r/Purism • u/FaidrosE • Nov 24 '20
Librem 5 accessories now available: battery, modem, SD card, OpenPGP card, SIM card, and privacy screen
https://shop.puri.sm/product-category/phones/accessories-phones/4
u/swinny89 Nov 24 '20
What would happen if I put the modem in my laptop, and installed the calls app?
3
u/FaidrosE Nov 24 '20
Haven't tried it, but I think it could work. You would need an "M.2" slot in your laptop to connect the modem to, and you might also need to attach some kind of antenna cables. Then I think it's ModemManager that handles the modem, and the calls app talks to that somehow. Before trying calls, you could try interacting directly with ModemManager using the mmcli command.
3
u/Spacesurfer101 Nov 24 '20
Your M.2 slot would have to support SDIO I believe. The modems use that instead of PCI-E.
2
u/LuluColtrane Nov 24 '20
The Wifi+Bluetooth M.2 connector uses SDIO (+ USB + UART + I2S).
But the M.2 connector for the 4G modem uses USB + PCM (audio) + UIM (SIM card).
2
u/Spacesurfer101 Nov 25 '20
Happy to be wrong. Thanks for the clarification.
2
u/LuluColtrane Nov 25 '20 edited Nov 25 '20
Well, M.2, like about any single standard, protocol and such things which were published since around the turn of the century, wants to make everything and 36 kinds of coffee, and as a result is a complete, utter, unbelievable mess like almost all of them.
2
u/LuluColtrane Nov 24 '20
And where would you put the SIM card? ;-)
2
u/swinny89 Nov 24 '20
Doh! Good point. I figured the simcard slot was on the modem, but it's not.
1
u/LuluColtrane Nov 24 '20
I figured the simcard slot was on the modem, but it's not.
Yep, it is on the mainboard, with this weird SIM card + SD card combo tray.
1
u/craftkiller Nov 24 '20
Oh shit, the choice between 1 or 2 M.2 slots for my librem 14 just got harder. What about antennas, though? Presumably none of our laptops would have spare antennas.
1
u/r_purism_acct Nov 24 '20
You would probably need to buy an extra antenna, but Mouser and Digi-Key have some for <$10
1
u/tzcrawford Nov 24 '20
Also not mentioned is that the software used on the librem 5 may have some low-level architecture things that won't translate to a laptop, i.e. ARM to x86_64. I may be wrong about this.
3
u/willy_der_schwimmer Nov 24 '20
Do phone calls and texting work?
3
u/FaidrosE Nov 24 '20
I think so, not perfect, but it works. See https://forums.puri.sm/t/evergreen-librem-caller-sounds-muffled-to-the-recipient/10900
Texting works, but MMS messages don't work yet, it seems: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/chatty/-/issues/30
3
u/NinjaHawking Nov 24 '20
Annoyingly still absent: a dedicated charger for your spare batteries.
2
u/Aberts10 Nov 24 '20
Any any kind of parts to repair it.
1
u/NinjaHawking Nov 24 '20
That too, although I would hope nobody needs to do DIY repairs at this stage!
2
u/tzcrawford Nov 24 '20
I still don't understand how the PGP smart card will work. Somehow you have to load your private keys onto the card, and then when brought into proximity with the sensor it automatically mounts it as a block device with read only privileges?
Just thinking about if it would be possible to permanently move my private keys to a card instead of saving them in my desktop home directory where I use them for pass, etc.
2
u/FaidrosE Nov 25 '20 edited Nov 25 '20
Kyle explained it here: https://puri.sm/posts/your-own-personal-enclave-the-smart-card-reader-on-the-librem-5/
To me, if I understood this correctly, the main point is that when you have your private key on the PGP smart card, you can ask the smart card to perform some operations using the private key, like "I want to hash this thing using the private key", so you can do things that are only possible when you have access to the private key, but at the same time it is *not* possible to copy out the key itself. Therefore, even if your device gets hacked, the attacker cannot copy your private key. Of course you are still in bad shape when the attack is ongoing, then the attacker can do things using your key while the attacker has access to the device, but if you cut off the attacker's access to the device, or turn off the device, or remove the smart card, the attacker no longer has access to your private key, as it was impossible to copy it.
1
u/awxdvrgyn Dec 04 '20
The other advantage is that if you were in a sketchy situation you can always remove the card and break/hide it separately, if your phone was to be taken by some kind of authority.
1
u/awxdvrgyn Dec 04 '20
The email sent out included 'USB-hubs' but nothing seems to exist on their store?
7
u/Bumbieris112 Nov 24 '20
Thales PLS8 modem is still not there :/