2025-12-13 MNT Pocket Reform notes
As is often the case, I sit on a cushion in the living room, typing into the MNT Pocket Reform laptop while Claudia is lying on the sofa, reading a magazine.
After a recent upgrade, poweroff, shutdown and friends stopped doing their job. The system starts shutting down; only the keyboard lights are still on, then nothing happens for a few seconds and then the Pocket Reform reboots again.
I posted on the community forums, asking for help, and *josch* came to the rescue once again. The key to finding the problem is running `reform-check`.
Here's his breakdown:
E: Cannot get version of linux-image-mnt-reform-arm64 as it is not installed
Without having that meta-package installed, it will be more tricky to keep your kernel up-to-date.
W: unable to obtain version of system controller firmware -- firmware too old? W: unable to obtain version of keyboard firmware -- firmware too old?
You should look into upgrading your sysctl and keyboard firmware. The versions after the one you have (too old to retrieve the exact version) contain important fixes for the stability of keyboard/sysctl communication.
E: linux-headers-mnt-reform-arm64 is not installed -- cannot compile reform2_lpc module
This is why you cannot shut-down properly. Without the `reform2_lpc` module, the system cannot tell your Pocket to switch off.
E: reform2_lpc is not loaded (battery status information will be missing)
E: /usr/lib/modules/6.17.11-mnt-reform-arm64/updates/dkms/reform2_lpc.ko{.xz} does not exist
More errors because the module cannot be compiled above.
I installed `linux-image-mnt-reform-arm64` and `linux-headers-mnt-reform-arm64` but the `reform2_lpc` is still uncompiled.
I’m not sure how to do this but guessed that `sudo dpkg-reconfigure reform2-lpc-dkms` was the command I needed. To load it, `sudo modprobe reform2-lpc` … and now shutdown works! 😍
I found information about the dynamic kernel module system (dkms) on this very blog. Sometimes it is amazing. And then I searched for an appropriate package.
As for the firmware, *josch* said:
Since your firmware is too old to be updated via fwupd, you need to do it manually once: How to Update your MNT Pocket Reform Firmware.
After you are on that firmware version, you can use gnome-firmware (the GUI way) or `fwupd` (the console way) to update to the latest version.
Thanks, *josch*!