What if one spends hours and days preparing, and finds they have the antique “amber”, and not “evergreen”? Then what do we do to get from Amber, to Evergreen and Byzantium?
p.s. I was too early in clicking “Solution” I should have tried sending pics w/ texts. first.
“Evergreen” is the current production version of the Librem 5 (hardware).
“Amber” and “Byzantium” (and soon “Crimson”) are iterations of the operating system.
The flashing process is precisely to replace the operating system, either to go from an earlier to later version, or to reflash the existing version.
EDIT: Notice the theme: a - b - c.
Amber - Byzantium - Crimson (names of somewhat exotic colors in the art world)
Birch - Chestnut - Dogwood - Evergreen - and someday, Fir (names of trees)
Evergreen was the first “finished” commercial production batch; birch through dogwood were commercial releases, but still somewhat “beta.” (further edited for clarity)
Thanks amarok, , but my question is/was:
. I did spend half of today looking for that answer - now I ask.
i.e., I need to know what is on the Host and target - the L5.
We, you I and Irvine and Frank and so on updated the host to Byzantium (as far as I know ( as well as the phone). But, I’m fold the Host is Amber (still) - I need to know these things. I’m asking for a friend 
To go from amber to byzantium on the L5, you do exactly what you’ve done already: flash the device. (“Evergreen” is not a version of PureOS; it’s a hardware model of the L5.)
The command lsb_release -c should return “byzantium” if your flash was a success. (You’ve already indicated the flash showed “success,” but please verify.)
And if you run sudo apt update, you should see output indicating that the pureos-byzantium repos are being checked for updates.
Where do you see “amber,” or who said this?
By “host,” do you mean the computer you used to flash the phone? What does lsb_release -c show on the computer?
[quote=“amarok, post:148, topic:21949”]
And if you run sudo apt update, you should see output indicating that the pureos-byzantium repos are being checked for updates.
from post in Post-Flash-Blues #12 scroll iframe down.
Yes.
The Host (i.e. Flashor (computer) to L5, the Flashee (L5) 
shows:
pure1@pure=pc:-$ lsb_release -c
Codename: byzantium
same on L5.
I may send texts, but may not attach images. I just don’t get it. It worked before the flash with exactly the same settings.
~s
I’m not sure why that bug report shows amber after you’ve already upgraded the computer to byzantium.
In the computer’s file system at /etc/apt/sources.list, does it show byzantium or amber?
Purism’s PureOS download page (for computers) is here: Download PureOS
It tells you how to either make a live USB that you can boot into, or upgrade an existing amber machine to byzantium. (In case you need to do or re-do either of those.)
Yes, both L5 and computer show: (byzantium)
deb Index of /pureos/ byzantium main
deb Index of /pureos/ byzantium-updates main
deb Index of /pureos/ byzantium-security main\
Yes. It’s where I got it in the first place.
I’ll back up again and try flashing again today.
Does it have a 4500 mAh battery? (= Evergreen)
From the community wiki:
Dogwood weighed 240 g and its 3600 mAh battery weighed 62 g. Chestnut with a smaller 2000 mAh battery weighed 230 g.
The dimensions of Librem 5 (Evergreen) are 153 x 75 x 15.5 mm (6.0 x 3.0 x 0.61 inches). The Power and Volume buttons and the hardware kill switches on the side of the case add an extra 1.5 mm to the width of the phone, so it is 76.6 mm wide. The Evergreen battery measures 60 x 57 x 10.5 mm, which is much thicker than the standard phone battery.
The Birch, Chestnut and Dogwood batches measured 150 x 75 x 15.5 mm, but an extra 3 mm was added to the length in Evergreen to improve the phone’s reception.
And other ways: Frequently Asked Questions · Wiki · Librem5 / Librem 5 Community Wiki · GitLab
After you do a successful flash, you might want to take a look at the Chats app before restoring your backup, just to see if it’s empty this time.
I should have been more clear. Does it matter whether computer has evergreen or not?
Yes, L5 Has 4500 mAh ergo evergreen. 
Hopefully, this is last question - in this topic today.
The term “Evergreen” only applies to the L5 model. (It’s the hardware version.)
On the computer, you’ll probably see “PureOS 10” (software… the OS).
As an example, one might have a “Dell Optiplex 3600” running PureOS 10 codename “byzantium”, and also a “Librem 5 Evergreen model” also running PureOS (in this case also designated with codename “byzantium”).
and this 4 or is it 5th flash results in
pure1@pure-pc:~$ cd librem5-flash-image
pure1@pure-pc:~/librem5-flash-image$ sudo ./scripts/librem5-flash-image --variant luks
[sudo] password for pure1:
2024-04-28 15:30:04,446 INFO Looking for librem5r4 luks byzantium image
2024-04-28 15:30:14,303 ERROR No matching image found
pure1@pure-pc:~/librem5-flash-image$ dir
COPYING debian README.md scripts
data Makefile requirements.txt setup.cfg
pure1@pure-pc:~/librem5-flash-image$
Well over a year - and IMO Etch-A-Sketch is still superior to this.
Maybe the video needs intervention.
Another waste of a day.
Fumingly,
~s
Based on this:
…maybe typing --variant luks is no longer needed (and no longer possible, if the image isn’t labeled as such on the download site).
I would try again and just leave off the --variant luks part; thus:
sudo ./scripts/librem5-flash-image
In fact, I don’t see the luks label there:
If you follow your link to the actual code, that switch seems still to be there (but it seems to default to plain, whereas in my copy it defaults to luks). I would conclude that it is essential to say what you want
i.e. --variant luks or --variant plain
I would say @Sharon add --stable
Doesn’t matter for me either with or without still does squat.
There is no “byzantium” anything in librem5-flash-image folder.
I’m debating whether to nail this ^&%$ thing to a wall as a reminder, or use the RMA I received and chance never seeing it again, or giving it to my worse enemy. It’s still only good for sending/receiving texts randomly placed among the others.
Don’t blame the machine. It operates on logic. It can only do what we tell it to do, if it’s possible to do it.
We just have to identify what is going wrong in the process, and then give it the proper command.
what the ever! I’ll nail it to the wall then.
Why do you say that?
Out of experience I can tell you that your phone will be, after being repaired, send back to you.
It (the cmd line switch to be used) should be as documented.
When reading the hints and discussions here I get the feeling that there is room for improvement in what switch to use and which script to use.
Another possibility is that I’m reading it all wrong. 
There is definitely room for improvement. I have two edits in the pipeline as it is.