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Librem 5 Community Wiki

Frequently Asked Questions

Last edited by Amos Batto
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This page addresses questions which aren't answered in the official Purism FAQ and the Librem 5's Developers FAQ. It is written by community members, who have their own opinions, so don't take the answers in this page as the official word from Purism, unless links are provided to an article on the Purism website or a Purism employee is quoted.

1. General

1.1. Why buy the Librem 5?

This article and forum comment go into detail why buy the Librem 5, but here is summary of the major reasons why people are buying the Librem 5:

  • The Librem 5 is based on a security model that is verifiable and controllable by the user, unlike the security provided by Google or Apple. The OpenPGP card and the keys signed the user means that the user doesn't have to trust an external corporation. A phone that runs on 100% free software means that all the user can review and verify all the code in the root file system, which makes for verifiable security. The free/open schematics and published x-rays and optional anti-interdiction services can be used to check for tampering and changed hardware, such as inserted spy chips.
  • The Librem 5 is the first phone where 100% free software executes on the main CPU cores and the first phone to seek the Free Software Foundation's Respects Your Freedom certification. People are buying the Librem 5 because they want to use a freer phone or because they want to support one of the few companies that both produces new hardware and publicly aligns with the FSF.
  • Purism is a social purpose corporation (1,2) that prioritizes digital rights to privacy, security and freedom over profits and produces free/open source software and hardware.
  • One of the goals behind the Librem 5 is to drive change up the supply chain by working with good component suppliers that take feedback and will work for free software compatibility.
  • Buying the Librem 5 helps pay for development costs of Phosh and the adaption of existing GTK desktop apps, so that the GNOME ecosystem can be used on mobile devices, and many people want to be able to use standard Linux software on their phones.
  • Buying the Librem 5 helps pay for new components (i.MX 8M, LM3692x, MAX17055, LSM9DS1, BQ25890) to be added to mainline Linux.
  • The Librem 5 was designed to avoid planned obsolescence with lifetime software updates, upstreaming code to parent projects for long-term support, using a well-maintained GTK/GNOME stack that will provide future updates, replaceable WiFi/BT and cellular modem on two M.2 cards, and an SoC manufacturer that promises 10 years of production and contributes to the mainline Linux kernel for future updates.
  • The Librem 5 provides better privacy with accessible hardware kill switches, software switches to turn off GNSS and individual sensors, customized web browser preconfigured for privacy, and optional Librem One web services.
  • The Librem 5 should offer better convergence for use as a PC, because it has a faster USB 3.0 port, better graphics performance and better video out than the PinePhone, and it uses the standard GNOME desktop and GTK software, which is better than upsizing mobile apps.
  • The i.MX 8M Quad processor in the Librem 5 offers 35% better integer performance, 50% better floating point performance and 140% better GPU performance than the Allwinner A64 in the PinePhone, plus the Librem 5 uses a 160% faster RAM standard (LPDDR4-3200 vs LPDDR3-1104), should have 4 times the USB speed (150-170MB/s vs 40MB/s), and has 3 times the number of camera pixels (13/8 MP vs 5/2 MP).
  • The long-term goal of Purism is to produce phones for non-technical users that are preconfigured for privacy/security and apps from the PureOS Store with easy-to-understand badges and Librem One web services, so normal users don’t have to give up convenience to get privacy and freedom.

1.2. What are the weight and dimensions of the Librem 5?

The Librem 5 (Evergreen) including its battery weighs 263 g (9.3 ounces). Its 4500 mAh battery weighs 78 g (2.8 ounces).

Dogwood weighed 240 g and its 3600 mAh battery weighed 62 g. Chestnut with a smaller 2000 mAh battery weighed 230 g.

The Librem 5 (Evergreen) measures 153 x 75 x 15.5 mm. 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,

In comparison, the typical smartphone with a 5.5-6.0 inch screen weighs about 175-190 grams and is 8-9 mm thick, so the Librem 5 is roughly 45% heavier and 80% thicker than a typical smartphone. The tradeoff for using separate chips that can run on free/open source software (instead of a unified mobile SoC), hardware kill switches and two M.2 cards with replaceable WiFi/Bluetooth and cellular modem is extra weight and thickness.

1.3. What are the specs of the Librem 5?

Purism provides the official specs in its FAQ, but a more detailed list is maintained on the forum and see this list of components based on the Dogwood schematics.

Note that some generic parts like the particular model of RAM, Flash memory and display may change in the future. For example, Purism changed the maker of the microSD+SIM tray between Chestnut and Dogwood. However, it is unlikely that the model numbers of the important components (SoC, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, cellular modems, GNSS, image sensors, IMU, light sensor, PMIC, etc.) will change between Dogwood and Evergreen.

1.4. Do the specs justify paying $599-$799 for the Librem 5?

The CPU performance of the Librem 5 is not very competitive with today's smartphones, but people buy smartphones for more than CPU performance, and it is important to consider all the functions, before deciding if the specs justify the price.

The i.MX 8M Quad (4x 1.5GHz Cortex-A53, 1MB L2 cache, 800MHz Vivante GC7000Lite GPU, 28nm) in the Librem 5 is often compared to the Snapdragon 425 and Snapdragon 427, which were released in Q3 2016 and Q1 2017, respectively. Both the 425 and 427 have four 1.4GHz Cortex-A53 cores and a 28nm planar node, but they have half the L2 cache of the i.MX 8M Quad and they use slow LPDDR3-1333 (667MHz) DRAM, whereas the Librem 5 uses LPDDR4-3200 (1600MHz) DRAM, which is 2.4 times faster. Given these differences, the CPU performance of the Librem 5 will be significantly better than phones with the Snapdragon 427, such as the Motorola Moto G6 Play and Moto E5 Play, which were released in mid-2018.

Unfortunately, the hardinfo and glmark2 benchmarks that have been run on the Librem 5 are not available for Android, so it hard to make a direct comparison with Android phones. Nonetheless, the GC7000Lite GPU in the Librem 5 is probably similar to the graphics performance found in many of today's smartphones.

Most smartphones sold today have an image signal processor, a digital signal processor and hardware video encoding to quickly handle video and audio, but the Librem 5 lacks all those features. The Librem 5 will have to encode video in software which is much slower and consumes more energy. According to NXP, the maximum resolution that the i.MX 8M Quad can encode in software is 1080p h.264 video at 30fps, so the Librem 5 won't be a good phone for shooting video, and it will probably be slow at processing photos as well.

On the other hand, the Librem 5 has good video out capability, supporting external screens up to 4K at 60fps via DisplayPort Alt-Mode over USB-C. Many smartphone models can use an external monitor through a wireless standard (Miracast, Google's Chromecast or Apple's AirPlay), but they often have latency issues, are generally limited to a max of 1080p at 30fps, and requires a special adapter for the TV/monitor. To get video out over USB-C, it is necessary to buy either a top-of-the-line Snapdragon 800-series or a Snapdragon 670/675, because none of the other Snapdragon models support it. The only Android phones that even support DisplayPort alt-mode over USB-C are high-end models like the ASUS ROG I/II/3, Blackberry Key2, HTC 10/U11/U11+/U12+, Huawei Mate 10/20/X/Xs, P20/P30/P40 and Honor Note 10/View 20, LG G5/6/7/8 and V20/30/35/40/50/60, OnePlus 7/8, Razer Phone 1/2, Galaxy S8/9/10/20, Note 8/9/10/20 and A90 5G, Sony Xperia 1/1 II/5, Xiaomi Black Shark2, and ZTE Axon 9/10 Pro. The cheapest of these phones is the ZTE Axon 10 Pro that sells for $549 in the US, but it doesn't support many of the bands in the Americas and isn't offered by any of the US cellular carriers, plus reviewers knock its camera and audio quality.

Most new phones that can be plugged into an external monitor over USB-C cost over $800. However, that only provides a screen with blown-up Android apps. To actually get a decent desktop PC experience, it is necessary to buy a phone that supports Samsung's DeX, Huawei's Easy Projection, UBport's Lomiri or Maru OS.

Most people will think twice before buying a Huawei phone which locks the bootloader, denies root access, and can't use Google Web Services or the Play Store. Among the phones that run UBports well (OnePlus One, Nexus 4/5, Fairphone 2 and Bq Aquaris E4.5/E5), only the PinePhone supports DisplayPort alt-mode. The PinePhone with the Convergence Package only costs $200, but its output is limited to 1080p video and USB 2.0 speeds, which max out at half-duplex around 40MB/s. PinePhone's Mali-400 MP2 GPU is too underpowered to run a decent desktop, with the Librem 5 scoring 142% better than the PinePhone on the glmark2-es2 benchmark.

Maru OS only runs on the Nexus 5, 5X and 6P and the original Google Pixel from 2016 and uses wireless Chromecast. The latest version 0.6 is based on outdated Android Oreo 8.1.0 and Debian 9 (Stretch), which stopped receiving updates on 2020-07-06. So far Maru OS hasn't been able to upgrade to Debian 10 (Buster) or other phones, which means its software and hardware is very dated.

For people who expect a good desktop experience, the PinePhone isn't a good option for convergence. That means that the only real option for most people who want convergence is a Galaxy model which supports Samsung DeX, which means buying the Galaxy A90 5G which doesn't support most of the cellular bands in the Americas or paying well over $1000 for the Galaxy S20 or Note20.

The Librem 5 has a USB-C port that supports USB 3.0 data, Power Delivery fast charging, and a dual-role port to charge other devices. According to the gsmarena.com phone database, only 175 phone models have ever been produced that support USB 3, and almost all of them are high-end models. Likewise, the Librem 5 has a discrete audio DAC (Wolfson Media WM8962), which is another feature only found in high-end phones like LG's V-series.

There are no other phones on the market that offer accessible hardware kill switches, the ability to use a OpenPGP card for cryptographic operations, free/open schematics, x-rays of the hardware, 100% free/open source software, lifetime software updates, replaceable WiFi/Bluetooth, replaceable cellular modem, and optional anti-interdiction services. For people who want these specialized features that no other phone offers, the Librem 5's price is not unreasonable.

For people who want a specialized security phone, they will have to buy something like a Pixel 3/4 with a Titan M chip or an iPhone with a Secure Enclave, and the Librem 5 is cheaper than both those alternatives. For people who want an environmental phone that will last a long time, they will have to buy a new iPhone or a FairPhone 3 that will offer 5 years of software updates, and the Librem 5 will be supported for far longer than either of those phones.

In summary, the Librem 5 has a number of features generally only found in high-end phones, such as USB 3, dual-role port, DisplayPort alt-mode, high resolution video out and a discrete audio DAC, but its CPU performance and its video processing capability are those of a low-spec phone from several years ago. For people who want to buy a phone that supports convergence or a specialized security/privacy phone, the price of the Librem 5 is very competitive with the other options on the market. However, for people who just what a phone that runs Linux and don't care about these special features, the price of the Librem 5 is high compared to the PinePhone, Xperia 10 with Sailfish OS or Volla Phone.

1.5. How innovative is the Librem 5?

The Librem 5 introduces these six innovations which haven't previously been used in mobile phones:

  • First easily-accessible hardware kill switches (3 switches for cellular model, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth and camera/microphone)*
  • First replaceable parts using standardized form factor and bus interfaces (cellular modem and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth on two M.2 cards)
  • First smart card reader (for 3FF OpenPGP card)
  • First running 100% free/open source software on main CPU cores (PureOS with Linux/Wayland/GTK/phosh).†
  • First convergence between mobile and desktop computing based on downsizing existing desktop applications (using the libhandy library), as opposed to using separate mobile and desktop software or upsizing mobile apps.
  • First to offer lifetime software updates, designed to avoid planned obsolescence.

In addition, the Librem 5 is the first phone since the OpenMoko phones to offer free/open schematics for the printed circuit boards. Another innovation is designing a mobile software stack that maintains tight integration with an existing desktop software stack (Linux+Wayland+wlroots+GTK+GNOME middleware), so that the phone can easily be ported to existing desktop Linux distros. The fact that Phosh is already packaged in Debian, Arch, Manjaro, Fedora and openSUSE and 8 of the 16 Linux distros for the PinePhone include Phosh are good indications that this strategy is working.

Amos Batto has compiled a database of 1100 innovations in the mobile phones over the last 4 decades, and only 10 models have 6 or more innovations in the history of mobile phones:

  • Motorola DynaTAC 8000X (1983): 6
  • Technophone EXCELL PC105T (1985): 8
  • IBM Simon Personal Communicator (1994): 14
  • Nokia 9000 Communicator (1996): 6
  • Sanyo FOMA SA800i (2006): 7
  • Apple iPhone (2007): 7
  • Apple iPhone 4 (2010): 7
  • Samsung Galaxy S4 (2013): 8
  • Samsung Galaxy S5 (2014): 6
  • Purism Librem 5 (2020): 6

Some innovations prove to be unimportant and others have huge impact on the mobile industry. It is hard to predict at this point whether the innovations that the Librem 5 is introducing will have significant impact on the industry, but the Librem 5 is arguably the most innovative phone to be introduced since the Galaxy S5 in 2014.

* The Librem 5 was first to release a development batch, but PinePhone was the first to reach mass production, so it can be argued which was the first to introduce hardware kill switches. The Librem 5's kill switches are easily accessible on the side of the case, whereas the PinePhone contains DIP switches that can only be reached by removing the back cover, and some of them don't have good software integration to handle being turned on/off while using the phone and inform the user of their status.

† The Librem 5 uses proprietary code to do the training of the RAM's DDR4 timing which is stored on a separate SPI NOR Flash chip and executed by U-Boot on the separate Cortex-M4F core. In addition, there is proprietary firmware in many components such as the BM818/PLS8 cellular modems, RS9116 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, image sensors, etc.

1.6. How does the Librem 5 compare to other Linux phones (PinePhone, Volla Phone, Cosmo, etc.)?

See this table and download the spreadsheet in this article to compare the specs of the different Linux phones. The article "Trying to decide between the PinePhone and Librem 5" points out the advantages of the two phones. For the performance of the Librem 5 and the PinePhone, see their benchmarks.

1.7. Why does the Librem 5 cost so much compared to the PinePhone?

PINE64 offers the PinePhone for a very economical price of $149.99 (or $199.99 for the Convergence Package), plus the cost of shipping, whereas the Librem 5 costs between $599 and $799 (with free shipping included), depending on when it was ordered.

PINE64 is able to offer the PinePhone at an economical price because:

  • It outsources all software development to different communities,
  • It selects inexpensive, older hardware which already has good Linux support,
  • It provides minimal tech support and only a 30 day warranty since the hardware is designed for community projects, tinkerers and enthusiasts to develop the phone.

PINE64 doesn't do any software development, which is very expensive, but instead gives a $10 donation to the community that provides the operating system. Purism had 13 software developers working on the Librem 5's software in January 2020, then it dropped to 8 devs by May, and now Purism has 10 devs. Plus, Purism has 3 software devs who maintain PureOS, and another dev who maintains the code of Laniakea, which is a software suite to manage Debian derivatives. The cost of all that software development over 3.3 years has to be included in the price of the Librem 5.

PINE64 provides minimal tech support for its users and a 30 day warranty for the PinePhone, which also reduces its costs. PinePhone users who have a software problem have to rely on the PINE64 community forum and community wiki for help, whereas Purism has 4 tech support staff to help customers and 1 employee who writes documentation.

Purism's staff work in San Francisco, California or work remotely from other parts of the developed world, whereas most of PINE64's staff are in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, China, so Purism has much higher labor costs. Being in Shenzhen, PINE64 can get the best prices on components and assembly. The Librem 5 is also made by companies located in the Shenzhen area, but Purism doesn't have the local knowledge to get the best prices and often has to work through middlemen who charge a markup.

The Librem 5 has roughly 3 times as many components as the PinePhone. See the component list for the Librem 5 vs the PinePhone. If the Zlatan Todoric's interview with Phoronix can be believed, the bill of materials for the Librem 5 is roughly $300, whereas the BOM for the PinePhone is probably in a range between $60 and $90.

The i.MX 8M Quad in the Librem 5 costs $35.49 per chip in a lot of 2500, whereas the A64 in the PinePhone costs $2.50 when bought in bulk. The Redpine Signals RS9116 in the Librem 5 probably costs twice as much as the Realtek RTL8723CS in the PinePhone, but when the cost of the M.2 card and M.2 slot is added, it will probably cost 4-5 times as much. According to Chief Technical Officer Nicole Faerber, Purism also had to pay Redpine Signals for custom software development: "For getting rid of the runtime firmware we invested significantly in a custom firmware that the manufacturer made specifically for our use case."

Because Thales is a specialized firm that focuses on security, the Thales PLS8 baseband chip probably costs a few dollars more than the Quectel EG25-G chip in the PinePhone, which costs a couple dollars more than the Broadmobi BM818 chip. However, the BM818 M.2 card plus the M.2 slot in the Librem 5 probably costs twice as much as the soldered EG25-G in the PinePhone. Since Purism is having to custom manufacture the PLS8 M.2 card and add an M.2 slot, it will probably cost 3-4 times more than the soldered EG25-G.

Other components in the Librem 5 cost more, as well. The 6 DIP kill switches in the PinePhone cost less to implement than the 3 kill switches on the outer case of the Librem 5. The custom-sized battery in the Librem 5 costs more than the PinePhone's battery, which is the same battery as used in the Galaxy J7. The Librem 5 includes some extra features, such as the smart card reader (and its extra microcontroller), a separate GNSS chip, a separate audio DAC chip, an extra internal plastic cover over the PCBs, a plastic screen cover and headphones, which are not included in the PinePhone.

Another extra cost of the Librem 5 is the fact that Purism sees part of its mission as reforming the electronics industry and promoting the values of free software and the right to privacy. Part of the jobs of Kyle Rankin, David Hamner and François Téchené is to create articles and videos that promote these values in the general public, which some may see as a type of marketing. Regardless whether it is seen as part of Purism's social mission or simply marketing, it is an extra cost that is not included in the PinePhone.

1.8. What is Respects Your Freedom certification and how close is the Librem 5 to getting it?

The Free Software Foundation created its Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification for hardware which runs on 100% free software in its main CPU cores. According to the FSF, RYF certification is for hardware that "respects the rights of their users and that comes with only freedom inside." The FSF "reviews every aspect of the user experience, from initial purchase through flashing modified versions of firmware. At every level, the retailer must adhere to the program's strict certification criteria, ensuring that users are never even directed to nonfree software or documentation."

The Librem 5 contains proprietary firmware in many components such as the WiFi/Bluetooth, cellular modem, SoC, etc, since it is impossible to build a phone that doesn't have proprietary firmware. This is allowed under the RYF criteria, which specifies:

However, there is one exception for secondary embedded processors. The exception applies to software delivered inside auxiliary and low-level processors and FPGAs, within which software installation is not intended after the user obtains the product. This can include, for instance, microcode inside a processor, firmware built into an I/O device, or the gate pattern of an FPGA. The software in such secondary processors does not count as product software.

The i.MX 8M Quad in the Librem 5 requires that a proprietary blob be executed while booting to train the RAM's DDR timing. The Librem 5 stores this binary blob on a separate SPI NOR Flash chip and it is executed by U-Boot on the separate Cortex-M4F core.

There was a question whether it would be possible to get video out without an HDMI DRM blob, but the DCSS driver doesn't need to use that blob and Guido Gunther recently demonstrated that the Librem 5 is able to display video on an external monitor using DisplayPort alt-mode over USB-C without using proprietary software.

Purism has not yet demonstrated that the phone's cameras can be used with free drivers, but at this point the Librem 5 looks to be on track to get the RYF certification.

1.9. Is the Librem 5 free/open hardware?

As required by Purism’s SPC charter, the schematics of the Librem 5's printed circuit boards are published in PDF under the GPL 3.0+ license:

Purism published the KiCAD schematics files for the DevKit, which was entirely designed with free software tools. However, Purism has not released the CAD files or the Gerber files for the Librem 5, in order to prevent the creation of clones. CEO Todd Weaver says that Purism needs to recover its development costs before releasing the Gerber files, which they are “thinking about releasing in a time capsule” of “3 years, 5 years, something like that.”

If Purism releases the CAD and Gerber files, the community or other companies will be able to produce parts for the Librem 5 in the future or even new versions with upgrades (more RAM, more Flash memory, etc.), which is important for the long-term maintenance of the phone.

The Librem 5 is the first commercial phone since the Golden Delicious GTA04 in 2012 to publish its schematics with a free/open source license. PINE64 publishes the schematics of the PinePhone in PDF, but not under a free/open license, so it can't be reused.

It can be debated whether the Librem 5 should be called "free hardware" or "open hardware" since most of the complexity of a smartphone lies within the individual components which are not open hardware. The Librem 5 is free/open hardware in the sense that anyone can take the schematics and legally produce their own versions of the phone, but it isn't free/open hardware in the sense that people can't access the source files for the SoC, cellular modem, WiFi/Bluetooth, GNSS, USB controller, etc., so most of the functionality is hidden. However, free/open hardware is defined, the Librem 5 is the freest phone that has been released since 2012 and that is a step forward. It is unlikely that anyone will be able to legally produce a free/open hardware WiFi, Bluetooth, LTE cellular modem, GNSS receiver or 3D GPU without being destroyed by the insane patent system, so it is hard to see how any phone can be produced which is 100% free/open hardware, but the Librem 5 is certainly a step forward on the road to freer tech.

1.10. Does the Librem 5 provide any water resistance?

The Librem 5 is not designed for water resistance and it is recommended to avoid getting it wet. Dogwood added an internal plastic cover over the two M.2 communications cards and test points and moved the smartcard slot from the outer case to inside next to the battery, so the Librem 5 should be a bit more splash resistant than its original design, but it is best to avoid situations where it may get wet.

If the Librem 5 gets dropped in liquid, it is recommended to immediately take out the battery and let it dry out completely before trying to turn the phone back on. Just because the outside of the phone is dry, that doesn't mean that circuit boards inside the phone are dry. The phone can be disassembled to dry quicker, but remember that there is thermal paste between the back of the main circuit board and the LCD, so that paste will have to be replaced if taking out the main circuit board.

It is extremely difficult to design a phone that is modular and repairable, while also being water resistant. Most of today's phones achieve water resistance by having a sealed case which is glued together. Opening the case requires using a heat gun (or heat pads), suction cups and plastic spudgers to pry it open. Not only does it take more time and special tools to open water-resistant phones, but the glue and seals have to be replaced each time the case is opened, which increases the labor and cost of repairs.

Some phones in the past, such as the Galaxy S5, had both a removeable battery and an IP rating for water resistance, but they achieved that IP rating by isolating the battery and gluing shut all the rest of the components in an internal case, so any repair beyond replacing the battery was extremely difficult. The Galaxy S4 got an iFixit Repairability Score of 8 out of 10, but adding IP67 water resistance to the Galaxy S5 dropped its Score to 5 out of 10.

It is possible to make a repairable phone that is water resistant by adding rubber gaskets around every seal and then using lots of screws with spring washers or lock washers to make sure everything is clamped down tight. However, these components add extra weight, a bit more thickness, and extra cost to the phone. The Librem 5 (Dogwood) already weights 240 grams and is 15.5 mm thick, so many people would question making it even heavier and thicker for water resistance.

For most people, modularity and repairability are more important than water resistance, because there is a much higher probability that a phone's battery, screen or other components will need to be replaced during its lifetime than it will suffer liquid damage. According to a 2020 report by the Indian electronics service firm OnsiteGo, 71% of its mobile phone repairs are caused by screen damage, 8% are the phone not starting, 6% are device damage, 3% are water logging, 2% are software issues and 2% are charging. Similarly, a 2016 survey by Big Giraffe in Australia found that 62% of damaged smartphones have a cracked screen and 10.7% have liquid damage, so it is better to make a phone whose screen can be easily replaced than one which is water resistant.

2. Components and Functions

2.1. How long will be the battery life of the Librem 5 (Evergreen)?

It is hard to predict how long the battery will eventually last on a single charge in Evergreen, because critical features like suspend-to-RAM have not yet been implemented. All the information found in the reviews of Birch and Chestnut are outdated, because Purism is constantly improving the runtime efficiency and the battery capacity has been increased.

Aspen, Birch and Chestnut had a 2000 mAh battery. The battery capacity was increased to 3600 mAh in Dogwood (Zhongshan Tianmao Battery Co., 3.8V, 13.68Wh, LiPo, 57.2(w) x 51.5 x 10.5 mm, 62g, 3 contacts). With the length of the phone being increased from 150 to 153 mm in Evergreen, there is more room for battery, which has been increased to 4500 mAh.

Purism estimates that that the 4500 mAh battery in Evergreen will last 6.0 hours on a single charge with the cellular modem, WiFi and screen on, but it will last up to 14.6 hours with the cellular modem on, the WiFi off and the screen off.

Evergreen battery life

Purism is seling extra Evergreen batteries for $29, so it is possible to carry around extra batteries and swap them when needed. If the phone is plugged into a charger, it is possible to hot swap the batteries without turning off the Librem 5.

With the 3600 mAh battery in Dogwood, "lipu" on the Purism forum estimated that the battery can last 12 hours idling with the cellular modem off and screen off, 9 hours with the cellular modem on and the screen off, and 5 hours with the cellular modem off and the screen on at a mid-level of brightness:

screen off runtime

screen on runtime

Purism is currently focusing on improving the runtime efficiency of the Librem 5 in the kernel and in Phosh (1 2 3). Between releases librem5.1 on 2019-12-04 and librem5.12 on 2020-03-04, the load average on the Librem 5 was reduced by 90%, which causes a 10% reduction in heat and 30% reduction in battery draw. Purism has made Phosh more energy efficient than both Ubuntu Touch and KDE Plasma Mobile, which is one of the reasons why half of PinePhone users report using Phosh.

Improved kernel in the Librem 5

Purism's goal is to get a battery life of 24 hours, so the Librem 5 only needs to be charged once per day, but first there are a number of challenges that need to be solved in the software to make that happen:

Even when these software issues are resolved, the Librem 5 will never have great battery life compared to the typical Android phone, because it uses 6 separate chips (i.MX 8M Quad, RS9116, BM818/PLS8, Teseo-LIV3F, WM8962 and bq25895) in place of the integrated mobile SoC found in most smartphones, and most of these chips are probably at a 40-28 nm node size, whereas today's integrated mobile SoC has a 14-7 nm node size. Using separate chips and larger node sizes consumes more energy, so poor battery life is one of the tradeoffs of using chips that can run on 100% free software and having hardware kill switches. For more info, see "Adding kill switches to protect your privacy is not as simple as you might think".

One of the problems is that the i.MX 8M Quad at a 28nm planar node is not an energy efficient chip. It uses a maximum of 3.3 watts, whereas the 7nm Snapdragon 865 offers 10 times more CPU performance at 5 watts. The i.MX 8M Quad currently has two outstanding silicon bugs in power management:

e11174: CA53: Cannot enter WAIT mode
Description: CA53 platform cannot enter WAIT mode if there is a pending interrupt. If the chip enters WAIT(WFI) mode, the chip requires a reboot to recover.
Workaround: No workarounds. SW should not use WAIT mode.
Impact: This mode turns off the power to the SCU (Snoop Control Unit) and the L2 cache. Not having this mode affects only 1 mode of core power savings.

e11171: CA53: Cannot support single-core runtime wakeup
Description: According to the GIC500 specification and the Arm Trusted Firmware design, when a CPU core enters the deepest CPU idle state (power-down), it must disable the GIC500 CPU interface and set the Redistributor register to indicate that this CPU is in sleep state. In such case, if the CPU core is in WFI or power-down with CPU interface disabled, another core cannot wake-up the powered-down core using SGI interrupt.
Workaround: One workaround is to use another A53 core for the IRQ0 which is controlled by the IOMUXGPR to generate an external interrupt to wake-up the powered-down core.The SW workaround is implemented into default BSP release. The workaround commit tag is “MLK-16804-04 driver: irqchip: Add IPI SW workaround for imx8mq".

The MIMX8MQ6DVAJZAB used in Evergreen contains the 2N14W mask set which hasn't fixed e11174 and e11171. Given that NXP still hasn't fixed these bugs in the silicon after 2.5 years, it is seems unlikely that they will ever be fixed.

2.2. How well do cellular phone calls work in the Librem 5? Is VoLTE supported?

GSM, UMTS and LTE cellular networks are reported to work fine with the BM818 modem in the Librem 5. There haven't been any reports about trying to use CDMA bands so far. See this list of cellular providers that have been tested so far.

Purism is lengthening Evergreen from 150mm to 153mm in order to improve cellular reception, but reception already appears to be decent in Chestnut and Dogwood, since there haven't been complaints that the Librem 5 has worse reception than other phones.

User "lipu" on the Purism forum gave this assessment of calling with Dogwood:

I can make and receive calls on my Dogwood phone. It works quite well when using headphones, but there are some problems:

  • using the speaker phone, the other party hears their voice echoed back after approx. a second
  • sound level is a bit weak
  • Bluetooth headsets only work for sound playback, not for calling
  • I have issues with the proximity sensor leading to lots of spurious touch events when using the phone’s earpiece
  • phone drops to 2G during calls, cutting all internet access
  • I keep forgetting the mic kill switch, because there is no indication in the UI

SMS works, too.

The MakeUseOf review of Chestnut also reported that the volume buttons didn't work while making a phone call in Chestnut and the call volume was low.

Purism developer Sebastian Krzyszkowiak responded:

We should have echo cancellation filters in place soonish. Meanwhile, lowering the volume may help.
...
There’s no VoLTE, so it drops to 3G when in call. This would mean that there’s no 3G reception where you live, so it makes it drop all the way to 2G (but data should still work, although much slower - unless there’s something wrong [on the] carrier side of course).

User "amarok" on the forum reported that he can hear phone calls fine with Evergreen, but the recipient of his calls has trouble hearing him:

Call recipient reports that I sound muffled during phone call. I tested again by calling my home phone. Since there was a slight delay from one network to the next, I could tell that my voice does sound muffled on the other end. Intelligible, but muffled.

Krzyszkowiak responded:

At this moment we’re gathering audio from both microphones (top and bottom one) and apply quite strong echo cancellation - I guess that’s where the “muffled” voice comes from. Echo cancellation parameters can still be tweaked (I settled on a set of params that’s pretty close to PulseAudio’s defaults so far), and of course we could only use a single microphone from the other end than the currently active speaker; however, I haven’t figured out a clean way to do that yet as there’s bunch of non-obvious obstacles on the way there. Let’s see if we can come up with a clean solution before we resort to ugly hacks though :-)

Many of the issues mentioned with calling are likely to be solved with future software updates, except for VoLTE. Krzyszkowiak explained the situation with VoLTE:

PLS8 has VoLTE support advertised. BM818 does not - it internally has some preliminary support, but needs compatibility testing and configuration in order to work internationally.

From our software point of view, there’s no such thing as VoLTE. It’s the modem’s job to handle it and it’s transparent to the software running on the CPU.

Krzyszkowiak also stated on r/Purism:

I know that BM818 has some VoLTE support, but at this moment it isn't enabled and it lacks career specific profiles. It's generally an undocumented and unsupported feature right now, but it exist. It may be possible to make it operational in the future, but I can give no promises at this moment.

Most people are going to select the BM818 modems rather that the PLS8 modems, because the BM818 models support more LTE bands and cost less, but it is unclear, when/if BroadMobi will officially support VoLTE on their BM818 cellular modems.

Many of the cellular network providers are slowly deactivating their 2G and 3G networks which may be a problem in the future. If a phone doesn't support VoLTE (Voice over Long Term Evolution) or isn't on the cellular provider's approved list of phones that support VoLTE, then the phone can either be used for calling or data, but not both at the same time. What this means is that the Librem 5 will take the phone call with LTE, and try to connect to the internet using an available 2G or 3G network, which is slower than 4G. If there are no 2G or 3G networks available, then no internet connection will be available during phone calls. See this list of when 2G and 3G networks are scheduled to be shut down.

Another issue is that some cellular providers have whitelists of phones that they allow on their networks, and Purism has indicated that it will not try to get the Librem 5 certified on any cellular networks. For US customers, where many of the major cellular providers do have whitelists, Purism will be offering its new AweSIM service.

2.3. Does MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) work?

Currently MMS messages do not work in the Librem 5, because ModemManager does not support MMS and is unlikely to implement it. When this issue was raised on the forum, Purism developer Sebastian Krzyszkowiak responded:

I believe implementing MMS is outside of ModemManager’s scope. However, if anyone would like to help with MMS support before we eventually get to it ourselves (which may take some time since it’s not the highest priority thing on our TODO list yet), I believe the best way to start would be to read and get familiar with mmsd source code: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/network/ofono/mmsd.git/ 1 and then try to write a ModemManager-based plugin for it (from a quick glance it seems its oFono-specific code is pretty nicely separated, so it shouldn’t be hard). I think this should be a task that a reasonably motivated community member might be able to easily take and progress on, which should speed things up and put the UI support higher on our TODO lists 😉

2.4. Is Bluetooth 5.0 supported? What Bluetooth profiles are supported?

The Redpine Signals RS9116 supports Bluetooth 5.0 and the FOSS drivers in the Librem 5 are provided by Redpine Signals, so in theory Bluetooth 5.0 should work, but only Bluetooth 4 has been tested and the Librem 5 schematic only mentions Bluetooth 4.1.

Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) currently works for audio streaming to a Bluetooth devices. However, A2DP is only designed for audio playback, not for calling. The Headset Profile (HSP) and Hands-Free Profile (HFP) which would support phone calling currently don't work, so it isn't possible to use a Bluetooth headset to talk over the phone. PulseAudio has held up patches to enable HSP and HFP, due to conflicts with oFono, which is the telephony library used by Ubuntu Touch, KDE Plasma Mobile and LuneOS, but not used by PureOS/Phosh, which uses ModemManager.

2.5. Can the Librem 5 be used as a WiFi hotspot?

The Librem 5 does not currently support being used as a WiFi hotspot, but it can be enabled with some extra work.

Purism developer Sebastian Krzyszkowiak commented on August 6, 2020:

We sure want to support WiFi hotspot, but I’m not sure how well the driver supports it right now; will have to test it at some point.

There is a GUI and has been from the beginning, but it doesn’t work (and same with regular CLI methods known from PCs) because from what I’ve seen in the docs the driver needs some special care in order to switch into hotspot mode - it needs to be put into hotspot mode at module load time.

The next day, Krzyszkowiak reported that he had tested it:

Tried it today and I can say that the WiFi hotspot works fine 🙂 Software still has rough edges and needs some love, but I got it to work here.

Looking at the driver docs (https://github.com/SiliconLabs/RS911X-nLink-OSD 1) it seems like monitor and P2P modes should work too, but I haven’t tried those so far.

I meant that it works after switching the kernel module parameters - it still doesn’t work from GUI out-of-box without manual intervention...

To follow the progress on implementing WiFi Hotspot, see issue 107.

2.6. Why doesn't the Librem 5 support new Wi-Fi standards (802.11ac/ad/ah/ax)?

Unfortunately, no manufacturer makes a WiFi chip that supports 802.11ac/ad/ah/ax and can be run without proprietary firmware placed in the Linux file system (usually in the /lib/firmware directory). The goal of the Librem 5 is to run 100% free software (in the main CPU cores).

The Redpine Signals RS9116 is the best chip that Purism could find for wireless that runs on free software in the Linux file system, and the Librem 5 and MNT Reform are the first Linux devices which use it. There are only two free/open source drivers for 802.11n that do not require proprietary firmware in the Linux file system. One option is the Atheros ath9k WiFi/Bluetooth chips that have no firmware for WiFi, but they need proprietary firmware for Bluetooth, and they have limited range and poor reception. The other option is the rsi9113 driver for the Redpine Signals RS9113 and RS9116 chips, that supports both WiFi and Bluetooth (over USB or SDIO) without proprietary firmware in the Linux file system, and it has good range and is energy efficient as well. According to Chief Technical Officer Nicole Faerber, Purism had to pay Redpine Signals to develop firmware that didn't need to be stored in the /lib/firmware directory and passed by the Linux kernel to the WiFi/BT module:

For getting rid of the runtime firmware we invested significantly in a custom firmware that the manufacturer made specifically for our use case.

People who need 802.11ac/ax can buy an M.2 2230 E-key WiFi card that supports SDIO 2.0 or USB 2.0 and install it on their own, but that won't be officially supported by Purism, since it will require installing proprietary blobs. The community will have to test what M.2 cards work in the Librem 5.

2.7. How good will the Librem 5 cameras be?

The Librem 5 has these image sensors:

  • Samsung ISOCELL S5K3L6XX image sensor for back camera:
    13.25 MP, CMOS, 1/3", 4224×3136 active pixels, 4K@30fps, FHD@60fps, HD@120fps, f/1.9, 28mm, auto-focus: 10cm - ∞, 81.5° FOV, LED flash
    (not yet supported in kernel)

  • SK hynix YACG4D0C9SHC image sensor for front camera:
    8.0 MP, CMOS, 1/4", 3264×2448 active pixels, QUXGA@30fps, FHD@60fps (crop), HD@90fps, focusing range: 28.9-65.0cm, 83.3° FOV
    (not yet supported in kernel)

Samsung produces about 20% of the world's image sensors and its ISOCELL sensors are generally considered to have the second best quality for smartphones after Sony's Exmor RS sensors, but the Samsung S5K3L6XX is not a high-end sensor. Although it supports 4K video, there is little chance that the Librem 5 will be able to use it. The i.MX 8M Quad has no hardware video encoder, and NXP documentation for the SoC says that 1080p H.264 video encoding at 30fps is the maximum resolution with software encoding.

One phone using the Samsung S5K3L6XX sensor is the Galaxy A20e which has an Android open source driver, but Purism can't use it. Another phone using the same Samsung image sensor is the Galaxy J4 Plus which has a comparable Snapdragon 425 (4x 1.4GHz Cortex-A53, 28nm) processor, and its highest resolution video is 1080p at 30fps. A review of the Galaxy J4 Plus praised its back camera:

As for the phone’s camera capabilities, the J4 Plus employs a solitary 13-megapixel camera unit on the rear, with a respectably wide aperture of f/1.9. This lacks the secondary depth-sensing unit of its bigger brother, the J6 Plus, although I don’t think this is a big loss.

Image 9 of 12 J4+ back camera images

As long as you have plenty of light, the Galaxy J4 Plus is a pretty solid photographer’s companion. Of course, the results don’t look quite as swish as the images captured by fancy flagships such as the Galaxy S10 or Huawei P30 Pro, but the end result is an image that looks rather good given the price.

Pictures come out with plenty of detail, colour reproduction looks nice and accurate and the phone’s HDR algorithms do a tremendous job of lifting up shadows and softening overly-bright areas of the scene. Everything is captured well enough, but you begin to spot a handful of issues as the light dims. Mostly, images get too noisy for most tastes, although not distractingly so.

The Librem 5 may not get the same image quality as the Galaxy J4 Plus, since its Snapdragon 425 has an image signal processor (ISP) and digital signal processor (DSP) for providing high dynamic range (HDR), plus it probably includes some proprietary image processing software as well. The i.MX 8M Quad lacks both an ISP and DSP, so processing the video and still images in software will be slower and consume more energy, so expect the Librem 5 to get hot when shooting video and drain the battery faster.

The kernel in the Librem 5 currently doesn't have support for the two image sensors, but the latest release (pureos/5.7.14+librem5.2) shows that Purism is working on it:

  [ Martin Kepplinger ]
  * arm64: dts: imx8mq-librem5-r3: fix camera_pwr gpio
  * arm64: dts: imx8mq-librem5: camera1: add more useful comment.
    It's obviously a placeholder and disabled, no need to write that down.
  * arm64: dts: imx8mq-librem5: camera2: fix i2c address and add VCM.
    The rear facing camera is at 0x10 on the bus, not 0x2d. Also, desc[r]ibe
    the voice coil motor we have.

 -- Guido Günther <agx@sigxcpu.org>  Tue, 18 Aug 2020 12:14:44 +0200

NXP has been lackluster in supporting its i.MX 8M chips in mainline Linux, and the mainline driver still doesn't have good support for the i.MX 8M's MIPI CSI2 camera interface. When asked about this issue, Guido Gunther responded on August 17, 2020:

CSI2 for mainline is still being worked on (as is mhdp for DisplayPort HDMI) by various parties but the diff has become more and more reasonable.

The "diff" is the difference between the code in NXP's driver and mainline Linux's driver for the i.MX 8M. This means that Purism has to take code from NXP's driver in order to use the MIPI CSI2 interface. Another difficulty for Purism is that NXP has poorly documented its MIPI CSI2 interface, and people on the NXP forums are complaining that they are having trouble implementing their cameras (1 2 3 4 5 6).

Another issue is that Phosh currently lacks a camera app. A mockup of a future camera app has been created, but it is unclear when it will be ready. Until then, the cameras will probably be using Cheese, which lacks controls for focusing, white balance, shutter speed, etc.

2.8. What kind of camera flash and flashlight (torch) does the Librem 5 provide?

The high-current white LED used by the back camera's flash is not listed in the schematics, but it is controlled by the TI LM3560, that provides 16 levels of brightness and can output up to 5V x 2A (10W) with a single LED.

Version 0.4.5 and later of Phosh has a quick setting (available by swiping down from the top of the screen) to toggle on or off the flashlight (torch) on the back of the Librem 5, as shown by this video.

2.9. What screen does the Librem 5 have and why is it 720p instead of 1080p?

The Librem 5 has this display:

Mantix MLAF057WE51 X 5.7″ IPS a-Si LCD, 720×1440 pixels, 9:18 aspect ratio, 16.7M colors (24-bit), 282 pixels-per-inch, 1500:1 contrast ratio, 90% sRGB, MIPI DSI interface

The Mantix display is run at 60Hz, although some apps may refresh at a slower rate. There is no mention in the spec of hardened aluminosilicate glass, so it is recommended to use the plastic screen protector, which is included in the box with the Librem 5. According to Purism developer Sebastian Krzyszkowiak, the screen protector has a light polarizer that reduces glare, but it is not a privacy screen that restricts viewing angles.

The Aspen and Birch batches had rounded corners in the display, but they were changed to square corners in Chestnut and later batches. Because the display has square corners and doesn't have a notch or punch hole, it should be easier to port the Librem 5 to different mobile Linux interfaces (Plasma Mobile, Ubuntu Touch, etc.) that are designed for rectilinear displays.

The Librem 5 has a lower-resolution 720p display and 18:9 aspect ratio. The maximum screen resolution supported by the i.MX 8M Quad's MIPI DSI interface is 16:9 Full High Definition. Purism either could have offered a 16:9 screen at 1920x1080 (2,073,600 pixels) or a longer 18:9 screen at 1440x720 (1,036,800 pixels), but a 18:9 screen at 2160x1080 (2,332,800 pixels) was impossible because the SoC doesn't support it.

If the Librem 5 had used a 16:9 display, it would have been criticized for using an outdated aspect ratio that left large spaces above and below the display. It also would have been harder to find a 16:9 screen and probably would have required a more expensive custom order, since 16:9 screens are no longer being used in phones.

Another issue is that a 1440x720 display only has to render 1.04 million pixels per frame, whereas a 1920x1080 display has to render 2.07 million pixels per frame, so it has to do twice as much processing, which would make the SoC run hotter and drain the battery faster. The Librem 5 is not very energy efficient, because it uses 6 separate chips with larger node sizes (40-28nm) rather than a single integrated SoC at a smaller node size (14-7nm), so it needs to be as energy efficient as possible in its display.

2.10. Why doesn't the Librem 5 have a more powerful processor?

The requirement that only free software be used in the Librem 5 limited Purism's choices when selecting the system on a chip (SoC) for the phone. The i.MX 8M Quad was the best performing SoC that Purism could find that could run on 100% free software and was capable of fitting into the energy restrictions of a phone.

Many of the integrated mobile SoC's used in typical smartphones, such as the MediaTek Helios, HiSilicon Kirin, Xiaomi Surge, UNISOC SCxxxx/Tiger and Apple A-series, never get mainline Linux drivers, because the manufacturers don't release enough info and source code to allow the community to create mainline drivers for the chips. An integrated mobile SoC like the Snapdragon may offer better performance with recent ARM cores and be built on smaller process nodes, but it will only be produced for 1-2 years and only be supported for 2.5-3.5 years by the manufacturer, so there won't be firmware and driver updates from the manufacturer for very long. It is essential that a phone's processor be able to run on mainline Linux drivers in order for it to be supported for a long time. One of the goals of the Librem 5 is avoiding planned obsolescence, so the processor needs to be able to run on a mainline Linux kernel in order to keep receiving kernel updates in the long-term.

The only mobile SoC's that consistently get mainline Linux support are the Snapdragon series, because Qualcomm publishes information and drivers for the Snapdragon in Code Aurora, but it can take up to 3 years for the community to create good drivers in mainline Linux, so the Snapdragon is often already out of production by the time it is supported. Mainline Linux has supported Snapdragon's Adreno 500-series GPUs since November 2016. Unfortunately, Snapdragons require the use of proprietary blobs in the Linux file system for many of their functions such as WiFi, Bluetooth and the cellular modem to work.

In order to use free software to operate the WiFi, Bluetooth and a cellular modem, it was necessary to put those functions on separate chips. There weren't many choices in August 2017, when Purism started the crowdfunding for the Librem 5. The free Lima and PanFrost Gallium3D drivers for ARM's Mali GPUs were not included in Mesa until release 19.1 in May 2019, so it wasn't possible to use most of the ARM chips on the market at the time. Today it is possible to boot the Rockchip RK3399 using only free software, but it wasn't possible in 2017, and the RK3399 sucks too much power to be used in a phone. Likewise, the Broadcom BCM2837 used in the Raspberry Pi 3B also requires proprietary blobs to boot.

When the free Etnaviv driver was added to Mesa 17.0 in January 2017, it became possible to run the NXP i.MX 6 with a Vivante GPU on 100% free software, but the i.MX 6 was a very outdated processor from 2011. The i.MX 8M Quad that started volume production in January 2018 was the best SoC that Purism could find at the time.

Even today, there aren't any better options for the Librem 5 beyond the i.MX 8M Quad and the upcoming i.MX 8M Plus. The BCM2711 used in the Raspberry Pi 4B has a free driver for its VideoCore GPU, but it requires proprietary blobs to boot. The upcoming 8nm Rockchip RK3588 will have competitive performance, but it has a new Mali "Natt" GPU, that is not yet supported by the free Lima driver and it is unclear whether it can be booted without proprietary blobs.

2.11. What does the USB-C port support? Can it fast charge? Can it charge other devices?

The Librem 5's USB-C port provides USB 3.0 data, Power Delivery (PD), Battery Charging 1.2 and DisplayPort Alternative Mode (DP alt-mode). It is a dual-role port that can be used to charge other devices. Due to the power limitations of the Librem 5's 4500 mAh battery, expect that the Librem 5's ability to charge other devices will be limited. The i.MX 8M Quad's USB 3.0 bus is currently limited to speeds of 150-170 MB/s.

The Librem 5's USB-C port is based on the Texas Instruments TPS65982 USB Type-C and USB PD controller, power switch, and high-speed multiplexer, and it converts the DisplayPort 1.3 signal from the i.MX 8M Quad's DCSS interface to DisplayPort alt-mode.

The TPS65982 supports Power Delivery up to 20V x 3A (60W), but Purism developer Sebastian Krzyszkowiak reports that the Librem 5's USB-C controller is configured to negotiate at most 5V x 3A (15W), 9V x 2A (18W) or 12V x 2A (24W). The PD charger that came in the box with Birch provided up to 5Vx3A (15W), 9Vx2A (18W) and 12Vx1.5A (18W).

If the Librem 5 is in use when charging, then some of the current will be diverted to operate the Librem 5 (which can run without a battery). Krzyszkowiak commented: "in practice I doubt that it would ever draw 24W, that’s quite a lot - 10W is usually already enough to charge at full speed while the phone is in use."

Krzyszkowiak also reports that charging in the Librem 5 is currently limited to 0.5 amps, so current charging is limited to 5Vx0.5A (2.5W), 9Vx0.5A (4.5W) and 12Vx0.5A (6W), but the code to vary the amperage is waiting to be accepted upstream, so that should be solved soon.

2.12. What kind of monitors or TVs can be used with the Librem 5?

Most monitors and TVs that have a USB-C, DisplayPort or HDMI port should be able to display an external screen if connected to the Librem 5's USB-C port, but testing is needed to determine which models will work. See this list of monitors/TVs, cables and hubs, that have been tested so far.

HDMI monitors/TVs can be used with a USB-C to HDMI adapter cable or a USB-C hub with an HDMI port. DisplayPort alt-mode over USB-C has become the de facto standard, since almost no manufacturers have implemented HDMI alt-mode, so that all USB-C to HDMI cables on the market should contain an adapter to convert from DisplayPort alt-mode to HDMI. (Most cable manufacturers don't say that their USB-C to HDMI cables include a DP alt-mode to HDMI converter, but every USB-C to HDMI cable that is for sale seems to include it.)

2.13. How well will convergence work to use the Librem 5 as a desktop PC?

Convergence is the idea that multiple tasks can be "converged" into a single device. A mobile phone can be connected to an external monitor, keyboard and mouse and used as desktop PC, so it is not necessary to switch between multiple devices and all the data and software is available on a single device that can be carried anywhere.

Convergence has been tried a number of times, including the Motorola Atrix, the Microsoft Lumia, Canonical Ubuntu Touch, Samsung DeX and Huawei Easy Projection. In the past convergence generally hasn't worked well, because the software didn't match what people were accustomed to using on their PCs. In theory, the Librem 5 should provide better convergence, because it will use the same desktop Linux applications that were designed for a PC desktop, rather than a tiny touch screen on a mobile device. In contrast, convergence in the past was generally focused on either using two separate operating system and separate software for the desktop and mobile interface or taking the sparce interface of mobile software and blowing it up for a larger screen and not providing the full multi-windowed interface of a traditional PC desktop. Purism's strategy of providing convergence by using standard desktop software and downsizing it with libhandy for a mobile screen should in theory provide a richer desktop PC experience when connected to an external monitor, keyboard and mouse.

NXP delayed in implementing the Display Controller Subsystem (DCSS) video interface in the mainline drivers, so it wasn't possible to get video out until recently. On July 30, 2020, Purism developer Guido Gunther posted a video showing DisplayPort alt-mode over USB-C working on the Librem 5. Gunther reported on Sept. 8 that convergence "needs some hacks still but we're getting there" and showed a keyboard, mouse and external monitor connected to the Librem 5 through a USB-C hub. On October 8, Gunther posted that he had enabled moveable windows and the close window buttons when Phosh is in "docked" mode by being plugged into an external monitor. Plus, the Squeekboard virtual keyboard will be disabled by default in "docked" mode, although this can be re-enabled by a quick setting.

Purism recently posted this video showing the Librem 5 being used with an external monitor to run CAD software, browse the web and play Tremulous, a first person shooter based on the Quake III engine. Another recent post demonstrated that it is possible to do all the editing of a video on the Librem 5 in "docked" mode, using the Kdenlive video editor and Audacity audio editor.

While it is possible to run most normal Linux desktop software on the Librem 5, remember that the free Etnaviv driver doesn't support OpenGL 3, OpenGL ES 3 or Vulkan, which are used by many recent games. If needing to use any Windows software through WINE, keep in mind that most Windows applications are only compiled for the x86 architecture, so it is unlikely that it will run well in WINE. See the WINE on ARM page for more info. With only 3GB of RAM, it probably won't be possible to run Windows RT in a virtual machine.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Librem 5 has limited CPU and GPU performance, that is between a Raspberry Pi 3B+ and 4B, so the Librem 5's convergence should be adequate for ligher tasks, such as web browsing, email, office software and video watching, but don't expect it to perform like a PC with an Intel Core or AMD Ryzen CPU. Processing-intensive tasks like video encoding, CAD and machine learning will be very slow and 3D games will play at lower resolutions and lower refresh rates than on a normal PC.

The Librem 5 has the hardware to provide good video out. The i.MX 8M Quad processor supports DisplayPort 1.3 with a maximum of 4K video at 60fps and Guido Gunther recently confirmed that the Librem 5 can output 4K video at 60Hz over USB-C:

4K video output by the the Librem 5

Gunther explained that some cables and hubs won't be able to handle 4K video at 60Hz:

with an adapter that can use all 4 DP lane pairs we should be able to get up to 4k@60Hz, the 'regular' hubs only uses 2 lane pairs (4k@30Hz) - but my screens have way lower [resolution] so that's not tested yet.

Further testing is necessary to see which monitors are compatible, but the Librem 5 hardware and drivers are able to output 4K video.

USB 3.0 is a full-duplex standard that supports up to 625 MB/s, but the i.MX 8M Quad's USB 3.0 bus is currently limited to speeds of 150-170 MB/s. At any rate, 150 MB/s should be enough to handle 4K video. NXP's comments about this issue seem to indicate this is a software issue, so it may be fixed in the future. If not, the Librem 5 will have a USB port that is roughly 4 times as fast as the half-duplex USB 2.0 port found on most phones, which has max speeds around 40 MB/s.

Purism developer Sebastian Krzyszkowiak reports that the internal screen on the Librem 5 currently remains on when it is connected to an external monitor, but that will be fixed in the future. In response to the question whether the Librem 5's internal screen could be used as a touchpad in convergence mode, Krzyszkowiak replied:

There’s no such feature in phoc/phosh yet, but one could easily write an app that does it.

Günther recently demonstrated that he is able to use the Librem 5's screen as a touchpad while projecting on a remote screen, so this functionality will probably be included in the Librem 5.

Most phones require that the battery be present in order for the phone to function, but the Librem 5 can function without its battery and the battery can be inserted later after it has already booted. This feature is convenient, because the Librem 5 can be used in convergence mode as a PC without wearing out the battery or the phone can have a second life as a low-powered PC after its battery wears out.

For people who want to use the Librem 5 with a laptop shell, one option is to buy the Nexdock, which lists the Librem 5 as one of the phones that should be compatible. Kyle Rankin commented on the forum that Purism is testing convergence with the Nexdock 2 and "we are finishing up support for this hardware now".

2.14. What kind of microSD cards does the Librem 5 support?

The Librem 5 uses the Microchip USB2642 card controller, that supports Secure Digital (SD, FAT16 up to 2GB), SD High Capacity (SDHC, FAT32, 4-32 GB), and SD Extended Capacity (SDXC, exFAT, 64GB - 2TB) cards. In addition, the Librem 5 should be able to support the new speed standards in UHS (Ultra High Speed, Phases I, II and III) cards. However, the Librem 5 does not support SD Ultra Capacity (SDUC) cards that can have up to 128 TB and speeds up to 985 MB/s.

Here are the microSD cards that the Librem 5 should be able to support:

Standard Mode* Bus Speed Frequency Voltage
SD/SDHC/SDXC DS 12 MB/s 25 MHz 3.3V
SD/SDHC/SDXC HS 25 MB/s 50 MHz 3.3V
UHS-I SDR12 12 MB/s 25 MHz 1.8V
UHS-I SDR25 25 MB/s 50 MHz 1.8V
UHS-I SDR50 50 MB/s 100 MHz 1.8V
UHS-I SDR104 104 MB/s 208 MHz 1.8V
UHS-I DDR50 50 MB/s 50 MHz 1.8V
UHS-II FD156 156 MB/s 52 MHz x30 LVDS 0.4V
UHS-II HD312 312 MB/s 52 MHz x30 LVDS 0.4V
UHS-III FD312 312 MB/s ? LVDS 0.4V
UHS-III FD312 624 MB/s ? LVDS 0.4V

* "DS" is default speed, "HS" is high speed, "SDR" is single data rate, "DDR" is "double data rate", "HD" stands for half duplex, "FD" is full duplex, and "LVDS" is low voltage differential signaling.

The Librem 5's card controller is using a USB 2.0 bus, which is a standard with a max speed of 60 MB/s, but USB 2.0 is half-duplex, so the max read speeds should be roughly 30 to 40 MB/s. Due to the speed of its USB 2.0 bus, there is no reason to buy a microSD card for the Librem 5 that is rated at above 50 MB/s, although the Librem 5 should be able to use higher rated UHS cards since they are backward compatible. UHS-I and older cards have a 9 pin interface. In contrast, UHS-II and UHS-III cards have a 17 pin interface with a second data line, but those extra 8 pins aren't used when inserted in a device that doesn't support them, so the Librem 5 will treat UHS-II and UHS-III cards as a UHS-I card with 9 pins.

2.15. What are the Librem 5's test points (USB, UART, JTAG and boot modes)?

The Librem 5 has 20 test points, which in Chestnut were separated into one group of 15 points below the WiFi/Bluetooth card and another group of 5 USB points next to a screw hole above the battery:

Libre5_chestnut_test_points

In Dogwood, these 20 test points were consolidated into one group below the WiFi/Bluetooth card consisting of 3 rows of 7, 7 and 6 points:

Dogwood test points Dogwood test points with plastic cover

Purism has not yet published information on how to use these test points. The USB and UART test points appear to provide standard access to those interfaces, and the schematics provide some hints as to the purpose of the JTAG test points.

Section "6.1.2 Boot modes" (p. 832) of the i.MX 8M Dual/8M QuadLite/8M Quad Applications Processors Reference Manual explains how to control the different boot modes.

If BOOT_MODE0 and BOOT_MODE1 are unconnected (set to 0) on the rising edge of POR_B, then the Librem 5 will boot normally according to the fuses set on the board. If BOOT_MODE0 is connected and BOOT_MODE1 is unconnected, then the Librem 5 will boot from an image downloaded from the USB port. If BOOT_MODE0 is unconnected and BOOT_MODE1 is connected, then the Librem 5 will boot from the internal boot ROM.

Purism uses a M.2 breakout board to do its debugging. The schematics, CAD and Gerber files are free/open source for anyone who wants to make their own M.2 cards to debug the Librem 5 hardware.

2.16. Can the Librem 5 cameras save raw (uncompressed) video?

NXP says that the max video resolution that the i.MX 8M Quad can encode in software is H.264 1080p at 30fps, but many people have asked whether it would be possible to save higher resolution video in its raw (uncompressed) format and encode it later.

Since Purism is still working on enabling the image sensors, we don't yet know what kind of video they will output. However, saving raw (uncompressed) video should be possible, depending on where it is stored.

The microSD card uses a USB 2.0 bus, which limits its speed to 60 MB/s half duplex, which means that the max speed that it can save raw video is probably 40 MB/s or less. Kioxia does not publish a spec sheet for the 32GB eMMC 5.1 Flash memory used in the Librem 5, but it can probably store data at about 400 MB/s. The image sensors in the Librem 5 use the i.MX 8M Quad's MIPI CSI2 interface, which is 4 lines and 1.5 Gbps. It is unclear from the data sheet whether that is 4 lanes times 1.5 Gbps, so a total of 768 MB/s, or 4 lanes which together are 1.5 Gbps, so a total of 192 MB/s.

Another option is to store the raw video files on another device. The USB 3.0 bus provided by the i.MX 8M Quad processor currently has a bug limiting its max speed to 150-170 MB/s. Thus, an external drive connected to the USB-C port will probably be limited to 150-170 MB/s or less. If transferring the raw files to another device via WiFi, the RS9116 on the Librem 5 is limited to 801.11n, which has a maximum speed to 75 MB/s, but the real world speed is likely to be much lower.

Raw video is usually stored in either 8-bit 4:2:0 format (which stores 1.5 bytes per pixel) or 10-bit 4:2:2 format (which stores 2.5 bytes per pixel). The following table lists the resolution and frame rate of raw video and how much data needs to stored per second.

Resolution Frames per second Format Megabytes per second
VGA 480 x 640 (3:4) 60 8-bit 4:2:0 26.37
VGA 480 x 640 (3:4) 60 10-bit 4:2:2 43.95
XGA 768 x 1024 (3:4) 30 8-bit 4:2:0 33.75
XGA 768 x 1024 (3:4) 30 10-bit 4:2:2 56.25
XGA 768 x 1024 (3:4) 60 8-bit 4:2:0 67.50
XGA 768 x 1024 (3:4) 60 10-bit 4:2:2 112.50
WXGA 720 x 1280 (9:16) 30 8-bit 4:2:0 39.55
WXGA 720 x 1280 (9:16) 30 10-bit 4:2:2 65.92
WXGA 720 x 1280 (9:16) 60 8-bit 4:2:0 79.10
WXGA 720 x 1280 (9:16) 60 10-bit 4:2:2 131.84
FHD 1080 x 1920 (9:16) 30 8-bit 4:2:0 88.99
FHD 1080 x 1920 (9:16) 30 10-bit 4:2:2 148.32
FHD 1080 x 1920 (9:16) 60 8-bit 4:2:0 177.98
FHD 1080 x 1920 (9:16) 60 10-bit 4:2:2 296.63
QHD 1440 x 2560 (9:16) 30 8-bit 4:2:0 158.20
QHD 1440 x 2560 (9:16) 30 10-bit 4:2:2 263.67
QHD 1440 x 2560 (9:16) 60 8-bit 4:2:0 316.41
QHD 1440 x 2560 (9:16) 60 10-bit 4:2:2 527.34

Probably the best raw video that can be stored to a microSD card is VGA 8-bit at 60fps or XGA 8-bit at 30fps. If storing to the internal Flash memory, then it may be possible to store 1080p 8-bit at 60fps or QHD 8-bit at 30 fps, but it will have to be tested.

3. Software and OS

3.1. What apps will be available for the Librem 5?

Phosh supports GTK, Qt, QML and web apps, which can be downloaded through the PureOS Store. Purism will only offer apps in the PureOS store which are free/open source software and is planning to implement a set of badges to indicate freedom, privacy, security and ethical design in the apps.

Evergreen is currently shipping with the following apps preinstalled:

See the list of mobile apps that are already included in PureOS. This list indicates how well the apps are adapted to run in Phosh. In addition, see the list of mobile apps that are being considered for inclusion in PureOS. The Community Wiki also maintains a list of mobile apps.

It is also possible to install all the standard desktop Linux applications in the Librem 5 by using the sudo apt install package command in a terminal, but the software has not been adapted for a mobile interface, so it will likely be difficult to use. Poeple who need to use desktop applications such as LibreOffice on the Librem 5's 5.7" screen may want to buy a third-party stylus, which is more precise than blunt fingers.

In addition, Android apps can be installed inside Anbox, but Purism probably won't have an app store for Android apps, so it will probably recommend using the F-Droid repository which has free/open source Android apps. See the instructions for installing Anbox.

Purism has added a Fund Your App program for people to vote on which apps they would like to be added and donate to their development. There is also an option to only have the phone shipped to you when the apps you select are supported in the Librem 5.

3.2. Why buy the Librem 5 when there are no apps for it?

Although the number of available mobile apps in the PureOS Store is currently small, their number will quickly grow in the future. Because Phosh supports GTK, Qt, QML and web apps, it is possible to adapt many of the apps that were developed for other mobile interfaces such as Ubuntu Touch, KDE Plasma Mobile and Sailfish OS to run inside Phosh.

Many web services, that are offered in the form of Android and iOS apps, are also available as web pages in a web browser. Any web site can set to be a "web app" that appears as a normal app on the Phosh desktop. When the user touches its icon, it will open the web site as if it were a normal mobile app. Web apps make it possible to access many proprietary services such as banking, ride sharing and social media on the Librem 5.

There is are a huge number of existing desktop Linux applications that can be adapted to run inside Phosh. By adding libhandy classes to GTK applications or Kirigami classes to Qt applications, desktop software can be transformed into mobile software. Unlike most mobile apps on Android and iOS, these applications were not written to monetize users' personal data or extract fees from users, and their code is free/open source, so it can be verified that they aren't spyware or contain code that acts against the best interest of their users.

People often question how mobile Linux will compete and attract developers to the platform, when there is less opportunity to monetize their apps. Purism will allow free/open source software in the PureOS Store which has its own ways to be monetized (through donations, charging for services, etc), but the PureOS Store won't provide the charging mechanism so the app creators will have to implement that on their own. If an app collects users' personal data, it will be clearly labeled with a badge to inform the user, so that will actively discourage that kind of monetization. At any rate, users of Linux expect that the software which they install will not collect their personal data to monetize it through targeted advertising and they won't be forced to view advertising in order to use the software. Spyware and adware are unlikely to enjoy much success, because most people are buying the Librem 5 to avoid that kind of software, and a clear labeling system will make it easy to avoid. Unlike iPhone users, Linux users don't expect to be charged a fee to install software, so the opportunities for monetization are much smaller in mobile Linux.

On the other hand, mobile Linux doesn't need to attract millions of developers like Android and iOS in order to succeed as a platform. Although mobile Linux will never have 2.7 million apps like the Google Play Store or 1.8 million apps like the Apple Store, the vast majority of the apps in those repositories are unnecessary and don't add much practical utility for users. A lot of the apps are spyware, adware, designed to extract fees, or duplicates of existing apps, that wouldn't exist in the free software world, because developers are encouraged to join existing projects and share code and libraries, rather than recreating code from scratch.

Because developers rarely start from scratch in the free software world, it requires much less new code development to create an app. By forking from a well developed codebase and by using common libraries that many people help to maintain, it is possible to do more with much less labor, so fewer developers are needed and they are starting from codebases that are already debugged and well maintained. The users can be counted on to package the software for distros, report bugs, fix bugs, write documentation and provide tech support for other users, so the developers can focus on just developing the code. Free/open licenses provide a framework for competing companies who need the software to collaborate to help create it, so there are more possibilities for corporate support as mobile Linux grows as a platform.

3.3. How can I check the progress of the Librem 5's software development?

To download the most recent image of the Librem 5 software and run it inside a Qemu virtual machine on your x86 PC, follow the instructions on this page for your operating system (Linux or Windows):
https://developer.puri.sm/Librem5/Development_Environment/Boards/qemu.html

In the Image Build page, look for an image that has a description like "current qemu-x86_64 buster+ci image", and then download its qemu-x86_64.qcow2 file.

If running a distro in the Debian family (PureOS, Ubuntu, Mint, etc.), the terminal commands would be:

sudo apt install qemu
wget https://arm01.puri.sm/job/Images/job/Image%20Build/5873/artifact/qemu-x86_64.qcow2
sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -boot menu=on -drive file=qemu-x86_64.qcow2,format=qcow2 -vga virtio -display gtk -m 2G -enable-kvm

Note that Qemu will run much faster if Intel VT-x or AMD-V is enabled in the BIOS or UEFI of your PC.

To see what is getting worked on, go to https://source.puri.sm/groups/Librem5/-/activity and see what is the recent activity.

To see how Purism is advancing on the critical issues such as kernel support for the MIPI CSI2 interface used by the cameras or suspend to RAM, go to https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/linux-next/-/issues and search for particular issues.

3.4. How can I translate the software on the Librem 5?

Although the documentation says that translations are handled via the GNOME Translation Project using GNOME infrastructure, that currently doesn't work. If you submit translations at https://l10n.gnome.org/module/phosh/, https://l10n.gnome.org/module/calls/ and https://l10n.gnome.org/module/chats, they will be ignored.

First, go to https://source.puri.sm/users/sign_in and click on the "Register" tab to create an account. Your request for an account will have to be manually approved.

To translate the software created by Purism (Phosh, Calls and Chatty), go to these directories and download the PO (portable object) file for your language:

The .po files are labeled according to their ISO 639-1 language code, so ja.po is the Japonese translation file. If a language can vary between countries, then the filename will also include the ISO 3166 code for the country in upper case, so pt_BR.po is the Brazilian Portuguese translation.

If you don't see a translation file for your country, then download the .po file for another language and and rename its filename to the ISO code for the language that you want to translate.

Then, open it with a plain text editor with syntax highlighting (like Geany) and change the information in the header so it includes your name, your email and language code:

# Daniel Mustieles <daniel.mustieles@gmail.com>, 2020.
#
msgid ""
msgstr ""
"Project-Id-Version: phosh\n"
"Report-Msgid-Bugs-To: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/phosh/issues\n"
"POT-Creation-Date: 2020-07-25 15:29+0000\n"
"PO-Revision-Date: 2020-07-27 08:32+0200\n"
"Last-Translator: Daniel Mustieles <daniel.mustieles@gmail.com>\n"
"Language-Team: Spanish - Spain <gnome-es-list@gnome.org>\n"
"Language: es_ES\n"
"MIME-Version: 1.0\n"
"Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8\n"
"Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"
"X-Generator: Gtranslator 3.36.0\n"
"Plural-Forms: nplurals=2; plural=(n != 1);\n"

Then translate each of the phrases in the rest of the file:

#: data/sm.puri.Phosh.desktop.in.in:4
msgid "Phone Shell"
msgstr "Interfaz de teléfono"

Insert the translation inside the msgstr "add translation here" part and don't change the msgid. Make sure to enclose the translated phrase inside double quotation marks which are not slanted (use " ", not “ ”).

A plain text editor with syntax highlighting will help you remember to end translations with closing quotation marks. Another option is to use PoEdit, GTranslator, Lokalize or PO Mode in Emacs, so that you can avoid worrying about enclosing translations in quotations marks, plus they provide translation memory and error checking.

If needing to use multiple lines to translate a phrase, then set the first line of the msgstr to "" (an empty string) and use the following lines to add the translation:

#: src/chatty-window.c:105 
msgid ""
"Select an <b>SMS</b> or <b>Instant Message</b> contact with the <b>\"+\"</b> "
"button in the titlebar."
msgstr ""
"Vælg en <b>SMS</b>- eller <b>Straksbesked</b>-kontakt med <b>\"+\"</b>-"
"knappen på titellinjen."

If a variable will be inserted inside a phrase, the header will usually have a flag, such as #, c-format or #, python-format to indicate that the phrase contains elements of a programming language. In a C-style language, a %s or %d in the msgid means that a string or decimal number will be inserted, so make sure that your translation also contains a corresponding %s or %d. Some languages such as Python and Rust can use numbered variables or named variables, such as {2} or {lastname}. Languages such as BASIC and PHP use a $ sign to designate variables, such as $token and $_Last5Callers.

#: src/network-auth-prompt.c:184
#, c-format
msgid "Authentication type of wifi network “%s” not supported"
msgstr "Tipo de autenticación «%s» de red inalámbrica no soportado"

If unsure how to translate a phrase, then it can be marked with the #, fuzzy flag to indicate to other translators that they should check your translation. This flag is also used to indicate that the original phase has been changed in the code. In addition, a translator's comment can be added in the header for later translators:

# Maybe better to specify 'red WiFi', because 'red inalámbrica' could be Bluetooth  
#: src/network-auth-prompt.c:184
#, c-format
#, fuzzy
msgid "Authentication type of wifi network “%s” not supported"
msgstr "Tipo de autenticación «%s» de red inalámbrica no soportado"

When done translating, then go to the following URL's and click on "New Issue" for each project that you translated:

Ask that the translated file be added to the code and add the translated .po file as an attachment to the issue report. After it is submitted, one of the developers should add your file to the code's /po/ directory.

The other way to add your translation is to commit it through git, but that is more complicated. See this post for more info.

For more information on translating the Librem 5's software and creating localized keyboards for Squeekboard, see this thread in the forum, and this post by JR-Fi in particular.

3.5. What languages does Squeekboard support and does it have a full keyboard?

Squeekboard is based on the Eekboard virtual keyboard which is being adapted from C to Rust by Dorota Czaplejewicz, so it "squeeks".

To see which keyboard layout are currently available, go to:
https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/squeekboard/-/tree/master/data/keyboards

Some languages have different layouts when the screen is turned horizontally which are designated as "wide". At the time of this writing the following layouts are available:

Belgian (be and be_wide), Brazilian Portuguese (br), German (de), Danish (dk), emoji, Spanish (es), Finnish (fi), French (fr and fr_wide), Greek (gk), Italian (it), Friulian (it+fur), Japanese (jp+kana and jp+kana_wide), Norwegian (no), Numbers, Polish (pl and pl_wide), Russian (ru), Swedish (se), terminal (terminal and terminal_wide), Ucranian (ua) and American English (us and us_wide).

According to Czaplejewicz, the user can now select the keyboard layout:

There’s now also a way to open input method settings. Click the globe and then “settings”. Then you add new input languages to your system, and they will show up in Squeekboard. Choose one by clicking the globe button, they will all be on the list.

The keyboard layouts are defined using simple YAML files. See this documentation for adding new keyboards to Squeekboard or editing existing ones. To commit your keyboard's YAML file through git, see this post for more info.

Squeekboard recently added a full keyboard, similar to Hacker's Keyboard in Android, with all the Ctrl, Alt, arrow and function keys:

Squeekboard with letters Squeekboard with function keys

Squeekboard currently has haptic feedback, but it does not yet have the ability to select alternative characters through long presses like most Android keyboards and it doesn't have yet have spell-checking and auto-complete suggestions for words. To follow its development, see this forum topic.

3.6. How is the porting of Ubuntu Touch to the Librem 5 progressing?

Purism and UBports announced in April 2018 that they would be collaborating to port Ubuntu Touch to the Librem 5. Unfortunately this announced collaboration has not yet resulted in much porting work.

Purism sent out Librem 5 DevKits in early 2019 to the GNOME and KDE communities, but UBports didn’t get two DevKits until mid-July 2019 due to poor communication. When communication was re-established, Purism didn't have any extra DevKits left, so it had to fix some broken units to send to UBports, which took a while.

When the DevKits were received, UBport’s Florian Leeber commented that UBports had a “small team”, so they would prioritize porting to the PinePhone first, before working on the Librem 5:

We are a small team now and it took a long time for these DevKits to arrive in our place, and currently we have assigned the resources in a little bit different way, so we will not immediately jump on the Librem boards and start working with them, because there is already a lot of progress in the Pine64 kits, and basically it is a similar thing, so when we have finished a few things for Pine64, and those things can be taken over to the Purism DevKit, and it should work out nicely more or less.

UBports reported in October 2019 that it had managed to get a basic Ubuntu Touch image running on the Librem 5 DevKit, but wrote that “we can not commit to more development on the platform until we have a final device.”

When Purism sent an email to its contact at UBports to get the Birch batch of the Librem 5, the contact didn’t respond because he had left the UBports project. Purism was finally able to deliver a Librem 5 to UBports at FOSDEM on February 1-2, 2020. Purism developer Sebastian Krzyszkowiak commented on Reddit:

We tried to get [the Librem 5] to them much earlier, but weren’t getting any reply when trying to contact them (turned out that our point of contact wasn’t active at UBports anymore and mails were effectively going into /dev/null…).

Also, they had devkits for a while as well, and when it comes to software support they’re very similar (if your OS works on the devkit, all you need is some finishing touches to make it work on the phone as well).

UBports has done little work on the Librem 5 so far. There are only 5 commits in its codebase related to the “Librem”, and the last one was on Nov. 3, 2019. The UBports community decided to prioritize porting to the PinePhone and PineTab over the Librem 5. This was an understandable decision considering that the PinePhone reached mass production earlier than the Librem 5, and PINE64 is paying UBports $10 for each device it sells with Ubuntu Touch preinstalled. UBports earned between $40k and $45k on the sale of the PinePhone Community Edition: UBports, and can expect a sizable sum from the sale of the upcoming PineTab as well.

Hopefully, the work that the UBports community is currently dedicating to the PinePhone will be able to be easily transfered over to the Librem 5, and the port will come quickly when the UBports community has the time and the volunteers to start working again on the Librem 5.

3.7. How is the porting of postmarketOS to the Librem 5 progressing?

PostmarketOS developer Clayton Craft (craftyguy) has been working on porting postmarketOS to the Librem 5. He has received a Birch and Dogwood from Purism to help him in his efforts.

The postmarketOS wiki currently shows that everything but the cameras are now supported in postmarketOS, although the support for cellular calls is partial. The buttons to mute and use the speaker phone are not working while making phone calls. A patch is required to get ModemManager to work reliably.

To check how the work is progressing, see the Librem 5 page in the postmarketOS wiki and look at the list of open issues for the Librem 5 in the postmarketOS bug tracker.

Craft wrote an article about porting postmarketOS to the Librem 5. When asked if it will be possible to use all the postmarketOS interfaces (KDE Plasma Mobile, Phosh, i3wm, Kodi, Mate, Sway and Xfce4) with the Librem 5, postmarketOS developer Bart Ribbers responded: "Yup, that will be possible!"

3.8. How is the porting of Plasma Mobile to the Librem 5 progressing?

Most apps which are developed for KDE Plasma Mobile should be able to run inside Phosh, which supports Qt5, QtQuick and Kirigami. For more information, see Developing for Plasma Mobile.

As for running Plasma Moabile on the Librem 5, Purism did some work in 2018 and 2019 to enable Plasma Mobile to run in PureOS, and posted documentation on how to install it on the DevKit, which is now out-of-date.

Work on Plasma Mobile is currently on hold because PureOS is based on Debian "buster," which is too old to support Plasma Mobile, but Purism is currently in the process of transitioning to newer Debian "bullseye," which should be able to support Plasma Mobile.

When asked about running Plasma Mobile on the Librem 5, Purism developer Sebastian Krzyszkowiak replied:

No Plasma Mobile on PureOS right now, sorry - Debian Buster (which is what PureOS Amber is based on) is simply a too old base to reasonably support Plasma Mobile.

I do hope that we’ll be able to offer Plasma Mobile with the switch to Byzantium though (the next release based on Debian Bullseye). Meanwhile, you can use other distros that already include PlaMo on your Librem 5, such as postmarketOS.

Installing postmarketOS with Plasma Mobile is still a work in progress. For more info, see How is the porting of postmarketOS to the Librem 5 progressing?

3.9. Will the Librem 5 get proprietary firmware updates?

Some people have questioned whether Respects Your Freedom certification will allow the Librem 5 to receive proprietary firmware updates (1 2 3 4). The criteria for the RYF certification state:

However, there is one exception for secondary embedded processors. The exception applies to software delivered inside auxiliary and low-level processors and FPGAs, within which software installation is not intended after the user obtains the product. This can include, for instance, microcode inside a processor, firmware built into an I/O device, or the gate pattern of an FPGA. The software in such secondary processors does not count as product software.

The question is how to interpret "software installation is not intended after the user obtains the product," because "not intended" is not necessarily the same as "not allowed". The intention of the manufacturer may be that the firmware doesn’t need to be upgraded after sale in order for the device to function, but something unexpected like a security hole or a bug may be discovered in the future that wasn’t intended.

Community member Amos Batto wrote emails twice to the FSF asking for clarification about whether RYF certification allows proprietary firmware updates, and the FSF never responded.

However, Purism Chief Security Officer Kyle Rankin responded to provide Purism's interpretation of the RYF criteria:

RYF is clear that any software that can be updated using the CPU must be free software. Our (Purism’s) interpretation is that it does not force a requirement that firmware cannot be upgraded out-of-band from the CPU, or external to regular software updates.

We designed the Librem 5 based on RYF requirements, believe we comply fully, and are in the process of getting certification. In addition to that requirement we also believe a user should have freedom over their hardware similar to Freedom 0 (that one should be able to use free software for any purpose). As applied to hardware this means that we do not institute any kind of write-lock or burnt fuses that would prevent the owner of the hardware from reflashing it with whatever firmware (new or otherwise) they choose.

This is significant because burning fuses on firmware is sometimes used as a security control, so attackers can’t overwrite it with malicious software. Yet it also is often used as a control to prevent legitimate users from “rooting” their devices and installing third-party firmware or software of their choice. In fact I’d argue many companies are using the security control more as marketing cover when the real reason behind burnt fuses is to give the vendor tighter control over the hardware at the expense of user freedom.

Beyond that, preventing out-of-band reflashing of firmware would also prevent us from offering a free software alternative to the proprietary firmware to be reflashed later on if we were able to develop it in the future. This isn’t far-fetched either, as we have done exactly this with coreboot and PureBoot firmware on our laptops.

As Rankin's response indicates, Purism intends to provide firmware updates for the Librem 5. Purism has posted instructions in its Developer Documentation on how to flash the firmware for the Redpine Signals RS9116 WiFi/Bluetooth.

3.10. Why did Purism decide to create the new Phosh interface?

Purism has been criticized for deciding to create a new mobile interface, called "Phosh", which comes from the words "phone shell" and is based on Wayland + wlroots + GTK + GNOME middleware. Many in the Linux community believe that Purism should have used one of the existing mobile Linux interfaces, such as KDE's Plasma Mobile, UBports's Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish OS's Silica, Firefox OS's Gaia, Nemo Mobile's Glacier, Tizen, Maemo Leste's Hilden or LuneOS's Luna Next.

All of the available options, however, had critical drawbacks. Sailfish OS and Tizen contain proprietary components that would have prevented Respects Your Freedom certification. KDE Plasma Mobile and Nemo Mobile were not complete and would have required a lot of work on Purism's part to get them ready. Ubuntu Touch and LuneOS were complete, but they were being maintained by a tiny volunteer community and it would cost Purism a great deal to maintain their codebases in the future. Hilden is based on GTK 2 and is hopelessly outdated, and Firefox OS has no maintainers.

The critical problem with all these systems is that they are based on separate mobile stacks. Sailfish OS and Nemo Mobile are based on the Mer Project, which took over all the FOSS parts from Nokia's and Intel’s abandoned MeeGo. Ubuntu Touch, KDE Plasma Mobile and LuneOS are based on the Halium mobile stack. These mobile systems use software such as oFono telephony and libhybris to use Linux on top of Android kernels, which isn't part of the standard desktop Linux stack and they would be difficult to integrate into the existing desktop Linux distros. One of goals of the Librem 5 is being able to run on all the standard Linux distros such as Debian, Fedora and Arch.

Another goal of the Librem 5 is avoiding planned obsolescence by being able to offer lifetime software updates, but that would be difficult if Purism had to expend a lot of resources helping to maintain a mobile desktop environment and a separate mobile stack in the future. Plasma Mobile, Ubuntu Touch and Halium don't have many corporate sponsors to help pay for development, aside from tiny companies like Jolla and Blue Systems, whereas the development of GTK and GNOME is backed by IBM/Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical and Google.

Purism created its new Phosh mobile interface as a thin overlay on top of the existing Wayland/GTK/GNOME desktop stack, and created the libhandy library with classes that can be added to existing GTK/GNOME desktop applications so their interfaces can adapt to smaller mobile screens. By using an existing desktop codebase which is well maintained and guaranteed to keep receiving updates and by upstreaming its code changes to parent projects such as Linux, wlroots, GTK and GNOME applications, Purism believes that it can reduce its long-term maintenance costs and be able to offer lifetime software updates for the Librem 5.

The downside to Purism's plan was that it involved a lot of development work in the short term to create the Phoc compositor, the Phosh mobile shell, libhandy adaptive classes, feedbackd haptics, the Squeekboard virtual keyboard, Calls phone app, Chatty messaging app, haegtesse to pass audio between the modem and PulseAudio, and wys to start/stop PulseAudio loopbacks for phone call audio. Purism initially thought that it would be possible to create Phosh in just 6 months, but it has taken much longer. The software development of Phosh has been one of many factors that have caused delays in the Librem 5 and it has put a financial strain on the company.

On the other hand, Purism's strategy appears to be working. Because Phosh is designed to just be a thin overlay on top of GTK/GNOME, Purism has managed to create it with just a handful of programmers. Guido Gunther single-handedly wrote most of the code for Phoc and Phosh. Adrien Plazas developed most of libhandy and Dorota Czaplejewicz works alone on Squeekboard. By adapting existing GTK desktop software with libhandy, Purism has been able to quickly add mobile apps.

Because Phosh is tightly integrated with the existing GTK/GNOME stack, Phosh has been easy to adopt and it has already been incorporated into the Fedora, openSUSE, Arch, Manjaro and Debian distros. Eight of the sixteen Linux ports for the PinePhone now offer Phosh and it is the preferred interface on 7 out of those 8. A recent poll of PinePhone users found that half are now using Phosh.

PinePhone_Interface_Used

When asked why about their favorite interface on the PinePhone forum, user "RTP" responded:

I do really like Phosh and have switched between Mobian/Manjaro/PureOS mostly.

What I like about Phosh: Battery life and simplicity of using the Phosh interface is nice. Apps are easily navigated without much needed from the user (open apps show at top while looking through your app icons, instead of swiping around). You can always see what you are working with as you view your app icons. It just works.

Likewise, user "bcnaz" wrote:

Mobian/Phosh just "feels good" to me - IT feels intuitive for my mindset
Looks organized like I think I would have done it myself.
Good battery life is a good bonus feature.
I am glad it is not everyones favorite, so we are not all alike.
It fills all of my needs and wants.

Developers of postmarketOS and Mobian are now contributing upstream to Phosh. As more distros adopt Phosh, it is likely to attract more outside developers to the platform. Libhandy, Calls and Chats (i.e. Chatty) have been accepted as GNOME projects, and the goal is to get Libhandy incorporated into GTK 4, so Purism will likely get some outside help in maintaining its code in the future. Most of Phosh's apps and its infrastructure are provided by the larger GTK/GNOME community that will keep updating the code, unlike the codebase in UBports, LuneOS, Maemo Leste and Firefox OS, which is largely siloed.

For more info, see the article, "The strategic advantages of Phosh for mobile Linux".

3.11. How can Purism provide lifetime software updates for the Librem 5?

Purism has made an unprecedented promise that the Librem 5 will get lifetime software updates. Some people have expressed skepticism that Purism can fulfill this promise, but Purism has designed the Librem 5 and its software stack in ways that will make it much easier and more economical for Purism to provide future software updates.

The integrated mobile system on a chip (SoC) used in most mobile phones, like the Snapdragon, Exynos, Helios, Tiger/SCxxxx, Kirin and Surge, are only produced for 1 - 2 years and only receive firmware and driver updates from the manufacturer for 2.5 - 3.5 years. Once the chip manufacturer stops supporting a mobile SoC, it is difficult for the phone maker to keep providing software updates, and most of the mobile industry runs on planned obsolescence to generate more sales, so there is little economic incentive for phone makers support old hardware.

Even when the maker of an Android phone wants to keep providing software updates, the mobile industry often prevents it. Fairphone had the goal of providing at least 5 years of software updates for the Fairphone 2 which contains a Snapdragon 801 processor. None of the Android phones with the Snapdragon 800/801 that were released in 2013-4 got upgraded to Android 7 (Nougat) in 2016-7, because Qualcomm decided that it wouldn’t release updated graphics drivers for the Snapdragon 800/801 because it was too old. Others say that the reason the Snapdragon 800/801 couldn’t be officially upgraded to Nougat is because it lacked hardware AES encryption and full disk encryption was mandated by Nougat’s Android Compatibility Definition Document (CDD) and it couldn’t pass the encryption speed requirements of the Android Compatibility Test Suite (CTS). Because Fairphone needs to provide its users with access to the Google Play Store and Google Web Services (such as Google Maps), it can only provide upgrades to Android that meet Google's standards.

In order to obey Google’s onerous CDD rules and pass its CTS, Fairphone had to spend €500,000 to switch from Qualcomm’s unsupported Snapdragon 801 drivers to community-developed free/open source drivers. In November 2018, the Fairphone 2 became the only Snapdragon 800/801 phone to officially receive a Nougat upgrade, but it has never officially been upgraded since and is still stuck at Android 7.1, which is now 4 years out of date and still using Linux kernel 3.4.0, which was released in May 2012.

In contrast, the ability of Purism to upgrade the Librem 5's operating system is not dictated by any other company, because it runs on 100% free software, so Purism doesn't depend on the arbitrary whims of Qualcomm or Google. Of course, the Librem 5 does rely on proprietary firmware found in components such as the CPU/GPU, WiFi/Bluetooth, cellular modem, GNSS, etc. The Librem 5 uses 6 separate chips instead of a single integrated SoC, and those individual chips will be supported for much longer. For example, NXP promises to produce the i.MX 8M Quad till January 2018 and produce the i.MX 8M Plus for 15 years, which means that the Librem 5 should get at least a decade of proprietary firmware updates for its CPU/GPU/VPU, which is unmatched longevity in the mobile industry. Purism has indicated that it plans to provide firmware updates, which are important for security reasons.

Because all the drivers used by the Librem 5 are free/open source, the community can maintain them and keep updating them to be compatible with new Linux kernels. As long as the community cares about the hardware, it will maintain the drivers, as shown by the fact that the Linux kernel still contains drivers for the Intel 80486 which was released in 1989. In addition, NXP and Redpine Signals contribute to the drivers for their chips in mainline Linux, so their updates can be easily used by the Librem 5.

Purism designed Phosh to be a thin overlay on top of a Linux + Wayland + wlroots + GTK + GNOME middleware stack, so it can be easily incorporated into existing distros. Phosh is already included in Debian, Arch, Manjaro, Fedora, openSUSE, postmarketOS, Mobian, NixOS and PinePhone's PureOS fork. Libhandy, Calls and Chats (i.e. Chatty) have been included as official GNOME projects. Half of PinePhone users report using Phosh and postmarketOS and Mobian developers already commit upstream to Phosh. As mobile Linux grows, Purism can expect to receive more outside help in maintaining its software.

Purism created the libhandy library so that it could adapt the interface of existing GTK/GNOME desktop software to work in a mobile environment. Because Purism chose to adapt existing desktop GTK/GNOME software, rather than making new mobile apps, it can count on the developers of those desktop applications to keep providing software updates in the future. Because Purism is upstreaming many of its code changes to these desktop applications, it should be able to use their future versions inside Phosh with little or no modification.

Unlike other mobile desktop environments (Ubuntu Touch, KDE Plasma Mobile, LuneOS and Sailfish OS) which rely on mobile stacks such as Halium and Mer Project, PureOS/Phosh is based on using an existing desktop software stack which is well maintained and has a lot of corporate support from IBM/Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical and Google, so it can count on future software updates.

Even if Purism fails as a company, there is good reason to expect that the community will be able to keep providing software updates, as has happened with the Maemo community supporting the Nokia N900 for over a decade. The communities at UBports and LuneOS took over maintenance of Ubuntu Touch and WebOS after Canonical and HP/LG abandoned them. Because Purism has worked to get the hardware in the Librem 5 supported by mainline Linux and to easily integrate with the existing Wayland/wlroots/GTK/GNOME stack, it should be much easier for a community of volunteers to keep providing updates. When new versions are these parent projects are released, it should not be nearly as much work to integrate the new versions into PureOS/Phosh as with other mobile desktop environments.

3.12. Does the Librem 5 provide hardware acceleration?

The speed of the Librem 5's software can be improved by using hardware acceleration from the graphics processing unit (GPU). Apps which use OpenGL, OpenGL ES and QtQuick have hardware acceleration.

GTK3, which is the graphical toolkit used by Phosh and most of the default apps in the Librem 5, doesn't support hardware acceleration, but it is expected to be supported in GTK 40, which is scheduled to be released in March 2021. Purism developer Sebastian Krzyszkowiak commented in May 2020:

[Open]GL apps are fast and snappy, but most GTK3 apps are slower because they render everything in software. Things should massively improve once we switch to GTK4 and make it work well with mobile GPUs.

Chromium in the standard PureOS/Debian repository already has hardware acceleration enabled, as shown by this video, but Chromium doesn't yet have hardware acceleration for the video.

Purism developer Alexander Mikhaylenko recently repackaged Epiphany (GNOME Web), which is the default pre-installed web browser on the Librem 5, to enable hardware acceleration and that has significantly improved the interface speed of web browsing as shown in this video:

Comparing Epiphany with and without hardware acceleration

According to Sebastian Krzyszkowiak, hardware acceleration is turned off by default in Firefox. Hardware acceleration can be enabled using the old OpenGL compositor, but it won't work with Firefox's WebRender, because it doesn't yet play nicely with the free Etnaviv GPU driver.

3.13. How does Fund Your App prioritize application development?

In order to determine which apps have more demand from the community, Purism created the Fund Your App program so that people can vote on which apps should be prioritized to be able to run on the Librem 5:

we know that there is probably at least one “killer app” or feature you depend on right now that isn’t yet on the Librem 5. The challenge is that everyone has a different killer app! We want to focus our next efforts where they will help the most people transition the Librem 5 into their daily driver, so today we are announcing the “Fund Your App” campaign which will give you an opportunity to vote with your dollar and fund the areas you’d like us to advance.

When asked about how Purism will prioritize the developmemt of apps, Purism CEO Todd Weaver stated on Matrix:

Funds are donated, the list is prioritized based on votes (not dollars), the list gets worked on in the order of priority until fully satisfied. So it is only a question of when the application will get released not if it will. Purism continues to fund app development as part of its business model and will continue to do so even if one app got $5 in donation and one vote. Additionally community development will also be funded or assisted in funding by Purism, since the more applications the run on the Librem 5 the better for all.

From Weaver's statement, Purism will prioritize the developmemt of apps based on the number of votes and not the amount of donations each app receives.

3.14. How are Android apps installed in the Librem 5?

In order to install Android apps in PureOS, first install Anbox, which runs the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) inside a LXC container.

Purism developer Sebastian Krzyszkowiak explained how to install Anbox:

While Anbox isn't yet in the regular repos, you can download the latest deb from CI artifacts at https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/debs/anbox (job package-debian-buster:arm64). Install that and then all you need is to put an android.img image into /var/lib/anbox directory (you can build one yourself with https://source.puri.sm/sebastian.krzyszkowiak/anbox-image-builder/) and after sudo systemctl restart anbox-container-manager (or a reboot) you're done.

To get the .deb file, go to https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/debs/anbox and click on the download icon and then click on "package-debian-buster:arm64" option in the dropdown menu:

DownloadAnboxDeb

In the Librem 5, decompress the artifacts.zip file that was downloaded and install the two .deb files in the debian/output directory:

unzip artifacts.zip
cd debian/output
sudo dpkg -i anbox*

Then, install software to build the Android image:
sudo apt install docker.io squashfs-tools gcc

Then, download Krzyszkowiak's anbox-image-builder script:
git clone https://source.puri.sm/sebastian.krzyszkowiak/anbox-image-builder.git

Then, run the script:

cd anbox-image-builder
./build.sh --sudo
./assemble.sh

Then, put the android.img file into /var/lib/anbox/android.img on your phone and reboot.

4. Privacy and Security

4.1. What components do the hardware kill switches turn off?

Normal software switches can be changed in the software, which opens up privacy and security concerns. In November 2018, Fox News reported that Android was collecting geolocation data, even when Airplane Mode was enabled, and then sending the geolocation data to Google servers when internet was restored to the phone.

Hardware kill switches are electrical circuits which can't be changed in the software. They are designed to either send a signal to a pin on a chip that turns on/off the chip or they actually cut the circuit so no electricity is flowing to the component. The Librem 5 has three hardware kill switches and page 10 of the schematics can be checked to see what each switch does.

Kill_Switches_Librem_5

The top switch (SW7 -> 4G_POWER_KEY) turns on/off the cellular modem (BM818 or PLS8). The middle switch (SW3 -> WIFI_POWER_KEY) turns on/off the WiFi/Bluetooth (Redpine Signals RS9116). The bottom switch (SW5 -> CAMERA_POWER_KEY and AUDIO_POWER_KEY) turns off the two cameras and the microphone in the 3.5mm audio jack.

Turning off all three of the switches at the same time activates Lockdown Mode (3SW_KILL) which turns off everything, including the ST Teseo-LIV3F GNSS, ST LSM9DS1 9-axis gyrometer, accelerometer & magnetometer, and Vishay VCNL4040 proximity & ambient light sensor.

In addition, Purism plans to provide software switches to turn off individual components, so it will be possible to turn off the GNSS, while using the cellular modem or WiFi.

To turn off components in the software, the following commands can be used in a terminal:

#Disable WiFi/Bluetooth
echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/class/leds/wifi_en/brightness
    
#Disable cellular modem
echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/class/leds/wwan_en/brightness
 
#Disable CPU cores
sudo echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online
sudo echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu2/online
sudo echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu3/online

4.2. Why are there only three hardware kill switches?

When asked why the Librem 5 didn't include more than 3 kill switches (like the PinePhone), Chief Security Office Kyle Rankin responded:

We limited the Librem 5 to three physical kill switches primarily for usability reasons. Once you get past three kill switches it starts being more and more difficult to keep track of which switch does which thing (as well as making it easier to trigger switches, without looking, in your pocket, if you want).

We also put the switches on the outside of the case for usability reasons. I find I use my kill switches rather often (for instance, I frequently shut off WiFi/BT when I leave the house, since I know I won’t be associating with WiFi access points on my errands). If I had to remove the case each time, I don’t think I’d use the switches nearly as often and I wouldn’t use the camera/mic kill switch at all because often you want to turn on both of those devices quickly (to take a picture of a fleeting moment, or answer a phone call).

If you want fine-grained control then I typically recommend a combination of hardware kill switches and software switches for the remaining hardware. So for instance, if you want to disable WiFi but still want to use your Bluetooth headset, I’d recommend disabling WiFi in software via the Settings app. The same goes for disabling the camera but still wanting the microphone to be enabled, or vice-versa. Kill switches are a great circuit breaker, but sometimes you only need a light switch. Because the OS itself is more trustworthy (and auditable), there are more circumstances where you might feel safe enough relying upon the software switches because you can confirm that off really means off instead of meaning “off for this app, but on for others”.

Because there are additional sensors that people in specific circumstances may want to power off beyond the three hardware kill switches, instead of relying only on software to disable them our compromise was to implement what we call “Lockdown Mode” on the Librem 5 where triggering all three kill switches also disables the remaining sensors on the system (proximity, accelerometer, GPS, ambient light, etc.).

4.3. How secure is the Librem 5 compared to an Android phone?

The fundamental difference between the way that Purism approaches security is that it is based on the concept that the users should be able to verify and control the security of their devices. They should be the ones holding the encryption keys and they should be able to change them. In contrast, the security that companies like Google and Apple offer is based on the user having to trust those companies, because they can't verify the security and they certainly don't control it.

When asked about the security of the Librem 5, Purism's Chief Security Officer Kyle Rankin commented in an interview:

The platform allows for a lot more control over your security than you would get with say Android or Apple. I don't necessarily want to denigrate the security of Android or Apple, because they have very smart security teams that have spent a lot of time working on the security of their platforms. Apple in particular has some top-notch security protocols in place.

However, their approach is completely different, so their approach is like a lot of security professionals where the goal is to secure something for you by creating a lock that only they can open, and you also can't open. So they want you to delegate trust 100% to them, and many peop[l]e are fine with that, but that is not our approach, because we don't just value user security, but we also value user freedom.

When we develop security solutions, we develop them without looking down on the user or thinking of them as som[e]body that we have to protect almost like a parent-child relationship. We try to build a solution that gives them control over their own security. That's for example why we have the hardware kill switches, so that if you decide that you don't want to have your cellular modem on, you can flip it off or you don't want to be tracked at all, you can flip all three off and it cuts the power to every sensor on the device, but that's completely in your hands. You're not depending on trusting our operating system or trusting that the software in our operating system will do the right thing when you tell it to turn something off. We think that you should trust us, but we try to build things in such a way that you don't have to.

Because all the code in the root file system of the Librem 5 is free/open source, all of it can be reviewed to verify that it doesn't contain backdoors and doesn't do anything that the user doesn't want it to do. Of course nobody alone can review the millions of lines of code that are required to make a modern operating system and its software, but having a large community of people who can look at the code and fix problems when they find them provides far more transparency than a security model based on trusting giant tech companies.

Purism publishes the schematics of the circuit boards and x-rays of the phone, and will offer optional anti-interdiction services, in order to detect tampering and any inserted spy chips. Owners of the Librem 5 can look at the schematics and verify how the hardware kill switch cuts the circuit to a component and x-ray their own phone and compare it to the published x-rays to verify that nothing has been changed.

Purism doesn't hold the encryption keys of Librem devices, so Purism won't even try to crack the security of the devices that it sells. When the FBI demanded that Apple unlock the iPhone of a suspect in 2018, Purism CEO Todd Weaver commented that the FBI would have to make those demands to the owners of the Librem 5, because they hold the keys, not Purism.

The Librem 5 provides end-to-end encryption for XMPP messaging using the Chatty (i.e. GNOME Chats) app. The Librem 5 can also be used for internet calling, which is more secure than making cellular calls, which can be logged by the cellular network providers and their location tracked. Cellular carriers in the US hold their call records for between 1 and 10 years, and the US government has a history of demanding access to those records without a warrant.

The security of the Librem 5 has been criticized (1 2 3) on the following grounds:

  • It lacks a secure boot process to verify that none of the boot files have been changed.
  • It lacks a hardware-backed key store.
  • The apps are not run in a secure sandbox.
  • PureOS doesn't have shim kernel drivers that do most of their execution in userspace libraries like Android and iOS.
  • PureOS doesn't have low-level protections such as Control Flow Integrity and ShadowCallStack in Android and Pointer Authentication Codes in iOS.
  • Most of the operating system and applications are written in memory unsafe languages like C and C++.
  • The Librem 5 lacks a permission system where each app is required to ask the user for permission to access parts of the phone like Android has.

It is important to keep in mind that the current state of development of the Librem 5's software does not represent the final product. Android and iOS have been in development since October 2003 and 2005, respectively, and it took them years to add their current security features.

Purism's Chief Security Officer Kyle Rankin commented that Purism is "looking into implementing" the Librem Key for tamper-evident booting on the Librem 5. Another way this could be done is storing hashes of the boot files in an OpenPGP smartcard to compare with the current boot files to verify that they haven't been changed.

Kyle Rankin's article on the OpenPGP smartcard indicates that Purism is planning on using it to implement a key store.

Applications which are installed from the standard PureOS repository with the apt command may have access to places like the user's $HOME directory where they should be restricted. However, Rankin says that the PureOS Store will use Flatpack with bubblewrap to provide sandboxing of mobile apps. If the app's bubblewrap configuration is good, it should limit the app to only be able to access the apps's files and not be able to access other files in the user's $HOME directory.

It is worth noting that Ubuntu Touch already has a secure boot process and secure sandboxing of apps. It is unclear when the Ubuntu Touch port will be ready for the Librem 5, but people concerned about these issues may want to wait for the Ubuntu Touch port.

While it is true that most Android applications are written in Java and most new iOS apps are written in Swift, which are memory safe languages, both of these systems also rely heavily on memory unsafe languages, like C, C++ and Objective C/C++. The Android kernel is written in C and many critical bits in Android, such as the Java virtual machine ART and the Keystore HAL, are written in C++. Many of Android's processing-intensive apps, such as 3D games, use the Native Development Kit (NDK) which allows for code to be written in C and C++ and call system libraries like libc, libm and libz which are also written in C.

Although Apple now advocates the use of Swift, which is a memory safe language, most of the apps in the Apple Store were written when Objective C/C++ was the standard language. iOS 13 added some essential bits in Swift, but most of the core of iOS is still in C++ or Objective C/C++. Most iOS app developers use automatic reference counting (ARC) in Objective C/C++, but the language also allows memory to be allocated manually and unsafe use of pointers.

The Librem 5 will also run a mixture of code which is memory safe and memory unsafe. Most of the GNOME desktop software that Purism is adapting with libhandy uses GObject when doing memory allocation, which uses reference counting and automatic memory alloction and substantially reduces the probability that code will be memory unsafe. The example GTK apps and documentation that Purism provides to teach programmers how to create mobile apps for Phosh are written in Python. Purism wrote its Squeekboard virtual keyboard in Rust, which is memory safe language, and posted an article about gradually switching C and C++ applications over to Rust. While GTK supports C and C++ and Qt supports C++, most developers creating new apps for Phosh are likely to use memory safe languages (Python, Java, PHP, Ruby, Rust, Perl, Lua, etc.).

People often assume that the permission system in Android provides more security because the user is explicitly asked which permissions to grant to each app. The reality, however, is having permissions preconfigured with AppArmor and Bubblewrap by repository maintainers will probably be safer, especially when the repository maintainers care about peoples' right to privacy and security. People installing Android apps from the Play Store get into the habit of just automatically accepting all the permissions that an app demands, without thinking about the implications of those permissions.

In contrast, the PureOS Store will have a set of badges to identify the security and privacy implications, so people can make an informed choice when selecting apps to install on their phone. That is a far better system than annoying popup messages asking permission to access some part of the system with no explanation as to why the app needs access and how it will use it.

Although privacy may not be the same thing as security, an app that violates people's privacy can have security implications. When an app sends people's personal data to some company's servers and it is used to direct all sorts of personalized propaganda and that data can be used to manipulate people's decisions in life, it certainly feels like a violation of people's personal sense of security. When governments can pressure companies to turn over that data to monitor people's personal lives, people start to feel very insecure and wonder why they are being watched.

Unfortunately, Google created Android and gave it away for free to phone makers as a means to collect user data so that it could be monetized. It encouraged millions of developers to create apps for its system based on the same business model. Apple itself doesn't have a business model based on monetizing people's data, but it has no problem with app developers who create apps based on that model. Yes, people may tap OK to have their privacy violated, but the reality is that a bunch of popup messages demanding permissions to access parts of the system is rarely informed consent, and doesn't really make people safer.

Some of measures that Google and Apple have taken to harden their systems, such as drivers in user space, CFI, ShadowCallStack and PAC are beyond the scope of what a tiny company like Purism can do alone. Implementing them would require a coordinated effort by many different people in the Linux kernel. Google and Apple are giant corporations with unlimited resources to throw at hardening their mobile operating systems.

Nonetheless, the Librem 5 has some security advantages over the typical Android phone. Purism's policy of providing lifetime software updates means that Purism promises to provide security updates for the Librem 5 for longer than any other phone on the market. In contrast, the typical Android phone gets 2 to 3 years of security updates and iPhones get around 5 years.

Because Purism is working to add support for the Librem 5's hardware to mainline Linux, it will be easy to upgrade the phone to future versions of the Linux kernel, meaning that it will enjoy the latest security upgrades in the kernel. Right now the Librem 5 is using Linux 5.7, but in the future it will probably offer a Long Term Service kernel that gets security updates in its stable Amber distro and the latest Linux kernel in its rolling Byzantium distro. Likewise, Purism's policy of upstreaming its code changes to parent projects (wlroots, GTK, GNOME and desktop applications) means that when those projects release new security updates, they can be easily incorporated into PureOS/Phosh with minimal work.

Since August 2015 when the Stagefright bug highlighted Android's security problems, Google has provided monthly security updates. Unfortunately, those security updates often don't make it to many Android devices. Phone makers may decide to not provide the updates, and if the phone was bought through a cellular carrier, it may decide to not offer the update as well. The OEM license to use Android only forces phone makers to provide 4 security updates in the first year and 1 security update in the second year after releasing a phone model. The Google Pixel, OnePlus and Android One phones (32 models) promise to provide monthly security updates for three years. Flagship Samsung Galaxy models (S, Note, Z and three A series) get monthly security updates for 2 years and quarterly updates in the third year after release.

For many Android models, the updates will only come sporadically and not for very long. For example, Google published a blog post in 2018 touting the fact that there were over 250 Android models where the majority of its deployed devices had gotten a security update in the last 90 days. However, the gsmarena.com database lists 1517 Android phones and tablets that were released in 2016-18, so the overwhelming majority of Android devices hadn't gotten a security update in the last 90 days. For example, ZTE released 67 models in that 3 year period, but only 1 of its models was listed, and HTC released 30 models and only 2 of its models were listed.

Many Android phones don't apply all the security patches for the listed date of their security update. A 2018 study found that only Google's phones hadn't missed a security patch. Xiaomi, OnePlus and Nokia phones were missing between 1 and 3 patches, HTC, Huawei, LG and Motorola phones were missing between 3 and 4 patches. TCL and ZTE phones were missing 4 or more patches. In a few cases, the phone maker committed outright fraud by simply changing the date of the last security update displayed in the phone, but didn't apply any security patches.

Another problem is the fact that Google uses an outdated Linux kernel in Android and then only promises to support it for 3.3 years. For example, Android 10 which was released in September 2019 is only supported by Google till January 2023, and it can run on Linux 4.9 (from Dec 2016), 4.14 (from Nov 2017) or 4.19 (from Oct 2018).

Google doesn't require phone makers to upgrade their kernel version when they upgrade to a new version of Android, because many component suppliers (like Qualcomm) don't release new drivers compatible with new kernel versions, so many Android phones have to stay with the old kernel when they upgrade Android. The most extreme example of this is the Fairphone 2 whose last official upgrade in December 2019 was Android 7.1 with Linux kernel 3.4.0, that was released in May 2012. Even when installing a community port of AOSP like LineageOS, it will often use the same kernel that was last provided by the phone maker.

If you buy a new Android 10 phone today, you are getting a Linux kernel that is 2 or more years out of date and Android will only support your version of Android for the next 2 years and there is no guarantee that the phone maker will provide Android upgrades. Flagship phones typically get 2-3 Android upgrades, mid-range phones typically get 1-2 upgrades and low-end models usually get 0-1 upgrades, but most manufacturers don't guarantee how many upgrades a particular model will get when selling the phone. Android may have some security features that PureOS lacks, but that has to be balanced against the fact that many Android devices won't be updated to close the latest security exploits.

Another issue is that very litle malware exists for Linux, whereas a mountain of malware is created for Android. AV-TEST has been tracking the amount of new malware samples and potentially unwanted applications (PUAs) that is created each year for Android. The amount of malware fell in 2019, but AV-TEST still finds that more malware was created in 2019 than the total number of applications in the Google Play Store. The number of PUAs in 2020 has surpassed the malware, which means the amount of spyware and adware is on the rise.

Malware and potentially unwanted applications detected by AV-TEST in millions

Category 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 1-9/2020
Android malware 0.0092 0.1288 0.9381 1.02 2.57 6.13 6.20 5.54 3.19 2.41
Android PUAs 0.0004 0.1397 0.9900 1.10 1.71 2.91 1.79 1.87 2.87 2.68

In comparison, the amount of malware created for Linux is so small that AV-TEST doesn't even bother to publicly report it any more. The last time AV-TEST reported it, in the first half of 2016, Linux only had 0.02% of the total malware.

Percent of malware by platform/OS, according to AV-TEST

Platform 2015 H1 2016
Windows 85.39% 67.21%
Script 8.40% 19.10%
Android 3.19% 7.48%
MacOS 0.06% 0.07%
Mobile 0.03% 0.01%
DOS 0.03% 0.01%
Linux 0.01% 0.02%
Other 2.89% 6.10%

According to AV-TEST, 91.20% of the malware for Android was trojans in 2015, 6.96% was ransomware, 2.41% was exploits, 0.32% was backdoors, and 0.095% was other malware (worms, viruses, scripts, dialers, etc.) Of course, most of this malware can be avoided by only installing software from the Google Play Store, but not all of it. A 2019 study found that many of the apps in the Play Store are counterfeits which contain malware or ask for more permissions than are needed. Likewise, security firm Proofpoint reported in early 2016 that it had found 12,000 malicious apps in authorized Android app stores, such as the Google Play Store, which had been downloaded a total of 2 billion times.

iPhones are considered significantly safer than Android phones. Nonetheless, the enterprise version of iOS allows sideloading of apps without jailbreaking, and 40% of the large enterprises sampled by Proofpoint had iPhones with malicious apps from rogue app stores. iPhone users who download apps from rogue app stores are four times more likely to download an app that is malicious.

The question for people who are concerned about security is why use a mobile operating system for which 3.19 million malware samples and 2.87 million PUAs were created last year, when an alternative exists which has almost none?

Some people argue that the small amount of malware is simply because there are so few people using desktop Linux, so this is simply a case of security through obscurity. There are only about 25 million desktop Linux users, but the Linux kernel is used in more devices than any other kernel and the majority of the world's servers are running Linux, which does make it a tempting target for the creators of malware, since so much valuable information passes through servers.

The AV-TEST data doesn't show much correlation between the number of devices that use an operating system and amount of malware that is created for that operating system.

Malware (AV-TEST) and devices in H1 2016, in millions

OS Malware (M) Devices (M) Devices / malware
Windows 388.9 1300 3.3
Android 43.3 2000 46
MacOS 0.41 100 247
Linux 0.12 25 216
Total 578.7

There were 3.3 Windows devices for each malware sample that AV-TEST found, but 247 MacOS and 216 desktop Linux devices for each malware sample. The data suggests that the amount of malware depends on other factors more than just the number of devices or users.

A more likely explanation for why there is so little malware for Linux is because almost all Linux software is installed from repositories where the vast majority is free/open source software and the maintainers have higher standards about what kind of code is allowed, unlike in the Google Play Store. Just knowing that their code can be scrutinized and people can discover if they are doing something unethical deters most bad actors from even trying to get their code into Linux distributions. Because there is no easy way to distribute Linux malware for installation, there is less incentive to create it in the first place.

Consider what it would take to get malware into PureOS, which is a derivative of Debian. According to the Debian documentation, a malware creator would have to do the following steps to get his code added as a package in a Debian repository:

As long as you aren't an accepted Debian Developer, you cannot upload to the Debian archive directly. You have to package your product and to ask for a sponsor on the debian-mentors mailing list. A sponsor is a (generally) seasoned Debian developer who will check your packages and give you hints and support until he thinks they are ready to be accepted into Debian. Then he will upload them and they will be added to Debian.

In order to get a large number of people to install the malware in PureOS, its creator would have to convince a Debian developer to act as a sponsor, which won't be easy. People on the debian-mentors list are going to try out the code in order to decide whether it is worth their time to sponsor the code. They will also glance at the source code to decide whether it complies with the Debian Free Software Guidelines. It takes years to become a Debian developer and people who go through that process aren't going to risk their standing in Debian by sponsoring malware. Even if the malware manages to slip through undetected, eventually someone is going to discover it and call it out, which would be terribly embarrassing for the Debian developer who uploaded the package.

Of course, there are other ways to distribute malware, such as scripts from a web page, but web browsers are pretty good at isolating web content from the rest of the system. Trying to convince people to manually install a deb package or add a strange repository isn't easy. The challenges of distributing malware on Linux have to make malware creators question why they should bother when there much easier targets on other operating systems with more gullible users.

The biggest risk of getting malware in desktop Linux is the running of Windows software through WINE. Likewise, the biggest risk of malware in mobile Linux is running Android apps inside Anbox. This can be mitigated by good sandboxing of Anbox and by only installing FOSS Android apps found in the F-Droid repository.

Finally, there is the problem that most Android phones won't get many years of firmware and driver updates from the manufacturer of the components. The typical Android phone has an SoC like the Snapdragon, Exynos, Helios, Tiger/SCXXXX, Kirin or Surge, which only gets produced for 1 - 2 years and only gets firmware and driver updates for 2.5 - 3.5 years. In contrast, the i.MX 8M Quad is guaranteed to be manufactured till January 2028 and receive updates from NXP for the next decade. Most of the other components in the Librem 5 also have long production lifespans, so they are also more likely to get future firmware updates. Because the drivers in the Librem 5 are all FOSS, they can be maintained and updated by the community. Some of the drivers are created by the manufacturers themselves. NXP and Redpine Signals help maintain the mainline Linux drivers for their devices. The upshot is that the Librem 5 is more likely to get updated firmware and drivers if a security hole is discovered compared to a typical Android device.

4.4. Does the Purism web store allow Google to collect data about people who visit the site?

The Purism web store used to download two font files from Google servers to use in its web page. Concerns were raised on Reddit that downloading fonts would allow Google to track who was visiting the Purism web store.

downloading Google font files

An email was sent to Purism asking the company to change its web site. On June 23, 2020, the website was changed to no longer download fonts from Google's servers:

Only downloading from puri.sm

By the way, it is worth noting that the web stores of System76, PINE64, Entroware, Juno Computers, Star Labs, Slimbook, Vikings, TechnoEthical, Nitrokey, and ubuntushop.eu all download fonts from Google and many of them also use other services like Google Analytics. However, the web sites of ThinkPenguin, Zerocat, TUXEDO Computers, Raptor Computing Systems and Libiquity don't download from third party sites.

5. Buying and Shipping

5.1. What is included in the box with the Librem 5?

The Librem 5 (Evergreen) includes in the box:

  • USB-C Power Delivery* charger with a folding US-type plug
  • USB-C to USB-C charging/data cable, 3 feet (92 cm) long †
  • 2 different electric plug adapters for international use
  • Wired earbuds with a phone/volume controller and 3.5mm TRRS (tip-ring-ring-sleeve) jack, 50 inches (127 cm) long
  • Ejector pin for opening the SIM/microSD card tray
  • Quick Start Guide booklet
  • A plastic screen cover with a light polarizer
  • A personal Thank You card from Purism CEO Todd Weaver

See these unboxing videos of Birch by TheLinuxGamer and Dogwood that show what is included with the phone.

* The charger in the box supports up to 5Vx3A (15W), 9Vx2A (18W) and 12Vx1.5A (18W). The Librem 5 will accept up to 5Vx3A (15W), 9Vx2A (18W) and 12Vx2A (24W).

† According to the Quick Start Guide, the cable should be USB-A to USB-C, but the Librem 5 comes with a USB-C to USB-C cable.

5.2. Why does the price of the Librem 5 keep changing?

The price of the Librem 5 has risen over time:

  • $599 between 2017-08-24 and 2019-01-31,
  • $649 between 2019-02-01 and 2019-07-31,
  • $699 between 2019-08-01 and 2019-12-31,
  • $749 between 2020-01-01 and 2020-11-15,
  • $799 after 2020-11-15 (when Evergreen was released)

The challenge of producing the Librem 5 is that it requires years of development, which means that Purism has to find some way to finance the development before the phone is bringing in any revenue. Big companies like Samsung and Apple have the resources to pour millions of dollars into the development of new phone models, but small companies like Purism either have to borrow money, find investors or ask customers to crowdfund the development of the phone.

People who crowdfunded the phone at $599 took a bigger risk and locked up their money with no product in hand for far longer than the people who order today at $749. Pre-ordering the phone in 2017 or 2018 meant that Purism had the money at the beginning of the project to pay its developers, so that money is worth far more to Purism than money that comes after Purism has spent 3 years developing the Librem 5. Charging a lower price for people who crowdfund the project early is a way to incentivize customers to preorder, rather than waiting till the product has already hit the market and there is little risk.

Another factor is that Purism expected the development of the Librem 5 to take 17 months, but it will take 39 months if released in November 2020, so the price rises reflect the fact that the phone has cost Purism more to develop than the company estimated when it started the project.

When Purism announced on December 16, 2019 that it would have to increase the price to $749 in 2020 and the final price to $799, it made this statement:

One way that we reward early backers for their patience is by providing an introductory “early bird” price. When you are creating a new phone from scratch, in the early phases prices are incredibly rough estimates. After all, a number of factors from volume to time to suppliers all play a part in price and it’s difficult if not impossible to know all of your final costs years in advance. So you pick an estimate on the low side to reward early backers, understanding that eventually you will have to increase to your final price.
...
We had to design the hardware from scratch and we also have to develop many drivers ourselves–everything that is not yet available as free software in upstream mainline Linux kernels.

In early 2019 as we started to get better estimates for our costs, we realized we’d need to increase the price to at least $699–at the time what we thought would be the final price. Fast forward a couple of months and those estimates turned out to be optimistic. Once we knew our final costs for the mass-produced Librem 5 Evergreen batch we realized we’d need to increase the final price to $799.

5.3. Can the Librem 5 be shipped anywhere in the world and what are the extra fees?

The Purism website says:

Do you ship worldwide?

We can ship pretty much anywhere, and offer free international shipping, but the customer is responsible for customs clearing/duties, and local taxation. International shipments may be subject to customs processing and additional charges, customs policies vary from country to country, therefore you should contact your local customs office for more information. When customs clearance procedures are required, it can cause delays in arrival. If you can normally order product from the U.S. and have it shipped to you, then you can order from Purism in the same manner.

Keep in mind that there are a few countries where Purism as an American company has export restrictions (Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria).

Also keep in mind that some shipping companies charge an extra fee for passing customs and customers may have to pay import duties on Return Merchandise Authorizations (RMAs). Purism's Chief Technical Officer Nicole Faerber commented on the forum:

We sincerely try to do our very best within the legal boundaries to reduce or even avoid additional cost for the customers but in the end local import fees are not covered by our “free shipping” policy, sorry. So to make this very clear, up front customs duty payment by Purism does not happen because this is very explicitly not covered by our “free shipping”.

Concerning RMAs in special, yes, this is a PITA for all of us and we have been haggling with carriers like DHL how to handle and properly declare RMA shipments so that customers won’t have to pay import fees over and over again. Please believe me when I say that we have been doing this back and forth for years now but it still remains a gamble. But that’s all we can do to help.

5.4. Will the Librem 5 be offered through an EU seller?

The FLOSS Shop in Germany used to sell Librem laptops, and Purism promised that the Librem 5 would be offered by an EU seller when it originally crowdfunded the Librem 5 in 2017. However, the FLOSS Shop stopped selling Librem devices in February 2019, and Purism has not yet announced that there will be another seller inside the European Union.

Nicole Faerber, who ran the FLOSS Shop and also serves as Purism's Chief Technical Officer, commented in June 2019 on the Purism forum:

Handling the import, shipping and service through FLOSS Shop was pretty painful - you know the paperwork that comes with it, customs, tax etc… At some point it almost got out of hand which is why FLOSS Shop, in collaboration with Purism, stopped it. We are now working on a new clean solution without FLOSS Shop as middleman. How this will look like is not yet cast in stone - but what you suggesting is one of the options on the table.

For all existing laptops sold through FLOSS Shop, of course all liabilities and warranty will be handled through FS. Just no new sales ATM. Stay tuned, as soon as we finalize the plan and set it in motion there will be a public announcement. Be assured that we hear you.

Faerber commented again on the Purism forum in July 2020 that Purism still wants to offer an EU seller of Librem devices, but has encountered difficulties:

We, i.e. Purism, have been thinking about such a fulfillment hub within the EU for quite some time but this is a larger enterprise than you would kind of naively expect and that’s exactly why we are still struggling with implementing it. The will is totally not the issue here, it is more the tremendous effort it takes if you want to do it right (and not just rent a half legalized warehouse like many Chinese sellers e.g. via eBay who do not care about local regulations at all).

Regardless of whether the Librem 5 is sold from the US or by a seller inside the European Union, the customer will have to pay the Value Added Tax (VAT) and/or customs. The advantage of having an EU seller is that it simplifies the charges and the paperwork, since most EU countries allow importing from another EU country without adding extra charges (as long as the exporting country charges at least a 15% VAT). In addition, many delivery services such as DHL add an extra charge for dealing with customs, which could be avoided with an EU seller.

For example, if Purism has a seller in Germany, then that seller would pay the German VAT rate of 19% when importing the Librem 5 from the US, and then it could be shipped to most other EU countries without extra charges or paperwork, so EU buyers would all pay the same rate, which would simplify pricing and speed up shipments. (Note that Germany has temporarily reduced its standard VAT rate from 19% to 16% between July 1 and December 31 of 2020 due to the coronavirus.)

5.5. Why does Purism charge extra for the Thales Cinteron PLS8 cellular modem?

Both the Broadmobi BM818 and Thales Cinteron PLS8 are cellular modems based on Qualcomm basebands, but the BM818 has a newer baseband that covers more LTE bands. The majority of Librem 5 buyers will want the BM818 modems for their better coverage.

In contrast, the PLS8 is provided for customers who do not want a cellular baseband made in China. Thales focuses on making security products which command higher prices, so the PLS8 will cost Purism more than the BM818, despite the fact that it covers fewer bands and is older tech. Broadmobi offers the BM818 on an M.2 card as a standard option on its web site, whereas Purism has to do custom manufacturing to mount the PLS8 on an M.2 card. Purism has to charge extra for the PLS8 modem to cover the lower volume and the custom manufacturing costs in the US.

5.6. Why does the Librem 5 USA cost so much?

The Librem 5 USA costs $1999 with free shipping and has the same specs as the Librem 5 that costs between $599 and $799 (depending when it was ordered). Some people have complained about the high price of the Librem 5 USA, but it is important to keep in mind that most of its orders will come from corporations or governments that have special supply chain requirements to avoid the insertion of spy chips or other types of tampering. Speciality security phones for corporate and government clients like the Silent Circle's Silent Phone, Motorola Solutions' LEX L11 and Bittium's Tough Mobile 2 are comparable in price to the Librem 5 USA. For example, the Tough Mobile 2 costs €1550 (US$1816).

Purism will likely make a profit on the Librem 5 USA, but it is probably less than is often assumed. Purism will have to do small batch production of the motherboard, USB daughter card and M.2 card with the PLS8 cellular modem in the U.S. (probably in the San Diego area). Purism is probably only manufacturing a couple hundred of the Librem 5 USA, and board production on that scale is not cheap on a per unit basis. Getting hundreds of parts shipped to the United States is a logistical nightmare for just a couple hundred phones, and most electronics assemblers in the US are only set up to build prototypes, so they charge quite a bit more than in Guangdong, China. On top of that, it will likely take Purism many years to recover its investment in developing the Librem 5 and Librem 5 USA.

Nobody has made a phone in North America since Google's Motorola made the Moto X in Forth Worth, Texas in 2013-4, which shows how hard it is to make the economics of domestic production work. According to Motorola, "poor sales of the Moto X prevented the company from achieving economies of scale and that both labor and shipping costs in the US were higher than they would be overseas."

5.7. How can I pre-order Fir (Librem 5 v2)?

For people considering waiting for the Fir batch, please consider pre-ordering it, because Purism needs the funds now to pay its developers to work on the Librem 5.

To pre-order Fir, order the Librem 5 through Purism's web store. After the order has been completed, send an email to Purism, asking that your order be moved from Evergreen to Fir.

5.8. Will Purism sell replacement parts for the Librem 5?

When asked on the forum whether Purism will sell replacement parts for the Librem 5, Purism's Chief Technology Officer Nicole Faerber responded in August 2019:

We will definitely sell separate batteries. Concerning screens, I see the point and we need to see how we can include this in the mechanical design (MD). Most commonly these screens get glued into the case and removing could become a major effort and pain. But since we are in direct contact with the factory we can (and will) stock spare parts and will try find ways to make most of the parts replaceable. But I can not promise this for all and everything since making it replaceable often also requires additional mechanics or requires more space or both.

Purism currently sells replacement batteries for Evergreen that costs $29, but this battery is too large to fit in Birch, Chestnut and Dogwood.

In the pictures of Chestnut, it appears that the screen is glued into the case, so replacing the display will mean also replacing the case.

The display is the part that is most likely to be damaged and need replacement. A survey by SquareTrade in August 2018 found that 66% of smartphone owners damaged their phones in the past year. Of those, 29% had cracked screens, 27% had scratched screens, 22% had nonworking batteries, 16% had touchscreen issues, and 16% had chipped corners/sides. 59% reported that they have chosen to upgrade to a new device rather than repair a broken phone.

In a similar vein, the Indian after-sale service company OnsiteGo, reported that 71% of smartphone repairs involve replacing a damaged screen. Likewise, a 2016 survey by Big Giraffe in Australia found that 62% of damaged smartphones have a cracked screen and 10.7% was liquid damage. A 2015 survey by Motorola found that 42% of smartphone owners reported that the expense of fixing a cracked screen was the biggest barrier to fixing it.

5.9. Where can I buy a screen protector and external case for the Librem 5?

The Librem 5 includes a plastic screen cover in the box. Purism also sells a privacy screen for Evergreen that costs $29.

If you want more options, Celicious makes 9 different screen protectors for the Librem 5 and Boxwave makes 2 varieties as well. However, Purism just announced that Evergreen would be 3 mm longer than Dogwood, so Celicious' and Boxwave's current screen protectors probably won't cover the entire front face of the Librem 5. If ordering a Celicious or Boxwave screen protector, it is recommended to ask if the screen protector has been redesigned for the Evergreen dimensions (153 x 75 x 15.5 mm).

Currently there are no external cases available for the Librem 5. See this discussion on the Purism forum. User "ecs" wants to make a case, and he has been asking for Purism to release the CAD files, so he can make it, but so far Purism hasn't released its CAD files for case makers.

When asked about this issue, Purism tooted:

yes we will definitely be sharing the chassis and case designs for the community. Most likely around the Evergreen batch as that's when most people will have their Librem 5. I'm excited to see the interesting cases people create 😀

Until someone makes a custom case for the Librem 5, it may be possible to find a universal case that can fit thicker phones like the Librem 5, which is 15.5mm thick. Unfortunately, most universal cases (like this one and this one) are designed for phones that are 12mm or thinner, however something like this folding leather case or this belt holster may work.

5.10. How will the OpenPGP smart card work and where can I buy one?

Kyle Rankin's article on the OpenPGP smart card outlines how Purism envisions it being used in the Librem 5. It will be a while before the Librem 5's software supports using the cryptographic keys stored on an OpenPGP smart card and all the uses outlined in that article.

At this point, the smartcard reader in the Librem 5 is still not working. Its development can be followed in this issue report. In the meantime, it is still possible to generate GPG keys and store them in the phone's eMMC Flash.

In theory, it is possible to make your own OpenPGP card for the Librem 5, if you have the right equipment and a 3FF (microSIM-size) smart card. Nonetheless, the easiest way is to buy the OpenPGP smart card that costs $15 at the Purism store.

The FLOSS Shop in Germany sells the OpenPGP Smart Card V3.3 with ID000 break out which is 2FF (mini-SIM size). Purism's Chief Technical Officer, Nicole Faerber, who helped design the Librem 5, is involved in running the FLOSS Shop, so this smart card should be compatible with the Librem 5, but it will have to cut down to 3FF size.

For more info on configuring an OpenPGP card, see this tutorial and this one.

5.11. What are the Librem 5 accessories and how can I avoid paying extra for the shipping?

The Purism Store offers the following accessories for the Librem 5:

Currently, the Purism Store charges separately for the shipping of each of the Librem 5 accessories, which makes them quite expensive. This appears to have been an oversight on Purism's part, since Purism wants customers to be able to ship accessories with the Librem 5 phone. Purism CSO Kyle Rankin commented on the forum:

We wanted to get a few more of the phone accessories in the store before the first email went out, so those backers would have a chance to get accessories in the same shipment instead of two shipments, so that delayed things for a few days.

Forum user taylor-williamc gives this advice to avoid the extra shipping charges when buying Librem 5 accessories:

If you email support@puri.sm with your phone order number and accessory order number, they will combine them and refund the duplicate shipping charge.

Purism's support confirms that it won't charge multiple shipping fees on the accessories:

This is an error that we are working on fixing. If you already ordered then send me the order number and we will refund you.

Hopefully the Purism store will be fixed to automatically combine multiple orders into one shipment, but until then, it is recommended to place your orders normally and then email support@puri.sm.

6. Production Batches

6.1. What are the Aspen, Birch, Chestnut, Dogwood, Evergreen and Fir batches?

On Sep. 5, 2019, Purism announced that it would produce a series of small development batches of the Librem 5 for customers who wish to be early testers and developers of software for the Librem 5. These batches were codenamed in alphabetical order after types of trees. Purism only shipped these batches to the first customers who preordered within the first month of the crowdfunding in 2017 and volunteered to receive them.

These batches of the Librem 5 have been shipped:

  • Aspen: Scheduled to ship between 2019-09-24 and 2019-10-22. Critical bugs were discovered in the first batch, so Aspen was only shipped to internal developers and people associated with the company between October 29 and November 26, 2019.
  • Birch: Scheduled to ship between 2019-10-29 and 2019-11-26. Was shipped on Nov 26, 2019.
  • Chestnut: Scheduled to ship between 2019-12-03 and 2019-12-31. Was shipped in late Dec. 2019.
  • Dogwood: Originally scheduled to ship between 2020-01-07 and 2020-03-31. Due to the coronavirus, Purism rescheduled its launch for late April. There were a number of delays and it was shipped on Aug 3, 2020.

Evergreen is the batch scheduled for mass production, which the vast majority of people who pre-ordered the Librem 5 will receive. It was originally scheduled for the 2nd quarter of 2020. It is currently scheduled to start shipping in mid-to-late November.

Fir Fir was originally scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2020. Currently there are no confirmed informations about details.

6.2. What are the changes in Chestnut, Dogwood and Evergreen?

The developer documentation lists the changes made in Chestnut.

The changes in Dogwood (1 2 3) include:

  • To provide better cooling, the i.MX 8M Quad processor was placed on the other side of the PCB, to face the back of the screen. A metal sheet (probably aluminum) as added between the back of the screen and the PCB and thermal paste, so the heat from the i.MX 8M Quad can now dissipate out through the metal sheet and frame.
  • An internal plastic cover with screws was added to cover the two M.2 cards to be able to detect any tampering with the hardware. By painting glitter nail polish over the screws (which is part of Purism anti-interdiction services), it will be possible to detect if anyone has taken off the cover (to do something like change the M.2 cards or insert spy chips on the PCB). The internal plastic cover should also make the phone a little more splash proof.
  • The two separate volume buttons were changed to a rocker button. This makes it easier to distinguish the power button from the volume button when feeling around in the dark. Because the rocker button is larger, it is easier to press.
  • The battery capacity was increased from 2000 to 3600 mAh.
  • The 5 USB test points were moved so they are now with the other 15 test points in one group under the WiFi/BT M.2 slot. This allows all the test points to be covered by the internal plastic cover so it can be detected if anyone tries to access the test points.
  • The 3.5 mm audio jack was moved to the other side of the PCB, so it now sits closer to the screen, rather than in the middle.
  • The size of smartcard slot was changed from 2FF to 3FF (i.e. was reduced from miniSIM to microSIM size).
  • The smartcard slot was moved from the outside case to inside the case, next to the battery. In order to change the OpenPGP smartcard, the battery has to be removed. This ensures that the Librem 5 will be rebooted when the smartcard is changed (which was probably done for security reasons).
  • Better antenna placement.
  • Other minor changes listed on page 1 of the schematic.

The goal of Evergreen is to fix any problems that are observed in Dogwood. Evergreen's case was lengthened from 150mm to 153mm for better RF reception. This longer case allowed for a bigger battery which was increased from 3600 to 4500 mAh and its weight increased from 62 to 78 grams. The total weight of the phone was increased from 240 grams in Dogwood to 263 grams in Evergreen.

In addition, Purism noted in its "Librem 5 Visual Walkthrough" article about Evergreen:

The tolerances around the hardware killswitch and back cover have improved dramatically from the previous batches. The kill switches are now labeled and the device is also branded.

Labels in Evergreen's hardware kill switches

"Librem 5" labeled on side of Evergreen

6.3. When did the Librem 5 (Evergreen) start shipping?

Purism announced on August 28, 2020 that it had created the mold for Evergreen, which is the batch for mass production, and predicted "we will start shipping Evergreen to customers in mid-to-late November 2020." On November 15, Purism raised the price of the Librem 5 to $799, which is the final price of the phone.

Three days later on November 18, 2020, Purism posted that it was shipping the first of the Evergreen batch to those customers who had been offered the Birch, Chestnut or Dogwood batches, but had declined in favor of the Evergreen. User "amarok" on the Purism forum,posted that he had received his Evergreen phone in the U.S. that same morning via FedEx.

Purism posted a video that shows what to expect with the first Evergreen phones. Amarok also posted his impressions of Evergreen:

The hardware looks very solid and tight, everything perfectly assembled. The slides click firmly and look professional. The buttons click nicely. Nothing seems flimsy at all. The back snaps off easily, thanks to a small notch at the lower corner, and it snaps back on perfectly. The battery fits its compartment completely with no give. Haven’t checked the modem as there’s a screwed on cover over it. The whole thing feels premium, but heavy, as I said earlier. The screen is nice to touch. I don’t think it has quick charging. It does feel warm when charging and when on, but not alarmingly so.

It's worth noting that charging is currently limited to 0.5 amps, but the code to charge at higher amperage is waiting to be accepted upstream, so faster charging should be available soon.

6.4. Will getting FCC certification delay Evergreen?

Purism has not yet submitted the Librem 5 for FCC certification, according to the FCC web site (but that may change, so keep checking the web site).

User "dale6667" on Reddit, who will be receiving the first Evergreen batch, posted:

They wrote in the mail that the FCC and the CE certifications are still in progress and not completed yet. The[y] gave me to option to wait for the certifications to finish before the[y] ship my phone.

Obtaining FCC certification should not take Purism long. The Redpine Signals RS9116, BroadMobi BM818 and Thales Cinterion PLS8 are already FCC certified, which makes certification much easier to obtain for devices containing these components.

According to M2MSupport, a consulting firm that helps companies obtain FCC certifications:

FCC certification time for connected devices should take anywhere between 8-12 weeks. To expedite this process, FCC have authorized several private organizations to issue certifications. By working with TCB (Telecommunications Certification Body), FCC certification can be received within 1-2 weeks.

For example, PINE64 submitted its FCC application for the PinePhone on 2020-04-28 and received its certification 10 days later.

Purism has some experience obtaining FCC certification for its Librem laptops and Purism hardware engineer Eric Kuzmenko has done this before in his previous job on the LulzBot, where he did:

EMC testing and attenuation of unintentional radiated emissions for each product. Ensured that the products passed Class B limits as defined by FCC 47 CFR 15 and IEC CISPR 22 with considerable margin; as well as compliance with all other EMC standards which satisfy the respective directives.

6.5. Will Purism immediately ship out all the preorders when Evergreen starts shipping?

This question was raised on the forum and Chief Security Office Kyle Rankin gave this answer on Aug. 31, 2020:

While we intend to scale up our shipping/fulfillment team to meet the surge of pre-ordered phones, I can’t commit to how fast that team will be able to process orders at this point. I also imagine if it’s like past experiences with, for instance, the devkit, things will start out a bit slower and then accelerate as tasks become second nature and we continue to find better efficiencies in our process.

For instance, I helped with the devkit shipment. At first it took me quite some time to connect those incredibly tiny and delicate WiFi antennas. About 50 antennas in I got really good at it and by the end I was incredibly fast at it.

This answer seems to indicate that Purism is planning to install the M.2 cards and connect their antennas in the Librem 5 at its Fulfillment Center in Carlsbad, California.

On Nov. 3, 2019, Purism posted "The Librem 5 Mass Production Shipping FAQ", which explains how it plans to ship the Librem 5 preorders. It will be using Just In Time (JIT) manufacturing, that will allow Purism to "iterate minor changes in the process" to make the Librem 5.

The first Evergreen batch in late November and early December will go to the early backers who were offered Birch, Chestnut or Dogwood, but they declined in favor of waiting for Evergreen. We can guesstimate that only people who didn't select Evergreen in the initial email and ordered in the first 3 weeks after crowdfunding started on August 24, 2017 are likely to be in that group.

The Shipping FAQ states that Purism expects to fulfill all its preorders by February 2021, but it also notes that it will know when it will reach "shipping parity" by mid-Q1, so it may take longer.

6.6. What was the controversy over shipping Aspen?

Aspen was scheduled to ship between Sept. 24 and October 22 of 2019. Purism generated quite a bit of public controversy when it failed to ship the Aspen batch to people outside the company.

On Sept. 24, 2019, Purism posted an article entitled "First Librem 5 Smartphones are Shipping" with photos of Aspen on the assembly line. The article specified:

The first Librem 5 smartphones roll off the assembly line and ship to customers.
...
Everyone who pre-ordered the Librem 5 smartphone will be receiving an email letting them know which shipping batch — and what shipping date window — they are scheduled for, before we prepare each batch for shipment.

On October 16, Purism posted another article entitled "Librem 5 Aspen Batch – Photo and Video Gallery" which stated:

Librem 5‘s from the Aspen batch have started shipping to early backers so we’ve done a roundup of some of the best photos and videos shared by us and others as well as some never seen before photos.
...
In the Wild
People have been using their Librem 5 while traveling, working and relaxing to connect to WiFi hotspots, browse the internet, use social media, play games and yes… to call and send text messages.

Six days later on October 22, Purism tooted that it had discovered serious bugs and had only been able to ship the Aspen batch to people affiliated with the company. The next day, Purism posted in an article entitled "Supplying the Demand":

We intended on the second revision of Aspen (black case) getting into the hands of backers, but due to the results of quality control tests against RAM clocking at full-speed (consuming power and generating heat), we made the decision to move those backers to Birch and deliver the rest of Aspen to developers and staff.

The internet reacted with accusations that Purism had deliberately lied to its customers. This exchange happened on Reddit's r/Purism forum between Purism critic Jay Little and Purism employee Matt DeVillier (MrChromebox):

jaylittle (Oct 29, 2019, 15:58)
A phone with a non-existent A phone with a non-existent A phone with a non-existent
You can either believe that they are dishonest or that they are incompetent. Either way, its not a good situation.

MrChromebox (Oct 29, 2019, 17:04)
or, you know, what likely happened: they had the shipping announcement done ahead of time, scheduled for release on a specific day, and the release went out before they realized the issue. So they had a choice -- issue an immediate retraction, or work to resolve the issue(s) and hope they'd still be able to ship within the announced window for the Aspen batch. They chose the latter, and ended up not being able to resolve the issues.

Now, one can easily argue that they should have alerted customers to the issue(s) and the resulting shipping delay sooner, but to say the only options are that they are liars or idiots is a textbook example of a false dichotomy

DeVillier says that he wasn't involved in the release of Aspen, since he works remotely on firmware for the Librem PCs, so he is speculating about what was the thinking inside Purism, but what he says makes sense. Why would Purism deliberately lie to its customers about shipping Aspen, if it knew that 6 days later it would have to tell the world that it hadn't shipped Aspen? These are the sorts of mistakes that inexperienced companies make. A more experienced company knows that all sorts of problems can arise with the release of a new product, so it should never post that something is shipping until it is actually out the door. Purism learned from its mistakes in Aspen. In subsequent releases, Purism never posted that it was shipping until it was actually shipping and it was more forthright about the cause of the delays in Dogwood.

6.7. Reviews of Evergreen devices

After the shipping of some Evergreen devices to backers there are now a few reports/reviews available, in the Forum review and in Reddit review. More to come.

7. Future Versions

7.1. What will be the changes in the Fir batch and should I wait for it?

When Purism announced its production batches in September 2019, it also announced that there would be a second version of Librem 5 with these characteristics:

Batch Fir
Hardware: 14nm Next Generation CPU
Mechanical Design: Version 2
Software: Long term support release
Certifications: FCC and CE
Shipping window: Q4 2020 (delayed due to Coronavirus outbreak)

Purism has been accepting pre-orders for the Fir batch at the same price as the first version of the Librem 5, but has not made any further announcements, so it is not known whether Fir will have more RAM, more Flash memory storage, or different components than the Librem 5 (Evergreen).

The one aspect which Purism has stated about Fir is that it will have a "14nm next generation CPU," which could be the i.MX 8M Plus, that NXP announced in early January 2020. This new processor has both advantages and disadvantages over the i.MX 8M Quad used in Evergreen. Although Fir was originally presented as just a node shrink of the processor, the i.MX 8M Plus is a very different chip than the Quad.

We can speculate that Fir will be a quite different phone from Evergreen. It depends on how you plan to use the Librem 5, whether you think that Fir will be better or worse than Evergreen.

Improvements of the i.MX 8M Plus over the i.MX 8M Quad:

  • Shrinks from a TSMC 28nm HPC (high performance computing) planar node to a Samsung 14nm LPC (low-power compact) FinFET node, which is more energy efficient.
  • Shrinks from a 17x17 mm package to a 15x15 mm package, so saves space.
  • Increases max CPU clock from 1.5 to 1.8 GHz, a 20% improvement.
  • Adds a new neural processing unit with 2.3 TOPS (trillions of operations per second).
  • Adds a new dual-camera image signal processor (2x HC/1x 12 MP) with HDR and dewarp.
  • Improves the Cortex-M7 subprocessor from 266 to 800 MHz and increases its tightly coupled SRAM from 256 to 512 KB.
  • Adds video hardware encoding (H.264 and H.265 at 1080p60), whereas the i.MX 8M Quad has to do software encoding.
  • Adds a HiFi 4 digital signal processor (DSP) for audio and natural language processing.
  • Adds Immersiv3D audio with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X.
  • Increases promise to produce the chip from 10 years to 15 years.
  • Improves things that aren’t used by the Librem 5 (increases number of USB interfaces from 2 to 3, increases number of Ethernet interfaces from 1 to 2, increases PCIe from version 2.0 to 3.0, etc.)
  • Improves the PMIC (power management integrated circuit) (hopefully for better power efficiency)
  • Adds encrypted storage using CAAM Secure Keys (REV 0)

Disadvantages of the i.MX 8M Plus:

  • Decreases the L2 cache from 1MB to 512KB.
  • Reduces the GPU from GC7000Lite (4 shaders) to GC7000UltraLite (2 shaders)
  • Decreases the max video out from 60 to 30 frames per second and gets rid of HDR (4K@60 HDR -> 4K@30)
  • Decreases max video hardware decoding from 4K@60 HDR to 1080p@60 (no HDR)
  • Gets rid of DisplayPort support, so only supports HDMI.

The i.MX 8M Plus can potentially solve two of the biggest weaknesses of the Librem 5, which are its poor battery life and weak video recording, but the Plus has tradeoffs, which some people might not like.

Unlike the i.MX Quad, the i.MX 8M Plus was designed for mobile devices, and it should have much better energy efficiency. Samsung's 14nm LPC node is known for its energy efficiency. Fir should be able to last noticably longer on a single battery charge than Evergreen.

From the NXP documentation, it looks like the maximum video recording in Evergreen will be 1080p at 30 fps, because the i.MX 8M Quad lacks hardware video encoding, an image signal processor (ISP) and a digital signal processor (DSP). Without these features, Evergreen has to do video encoding in software which is slower, makes the SoC run hotter, and drains the battery faster.

The Plus will add hardware video encoding, plus an ISP and DSP. NXP hasn't yet published documentation for the Plus, so it is hard to know for sure what will be the capabilities of these new features. The website says that hardware video encoding is limited to 1080p@60 H.264 and H.265, which isn't much an improvement over the 1080p@30 which the Quad can encode in software. However, NXP is selling an example camera kit for the Plus that is capable of recording 4K video at 30fps, so there is hope for much faster image/video processing in Fir and it will be a lot more energy efficient than encoding in software.

However, most people using the Librem 5 would prefer to record in a freer video format, such as VP9 or AV1, which means using software encoding. At any rate, there is no guarantee that there will be a mainline Linux driver for the Hantro H1/H2 video encoders in the Plus. There is a mainline Linux driver for the Hantro H1 video encoder in the RK3288, and NXP has been better than most mobile chip makers at cooperating with the community, so there is some hope for FOSS driver support for hardware video encoding. Nonetheless, NXP has also been very slow to implement support for the i.MX 8M platform in mainline Linux. The fact that the mainline Linux driver just got Display Controller Subsystem (DCSS) video support 2.5 years after the release of the i.MX 8M Quad and still doesn't have decent support for the MIPI CSI2 camera interfaces is an indication of how slowly NXP is working on the mainline Linux driver.

The NXP website says that the Plus's image signal processor supports a dual-lens 12MP camera, but it doesn't specify the highest single-lens camera it supports and Evergreen has a 13MP back camera. This opens the possibility that Fir could have a dual lens camera or be able to do things like add HDR (high dynamic range) to photos/video, but again this depends on whether there will be a FOSS driver for the new ISP.

Fir probably won't be able to take advantage of many of the new features in the Plus, due to the lack of free driver support and/or free applications to use these features. Proprietary code is probably needed to use Immersiv3D audio with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, and the same is probably true for the neural processor, audio digital signal processor and CAAM Secure Keys. At any rate, the separate Wolfson Media WM8962 DAC and the OpenPGP card in the Librem 5 make the 3D audio and CAAM Secure Keys unnecessary. The improved Cortex-M core might be great as a processor in low-power mode, but that is unlikely to be implemented, because the Cortex-M core is used to execute proprietary proprietary code by U-Boot, so the Respects Your Freedom certification requires that it be kept separate from the free software being executed on the main CPU cores.

NXP improved the Plus's energy efficiency by cutting its L2 cache in half, removing half the cores in the GPU and reducing the video out capabilities. For people who want to use the Librem 5 to play 2D/3D games or use the Librem 5 as a PC, these are probably not acceptable tradeoffs, and they will probably prefer Evergreen with its i.MX 8M Quad, which has a better graphics and higher resolution video decoding, and supports DisplayPort 1.3.

A major question is how will Fir implement convergence when the Plus does not support DisplayPort. Fir can add an extra chip to convert HDMI to DisplayPort alt-mode, as the PinePhone does, however the NXP driver for the i.MX 8M Quad currently requires a proprietary blob to output HDMI video. It is possible that the DRM module being added the mainline i.MX 8M driver will be able to eliminate the HDMI blob. Otherwise, Fir will have to add a chip to convert the LVDS video to DisplayPort alt-mode, but the Plus probably doesn't support 4K video over LVDS, so this means lower-resolution convergence.

One weakness in the Librem 5 that the Plus doesn't address is its weak CPU performance. The Plus's 20% faster CPU performance will be hindered to some degree by the loss of half of its L2 cache. To compete with today's smartphones, the Librem 5 needs some Cortex-A7x cores.

Over the long term, free drivers may be developed to take advantage of more of the Plus's features, such as the NPU and DSP. NXP's guarantee that it will manufacture the i.MX 8M Plus for 15 years, means that Fir will get firmware and driver updates from the manufacturer for longer than any other phone ever made, but one has to wonder how many people will still be using a heavy and bulky phone like the Librem 5 15 years from now.

A bigger question is when will Fir be released. It was originally scheduled for Q4 of 2020. NXP's delays in producing the Plus and Purism's delays in producing Evergreen make it unlikely that Fir will be released within the next year. Consider these facts:

  • NXP hasn’t yet released a data sheet, reference manual or application notes for the Plus.
  • The Plus’s volume production was scheduled to start in Q3 2020, but it still hasn’t started.
  • The Plus adds a new neural processing unit, image signal processor, digital signal processor, advanced 3D audio and hardware video encoding which need to be added to the mainline Linux driver.

Even if Purism decides to release Fir without driver support for any of the new features in the Plus, it is hard to see how Purism can release Fir quickly. Nonetheless, people who don't want to suffer through the trials of being early adopters with Evergreen should consider waiting for Fir. By the time Fir is released, the software for the Librem 5 will be much closer to a complete system to match the functionality of Android and iOS.

7.2. Will future versions of the Librem 5 use a RISC-V processor?

At first glance, it would appear that there are many possibilities to move to freer CPU cores in future versions of the Librem 5. OpenSPARC, Power ISA and RISC-V are all free/open instruction set architectures (ISA's), which means that nobody has to pay licensing fees to use them. However, there currently aren't any viable options that can be used in a Librem device.

SUN released the Verilog source code for its OpenSPARC T1 and T2 processors under the GPL 2.0 license in March 2006 and December 2007, respectively, but these chips were only good for specialty multi-threading servers and are hopelessly outdated today. After Motorola decided to not make a successor to its PowerPC e5500, the only company still producing new Power ISA chips is IBM. Unfortunately, IBM's POWER9 processors are extremely power hungry, and too expensive to be used in anything but high-end servers and workstations. The upcoming POWER10 at 7nm with 16 cores, 18 billion transistors, and a 602 mm2 die won't be at all suitable for phones.

MIPS release 6 was briefly available as a royalty-free ISA between December 2018 and November 2019, but Wave Computing is now forcing all MIPS chip makers to pay license fees. At any rate, MIPS is mostly used in low-powered embedded applications such as routers, and not really suitable for making a phone. The only company that seems to be trying to expand the MIPS architecture to higher powered processors is the Chinese company BLX, which has produced a series of Loongson processors based on MIPS64, but they suck too much energy to be used in phones.

The most promising free/open ISA is RISC-V, which is now gaining a critical mass of industry support. Western Digital intends to use RISC-V in its SSD and HDD controllers. NVIDIA plans to use RISC-V in its GPU memory controllers, and Qualcomm is looking to use RISC-V in mobile SoCs. Samsung has been experimenting with RISC-V since 2017, and plans to use it in radio frequency modules, AI image sensors, security management and AI computing & control.

The company that garners the most headlines for its RISC-V development is SiFive, which has received investment from Intel, Qualcomm, Western Digital, Samsung and SK hynix. SiFive's out-of-order U84 and U87 cores are promising performance similar to a Cortex-A72, while offering 1.5x better power efficiency at the same time as using half the silicon area. In June 2019, the CEO of SiFive predicted that SiFive would be producing SoC's for cell phones and laptops within two years.

Unfortunately, SiFive seems to have no interest in producing free/open hardware or even producing chips that can run on free/open source software. SiFive had the option to partner with Vivante, whose GPU's can run on free drivers, but instead SiFive decided to sign an agreement with Imagination Technology to use its PowerVR GPU and NNA (Neural Network Accelerator), both of which require proprietary drivers.

The best hope that Purism has for using RISC-V cores in the foreseeable future is to use one of the chips produced by the OpenHW Group, which is a consortium of companies that are collaborating in creating free/open source RISC-V cores that have an Apache 2.0 license. The founding members of the OpenHW Group include Alibaba, Bluespec, CMC Microsystems, Embecosm, ETH Zurich (University), GreenWaves, Imperas, Metrics, Mythic, NXP, Onespin, Silicon Labs and Thales.

Alibaba has modified the OpenHW's 64-bit core to produce the XT910, a 16-core, 12nm RISC-V processor with 8MB L2 cache that runs at between 2.0 and 2.5 GHz and has performance comparable to a Cortex-A73. The XT910 isn't suitable for low-power devices, but Alibaba plans to produce a whole series of chips (XT902, XT903, XT905, XT907 and XT908) for different applications, so one of them may be suitable for a phone. Alibaba says that it wants to "engage with the open source community," so these chips might usable with free/open drivers in the future.

Even more promising are NXP's plans to produce a "Chassis" SoC, which will use modified OpenHW's RISC-V cores on its i.MX platform. In December 2019, NXP said that it expected to do the tape out for the Chassis SoC in Q2 2020. Since then, there hasn't been much news. The good thing is that NXP has a history of providing good documentation and contributing to the mainline Linux drivers for its chips, so it has better collaboration with the FOSS community than most mobile chip manufacturers. Its i.MX 6 and 8M platforms with ARM cores can run on free software, so it is likely that the Chassis SoC will also be able to run on free software. For more info, see "NXP is creating an SoC based on i.MX and RISC-V".

8. Miscellaneous

8.1 How does the Librem 5 avoid planned obsolescence?

The mobile industry is based on planned obsolescence to generate increased sales, and mobile hardware is increasingly designed to prevent people from owning their mobile phones for longer than 2 to 3 years. The mobile industry has introduced a number of "innovations" in recent years that have served to reduce the lifespan of phones:

  • Eliminating the removable battery.
    Only 6.4% of the new smartphone models introduced in 2019 had removable batteries, according to the gsmarena.com database, and all of them were low-end models. The lithium-cobalt-oxide (LCO) battery in phones typically starts to degrade rapidly after 300 - 500 full recharge cycles, so elimination of the removable battery puts a limit on the lifespan of a smartphone. Water resistance is often cited as the reason why removable batteries had to be removed from phones, but only 10.0% of new smartphone models in 2019 had a water resistance rating of IPx6, IPx7 or IPx8. At any rate, 105 different phone models have been created with a removable battery and an IP water resistance rating, so it is possible to create water resistant phones with removable batteries.
Percent of new phone models with removable batteries

  • Reducing the size of bezels around screens and increasing the use of curved screens have increased the probability of screens being damaged, which means more phones are junked prematurely.
    According to a report by the Indian after-sale service company OnsiteGo, 71% of smartphone repairs involve replacing a damaged screen, and smaller bezels and curved screens increase the probability of a damaged screen.

  • The increasing use of sealed cases makes it more difficult and expensive to repair mobile phones, making it more likely that a damaged phone will be junked rather than fixed.
    Sealed cases are usually held together with glue (rather than plastic pressure tabs and screws) and they require the use of heat guns, suction cups and plastic spudgers to be opened. It takes longer to carry out repairs and it is more expensive because new seals and glue have to be reapplied each time the case is opened.

  • Changing the back case material from plastic or metal to glass has increased the probability that the back cover will be damaged in a drop.
    43% (75 out of 174) of the new smartphone models introduced so far in 2020 have glass backs, according to the gsmarena.com database.

The Librem 5 avoids all these design changes which promote planned obsolescence. It is designed to be easy to open and fix. The battery can be replaced without using any tools and it only uses standard Philips screws. Purism promises to sell replacement parts, so it should be repairable. The only drawbacks in its design are:

  • Its 4500 mAh battery uses a custom form factor, so it can only be obtained from Purism and will likely be expensive due to its low manufacturing volume.
  • Its screen will be fused to the frame, so it will be more expensive to replace.

Wireless communication chips are placed on two M.2 cards, so the Librem 5 will be the first phone in the world that allows the cellular modem and WiFi/Bluetooth to be upgraded. It should be possible to replace the WiFi/Bluetooth M.2 card to support new standards, such as 802.11ac/ad/ax (for people who don't mind installing proprietary firmware/drivers). Rather than having to junk the phone when moving to another part of the world with different cellular bands or when new LTE-TDD bands are introduced, the cellular modem can be replaced to support them. It will require testing by the community to determine which M.2 cards are compatible, but the ability to upgrade the wireless chips is very important to extending the life of a phone.

Unfortunately, it won't be possible to upgrade the modem to 5G, because 5G modems consume twice as much energy as LTE modems and require much greater heat dissipation than can provided by a passive heat spreader on an M.2 card that is 30x42mm in size. Plus, 5G in some countries is using new mmWave bands that require different types of antennas. However, LTE will likely remain the cellular standard used in most countries for the next two decades, because 5G is very expensive to implement and will mostly be limited to densely-populated urban centers.

The biggest way that the mobile industry limits the lifespan of phones is by not providing software updates. The best of the Android phone makers, Google, only guarantees 3 years of software updates for the Pixel 2, 3 and 4. The next best are OnePlus and Android One models, which guarantee 2 years of software updates and 3 years of security updates after the initial release of a phone model. Although Google provides monthly Android security updates, its Android license with OEMs only guarantees that phone makers will provide 4 quarterly security updates in the first year after release and 1 security update in the second year.

There is no guarantee of ever getting an upgrade of the operating system, and many low-end models, such as the Moto E4 and Galaxy J2, and lesser-known brands never get a single Android upgrade. A reputable phone maker like Samsung will generally provide 2 or 3 Android upgrades for its flagship models, but only 1 or 2 upgrades for its mid-range models and 0 or 1 upgrades for its low-end models. However, the consumer rolls the dice with many phone models regarding how many Android upgrades they will get.

Even when phone makers decide to provide Android upgrades, Google does not require that phone makers upgrade the Linux kernel when upgrading Android, because component suppliers often don't provide drivers for new kernels. Android uses an old Linux kernel to start with. For example, Android 9.0 (Pie), released on 2018-08-06, supports Linux kernels 4.4 (from 2016-01-10), 4.9 (from 2016-12-11) and 4.14 (from 2017-11-12), so a new Android version starts out with a kernel that is 9 to 31 months out-of-date. If the typical Android phone is bought six months after Google releases a new version of Android, and the phone has a two year lifespan, by the end of the phone's life, the Linux kernel will be 39 to 61 months out-of-date.

In contrast, the Librem 5 is the first phone whose manufacturer promises to provide lifetime software updates. As explained in the previous two FAQ answers, PureOS/Phosh is designed as a thin overlay on top of an existing desktop stack and it reuses existing desktop software which will keep getting updates from its developers. In addition, Purism has worked to get the hardware in the Librem 5 supported by mainline Linux, so it can use the latest mainline kernels.

8.2. Is the Librem 5 an environmental phone?

The Librem 5 is energy-inefficient in its operation, it doesn't offer recycling services, and doesn't make any guarantees that it contains less hazardous materials than what is required by the EU's Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive. In addition, the Librem 5 uses more silicon chips and other electronics components than most other smartphones and has larger PCBs, so its environmental impact in production will be higher than the typical smartphone.

However, these drawbacks of the Librem 5 are counterbalanced by the fact that the phone is designed to have a far longer lifespan than other phones, plus the phone will avoid most of the unneeded network traffic caused by surveillance capitalism. These two factors mean that the Librem 5 will probably end up having a lower ecological footprint than the typical smartphone, because they have a greater impact than the other factors.

The Librem 5 is less energy efficient than a conventional smartphone. Even when its power management issues are fixed, the Librem 5 will still consume more energy in its operation than a conventional phone, because it takes more energy to operate 6 separate chips at larger 40-28 nm planar nodes than a single integrated SoC at a smaller 14-7 nm FinFET node.

However, the energy to operate a smartphone is a minor part of its total environmental impact. According to Apple, using the second generation iPhone SE for 3 years generates 6.8kg of CO2-eq, whereas using the iPhone 11 Pro Max for 3 years will generate 15.5kg of CO2-eq. In other words, the difference between operating a small, energy-efficient smartphone for 3 years and one with a large screen and maxed out specs is the equivalent of burning of 1 gallon of gasoline for an American or 3.8 liters of petrol for a European.

Far more important than the energy to operate a smartphone are the resources and energy that were consumed to make it. Roughly 80% of the total greenhouse gas emissions emitted by a smartphone occur during its production phase.(1,2,3,4) According to Apple, its second generation iPhone SE with a 4.7" screen and 64GB Flash emits 57kg of CO2-eq, of which 84% is from production, 3% is from transport, 12% from usage, and <1% is from end-of-life processing. In contrast, its high-end iPhone 11 Pro Max with a 6.5" screen and 64GB Flash emits 86kg of CO2-eq, of which 78% is from production, 3% from transport, 18% from usage and <1% from end-of-life processing.

Greenhouse gas emissions of iPhones

Apple's estimates of the emissions from transport and usage of the iPhone are probably accurate, since that is a straight-forward calculation, but Apple has probably been underestimating the greenhouse gas emissions in the production of its phones over the last 5 years. Apple found that the greenhouse gas emissions in the production of its phones increased dramatically from 25 kg for the iPhone 3G with a 3.5" screen in 2008 to 89 kg for the iPhone 6 Plus with a 5.5" screen in 2014. The iPhone 6 Plus had 13.5 times more screen pixels, 4 times more RAM, 2.6 times more camera pixels and 2.5 times more battery capacity than the iPhone 3G, so it wasn't surprising that its production emitted 3.6 times more CO2-eq. As the smartphone industry has pushed the technological envelope with 1644p 21:9 screens, 5 lens cameras, 108MP image sensors, processors with 8.5 billion transistors, 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, the ecological cost of producing these advanced supercomputers in our pockets has continued to rise.

After the release of the iPhone 6 in 2014, Apple decided that it had a publicity problem with the rising environmental impact of manufacturing smartphones, so it embarked on a campaign to make its operations more eco-friendly. It claimed that by switching its operations and many of its subcontractors to renewable energy, it had nearly halved the production emissions of its phones in 2015.

This happy conclusion was likely a combination of corporate greenwashing and using poor methodology to calculate the embodied carbon in its phones. Switching to renewable energy in Apple's facilities and in the electronic assembly plants that make the iPhone should not have halved the carbon footprint of the iPhone, because there are hundreds of processing steps to make electronics, and it is very difficult to estimate the carbon footprint of each one of those steps. Most of those steps happen in facilities outside the control of Apple.

Huge quantities of raw materials and energy are consumed to make smartphones. Electronics manufacturing has a much larger environmental impact than it would appear from the size of the final product, because the materials, chemicals, water and air used in silicon chips, LCDs and circuit boards have to be extremely pure, and it takes a huge amount of energy and resources to produce them. A 2002 study by Eric Williams et al. on the making of a 2 gram 32MB DRAM chip found that its production consumed 1600 g of fossil fuels, 72 g of chemical inputs, 32,000 g of water and 700 g of elemental gases (mainly N2). Due to the high levels of purification and the number of processing steps, it takes 160 times more energy to produce semiconductor-grade silicon than typical silicon, and the same principal applies to many of the materials consumed in chip and LCD fabrication.

In a subsequent 2004 study, Eric Williams calculated that 240 kg of fossil fuels, 22 kg of chemicals and 1500 kg of water were consumed in the production of a typical Pentium III desktop PC and its 17" CRT monitor. The production of the PC consumed 6400 MJ of energy, whereas its operation for 3 years consumed 1500 MJ.

Unfortunately, most life-cycle assessment (LCA) studies of smartphones do a poor job of capturing all the inputs and steps in electronics manufacturing, so their estimates are much lower than those found by the studies of Eric Williams. Nonetheless, the consensus among the LCA studies is that 60%-80% of the environmental impact occurs during production of smartphones, which is different from other types of manufactured goods such as refrigerators and automobiles where the majority of the environmental impact is caused during the usage phase. While the electronics industry has become better at recycling its waste water, recapturing more chemicals and gases used during production, switching to renewable energy and becoming more energy efficient in its operations, nonetheless the ramping up of the specs in smartphone hardware over the last decade means that the environmental impact of producing a smartphone has risen.

The rising production emissions of smartphones wouldn't be such a large ecological problem if it were counterbalanced by many years of use, but smartphones are designed to be throw-away devices that only last 2-3 years. This means that the resources have to be consumed repeatedly to keep replacing existing devices, which is why the world produced 1754 million mobile phones in 2019. Greenpeace estimates that 9.4% of the cobalt, 8.9% of the palladium, 2.7% of the tantalum, 1.8% of the silver, 1.6% of the gold, and 1.1% of the magnesium which were produced worldwide in 2014 were consumed in the production of smartphones and tablets.

Unlike with other types of goods, most of the resources and energy to make electronics is lost during its production, so there is little to recover by recycling the end product. Many of the metals used in electronics exist in such trace amounts, that they are difficult to recover. Recycling is important because it removes toxic e-waste from contaminating the environment, but it doesn't address the growing consumption of resources and energy in smartphone manufacturing, nor its rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Recycling does little to reduce resource consumption, so the most feasible way to reduce the ecological costs of smartphones is to use them for longer so that fewer of them need to be manufactured. The longer the lifespan of a phone, the fewer resources and the lower the GHG emissions will be per year. For example, a smartphone that generates 100 kg CO2 in its fabrication, but 5 kg of CO2 for each year of operation will emit an average of 55 kg CO2 per year if it is thrown away after 2 years, but the same phone will only emit an average of 25 kg CO2 per year if it is used for 5 years.

Although the Librem 5 doesn't sport the latest tech, it is a complex device with roughly twice as many electronic components as the average smartphone. The six chips (i.MX 8M Quad, RS9116, BM818/PLS8, Teseo-LIV3F, WM8962 and bq25895) that the Librem 5 uses in place of an integrated mobile SoC have packages occupying a total of 1483.2 mm2, which is 9.6 times as much space as a Snapdragon 845 package that is 153.8 mm2 in size. This means that more resources are expended to create a Librem 5 than a standard phone.

However, the lifetime software updates, replaceable battery, replaceable cellular modem and replaceable WiFi/Bluetooth make it likely that a Librem 5 will be used for many years. Like the Nokia N900 retained its resale value because the phone continued to be supported by an active community of users who appreciated its distinctive properties, the Librem 5 is likely to have a high resale value, so people are more likely to resell it, rather than junk it or store it unused in a closet.

Of course, the longevity of the Librem 5 depends on a number of factors. Purism has promised to sell some replacement parts for the Librem 5, but if that doesn't happen, then a higher percentage will be junked prematurely when the screen gets cracked or the battery wears out. Another factor is whether Purism releases the Gerber files after it recovers its investment in the development of the phone, as CEO Todd Weaver has promised to do. If the Gerber files are released, then any company (or anyone with a 3D printer) will be able to make replacement parts for the Librem 5. Another factor is how popular Phosh and mobile Linux will become in the future. If there is a rich app ecosystem for the Librem 5, it is likely to be used longer.

Another environmental issue that is often overlooked is how much network traffic and processing/storage in data centers are caused by a phone. A 2018 study found that an idling Android phone gets 40.2 requests for data per hour from Google servers, while an idling iPhone gets 4.93 requests per hour from Google and Apple servers, which means that the phone is constantly being kept busy and can't spend as much time in sleep. More important, is the extra data that is getting transmitted. The idling Android phone sends 4.4 MB/day to Google servers and the idling iPhone sends 1.4 MB/day to Google and Apple servers. In a typical day, the same study estimates the Android phone sends 11.6 MB/day of data to Google and the iPhone sends 7.1 MB/day to Google and Apple servers.

Google Web Services are designed to monetize users' personal data, which means they are designed to keep users constantly sending data about their activities. Google's business model of monetizing user data results in a lot of unnecessary network traffic. For example, with Pure Maps, the user only has to download a map once from OpenStreetMap, and then the same map can be used over and over offline. In contrast, Google Maps makes the user download the same map every time that the user wants to access it, so that Google can log the user's map activities. Many of the "services" provided by Google, Facebook, etc. require the user to download all sorts of extra content to display advertising.

Running the infrastructure to provide web content has massively increased the environmental impact of the ICT sector. Facebook's annual energy consumption increased from 0.532 to 3.43 TWh between 2011 and 2018, which is a compound annual growth rate of 30.5%. Belkir and Elmeligi (2018) project that the ICT sector will contribute between 3.1% and 3.6% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2020. 45% of the ICT emissions will come from data centers, 24% from communication networks, 11% from smartphones, 7% from desktop PCs, 7% from displays and 6% from notebooks. Most of the growth in ICT emissions is coming from data centers and smartphones.

ICT Global GHG Emissions

Because most users of the Librem 5 will be avoiding many of the "services" of surveillance capitalism, they will avoid a lot of the uploading of their personal data and downloading of targeted advertising. Librem 5 owners who use the Librem One web services can avoid generating much of the unnecessary network traffic and the processing/storage in data centers, which is associated with monetizing users' personal data.

Of course, owning a Librem 5 is no guarantee that the user will choose to avoid the unnecessary network traffic and data storage of surveillance capitalism, but if the user does, it will probably have a bigger environmental impact than any other factor.

8.3. Why will the Librem 5 succeed when previous Linux phones failed?

Past attempts to market Linux phones failed for a variety of reasons, but the Librem 5 is pursuing a better strategy than past attempts to market Linux phones.

Motorola launched the first Linux mobile phone, the A760, based on MonteVista Linux, Qtopia and Java in February 2003. Motorola, Panasonic and NEC used this same platform in many of their phones, and by 2006, Montevista claimed that 25 million phones had been sold using its Linux kernel.

Motorola repeatedly claimed that Linux would be its new standard, but it went through 8 different types of Linux with names such as LJ (LinuxJava), JUIX and MotoJUIX, but could never decide on one. In many ways, Motorola figured out the formula of Linux and Java apps that eventually turned Android into a success, but Motorola had teams working on P2K, Windows, Symbian and multiple flavors of Linux, so it lacked a concerted focus and it didn't really try to cultivate a community of outside developers to create Java apps for its Linux. Eventually the company turned to Android in 2009 and gave up on its own Linux development.

First International Computer (FIC) started the OpenMoko company in 2006 to create open hardware phones. Unlike Motorola, OpenMoko was a community-based project. Unfortunately, the first phone was hardly more than a prototype and the second phone, the Neo FreeRunner released in 2008, had serious engineering problems and barely worked. FIC was never willing to put much resources into OpenMoko and there were serious disagreements among the employees that led to the company disbanding in 2009.

Nokia could never seem to decide if its future was Symbian or Linux and there was an internecine war inside the company between the two development teams. When Stephan Elop was brought in as CEO of Nokia in 2009, he should have backed one of the groups to the hilt and put an end to the in-fighting. The problem is that Nokia bought TrollTech, the creator of Qt, so it wasted a huge amount of time switching from a GTK-based interface to a Qt-based interface. Then, Nokia wasted time partnering with Intel and creating the new Meego, that would merge Nokia's Maemo with Intel's Moblin. Then, Nokia couldn't decide what would be its next Linux interface, and it scrapped two attempts to create a new interface before it finally decided on a new buttonless, swipe-based interface. Elop despaired that Meego and Swipe UI would never be ready and signed a deal with Microsoft to use Windows Phone in February 2011. When the N9 finally came to market with Meego in September 2011, it was hailed as a remarkable phone, but the tech press called it a "dead man walking" because everyone knew that it had no future at Nokia.

The fundamental problem with later attempts at Linux phones is that the companies making the software partnered with hardware makers who didn't know how to market them to the segment of consumers, who could appreciate their unique properties.

The Finnish company Jolla was founded by ex-Nokia employees that picked up the open source pieces of Meego that had Nokia abandoned to create Sailfish OS. Jolla recreated Nokia's innovative swipe-based interface, but it didn't release its source code, which is why the global Linux community has never fully embraced Sailfish OS and helped promote it. Jolla initially had the right strategy of crowdfunding Linux mobile devices, and marketing them to Linux enthusiasts and early adopters. Unfortunately, the company had a financial crisis in November 2015 when its principal investor could no longer pay the bills, so it laid off half of its employees and canceled the Jolla Tablet, leaving the people who preordered it in the lurch. Only 1500 copies were produced of the Jolla C Phone in 2016 for developers and Jolla gave up on the hardware business.

Since then, Jolla has partnered with hardware companies that failed to market Sailfish OS properly. Sailfish OS was used in the Intex Aqua Fish and INOI R7, which were low-end phones costing about $80 that targeted the regional Russian and Indian markets, respectively. They weren't marketed as Linux phones for the global Linux enthusiasts who are willing to endure the privations of having fewer apps and less options than Android and iOS. Since 2017, Jolla has done much better by partnering with Sony to sell better specced Xperias with Sailfish OS preinstalled from its Jolla Devices web store to European customers. However, it has done an abysmal job at marketing the phones. Most desktop Linux users don't even know that it is possible to buy the Xperia X, XA2 and 10 with Sailfish OS, and Jolla hasn't bothered to send the phones to Linux publications and bloggers to review.

Mozilla Foundation made similar mistakes in designing and marketing Firefox OS. It couldn't run the GTK and Qt software used by desktop Linux, so it held little interest for the global community of Linux enthusiasts who wanted to be able to carry around Linux in their pockets. Instead, Mozilla's plan was to market Firefox OS as cheaper alternative to Android in developing countries. Google responded with its Android One program to drive down the price of Android phones in developing countries, and most poorer consumers in developing countries would rather have Android with its millions of apps, and they have no appreciation for the fact that Firefox OS was built on free web standards. There was no compelling reason for tech enthusiasts to buy the low-spec Firefox OS phones and consumers in developing countries also couldn't appreciate the phones either since their limited app selection make them appear as poor alternatives to low-end Android phones.

Ultimately, KaiOS made Firefox OS work by privatizing the code and focusing on phones with buttons that lacked touch screens, so it could reach an even cheaper market where Android simply doesn't compete. People buying $25-$50 phones without touch screens don't expect to have an app store with millions of apps, and the limitations of Firefox OS were less of a disadvantage.

Canonical started out in the right direction by allowing Ubuntu Touch to run a standard Linux terminal and the Qt and QML software that would appeal to Linux enthusiasts and focusing on providing convergence, which was a feature that Android didn't provide. Canonical initially focused on selling the Ubuntu Edge, a high spec phone, to the global Linux enthusiast market, but Canonical had no experienced producing hardware and it thought that it needed $32 million in crowdfunding to make the Edge work, and it abandoned the campaign after it raised $12.81 million in just one month. The Edge demonstrated that there was plenty of global demand for a expensive, high-end phone geared to Linux enthusiasts, but Canonical didn't have any experience developing and marketing hardware and thought that it needed to raise far more money to make the Edge a viable project.

One of the problems was that Canonical decided to reinvent the wheel and paid for the development of its own Mir display server and the Ubuntu Touch desktop environment. Then, Canonical focused on creating a whole set of new apps for Ubuntu Touch and creating Unity 8 to unify the desktop and mobile environments. It poured massive investment into creating a giant siloed codebase, with no partners to help develop it. Probably one of the reasons why Canonical decided that $12.81 million in crowdfunding wasn't enough was the calculation that it needed more funding to pay for its large programming team.

After Canonical gave up on producing its own hardware, it couldn't find phone makers who were willing to market Ubuntu Touch to the global market of Linux and tech enthusiasts. BQ and Meizu produced Ubuntu Touch phones as experiments for the European and Chinese regional markets, but they were never fully committed to the OS, and did little to promote it to Linux enthusiasts.

Purism is avoiding many of the mistakes made by Motorola, Nokia, Jolla, Mozilla and Canonical in designing and marketing the Librem 5, so we should have much greater optimism for its success. Unlike Motorola, Nokia, BQ and Meizu, Purism is fully committed to Linux as a platform and doesn't view PureOS/Phosh as an experiment to see if there is market, so there is no backup plan to turn to Android or Windows Phone as Motorola and Nokia did, and no relying on Android for the vast majority of its sales as happened with Mozilla's and Canonical's hardware partners.

Unlike Jolla, Mozilla and Canonical which are software development firms, Purism's business model has always been selling hardware, and it has the experience to make it work. The price of producing custom hardware has fallen substantially since Canonical tried to crowdfund the Edge in 2013. Purism has experience going to China and knows that it can find suppliers and assemblers in Shenzhen who charge far less than what Canonical seemed to think it would cost to produce a custom phone. Purism probably underestimated the cost to produce a phone since it thought it only needed $1.5 million in preorders to produce the Librem 5, but it appears that Canonical vastly overestimated it.

Purism has also avoided Mozilla and Canonical's mistake of trying to develop a huge siloed codebase from scratch that it would have to maintain alone in the future. Instead, Purism focused on developing a thin overlay on top of an existing Wayland + wlroots + GTK + GNOME desktop stack that is well maintained and has broad corporate support in the industry. Purism focused on upstreaming its code where possible and creating the libhandy library that could be easily incorporated into existing GTK/GNOME desktop applications, so future updates from the original projects can be used in PureOS/Phosh with minimal work and the long-term maintenance costs will be reduced.

Most importantly, Purism has focused on marketing the Librem 5 to a global community of Linux enthusiasts and security/privacy aficionados who can appreciate the unique qualities of a Linux phone and they are willing to suffer through the trials and privations of being early adopters. Purism designed the Librem 5 to provide unique features that no other phone on the market can provide and focused its marketing on areas where Android and iOS don't compete. The Librem 5 marketing focuses on software freedom, user rights to privacy, security that can verified and controlled by the user, avoiding planned obsolescence, lifetime software updates, the ability to replace parts, and Linux desktop convergence. Because the Librem 5 is such a unique phone and marketed to people who value its unique properties, Purism can charge higher prices to cover its large software development costs. Purism isn't caught in the commodity trap like Mozilla, and it doesn't have to depend on unreliable hardware partners like Jolla, Mozilla and Canonical, who aren't committed and don't know how to market the unique features of its phone.

Despite all the mistakes that Purism has made and the delays and its financial problems in developing the Librem 5, most customers who pre-ordered the Librem 5 haven't cancelled their orders because they value what Purism is trying to create. The fact that so many people have stuck with the Librem 5 as its development has extended from 17 to 39 months is a testament to the strong demand by a passionate segment of consumers for a Linux phone that focuses on software freedom, the right to privacy, and user-controlled security.

8.4. How does mobile Linux have any chance against Android and iOS when other OSes failed?

It is widely believed that the mobile space is locked up and no new mobile operating system can arise that will be able to compete with the Android and iOS duopoly. The conventional wisdom is that the two mobile operating systems have sucked up all the mindshare and developer talent, and users won't want to use another OS that doesn't have a huge repository of software like the 2.7 million apps in the Google Play Store or the 1.8 million apps in the Apple Store. Microsoft had virtually unlimited resources to throw at the problem and tried for years to compete in the mobile space to no avail. If a software giant like Microsoft had to cancel Windows 10 Mobile in 2017, what chance does mobile Linux have against the mobile duopoly?

In order for a new mobile operating system to succeed, there have to be compelling reasons for users to adopt the OS despite the fact that it offers a less polished interface and has less software in its app store. In the case of PureOS/Phosh, it is also buggy and still lacks critical features like a camera app and good power management.

Microsoft wasn't able to offer a compelling reason for people to use Windows 10 Mobile over Android or iOS. Yes, the Lumia phones offered good battery life and good cameras, but those were not good enough reasons for people to give up access to all the apps available for Android and iOS. The main reason to buy a Windows phone was the ability to run Windows software, but Microsoft had offered free Office apps in Android for non-commercial use since November 2014, so there was little reason for most people to buy a Windows phone.

Trusted Reviews called Windows 10 Mobile "buggy" in December 2015 and noted:

Mobile’s application offering remains a little hit and miss. Key apps still aren’t there. Even Instagram is still in its beta form, and a number of the big apps that are on Windows 10 Mobile feel a little archaic compared to their iOS and Android counterparts.

Trusted Reviews concluded:

The features sound great, but with most core Microsoft apps now on iOS and Android, some have justifiably questioned whether there’s any reason to jump ship to Windows 10 Mobile. The answer for now is not really...

The one killer feature that Windows 10 Mobile promised was "Continuum", or the ability to use the phone as a desktop PC, but it only worked on two phone models, it required a $99 Display Dock, and it didn't even have the ability to display two applications side by side on the screen, so it was nothing like a normal desktop experience. Microsoft wasn't able to convince many developers to create "Universal Applications" that could run in "Continuum".

There was no compelling reason to want to be an early adopter of Windows 10 Mobile, but mobile Linux offers a number of very compelling reasons to want to be early adopters who endure buggy software and limited app selection. For people who care about the right to privacy, security that they can verify and control, software freedom, longevity, or the ability to tinker, the benefits of mobile Linux far outweigh its disadvantages. The ability to use standard Linux software that is free/open source, doesn't monetize people's personal data and doesn't display commercial propaganda is a huge incentive to switch to mobile Linux. The unlocked bootloader, the ability to change the operating system, the free/open schematics for the circuit boards, and the replaceable communication cards are killer features for tinkerers, modders and developers.

Because mobile Linux can adapt existing desktop software, it doesn't need to create thousands of new apps or attract thousands of new developers to the platform in order to be successful. Most of the software already exists and the work to add libhandy and Kirigami classes to existing GTK and Qt software is much less than creating new Java apps from scratch for Android or new Swift apps for iOS.

Mobile Linux doesn't need the same level of sales, market share and developer mind share like Windows 10 Mobile in order for it to be successful. Companies like Purism, PINE64, Planet Computers and Hallo Welt Systeme can survive on sales of 10k phones per year, but Microsoft expected to ship millions of phones and had a cost structure to match those expectations. Purism currently has 10 people working on the development of the Librem 5, whereas Microsoft needed 2 to 3 orders of magnitude more employees to develop its Lumia phones and Windows 10 Mobile software.

Mobile Linux has huge potential to grow. According to statcounter.com, desktop Linux has 1.84% global market share and there are roughly 1.5 billion PCs in use worldwide, so that works out to roughly 28 million desktop Linux users. If just 5% of those people buy a Linux phone per year, that is a market of 1.4 million phones per year.

Initially the mobile Linux market will be limited to tech enthusiasts and early adopters, but at some point the software selection will become good enough to attract normal users who desire privacy, and that market is potentially enormous. An Amnesty International poll conducted by YouGov in 9 countries (Brazil, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Norway, South Africa and USA) in December 2019 found that 71% of respondents "worry about how tech companies collect and use their personal data" and 73% favored more government regulation of Big Tech. If mobile Linux can garner 2% of global smartphone sales by appealing to people who desire privacy, that is a market of 30 million phones per year.

Many phone makers have a strong incentive to switch to mobile Linux. Apple sucks up 66% of the profits in the mobile phone industry, and Samsung takes 17%, leaving just 13% for all the other phone makers. Huawei, Oppo and Vivo make a small profit and Xiaomi just breaks even.

mobile phone profits

The Chinese companies can make phones for less than their international rivals, which is why they now control over 60% of the global smartphone market. All the rest of the phone makers, including Lenovo/Motorola, LG, Sony, HTC, TCL/Blackberry and ZTE, have been losing money for years.

phone makers losing money

The problem is that most of the phone makers are caught in the Android commodity trap, which sucks the profits from the mobile industry, especially at the mid-range and lower-end of the market. Because Google's goal is to extend its data collection to ever larger portions of the world's population, it has an incentive to keep driving down the price of Android phones at the low-end of the market, so it can reach more people who are currently using feature phones or don't yet own a mobile phone.

Google employs its Android Compatibility Tests and the rules of the Open Handset Alliance to prevent phone makers from making too many modifications to Android to distinguish their phones from their competitors, so all the phones appear the same to consumers and the only way to compete is to offer more hardware for a lower price which drives out profits. Microsoft tries to help maintain the profits for the large PC makers by giving them special deals on the price of Windows and Office, which makes them more profitable. In contrast, Google makes it very easy for new competitors to use Android on the same terms as the large phone makers, so they will drive down the price of smartphones at the low-end. Google keeps trying to extend its data collection to ever poorer consumers with dirt cheap Android Go phones, which undercuts all the phone makers at the low-end. Meanwhile, Google produces its Pixel phones, which compete at the high-end where most of the profits lie, so Google is squeezing the phone makers at both ends of the market.

Because all the phone makers need access to Google Mobile Services (such as the Play Store, Maps, YouTube, Gmail, Docs, Assistant, etc.), they comply with Google's heavy-handed restrictions, but many of them would love to escape Google's commodity trap. They don't benefit from Google's Surveillance Capitalism and there is an untapped demand for phones that protect people's privacy. Unlike Android, mobile Linux has no controlling company that can restrict how it is used and modified, so phone makers can design distinctive phones that break out of the commodity trap and cultivate brand loyalty.

Despite the advantages of mobile Linux, the big phone makers are unlikely to take a chance on mobile Linux until it has been proven to provide a good portion of the functionality of Android and iOS. The first to adopt mobile Linux will likely be a company like Fairphone or SHIFT that makes environmental phones, because they will be much easier to support long term than Android. Then, companies like Sony or OnePlus, that have a history of trying out alternative operating systems, might offer mobile Linux as an option. At some point, however, the benefits of escaping Google's iron grip over the industry will push more and more phone makers to start experimenting with mobile Linux, until it becomes a viable competitor to the Android/iOS duopoly.

8.5. Who works on the Librem 5?

The following Purism employees currently work on the Librem 5's software:

The following Purism employees work on the Librem 5's hardware:

Outside contributors:

The following former employees used to work on the Librem 5:

8.6. Where are the Librem 5 components made?

According to an interview with Purism's Chief Technical Officer, Nicole Faerber, the assembly of the Librem 5 will take place around Shenzhen, China. The Librem 5 USA will be assembled in the US, probably in the San Diego area by the same company that made the DevKit. Purism's San Francisco office may do some final assembly by putting in the M.2 communication cards.

Many of the components in the Librem 5 are made by global companies, but here are reasonable guesses where they will be manufactured:

  • NXP i.MQ 8M Quad SoC: designed in the Austin, Texas offices of NXP (old Motorola->Freescale), and uses a TSMC HPC 28nm node, that is probably fabbed in Taiwan.
  • Chassis: manufactured in China.
  • Broadmobi BM818 modem on M.2 card: probably designed in Suzhou city, Jiangsu, China; contains a cellular baseband by Qualcomm that was probably designed in California.
  • Thales Cinteron PLS8 modem: fabbed in Germany (probably by Global Foundries); designed by Gemalto (maybe in Taiwan); contains a cellular baseband by Qualcomm that was probably designed in California.
  • M.2 card with PLS8: assembled in the US, probably in the San Diego area, California by the same company that assembled the DevKit.
  • Redpine Signals RS9116 WiFi/Bluetooth on M.2 card: assembled in Hyderabad, India. Redpine has used TSMC to fab its chips and ASE for assembly in the past, so the chip was likely fabbed in Taiwan.
  • Kioxia (formerly Toshiba) NAND Flash memory: likely fabbed in Yokkaichi, Japan.
  • Micron RAM: Micron fabs RAM in Virginia, Utah, Japan and Taiwan.

8.7. Why has the time to release the Librem 5 increased from 17 to 39 months?

There is no easy way to make a smartphone that runs on 100% free software and respects users' rights to privacy and security, and allows users to control their own technology. New mobile phones can be produced very quickly and economically using an integrated mobile SoC with a reference design and the Android operating system, but Purism has no reference design to follow and it has to do a lot of software development of the kernel, mobile interface, applications and the app repository infrastructure.

Almost every smartphone on the market today is based upon an integrated mobile system on a chip (SoC), such as the Qualcomm Snapdragon, Samsung Exynos, MediaTek Helios, Huawei Kirin, Xiaomi Surge or UNISOC Tiger, that incorporates the CPU, GPU, video processing unit (VPU), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GNSS, cellular modem, digital signal processor (DSP), image signal processor (ISP), AI/neural processor (NPU), USB controller and fast charger into a single chip. Using a integrated mobile SoC greatly simplifies the design of phones, and the makers of these SoC's provide reference designs, so most phone makers already have a debugged hardware design that they can simply tweak to fit their specifications.

Then, phone makers slap in the latest version of Android, which is a very mature mobile OS that has been in development since October 2003. They use the Android kernel provided by the maker of the SoC and add some firmware and drivers for extra components like the cameras and sensors that are provided by the manufacturers. The only real software development that they do is adding a new skin to Android and a few extra apps to personalize their phone to distinguish it from the millions of other Android devices.

Purism faces a much harder path and it had to make some very difficult decisions when designing the Librem 5. When Purism started planning the Librem 5 in 2017, there were only two SoC's that Purism could use (i.MX 6 or i.MX 8M) that could run on 100% free software and fit within the power limitations of a phone. The i.MX 6 had good mainline Linux support, but was an antiquated chip from 2011 with very limited processing power.

The i.MX 8M Quad had a much better processor and supported modern standards (USB 3.0, Vulkan 1.0, DisplayPort 1.3, MIPI CSI2, etc.), but it didn't start volume production until Jan 2018. It wasn't until late March 2018 that Emcraft released its i.MX 8M Quad system-on-a-module, that Purism would use in its Librem 5 DevKit that it shipped in late December 2018. Because Purism decided to use a new SoC, it took much longer to get started on the hardware development.

The i.MX 8M's mainline Linux driver still has serious limitations, so Purism had to do a lot of kernel work that it didn't expect. NXP has been lackluster in committing code to the mainline driver, so the Purism developers have been hindered by the poor support for the MIPI DSI video interface for the LCD, the MIPI CSI2 interface for the cameras, the Display Controller Subsystem (DCSS) video interface for DisplayPort, and suspend-to-RAM. Purism has been forced to do some of the work of adding features to the mainline Linux driver.

The other issue was that all the available mobile Linux interfaces had serious drawbacks. Ubuntu Touch is poorly maintained and has a huge siloed codebase, so Purism would have shouldered a big maintenance burden if it had used it in the Librem 5 and could not have supported the Librem 5 in the long term. KDE Plasma Mobile still required a lot of development work and it does not have much corporate support, so it would have required a lot of work on Purism's part to use it in the Librem 5. Using Ubuntu Touch or Plasma Mobile would have required that Purism help maintain a separate mobile stack with components like oFono with little help from other companies. Instead, Purism decided that it was better to create the new Phosh interface as a thin overlay on top of a Wayland/wlroots/GTK/GNOME desktop stack that was well-maintained and had corporate support from IBM/Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical and Google.

The timeline in the original crowdfunding page for the Librem 5 project projected that it would only take 6 months for Purism to create a new user interface for the Librem 5. There were sound strategic reasons to create Phosh, but that decision has delayed the phone. Considering that half of all PinePhone users are now using Phosh, Purism has done some really good development work, but it has taken far longer to develop Phosh than Purism expected.

Another factor is that Purism appears to have run into financial difficulties in February 2020. At that point, Purism changed its refund policy to repay people who cancelled their orders after the Librem 5 started shipping, rather than providing immediate refunds. Based on the code commits at source.puri.sm, it appears that five of the fourteen Purism employees working on the Librem 5 left the company between February and May, and several of the developers who stayed had fewer code commits in March and April, so they appear to have cut back their hours during that time period. The work on the Librem 5 has picked up again, so it appears that the problems were temporary.

Purism could have avoided these delays by following the same model used by the PINE64 in designing the Pinephone by only using older components that already have good Linux support and launching with an existing mobile interface. If Purism had used the i.MX 6, the hardware would have been antiquated, but it could have avoided most of the problems it has encountered implementing the LCD screen, video out, cameras and power management. If Purism had used the i.MX 6 and Ubuntu Touch, it probably could have shipped in 2019, and avoided most of the delays, which have generated so much public criticism, but those would not have been good choices for the long-term future of the phone.

8.8. How do the PinePhone and the Librem 5 help each other? (i.e. why it's stupid to fight)

Partisans of the PinePhone and Librem 5 often debate online about which is the better Linux phone (1 2 3 4 5). People often become fanbois when they are passionate about technology, so the online debates are not necessarily a bad thing, but it is worth keeping in mind that the PinePhone and Librem 5 actually are helping each other, so please keep the debates friendly.

The publicity that the Librem 5 generated from its crowdfunding starting in August 2017 and the failure to ship Aspen in October 2019 helped drive public interest in Linux phones. Many people, who were first alerted to Linux phones by the Librem 5's publicity, ended up ordering the PinePhone. After looking at the Librem 5, many discovered that there was a cheaper option on the market and it would reach mass production sooner, so the Librem 5 has helped drive PinePhone sales.

Since February 2020, the public interest in the PinePhone has overtaken the interest in the Librem 5, according to web searches on Google. Currently, the PinePhone is getting most of the sales, because it is already in mass production, but once the Librem 5 (Evergreen) starts shipping, there are going to be more comparative reviews of the two phones. Some portion of the people who were initially attracted by publicity for the PinePhone will end up buying the Librem 5 for its better performance and unique features.

Google Trends Linux Phone Searches

Having two phones catering to different market segments and customers with different interests helps to grow the market for Linux phones as a whole, and attracts more public interest and attention from the tech press than if there were just one model on the market. If two Linux phones are successful at both ends of the market, the mobile industry can't dismiss it as easily and has to start taking mobile Linux seriously. More importantly, more developers will start developing apps for mobile Linux when they see it as a trend being used by many phone models (Librem 5, PinePhone, Volla Phone and Cosmo Communicator), rather than a solitary company, so we should hope for the success of all the Linux phones.

According to a recent poll on the PinePhone forum, half of PinePhone users are running Phosh on their phones. Not only should PinePhone users be happy that the Librem 5 is financing the development of the most popular interface for their phone, but Librem 5 users should be happy that so many PinePhone users are adopting Phosh. Most of the people currently filing Phosh bug reports, packaging Phosh in distros, creating mobile apps for Phosh, and making outside contributions to the project are using the PinePhone. The more people who adopt Phosh, the more help Purism will get in maintaining its code and the better it will become, so the success of the PinePhone also helps the Librem 5.

We should wish for the success of not just Phosh, but all the mobile Linux desktop environments. Because Phosh supports GTK, Qt, QML and web apps, mobile apps that are created for KDE Plasma Mobile, Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish OS can be adapted to run in Phosh as well. The better mobile Linux does as a whole, the more apps will be created that can run in the Librem 5.

While it is fun to argue online about which Linux phone is better, keep in mind that all the Linux phones have their particular advantages, and we all benefit when all the Linux phones do well in the market.