Reflashing the Librem 5

• About
• Latest Posts

David Hamner

Latest posts by David Hamner (see all)

• Easy App Development: Text Forwarding - January 22, 2024
• Retain Your Control and Customize Everything with Modular Software - January 22, 2024
• Nasty Software - December 18, 2023

Reflashing the Librem 5 is the best way to remove your personal data and put the phone back into factory defaults.

Warning, this procedure will completely erase everything on the device! Make a backup beforehand!

The Librem 5 gets reflashed from a separate 64-bit x86 computer running PureOS (or booted from the live PureOS disk).

Reflashing from that computer is as simple as installing the needed packages:

sudo apt install git python3-jenkins python3-tqdm uuu

Downloading the flashing scripts:

git clone https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/librem5-flash-image.git

And flashing the phone for Evergreen (mass-produced version)

cd librem5-flash-image
sudo ./scripts/librem5-flash-image

Detailed directions including how to flash the older Dogwood/Chestnut/Birch versions can be found here; while the above procedure is demonstrated in this video:

If you’re not running PureOS or a recent version of Debian or Ubuntu, you may need to alter the install step for your distribution. If all else fails, you can build a live USB of PureOS, boot it, and flash the Librem 5 from there.

Discover the Librem 5

Purism believes building the Librem 5 is just one step on the road to launching a digital rights movement, where we—the-people stand up for our digital rights, where we place the control of your data and your family’s data back where it belongs: in your own hands.

Order now