Purism Librem 5

“The OS is maintained by paid contractors, funded by Purism hardware sales and donations from users.”

“I use Librem 5 with Phosh as a daily driver, and it is really just fine. Except the battery life, app compatibility and smoothness of the UI.”

“All its drivers are free and all its firmware sits on external, removable devices.”

“Librem 5 and Pinephone are usable as daily drivers, albeit they do require compromises.”

“it also contains ECAD (and a link to MCAD) designs and BOM published on a free license”

“I would welcome a major refresh which addresses its shortcomings so it can have wider viability.”

“What I don't see a good way around is framing it as anything other than low-to-midrange performance chipset even in its day”

“switching from iOS/Android to Linux phone of the Librem 5 or PinePhone (/Pro) variety is a bag of hurt”

“They've just been the only ones to ship Linux phones that don't depend on anything Android nor significant closed source code at all.”

“will make me keep the Librem 5, with all its own issues, as my daily driver for the foreseeable future”

“can just be docked to a screen, keyboard and mouse and used this way, running a Debian system”

“Sadly it always seems incredibly painful and hinted at post-launch improvements tend to be small if they come at all.”

“Since it runs a desktop GNU/Linux, you can develop and run the same app on mobile and desktop with some adjustments in the interface.”

“some things really bothered me about it , as a smartphone alternative: shitty screen shitty camera shitty cpu shitty battery life”

“Librem 5 also combines that with extraordinarily insecure hardware missing basic firmware updates”

“It also allows to natively run any desktop software and develop it in any language, without reliance on Google's decision on how one must use the phone”

“it being fairly underpowered, JavaScript needs to be disabled on a number of sites in order to have a usable experience”

“I daily driver Librem 5 phone running a Debian-based operating system with 3 GB of RAM”

“All that just to fit the technicalities of the FSF RYF certification while still loading a blob like every other phone microprocessor.”

“dumping firmware packages in there instead of just shipping it with the OS is a hack-job and nasty practice”

“it’s irresponsible to promote it as an alternative device without noting that it’s less secure and full of footguns”

“the hardware killswitches on the Librem cannot provide even remotely the same level of assurances as even a software killswitch”

“the process itself is error prone. It's mounting flash storage with blobs into the filesystem of the OS.”

“they keep PureOS "free of blobs" by having the bootloader inject all of the blobs into memory in an extremely shady manner”

“I'm happy with it and proud of what we, both Purism and the wider community, managed to achieve with it”

“The only non-free piece of code executed by the ARM Cortex-A53 cluster on the Librem 5 is the SoC's mask ROM bootloader.”

“for it to actually function you must also flip the other killswitches to kill both wifi and cellular connection”

“With your Librem/PinePhone, you cannot even reasonably expect your calls with end-to-end encrypted apps like Signal and Element to be protected.”

“If you prefer to keep your freedom when Android removes it, you may want to try GNU/Linux phones.”

“has its layouts, schematics, assembly drawings and 3D designs published on a free license”

“Proper GNU/Linux in my phone and full control is exactly what I want, even if exploratory.”

“I guess something with open schematics (Librem 5, Pinephone) should be better”

“it can be completely wiped and reinstalled, ensuring that your phone is cleaned whenever you suspect a compromise”

“new companies focusing precisely on different dimension, namely repairability rather than top specs”

“they have a real desktop mode with desktop apps, not mobile apps on a large screen”

“Librem 5 runs on all free drivers. This is why it will never be tied to an old kernel.”

“prohibitively expensive for something that isn't guaranteed to be a usable daily-driver for most people”

“They are a security disaster, lacking even basic features for securing your device against tampering and hacking.”

“GNU/Linux phones exist and can be used as daily drivers, if you put enough effort in it.”

“No. The touchscreen firmware's source is not distributed for one, and neither is the firmware for the baseband processor.”