yeah mine is coming tomorrow and I’m really looking forward to it!!
Any update on which one you prefer after a month of use?
After a month I am still using the X Mini. The smaller size and lighter weight meant it was the dock I chose to take with me on a road trip.
I prefer the smaller size and the main downside (500mA charging) hasn’t turned out to be that limiting. It maintains the charge of the Librem 5 enough while using it, and I honestly don’t tend to use my this laptop mode for multiple hours on end. Even then I could easily plug it into the 20,000mAh power bank we sell now that I got a 3rd party USB-C->Barrel adapter.
For the other downside (keyboard layout) I found the odd | key placement doesn’t bother me all that much. Have I mistakenly hit Del when I meant to type |? Yes. But then I just find | in the new location. I have to say that the X Mini is definitely more comfortable to use in “tablet mode” compared to the 360.
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@Kyle_Rankin I’m interested to know if you were curious about the Nexpad at all or if using an actual lapdock with keyboard is more useful to you.
I think the Nexpad is more portable and if you have a slim keyboard it could work. But some people would prefer an integrated keyboard setup.
My understanding is that the Nexpads do not charge the device they are plugged into, so the Librem 5 would drain pretty fast.
It could be connected to a hub or dock of some sort. At least that’s what I was planning to do. I initially was interested in the Nexdock 360 because of your post but wanted to try out the Nexpad. I have a keyboard I prefer.
I just got my X Mini, and I have to say that the thing just worked. I plugged it in, and selected map touchscreen in Phosh settings and it is all just working. I am actually writing this response from it. The dock is made very well and it seems like it will hold up well to being a part of the mobile warrior lifestyle. That is not to say it is a tank, merely that it doesn’t feel ultra flimsy.
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One thing I will add is that I am not sure suspending the phone on the lid of the X Mini is such a good idea. The Librem 5 is gloriously heavy for a phone, and I while I think the X Mini is robust I am not sure it could handle the weight without warping or messing up the hinges.
That said, the X mini really could let you get quite a bit of work done with it.
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This might be a more general question, but I figured since I am experiencing it on the X Mini that I would ask in this thread.
Basically, I seem to be inadvertently moving windows with the mouse on the mini’s screen. I mean let’s say I am using using Telegram through the web client, but just moving the mouse after selecting a contact to start talking to, will cause the browser window to move out of fullscreen and go back to its mobile size. I will have to drag the window to the top of the screen to get it to go fullscreen.
Is there something that I am doing with the mouse cursor that is inadvertently causing this to happen?
One other thing I am noticing is that the L5 is getting really hot* when using the dock. Is there something I can do to help throttle it a bit more to help with the heat build up?
- I’m not seeing anything over 54C. So not THAT hot. For reference the MNT Reform normally sits at 54C.
I haven’t seen the mouse issue you are describing, in general I’d have to double-tap I think (or alt-tap) to trigger a window move. Maybe just a difference in how we use a touchpad mouse.
As far as heat goes, it depends for me. It’s more on the Nexdock 360 when charging a Librem 5 that’s somewhat low, while also doing things like playing videos. In those cases sometimes it gets hot enough to trigger the battery throttle (and blinking red LED). The X Mini doesn’t provide as much charging current, and at least so far I haven’t hit the same circumstance with it.
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Both the UPERFECT X Mini and the Nexdock 360 work really well with Librem 5 and I would like to use this combo more as my computer for ligther work etc.
The biggest problem for me, however, is the lack of disk space on the L5. Yesterday I tried to build loupe on my phone, but couldn’t finish due to lack of disk space.
I would also like to sync more files that I use on my laptop/pcloud to the L5, but again limited by disk space requiremets.
I am using an SD card as external storage mainly for backups, but how would you suggest using an SD card for the above purposes without moving the home folder to the SD card?
Sometimes a symbolic link will do the trick.
Sometimes just having a directory that is outside ~ and putting the documents in it will do the trick.
Sometimes advanced mount functionality can do the trick.
That might not help with building software though because you may not directly control what directories the build process uses. You would have to know where exactly the build was trying to put stuff. A ‘nice’ build environment will be directory-independent i.e. put the sources anywhere you like, cd there, and build.
A different approach might be to use a cross-build environment i.e. build on your x86 desktop / laptop but for ARM.
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Thanks for the tips, I will try some of them. I am using Gnome Builder and tried to use a folder on the SD card, but as you indicated, the build files are put somewhere phones internal storage. Didn’t know that I could build for ARM on my laptop. Is that so also with Gnome Builder?
Edit: Unfortunately I get an error trying to clone loupe to Builder on my laptop, will dig into that later.
Either symlinks or bind mounts would work. I use a bind mount in /etc/fstab for my own SDcard, but if you do it, be sure to add the nofail option (my full list of options are auto,bind,nofail) so that you won’t get stuck at boot if there isn’t an sd card present.
For instance this is how I ensure my Documents directory is stored on my SD card:
/dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 auto auto,nofail 0 2
/mnt/sda1/Documents /home/purism/Documents none auto,bind,nofail 0 0
Repeat the second “bind” mount line for any other folders you want to bind mount into your home dir. The destination directory will need to exist.
@Kyle_Rankin I put in a beefy sd card of 128GB and mounted according to your instructions, just to realize I didn’t move the contents of my previous Documents folder to the sd card folder before mounting.
Do you keep the Documents folder etc. on the device and just empty them or what do you recommend?
EDIT: Just noticed that all of the mounts are write protected for the user purism, how can I change that?
Thanks!
It sounds like the SD card is still some form of fat32/ntfs/etc?
I recommend first just mounting /mnt/sda1, it should be formatted with a Linux-permissions-friendly file system (such as ext4) so you can set file permissions. Once it is mounted, create a Documents directory on it and set the permissions how you wish. Then move over the files from your ~/Documents/ directory to it. Then you can mount /home/purism/Documents and it should behave as expected.
Also I’m finding as quite relevant that UPERFECTmonitor is listing Purism Librem 5 here: https://www.uperfectmonitor.com/pages/list-of-smartphones-with-displayport-alt-mode.
I know it’s typically bad form to revive a dead thread, but I felt like I should update this. Yesterday I decided to try out my Nexdock 360 after spending a few months on the X Mini. Since it had been so long it provided me a fresh perspective and means of comparison.
I have to say I think I prefer the Nexdock. In particular what is swaying me the most is two things:
- screen quality
- charging ability
While I prefer the X Mini’s size, the screen is inferior in crispness and quality compared to the nexdock. Switching back made that abundantly clear. Secondly, the X Mini only provides 500mA charging, which means the Librem 5 slowly drains. This isn’t a big deal for home use, however if I were at a conference, one of the advantages of using a dock is that I would be extending my Librem 5 use because it would be charging the whole time.
Both have pros and cons, but at least for now I think I might switch back to my Nexdock 360 for awhile.
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Another update. I decided to do a battery test in this Nexdock similar to the X Mini, because I noticed yesterday that it seemed like the battery drained pretty fast. Sure enough, I just had my Librem 5 docked and left it idle with a stopwatch running. After 50 minutes the Nexdock battery is at 50%. Of course my Librem 5 is still at 100% battery, but this points to less than 2 hours of use with cellular and wifi on.
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