Minor suggested edits:
In step 2 …
downloads the available OS images to it
The git clone only downloads scripts. No OS images are downloaded I believe. (Hence this step is quite quick.)
In step 4 …
That downloads the scripts for flashing the OS image.
I believe that actually does the following job of:
- downloading the chosen OS image (disk image)
- verifying the download (do SHA256 and compare with the value from another file that gets downloaded, a small metadata file)
- creating an additional file that is needed in order to use
uuu(the.lstfile) - and finally executes
uuuto flash the disk image to the Librem 5.
(but doesn’t download any scripts)
On a s..l..o..w.. internet connection, that can make the timing tricky - since the download could take a very long time and then suddenly uuu is running on the host computer and wanting you to connect the Librem 5 via USB cable and meanwhile you have wandered off to do something else.
I did submit a merge request to improve this doco a little. I think that MR may have stalled. However from that discussion it emerged, as you already know, that if you are really using a recent Ubuntu-based Linux distro, you don’t need the git clone at all because the script (package librem5-flash-image) is actually available in the distro’s repo and with correct dependencies that will install automatically. In other words, Purism has managed to upstream the needed script.
So this is both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a good thing because potentially things get simpler. It’s a bad thing because potentially the instructions get less simple as they try to cover both customers who are using a suitable (recent) distro - and those who aren’t. 