMaps.
The map indicated I was still at home for about 10 to 15 minutes, then it switched to my actual location.
Of course that is way too long, but it did find me without stuttering from that moment on.
Not too bad.
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That is really good to hear. This kind of affirms my suspicion that my Librem 5 has a hardware issue, which I think was more common in the early deliveries. Maybe the time has come to take the risk and check the antenna connection.
- Gnome Maps isn’t very usable overall, but gives a decent enough looking GPS fix considering I am inside, about as accurate as I would expect to get on another phone.
- When using Google Maps in Firefox ESR, the GPS fix is not accurate at all for some reason. When I first tried it it would always point to someplace in China, and today it was much better, but still pointed to some place several kilometers away.
A bit of a mixed bag from Fontainebleau, France. We were in the woods today for some bouldering.
I am happy to say that the gps figured out are position in the forrest within minutes (5 to 10). And it followed our walk pretty much spot on.
Except for one or two episodes (lasting a few minutes each) when it seemed to get stuck and tried to refind its footing. (This was in the open, not with trees overhead.) It would re-initialize on the spot it got stuck on (showing a wider ring around the location indicator), hesitate some more, and then jump to the actual location again.
So, a bit of a mixed bag. But, all and all, not too bad.
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Some bouldering
I hope you secured that Librem 5 well! 
Sure! In a bumper case (which offers so-so protection) and wrapped in a sweater. 
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Hello. I gave in and installed PureMaps via Flatpak. When it works, it works great. However, I have spent a lot of time lately playing with the geoclue.conf file at etc/geocle/geoclue.conf. There is a post about this file but I am too lazy to find it and link to it.
Long story short, I experimented with every GPS source in that Geoclue.conf file. I eventually resolved, last night, to turn every GPS source “on” via the “true” command in the file.
Also, and I believe this is important, I allowed Firefox browser to have access to all GPS information. Yes, yes, I know: privacy concerns. Do this at your own risk. You know what also?: the GPS works a lot better now. It works in Firefox. It works in PureMaps. I have navigation in my car now. I can use if for navigation for hiking, etc. I am happy. For now.
Caveat: I just finally discovered this last night. Might it break today or sometime in the future? Yes. But, I think it is important to go play with that Geoclue.conf file and see what works best for you.
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I have been plowing information about GPS on the Librem 5 and I have taken the phone apart to replace the WiFi card. It is still not clear to me how to apply the hardware fix to the GPS antenna. I have been in contact with support about it, but that communication ended a couple of weeks ago after a number of “I will check with my colleagues and get back to you…” So I am now in a state where I, in fact, occassionally can get a GPS fix, but it is usually very shortlived. Nothing that could be used for navigation.
See this link for the exact reply I got from Purism support regarding the antenna connection. I still did not dare to try this. I’m considering in ordering a new WiFi card and do both, fixing the antenna connection and replacing the WiFi card in one go. If someone, preferably in Europe, has experience in this type of repairs/upgrades, I would be willing to pay for having this done.
I meant to post this here, but it ended up where your link was:
When exchanging Wifi/BT card I did just that and thought it would reveal an obvious way to adjust the GNSS antennae. Unfortunately I didn’t see anything that resembled a spring contact, just the tiny metal thing I believe is the GNSS ground (see picture). Without enough information on how to bend something, I put the pieces back together and was happy not to have broken anything and that the new Sparclan card worked right the way.
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I used PureMaps to get to my sons basketball tournament today. Turn by turn navigation worked perfect.
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Just another addition to my report from France. Except for one really slow gps-response in the car, navigation on the L5 worked like charm.
It found the correct position within minutes on several occassions, and it followed our movements step by step.
It worked like a ‘normal’ smartphone, I would say. Very happy with that.
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Could you please provide some examples? Your experience with GPS seems to be in another galaxy than mine…
Lately GPS and PureMaps works pretty well right now. As in, I click on it, it mostly finds my location fairly quickly. As long as I have cellular reception with Mint Mobile, it generally follows me.
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By examples, i was referring to what you changed in your Geoclue.conf file.
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