Thank you irvinewade,
Yes, I am aware of that fact, when writing the initial thread I remembered reading about a couple that opted out for that reason.
I stand corrected.
That could lead to one tutorial about Librem tunnel, which seems to be OpenVPN based, and then that’s that.
As someone who made a few videos and guide-ish blog posts about Linux Phone things decided long ago not to tackle VPN, because:
- There’s too many services on offer (and many are BAD),
- A service that may be trustworthy now may change ownership and no longer be trustworthy in a short time frame (so I really don’t want to endorse any service),
- When you write (or publish a video) about one service, people will ask you about another one,
- When you publish a video, people will ask you for a written article and vice versa.
The choice was basically to make VPN services my hobby, which I despite having some experience (I did run my own VPS/Wireguard thing for a while and am now using Mullvad from time to time) did not want to do, in part because I believe that if you really want to be shielded, Tor is the correct answer.
(I already have a hobby, it’s (aside from blog and videos) LinuxPhoneApps.org. That place also needs some more guides, contributions welcome!)
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Correct me if I wrong, but I see no reason why there would be a “best working VPN service” for Pure OS. A VPN service could have a better or worse hosting than another VPN service, but this will be independent from the OS on your client device.
And in general one could argue that the best (or even the only good) VPN is the one that you host by yourself. Because a VPN provider is always a man in the middle and if you use a VPN service that you are not hosting on your own, this means that you trust the VPN service provider and some people like to follow the zero trust principal.
Also I don’t see why you think that for the other Librem 5 users this is as important as for you to assume that “everybody should install VPN as a first app”. Librem 5 is just another computer that you own. I doubt that that many people use VPN every time they connect to the Internet from every computer and every smartphone that they use.
Pure OS is Linux.
On Linux you have Wireguard as an efficient software for implementing VPN tunnels.
It doesn’t work like that.
- There are soooooo many VPN services that most likely Purism has not tested them all. Most likely noone could test them all.
- It is also difficult to define a reasonable, objective function for “goodness” that would then allow someone to find the “best”.
- As Purism themselves offer a VPN service, it isn’t necessarily in their interest to advertise alternatives - and it could be argued that the onus is on the provider of the service to produce documentation for how to install and configure in order to use their service.
As far as I am concerned, this is a no-brainer. Purism should provide a step-by-step tutorial for setting up Librem Tunnel on PureOS.
If you order the service and the hardware at the same time then ideally the service would come installed and pre-configured.
First time I hear somebody say that “Librem Tunnel” is a VPN service?
I am willing to try the tunnel if I get a step by step break down how to install the service.
Meaning every little bit connected to make it work.
Thank you.
From How do you set up Librem Tunnel on the Librem 5
https://docs.puri.sm/Librem_One/PureOS/VPN_Tunnel.html
I can’t guarantee that you will succeed by following those instructions but if you don’t succeed, maybe that will highlight areas in the documentation that need improvement.
I agree that much more documentation for newbies is necessary if these computers and phones are to expand beyond the avid Linux community. I have written Purism about this. I hope this will take note and begin to make their software more user friendly for those who don’t want to spend many hours trying to figure out how to do the basics. Personally, I decided to take the plunge and shift from Apple and boy was that a rude awakening. I have probably spent 100 hours trying to figure out basic things and ultimately had to hire consultants to get me set up and even they struggle at times!
I am still connected to my iPhone and will be till I get the Librem 5 to work as I need it to be.
In the meantime I requested from Purism to help me with a step by step tutorial for installing the Librem one tunnel. I have received just now a step by step tutorial to install the tunnel.
Highly appreciate their help.
I got stuck trying to find the .oven file!
Where is it saved?
I used the command sudo apt install network-manager-openvpn-gnome
Go here and follow the instructions under Librem Tunnel
https://docs.puri.sm/Librem_One/Generic.html#librem-one-generic
Yes I have that, but where is the icon file?
“Open from file” gives me the home folders.
Not the servers list.
What did I miss?
Thank you.
Did you:
Obtain .ovpn configuration file
(i.e. download one or more .ovpn server configurations from that link)?
The .ovpn file will be wherever you saved it. (Placing it in the Home directory is probably good.)
When you “Open from file,” simply navigate to it and select it.
Is .oven humour or a typo here in your forum post or a typo in what you are doing (which would certainly make the file not found)?
Anyways, you download the .ovpn from the links given here i.e. already covered by the documentation: https://docs.puri.sm/Librem_One/Generic.html#librem-one-generic
So choose an appropriate country1 to click on and download the corresponding .ovpn file.
I don’t think it matters where you save the downloaded .ovpn file as long as you know where you saved it so that you can find it in order to “Import” it. If it were me, I would be systematic and create a subdirectory to put the file in because I would probably download more than one so that I have a choice of countries (or even locations within country).
The .ovpn file is just a text file and not specific to the client. So you can easily download it on any other computer and then move it across to the computer where it is needed, if that proves to be more convenient.
1 Choice of country depends on a range of factors, principally:
- how terrible your own government is
- the regulatory environment in the country that hosts the chosen VPN server
- desired network performance while using the VPN
- what your reasons are for using the VPN in the first place.
If you can’t get it working at all then choice of country isn’t of major importance and I would start with a VPN server that is in your own country or, if none, one that is nearby. You can always change to a different country after you have got it working.
I agree with you it being a joke!
What I didn’t understand was that I had to click on the city I wanted to get the appropriate file downloaded.
I tried that on my iPhone and it worked. On the Librem 5 not so much, I have not inserted a sim in the meantime.
Can that be the reason?
Thank you 
The bottom line is that in order to download a .opvn file (or anything else) you need a working internet connection. That can be via the mobile aka cellular network (in which case, yes, you will need to have inserted a valid SIM) or via the WiFi (in which case, no SIM is required but obviously you need a working WiFi network in your house and your home network needs to have a working internet connection).
As I said though, you can download that file on any computer and then move it across. If you don’t have a working network connection at all on your Librem 5 then you can move a file across via a USB drive (such is the beauty of running standard Linux software on a phone with a standard USB port). Or alternatively you could network the Librem 5 via USB to a host computer but that is a bit more difficult.
The WiFi works and I succeeded to download the file I wanted.
What is left to do is find the way to copy the long string of numbers and text, username and password.
“ “ I need to add those in the beginning and end of the text?
Long press on either is not working. Your thoughts?
Thank you.
Not very pleasantly …
Double-tap the word that you want to select. It will be highlighted.
Touch the keyboard icon at bottom right and then touch the globe icon on the keyboard to choose the keyboard and then touch “terminal” to choose the terminal keyboard.
Then touch “>_” on the keyboard, then touch “Menu” on the keyboard. That should bring up a context menu.
Touch “Copy” on the context menu.
Job done.
Double-tap the word that you want to select. It will be highlighted. Long tap on the highlighted word opens a pop-up menu where you can select “copy”.
Copied both the username and password, but cannot find the “add” button to finalize the the hard work.
Ideas?
Thank you so much for your help.
Aside: You’ll need to do them one at a time.
When you move to the other application where you want to paste the copied text, again the “Menu” button will give you a context menu and you choose “Paste” on the context menu.
So … copy username, switch application, paste username, switch application, copy password, switch application, paste password.
“Menu” button will give you a context menu and you choose “Paste” on the context menu.
I tried that, but pressing the menu button didn’t produce a context menu!