I’m using Oracle Virtual Box as well. It won’t play ball I’m afraid with mine.
if it’s freezing on the PureOS splash with the progress bar underneath, then it’s definitely the crng bug, and you’ll need to capture the mouse to have it progress. It should be set up as a 64-bit Debian OS, and I think the only setting I changed was the chipset (ICH9)
Thanks for the reply.
I have tried the Debian 64 bit in the VM without luck. Just hangs. And to be clear there is no progress bar beneath the “Pure OS” logo. In the Oracle VM that I using I don’t see a way to adjust the chipset (I assume that is what you’re talking about?). At any rate, this doesn’t help me with getting it onto a laptop. On the weekend if I get time I’ll change to Legacy boot and see if that helps. If not, then I won’t be using Pure. Its a shame because I’m also up for two laptops in the last quarter of the year and I was going to go Pure but now I’m leaning to System 76 with either Pop (which I like) or Ubuntu (which isn’t that much different really).
I am surprised that the Pure people haven’t gotten on top of this. I like the company and their ethos but this OS problem is significant, for me that is. I mean, I can’t even evaluate the OS.
Thanks again for replying.
Brad
Since it seems like you might have machines already running some form of Linux, have you tried GNOME Boxes for your VM hosting? It doesn’t have many configuration options, but I’ve had PureOS VMs work just fine in it
You can also press a few keys on your keyboard (but don’t press the arrow keys) and it will go past the PureOS logo. It only happens upon initial setup in VirtualBox.
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Thanks for the suggestion, but no I haven’t tried the gnome boxes. This issue really boils down to whether I can get it running on a computer proper, not in a VM so much. Its looking like there are too many issues for this to happen unless I can get it going with some of the suggestions here. To be frank there are just so many alternatives to Pure OS that are hassle free that I may have to forgo the dream of an OS across devices which won’t be the end of the world. As I said in my last post I am really surprised that Pure OS has these issues when most linux distros that I’ve tried are dead simple to get up and going. I had been meaning to try Pure OS for ages but never got around to it, not envisaging a problem. With the Librem 5 not far away it prodded me to try Pure OS. But if seems to good to true…sometimes it is.
I’m not done with it just yet. I’ll try some of the suggestions on the weekend hopefully.
Just to put an end to this so that its nice an tidy and if it may help others who have similar issues.
I did get the OS going (and installed) by initially changing things to Legacy, disabling secure boot etc. But that on it own wasn’t enough. As before I could get it to to the splash screen where it hung. I tried moving the mouse etc to no avail. What got it past this was simply pushing the arrow right key (>) at the bottom of the keyboard. No other keys seemed to do this, but the arrow key was the one. I did this four times to check.
So now its installed and it runs beautifully. Irritatingly it doesn’t see my wi-fi card which I will get to the bottom of I hope, but that’s an annoying start. I just hope that it doesn’t haven’t quirks in it like this as I go. Now to see if I like.
Thanks very much to those who helped me here, I appreciate it.
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Your wireless card probably requires non-free drivers which PureOS doesn’t include. You’ll need to find and install them (or they may be included in Debian’s non-free repo, which you can add)
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The issue with wifi is indeed because your wifi card uses non-free firmware. I had the same issue when I installed PureOS on my Dell 6420 (which worked flawlessly, by the way, without the hangup you mentioned). The firmware is located in Debian’s non-free repository. I’m traveling at the moment and don’t have access to the computer, but can send you the link when I’m home on Monday if you’d like (and if it won’t get me in trouble with the moderators).
I suspected as much with the wifi card. If you could send the link it will save me some hunting which I’d appreciate. Thanks heaps.
Here are some quick steps I wrote for adding the non-free repo. I wrote them in the context enabling Bluetooth on Librems, so the last step of installing firmware-atheros might not be relevant, but if you know which wifi card you have, I’m sure it wouldn’t be too hard to find which package you need to install.
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I wish I had known that when I was setting up my PureOS VM. That sounds like the issue I had.
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Thanks for the tip re drivers. I have put this away now for later reference. I honestly don’t think I’ll be changing over to Pure OS for the moment. I have been giving it a run in the past couple of days and there’s just not enough ‘wow factor’ for me to set up three pcs for. I will purchase their laptops however as I read a great comparison of Pure and System 76 elsewhere and Pure have features that appeal to me.
I will also commend the Pure support where I have also been asking a few questions that have been answered promptly and politely. The whole feel of Pure and their goals resonant nicely with me.
I have achieved what I set out to happen, I have OS working now in VM and one laptop which I’ll investigate further. But thanks everybody who helped. Great community. Pure are doing good things. Living in Australia where we have the worlds most invasive privacy laws makes these endeavours all the more important and crying out for support.
Now to order my Librem 5!
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UEFI is FOSS. You can find their source code here, which include a demo UEFI firmware, OVMF.
Many firmwares are not fully FLOSS, through. However, it is not UEFI, it is the vendor, and intel. It has nothing to do with UEFI. Even librem devices need certain binary blob inside their coreboot firmwares for now.
This would have been great to know yesterday before I spent 8 hours trying to install on a Dell. I did try the legacy options but the BIOS on the Dell I was working with Sucks! Is there a list of brands or computers that it will work with? I am trying to set up PureOS for a friend of mine. She is going to buy the Librim phone as well.
Thanks
For a flawless, out-of-the-box experience, PureOS will pretty much only work with Librem laptops and some older Thinkpad models. However, most things (aside from WiFi) should be more or less functional if you have successfully changed to Legacy BIOS mode, disabled SecureBoot, and disabled Windows’s Fast Boot, as João said.
However, if the computer has a discrete graphics card, particularly Nvidia, then you might also struggle. Using various Linux distros on hardware with nVidia graphics cards, I’ve often had to add the nomodeset boot parameter in order to get to a point where I can then either disable the graphics card or blacklist the nouveau drivers.
I have had Pure OS installed on a couple of Dells and it required a bit of wrestling. Its your call of course, but for me Pure just didn’t offer me enough to set up on all of my pcs. I decided to just stick with Distros that worked out or the box on the Dells. Which is pretty much all of them really. Pure is and exception. Pure is a more than serviceable OS but not that much better for me to wrestle with it like some windows installs I have had the misfortune to encounter.
I don’t agree that the Dell bios sucks. Pure has its own requirements that makes the installation not as straight forward as other distros, but seriously, forums and google are your friend here. I never had a drama just getting Pure to boot from Legacy tap a few keys (as I outlined above) and its installed. IT does have issues with the Dell such as wifi and graphics which can be tricky but manageable. In the end you just make the decision as to how much you want Pure. I have Ubuntu systems installed and have ordered a Librem 5 and I don’t anticipate any major problems with devices talking to each other when I get my phone.
If your friend really wants Pure OS I’d consider buying one of their laptops if they can afford it. Then it will problem-free I’m sure. That’s where I’m heading.
None that I know of. For what it’s worth, this worked for me on a Dell Latitude 3570. Bluetooth didn’t work but from what I’ve read Bluetooth doesn’t work out of the box on a Librem so shrug
Does anyone tell me what is better than ubuntu?
Maybe its faster?
There sort of is no “better” in an objective way in my view. Its up to you and what you want from the distro. I’ve tried countless distros and am biased toward ubuntu. Mind you, I don’t ask much from a distro. Just web, email, music/video playback, a bit of word processing stuff. Most of my computing is at work where I endure win 10.
As for speed. I originally settled on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS on our Dell Latitudes (6320, 6430 and 6530). I customised it with how I liked it and things were good. Then I tried the latest Zorin 15 release and the speed difference on the Dells was significant enough for me to change to Zorin and I couldn’t be happier. Zorin was also MUCH easier to network as well. It is based on Ubuntu so the change over is painless.
My advice is to download some distros in live mode and see what works for you. I don’t believe there is a “better” than anyone can tell you about beyond their own experience.