Actually purchased a Librem 5 for the learning curve to Linux. Phone was ordered in May and I am hopeful to receive soon.
My earliest experience with computers involved a command prompt…1980’s
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If you wanted to learn linux you could have bought second hand tower from a retail PC store For $300 and install Linux on that. 1300$ is half of my monthly salary. I don’t understand how some people are willing to shell out that much for a phone.
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I bought it also for half of my monthly salary to learn more about Linux. Makes still more sense than a PC for 300 that will never be used.
Maybe learning is only one part of the reasons for freefun? At least for me it’s an important part, but by far not the only reason.
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That much?! Couple of tenners at the thrift store will do. Linux works on anything. Even on a hand-cranked Babbage machine.
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IDK. I Received my L5 Evergreen a couple of weeks ago.
Right Out of the box I was able to use a T-Mobile SIM and my local Carrier SIM with no problems having messages voice and data.
The only thing I had to do was transfer my contacts from sim to phone and export as a .vcf file to my sd card to be used by the contacts app on the L5.
There are some minor issues like cannot use video while using telegram, but the voice is still there.
Screen sizing also is a little annoying.
Cut copy past also is wanting. Would like a good clipboard manager.
Some of the negatives above are to be addressed by Purism as per support.
So all in all I’m pretty happy with the phone. I am sure as development continues it will get much more better.
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I justified my purchase due to my lofty morals. It basically said this:
- Get the Librem 5 USA because it most closely represents your values and beliefs.
So I simply had to. Anything else and I would have not seen satisfied with the result.
Just for comparison, Apple and Samsung smartphone users usually justify their (bi)yearly purchases due to the brand’s credibility and/or reputation alone. From their perspective, if it is mainstream, it must be good and cannot be bad.
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Perhaps you have answered your own question. 
In reality, money is only one part of equation (although for some people it has to be the only part of the equation, I understand that). (I knew at the time I backed the Librem 5 that it was not and is not the cheapest phone that I could buy. It depends therefore on what price I put on other less tangible benefits, and even on what price I put on my data, my privacy.)
Sure, I understand your point that a Librem 5 may not be the best way to learn Linux (for monetary reasons and for other reasons). But hey …
“Why not do both?”
Buy a cheapy second hand desktop computer to install Linux on for crash-test-dummy purposes and to learn on … while waiting for the Librem 5 to be delivered.
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I showed my L5 to a Linux Engineer at my work. I asked him if he would use it as daily phone. His reaction was something like “That depends whether it can run the apps I need. Wow …that’s a hefty. After seeing the kill switches he said this is for paranoid people.” And then he walked away.
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That depends whether it can run the apps I need.
Understandable, though Waydroid may provide a good solution to bridge the gap.
Wow …that’s a hefty.
Yeah, the Librem 5 is thick and heavy compared to mainstream phones. The Librem 5 is much more repairable because parts are swapable and not soldered onto the board.
After seeing the kill switches he said this is for paranoid people.
It’s not like anyone needs to toggle them off if they don’t want to. It does provide peace of mind for those that don’t want to have targeted ads (or worse). Plus, it’s not like you need to do something wrong/illegal to become a suspect either. I think it’s a pitfall many fall into that think these events are few and far between (they’re more common than people seem to think), and people move the goalpost saying that it would never happen to them, if they acknowledge the previous point.
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The problem with this is that paranoia implies irrational - whereas in fact the surveillance capitalists really are after you. I can imagine though that your interlocutor was using the word in a very loose, perhaps careless, sense.
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Maybe in a colloquial sense, from the definition “often to the point of irrationality” means not always irrational and in turn can fit quite accurately as used.
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I guess most people would use it, if they would have HKS. At least for camera and microphone … for a good reason.
Since a police (in civil) stopped me at 2:00 AM in an empty park, I don’t leave my house at night without turning phone into lock-down mode. I did nothing wrong and after they checked me (including bag), I could continue my way. There is a real chance that they came because of my cell-tower-movement (there are existing laws that allow this kind of surveillance). Is this “fear” irrational/paranoid? Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? Does it hurt to use lock-down mode? Definitely not. But to know that it’s definitely no tracking makes me feeling much better and safer at night. The peace in mind is true.
And just an additional info: I don’t fear the police. I do nothing wrong. But who want to run into a control when you don’t even expect to see random people? It just feels bad.
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I’m going to open this can of worms again.
I was recently forced to use L5 as my day to day phone for a whole month because I accidentaly broke the SIM tray in my Blackberry phone. I only kept the phone in my pocket the whole day without even touching it once. It never lasted more then 10h.
Well it doesn’t really matter in the end because both Gnome and Pure maps are terrible. 8 times out of 10 they cannot find the place I’m looking for when enter the address. For people who don’t want to use Google Maps but want something that actually works I recommend Mapy. It’s made in Czech Republic.
I’m too much of a normie to undertand how that works. You just gave an another reason to get rid of the phone.
This is by far the most infuriating problem. I just found out that my Blackberry phone doesn’t have native function to export contacts and L5 cannot read contacts from SIM. The fact that Purism is not planning on implementing this is another reason to get rid off this phone.
This is complete bullshit. It is supported by every other phone manufacturer on the planet. I just inserted my SIM into Samsung Galaxy A05 that came out in 2023 and all contacts immediately showed up. So stop talking nonsense please.
Then there are other problems. Like I can’t even delete a file inside of file explorer using a right-click. Because the delete option isn’t there. And even if it was there I would not be able to click it because the menu disappears as soon as I lift my finger off the screen. Absolute rubbish.
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Here you go.
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@Poseidon: In additional: with terminal keyboard you just need to mark the file and push the del button on keyboard. It deletes files immediately.
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10-12h is the ceiling when keeping the phone active all the time, i.e. not using system suspend.
And I do, simple as that.
It can. The UI does not use that ability, but it absolutely can read the contacts from SIM.
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Thank you that works well.
I just found out that I had to select Access Point Name in the settings. prepay.tesco-mobile.com and then my mobile internet works! Shocking. I retract my previous statement.
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Except it can.
Sure, the Contacts app won’t use contacts directly from the SIM or even read the contacts out in order to import them. But if SIM contacts are important to you, it can be done. It isn’t as convenient as it could be.
I guess it depends on patience and perseverance.
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Yeap.
// wroted on an Impure Computer sadly.
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I know this is topic is almost a year old, but what @cbl states is still the same. IMO - Puri isn’t fibbing - just not being very factual.
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