Fedora on Librem 5: is it possible?

[Massi Ergosum]

Hello folks!
I just got my Librem 5, after a long time. I know that is not a
priority (from [1]):

"We don't directly support devices such as phones and tablets but it's
not to say that without the required kernel/bootloader know how that
they don't work, it's just not our primary focus."

But, do you think is it possible to get a working Fedora on this device?

Cheers
Massimiliano

[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/ARM

[Peter Robinson]

Hi Massi,

>  Hello folks!
>  I just got my Librem 5, after a long time. I know that is not a
>  priority (from [1]):
>
>  "We don't directly support devices such as phones and tablets but it's
>  not to say that without the required kernel/bootloader know how that
>  they don't work, it's just not our primary focus." 
From the Arm PoV that statement is still mostly correct, but it's
nuanced as there's group that is focusing on some of those devices. I
think there will be a focus in that group on actively open phones, I
still wouldn't expect your average locked down consumer phone to be a
focus.

>  But, do you think is it possible to get a working Fedora on this
> device? 
So there is now a new group [1] that is actively looking at phones and
tablets, in particular the PinePhone and the PineTab. This is the
right mailing list to discuss and there's also an IRC channel
#fedora-phone too.

All the pieces for that device are enabled in the Fedora kernel, we
don't build a boot firmware for any i.MX8 stuff ATM because basically
"it's complicated". I'm aware of a number of i.MX8 devices that do
work once there's an appropriate firmware in place.

There's active work around the Phosh phone graphical environment.

So in short most of the pieces are in place, I'm not aware of anyone
that's actually tested one of those devices as yet but there was
certainly interest.

[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mobility

[Massimiliano]

Thanks Peter.

>  From the Arm PoV that statement is still mostly correct, but
> it's
>  nuanced as there's group that is focusing on some of those devices. I
>  think there will be a focus in that group on actively open phones, I
>  still wouldn't expect your average locked down consumer phone to be a
>  focus. 
Do you mean tha Librem 5 is not "open" enough?

>  So there is now a new group [1] that is actively looking at phones
> and
>  tablets, in particular the PinePhone and the PineTab. This is the
>  right mailing list to discuss and there's also an IRC channel
>  #fedora-phone too. 
I missed this piece, I focused on aarch64.
Is this SIG communicating with the Purism team?

>  All the pieces for that device are enabled in the Fedora kernel, we
>  don't build a boot firmware for any i.MX8 stuff ATM because basically
>  "it's complicated". I'm aware of a number of i.MX8 devices that do
>  work once there's an appropriate firmware in place. 
Good news, I suppose...

>  There's active work around the Phosh phone graphical environment.
Nice, is there something about Plasma Mobile?

>  So in short most of the pieces are in place, I'm not aware of
> anyone
>  that's actually tested one of those devices as yet but there was
>  certainly interest. 
I've some experience in building Fedora images (I'm the maintainer of
[1]) on x86, but arm is a different game.

I'm still investigating, but I'd like to boot a Fedora on this device
(like I do in my PCs).
Phone is not a priority for me, but convergence is a good point.

[1] https://github.com/mbugni/fedora-remix

[Peter Robinson]

On Fri, Mar 19, 2021 at 10:24 AM Massimiliano <massi.ergosum(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  Thanks Peter.
>
>  > From the Arm PoV that statement is still mostly correct, but it's
>  > nuanced as there's group that is focusing on some of those devices. I
>  > think there will be a focus in that group on actively open phones, I
>  > still wouldn't expect your average locked down consumer phone to be a
>  > focus.
>
>  Do you mean tha Librem 5 is not "open" enough? 
No, I mean general andorid consumer phones aren't

>  > So there is now a new group [1] that is actively looking at
> phones and
>  > tablets, in particular the PinePhone and the PineTab. This is the
>  > right mailing list to discuss and there's also an IRC channel
>  > #fedora-phone too.
>
>  I missed this piece, I focused on aarch64.
>  Is this SIG communicating with the Purism team? 
I think form the PoV of the phosh UX they are, I've no clue about the
HW side of things. I don't follow it closely enough.

>  > All the pieces for that device are enabled in the Fedora kernel,
> we
>  > don't build a boot firmware for any i.MX8 stuff ATM because basically
>  > "it's complicated". I'm aware of a number of i.MX8 devices that
> do
>  > work once there's an appropriate firmware in place.
>
>  Good news, I suppose... 
Well there's only a small team, it's a community effort....

>  > There's active work around the Phosh phone graphical
> environment.
>
>  Nice, is there something about Plasma Mobile? 
Not a clue as to the exact focus, you could maybe join the channel and ask ;-)

>  > So in short most of the pieces are in place, I'm not aware
> of anyone
>  > that's actually tested one of those devices as yet but there was
>  > certainly interest.
>
>  I've some experience in building Fedora images (I'm the maintainer of
>  [1]) on x86, but arm is a different game. 
It's really not, we use the same tools in core Fedora to build both
x86 and arm. ATM a lot of it's not complete, there's a handful of
remixes, when things get more complete the plan is to do a proper
spin. This is detailed on the wiki page the last I looked.

>  I'm still investigating, but I'd like to boot a Fedora on
> this device
>  (like I do in my PCs).
>  Phone is not a priority for me, but convergence is a good point. 
Well the aarch64 devices on Fedora all boot UEFI basically just like a PC

[Massimiliano]

Il giorno ven 19 mar 2021 alle ore 11:30 Peter Robinson
<pbrobinson(a)gmail.com&gt; ha scritto:
>  On Fri, Mar 19, 2021 at 10:24 AM Massimiliano <massi.ergosum(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>
>  No, I mean general andorid consumer phones aren't 
Sure. I hope the Librem 5 (and the community around it) will be different.

>  I think form the PoV of the phosh UX they are, I've no clue about
> the
>  HW side of things. I don't follow it closely enough. 
Ok.

>  > Nice, is there something about Plasma Mobile?
>
>  Not a clue as to the exact focus, you could maybe join the channel and ask ;-) 
Ok, just curious. I notice that Phosh is dominant.

>  It's really not, we use the same tools in core Fedora to build
> both
>  x86 and arm. ATM a lot of it's not complete, there's a handful of
>  remixes, when things get more complete the plan is to do a proper
>  spin. This is detailed on the wiki page the last I looked. 
Very interesting.

>  Well the aarch64 devices on Fedora all boot UEFI basically just like
> a PC 
I'd like to test. Hope this will happen soon.

Thanks again.

[Massimiliano]

I'm trying to understand if it's possible to boot the Librem 5 from an
external usb drive [1].
I think that kexec could be a good start point.
Any suggestion is welcome.

Thanks
Massi

[1] https://forums.puri.sm/t/multi-boot-for-other-os-in-librem-5/12701

Il giorno ven 19 mar 2021 alle ore 13:04 Massimiliano
<massi.ergosum(a)gmail.com&gt; ha scritto:
>
> Il giorno ven 19 mar 2021 alle ore 11:30 Peter Robinson
> <pbrobinson(a)gmail.com&gt; ha scritto:
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 19, 2021 at 10:24 AM Massimiliano <massi.ergosum(a)gmail.com&gt;
wrote:
> >
> > No, I mean general andorid consumer phones aren't
>
> Sure. I hope the Librem 5 (and the community around it) will be different.
>
> > I think form the PoV of the phosh UX they are, I've no clue about the
> > HW side of things. I don't follow it closely enough.
>
> Ok.
>
> > > Nice, is there something about Plasma Mobile?
> >
> > Not a clue as to the exact focus, you could maybe join the channel and ask ;-)
>
> Ok, just curious. I notice that Phosh is dominant.
>
> > It's really not, we use the same tools in core Fedora to build both
> > x86 and arm. ATM a lot of it's not complete, there's a handful of
> > remixes, when things get more complete the plan is to do a proper
> > spin. This is detailed on the wiki page the last I looked.
>
> Very interesting.
>
> > Well the aarch64 devices on Fedora all boot UEFI basically just like a PC
>
> I'd like to test. Hope this will happen soon.
>
> Thanks again.

[Peter Robinson]

On Thu, Mar 25, 2021 at 10:30 AM Massimiliano <massi.ergosum(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  I'm trying to understand if it's possible to boot the Librem 5 from an
>  external usb drive [1]. 
Fedora will boot off what ever storage the firmware supports, it also
depends on where you expect the firmware to resided.

>  I think that kexec could be a good start point. 
Not sure what kexec provides in this context.

> Any suggestion is welcome.
>
> Thanks
> Massi
>
> [1] https://forums.puri.sm/t/multi-boot-for-other-os-in-librem-5/12701
>
> Il giorno ven 19 mar 2021 alle ore 13:04 Massimiliano
> <massi.ergosum(a)gmail.com&gt; ha scritto:
> >
> > Il giorno ven 19 mar 2021 alle ore 11:30 Peter Robinson
> > <pbrobinson(a)gmail.com&gt; ha scritto:
> > >
> > > On Fri, Mar 19, 2021 at 10:24 AM Massimiliano
<massi.ergosum(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
> > >
> > > No, I mean general andorid consumer phones aren't
> >
> > Sure. I hope the Librem 5 (and the community around it) will be different.
> >
> > > I think form the PoV of the phosh UX they are, I've no clue about the
> > > HW side of things. I don't follow it closely enough.
> >
> > Ok.
> >
> > > > Nice, is there something about Plasma Mobile?
> > >
> > > Not a clue as to the exact focus, you could maybe join the channel and ask
;-)
> >
> > Ok, just curious. I notice that Phosh is dominant.
> >
> > > It's really not, we use the same tools in core Fedora to build both
> > > x86 and arm. ATM a lot of it's not complete, there's a handful of
> > > remixes, when things get more complete the plan is to do a proper
> > > spin. This is detailed on the wiki page the last I looked.
> >
> > Very interesting.
> >
> > > Well the aarch64 devices on Fedora all boot UEFI basically just like a PC
> >
> > I'd like to test. Hope this will happen soon.
> >
> > Thanks again.

[Massi aka Ergosum]

Il giorno lun 5 apr 2021 alle ore 23:22 Peter Robinson
<pbrobinson(a)gmail.com&gt; ha scritto:
>  On Thu, Mar 25, 2021 at 10:30 AM Massimiliano <massi.ergosum(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  >
>  > I'm trying to understand if it's possible to boot the Librem 5 from an
>  > external usb drive [1].
>
>  Fedora will boot off what ever storage the firmware supports, it also
>  depends on where you expect the firmware to resided.
>  
As far I understand [1] uboot cannot read from SD card because it's attached
behind an USB hub.

>  > I think that kexec could be a good start point.
>
>  Not sure what kexec provides in this context.
>  
My idea is:
1- Install Fedora on a SD card partition using virtualization
2- Insert SD card into L5 slot
3- Boot L5: the PureOS system will be loaded
4- Open a terminal as root
5- Use kexec to boot the Fedora kernel from SD card

Unfortunately [1] it seems that kexec doesn't work.
A different way has been proposed: configure an alternative
boot using an environment variable. Not very simple indeed.

Thanks

[1] https://forums.puri.sm/t/multi-boot-for-other-os-in-librem-5/12701/9
[2] https://forums.puri.sm/t/multi-boot-for-other-os-in-librem-5/12701/15

[Peter Robinson]

On Sat, Apr 10, 2021 at 12:09 PM Massi aka Ergosum
<massi.ergosum(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  Il giorno lun 5 apr 2021 alle ore 23:22 Peter Robinson
>  <pbrobinson(a)gmail.com&gt; ha scritto:
>  >
>  > On Thu, Mar 25, 2021 at 10:30 AM Massimiliano <massi.ergosum(a)gmail.com&gt;
> wrote:
>  > >
>  > > I'm trying to understand if it's possible to boot the Librem 5 from an
>  > > external usb drive [1].
>  >
>  > Fedora will boot off what ever storage the firmware supports, it also
>  > depends on where you expect the firmware to resided.
>  >
>
>  As far I understand [1] uboot cannot read from SD card because it's attached
>  behind an USB hub. 
I don't know the hardware or have the hardware, and I'll repeat
exactly what I stated above to ensure I was clear "Fedora will boot
off what ever storage the firmware supports"

>  > > I think that kexec could be a good start point.
>  >
>  > Not sure what kexec provides in this context.
>  >
>
>  My idea is:
>  1- Install Fedora on a SD card partition using virtualization
>  2- Insert SD card into L5 slot
>  3- Boot L5: the PureOS system will be loaded
>  4- Open a terminal as root
>  5- Use kexec to boot the Fedora kernel from SD card
>
>  Unfortunately [1] it seems that kexec doesn't work.
>  A different way has been proposed: configure an alternative
>  boot using an environment variable. Not very simple indeed. 
I don't know what Purism is doing, they've made some choices around
their HW which is frankly quite strange, I've stated this before [1],
and attempted to cover up the fact the HW needs various firmware to
work by masking them and doing, or at least attempting to do and I
have no idea if those experiments worked out or not, weird things in
the early boot process to setup the SoC. It was at that point I
stopped following what they were doing.

I'm aware of at least one person reporting that they had booted Fedora
on the device, they asked me if I could enable some drivers for some
of the sensors, I have no idea how they achieved it etc.

Like with all these early devices we can assist where possible but
there's an expectation of some level of being able to deal with the
very early low level booting of arm devices yourself because debugging
these devices over email or IRC is difficult.

[1] https://nullr0ute.com/2017/10/why-im-not-backing-the-purism-librem-5-phone/

[Massi aka Ergosum]

Il giorno sab 10 apr 2021 alle ore 13:24 Peter Robinson
<pbrobinson(a)gmail.com&gt; ha scritto:
>  I don't know what Purism is doing, they've made some choices around
>  their HW which is frankly quite strange, I've stated this before [1],
>  and attempted to cover up the fact the HW needs various firmware to
>  work by masking them and doing, or at least attempting to do and I
>  have no idea if those experiments worked out or not, weird things in
>  the early boot process to setup the SoC. It was at that point I
>  stopped following what they were doing.
>  
I know the article, I read it some time ago.

>  I'm aware of at least one person reporting that they had booted
> Fedora
>  on the device, they asked me if I could enable some drivers for some
>  of the sensors, I have no idea how they achieved it etc.
>
>  Like with all these early devices we can assist where possible but
>  there's an expectation of some level of being able to deal with the
>  very early low level booting of arm devices yourself because debugging
>  these devices over email or IRC is difficult.
>  
Yes, it's not a "well known" PC.

What about [1]? What's the plan of Fedora Mobility SIG? Who is taking
care of it?
I suppose since there is an empty link, someone wants to fill it...

Cheers

[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/ARM/Librem5

[Peter Robinson]

On Sat, Apr 10, 2021 at 4:33 PM Massi aka Ergosum
<massi.ergosum(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  Il giorno sab 10 apr 2021 alle ore 13:24 Peter Robinson
>  <pbrobinson(a)gmail.com&gt; ha scritto:
>  >
>  > I don't know what Purism is doing, they've made some choices around
>  > their HW which is frankly quite strange, I've stated this before [1],
>  > and attempted to cover up the fact the HW needs various firmware to
>  > work by masking them and doing, or at least attempting to do and I
>  > have no idea if those experiments worked out or not, weird things in
>  > the early boot process to setup the SoC. It was at that point I
>  > stopped following what they were doing.
>  >
>
>  I know the article, I read it some time ago.
>
>  > I'm aware of at least one person reporting that they had booted Fedora
>  > on the device, they asked me if I could enable some drivers for some
>  > of the sensors, I have no idea how they achieved it etc.
>  >
>  > Like with all these early devices we can assist where possible but
>  > there's an expectation of some level of being able to deal with the
>  > very early low level booting of arm devices yourself because debugging
>  > these devices over email or IRC is difficult.
>  >
>
>  Yes, it's not a "well known" PC.
>
>  What about [1]? What's the plan of Fedora Mobility SIG? Who is taking
>  care of it?
>  I suppose since there is an empty link, someone wants to fill it... 
Just because it's linked as a possible candidate doesn't mean people
are actively working on it, this is a community and anyone can
contribute, it doesn't mean anything in particular will be delivered
to you on a silver platter. Maybe you could contribute the time needed
to support it?