Now that Crimson alpha images are installable, we’re focusing on the out-of-box experience – what happens when you turn on your device for the first time with PureOS Crimson. Most of the fixes this month improve the out-of-box experience.
Please just to understand: what’s the difference between beta and general release? just bug corrections? Or updated sw too in GR?
For example: as I mentioned in another topic, I’d like to enlarge keyboard because keys are too small for my fingers! An user answered me to enlarge it in “mobile settings” app → “on screen keyboard” → enlarge parameters. Unfortunately I haven’t it on my app because v.0.34 and it’s in v.0.49 or newer! Would I receive 0.49 on GR? If not, how could I have it? Should I compile manually it? Generally speaking, how to have updated sw on my L5 without waiting Purism releases? Eg: wanting to use updated epiphany web browser, how to do it? And Should I use libhandy/libadwaita to adapt it to L5 screen? And, if yes, how? Thank you
Beta is just part of the life cycle: Software release life cycle - Wikipedia - one step in becoming more stable and feature rich. Release is a point where usability is deemed sufficient. With an OS I’d say it’s both bugs and incorporating all the various interlinked versions of different software together in a working way. A software is never quite finished…
For temporary fix to get more up to date software, take a look at unofficial backports (both using byzantium as base, or crimson), both have forum threads. It’s something that @galilley has set up as a hobby.
Other option is to wait a month or two (hopefully not longer) to get the real new PureOS official Crimson release, to get the goodies. Perhaps even get the beta, if/when after we get the word that upgrade works (so you don’t have to do a clean install).
There is no one answer that will apply to all software and all companies.
It certainly could be about important bug fixes but in an optimistic scenario there aren’t any important bugs so no important bug fixes.
It could be about the upgrade path e.g. earlier test releases may require reflashing and have no upgrade path or may only allow upgrade in certain limited configurations with some niche or other configurations not possible to upgrade.
It could be simply about test coverage e.g. after sufficient time and covering sufficient different configurations, a level of confidence is reached that allows general release.
(However because of Purism’s mission, the telemetry needed to give full effect to that may not be acceptable to the user base. In other software projects that I have been involved with, users who are willing to do alpha or beta testing may have to formally register, including recording details of their configuration i.e. as an alternative to telemetry and in order to assess the effectiveness and coverage of the testing.)
Install option to select home directory to reside on both eMMC and SD card simultaneously, show only eMMC home contents without error if no SD present at boot, and simultaneous decryption of eMMC and SD on boot.
Oh yeah, also automatic sync to SD home of eMMC home contents required to setup user at logon (so user prefs can easily be restored if reinstall is needed).
I would immediately make use of it, as opposed to cobbling it together myself, but the real payoff would be to make the L5 way more accessible to “normies”. I think it is low-hanging fruit that would sell more L5’s and advance the cause of libre.
So PureOS 11 (crimson) on Librem 5 has become daily driveable, as evidenced by me upgrading the system of my daily driver to it and not having much to complain about. From oldoldstable to oldstable - heading towards modernity one step at a time #pureos#librem5#linuxmobile#mobilelinux
This report was a great read again, as every month. When I find some time, I will install Crimson from scratch and see if I can move my daily phone to Crimson! Thanks to all who made this development possible!
I think so. I’ve been using my current Byantium for quite a while and maybe changed some things I forgot. I like to start totally fresh over. I think I will also document all tweaking and apps I install, and the like.
As long as disks are stateful, there is always a difference between install from scratch and upgrade. If you are voluntarily testing pre-release software, there needs to be an openness to having to install from scratch regardless. Hence …
This.
I do this for absolutely all Linux computers that I use - because you never know when you might have to (or choose to) install from scratch. And if I used Windows at all then I would do the same with Windows, i.e. that approach is not specific to Linux.
Installing from scratch (using a freshly-generated image) or upgrading from Byzantium now should lead to a well-formed system, while upgrading a previous Crimson image may leave some things missing or misconfigured.
(note that this is only my personal assessment of the current status of the suite, not a promise of any sorts - a promise will only be given once there’s an officially released beta image)
My daily-driver configuration is certainly not for everyone, but I’ve been operating this way for the past several years: I boot into a Live environment and run configuration scripts to enable optional persistence and get the system into a consistent known working state based on my needs (personal; work; etc). Thus far, it has allowed me to work in a (relatively) hardware-agnostic way, has worked for my laptop/desktop/server environments, and has even sufficed to work for my needs while living off-grid. I plan to expand the suite of scripts for use with the Librem 5.
