I talked at length in my article Investing in Real Convergence about my decades-long wish to have a single computer I could carry with me that had all of my files, ran all of my favorite programs, and that I could use as a mobile computer, laptop, or desktop. This past week I have finally realized that dream.
I put away my personal Librem 13v1 and tested out whether I could replace it with a Librem 5, USB-C hub, and Nexdock 2 laptop dock. I also spent a couple hours most work days trying it out for work as well (including writing this article from the Librem 5). In this article I will talk about my setup, experiences and impressions from the past week.
That week-long experiment has now turned into a year-long reality for me. Over the past year I have been using my Librem 5 with a laptop dock instead of my personal Librem 13v1. In that time I’ve made a number of tweaks and have tried out a few different laptop docks along the way. In this post I’ll talk about my impressions after using a Librem 5 for my personal laptop for over a year.
Nice article and I’d love to trot along doing the same. Once my Librem5 is back from reparing I’ll follow your setup instructions.
You’re writing about a magnetic hold to attach the Librem5 to the Nexdock360 - can you provide some more information on that hold?
Another thing for me is that I’m used to a german keyboard. I already used my Librem14 some time now with a german layout on a US keyboard (typing blind 10 fingers). But it is far from optimal since there is no key for ‘|’, ‘<’ and ‘>’. Are there people out there how can share their solution to this problem?
Great article. There is one thing I’ve been thinking about that would make the phone more useful when it comes to convergence. I’ve tried connecting my L5 to a TV screen via HDMI, and it would be good if the UI could be improved in such a way that it is possible to control the applications on the screen from the phone. I have tried mirror mode but that clipped the screen in different ways on the phone and TV, I guess since the phone was in portrait mode and the TV in landscape. The use-case I’m thinking about is to either show some photos to a group of people, or playing a movie from the phone to the screen.
I suspect the issue is something I ran into when I first tried to go into tablet mode with the nexdock: Regardless of the orientation of the phone, the 2nd display doesn’t necessarily change.
The use case for docking to a TV, right now, is probably best served by attaching a USB (or BT) keyboard or keyboard/mouse combo to the Librem 5 so you can more easily have both screens be active, and move the video player over to the TV via keybindings (Super-Shift-right/left) or the mouse and then maximize it (Super-Up).
I also have an old chromecast lying around from my Google days and I’ve had success streaming to it with VLC on the Librem 5.
Another nice feature of docking the Librem 5 is that it opens up all of the other applications in PureOS that don’t yet fit on the phone screen. For instance I recently got an SDR dongle and with the laptop dock I’m able to use the gqrx application to listen to FM radio.
I don’t know or remember. I might have tried it but I’m not sure. If it would have worked I would probably have been happy about it. I’ll try it again when I get access to a TV.
It didn’t come to my mind that the description could mean that there are less algorithms supported by my kernel. I thought that there could be more.
# This is not inclusive of all that is available in latest kernels
# See /sys/block/zram0/comp_algorithm (when zram module is loaded) to see
# what is currently set and available for your kernel[1]
But why is zstd not supported? I didn’t search for the reason, yet, and do not know if the difference would make it worth to put energy into it. Just wondering for now.
Kyle,
Question:
Am I (a non-techie - 75 year old) understanding this correctly that with the L5 I will be able to drop my ISP provider and accomplish phone, email, social media, banking and finances, and access plus back up all my photos, videos, documents, etc. to external hard drives all by docking with monitor, keyboard and mouse? … I really need a full sized screen to enlarge print, pictures, video (somewhat) as opposed to a phone -sized screen.
If this is so, I do not want the refund (that I previously requested) but want my Librem 5 ASAP .
Please confirm - (good news) or would I still need my ISP as well? (bad news… I really want to get rid of the ISP!).
Thanks.
Here is my order info from my account with you
Order Number: [sensitive data redacted by moderator]
Order Date: December 28, 2018
I think we would be better able to answer these questions for you and manage your order if you contact support@puri.sm.
But in short, if you have some way to get Internet access (such as a cellular provider, or wifi at a coffee shop, etc) then in general you should be able to do basic tasks like you describe, much like you might on a Librem 14 laptop. The Librem 5 does have fewer resources than a full-powered laptop so you do want to take that into account, especially if there are websites you visit that are very heavy-duty. It’s not an ideal platform for video editing for instance, but watching regular videos works fine. I find loading the “mobile” version of a website (I use the Mobile View Switcher Firefox plugin for this) helps a lot with bloated websites that want a lot of resources.
In addition to or as an alternative to contacting Purism support directly, as suggested by Kyle, you may wish to start a new topic in this forum where your requirements can be discussed more fully. If you did that then it may help to describe your current setup in more detail.
