Selling Librem 5 - unsure which batch

Hardware Librem 5
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Some light scratches on the top right corner (pictured).
Little rubber flap on the side kind of pushes a little inside, but it’s not hard to pull it up.

Everything works fine, I just overestimated how much I was willing to inconvenience myself for privacy.

Australian modem.
Purchased from eBay as used. Not sure which batch or age, sorry.
Open to offers.

[Album] Librem 5
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Birch and Chestnut have a 2000mAh battery. Dogwood has a 3600mAh battery. Evergreen has a 4500mAh battery. See this list of changes in Chestnut over Birch.

Does that help you to identify the batch?

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Thank you.

Unfortunately not, the size isn’t listed on the battery itself or in the settings.

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If you post a picture of the battery and a picture of the phone without its back cover, someone might be able to identify it.
For the difference between Birch and Chestnut, just turn off the phone and plug in the phone to charge it. Do you see a red charging light or not?

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Good idea!

[Album] L5 battery

It’s a solid red charging light in the top-left of the device.

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As a way to find out which batch it is, you can list the files in the /boot/ directory by running the following command in the terminal:

ls -l /boot/

For me on Librem 5 Birch that gives about 15 lines of output, two of those lines look like this:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       53 May 14 04:20 dtb -> dtbs/5.12.0-1-librem5/freescale/imx8mq-librem5-r2.dtb
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       53 May 14 04:20 dtb-5.12.0-1-librem5 -> dtbs/5.12.0-1-librem5/freescale/imx8mq-librem5-r2.dtb

So it says “librem5-r2” there, which means Birch or Chestnut. If you see “librem5-r3” then that means Dogwood, and “librem5-r4” means Evergreen. (See https://developer.puri.sm/Librem5/Development_Environment/Phone/Troubleshooting/Reflashing_the_Phone.html)

I think checking it in this way should work provided that the software installed on it is for the correct batch. Probably it could be misleading in case someone reflashed it specifying the wrong batch, but if it was never reflashed, or if whoever reflashed it did so specifying the correct batch, then I think this should work. If it says “librem5-r2” then you will still not know if it is Birch or Chestnut.

Edit: found a nicer way: look for “Machine model” in the output from sudo journalctl:

purism@pureos:~$ sudo journalctl -b | grep "Machine model"
May 15 05:26:46 pureos kernel: Machine model: Purism Librem 5r2
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@Skalman That will work, but only assuming that someone has flashed the correct OS for the batch. You can have that mismatched.

Batches aren’t hard to identify visually:

  • is the rear camera’s flash positioned diagonally (top-left) to the camera? If yes, it’s either Birch or Chestnut; otherwise (flash next to cam on the right side) it’s either Dogwood or Evergreen
  • alternatively, where is the notification LED? If it’s on the left side, it’s either Birch or Chestnut; if it’s on the right side, it’s either Dogwood or Evergreen

If it’s either Birch or Chestnut:

  • plug it in to charge and turn the phone off. Does the red LED turn off as well? If yes, that’s Birch. If the red LED stays on while it’s charging when off, it’s Chestnut. (afterwards, push the power button for about 3 secs to boot it back up to verify that it was off - with some old software these batches could lock up with screen off instead of actually turning off)

If it’s either Dogwood or Evergreen:

  • take the back cover off. If there are markings that indicate where SIM/SD cards go etc. it’s Evergreen. If there are none - just some smooth plastic - it’s Dogwood.
  • alternatively, look at this photo - if it seems like the space under the screen is larger on the photo than on your device, you have a Dogwood. If it’s looks right, it’s Evergreen.
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The cable has to be already plugged in while the phone is being turned off, otherwise plugging the cable in will just turn it back on.

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People have posted photos of the Birch, Chestnut, Dogwood and Evergreen batteries, and they have the number of mAh printed on the battery, so it is weird that your phone doesn’t. You must have a collector’s item. :wink:

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There are more differences, although I don’t know the middle revisions:

  • the battery on Birch has an off-centre connector, Evergreen has it pretty much centered
  • Birch doesn’t have anything printed on the sides. Evergreen has labeled switches, and I think a logo too.
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Birch is the same as Chestnut, and Dogwood as Evergreen in this regard.

Birch, Chestnut and some (most?) Dogwoods.

Indeed, there’s also smart card reader placement, volume buttons being separate buttons or a single rocker, headphone jack placement, probably some more things I’m forgetting about and we haven’t even touched functional differences :slight_smile:

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Isn’t the linear length of the phone a tell-tale sign if it’s Evergreen?
Edit: Disregard. Now that I’ve seen the other photos, I see that it’s not an Evergreen.