First Pinebook Pro project discussion

[Wizzard]

I want to use it the same way as my primany notebook, it means web browsing, music, video, etc. and sometimes game playing on RetroArch. The same thing I wanted to use the first Pinebook, but it was too slow

What OS are you planning to use as a daily driver?

Ubuntu or Debian, with KDE

Odoslané z ONEPLUS A5010 pomocou Tapatalku

[brent.thierens]

I will try to get Ubuntu running with Unity/Gnome Shell as DE. I think it looks a lot better compared to LXDE or XFCE.
I will try to use it as my daily driver.

[InsideJob]

The heavier desktop environments like Unity and KDE won't start up at all with just software rendering. You probably won't be able to get past the display manager's login screen until you get all the hardware acceleration issues figured out. It's a lot easier to get up and running with a lighter DE like MATE, LXDE, Xfce or even Cinnamon -- I've got Cinnamon running pretty well on Raspberry Pi BTW.

[Wizzard]

I had not problem running KDE on first Pinebook with software rendering.

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[InsideJob]

I got KDE going on the Pi a while back but there were a bunch of problems. Biggest was I couldn't right click plasma widgets. Still, Kubuntu would be great. I'm an Android guy too and KDE Connect is simply the best interoperability tool available, IMHO.

EDIT: And now that I think back on it the reason I gave up on my KDE4Pi2 project was because I found a bug report for the right click problem that had been open for something like a year (maybe it was several months) and I'm just not that patient of a person. That was ARMHF though and I see they're more into the mobile side of things now, so maybe the situation has improved.

[Thra11]

I plan to get NixOS working on it, then use it as my laptop

Any chance you'll try GuixSD as well? It's built on the same principles as Nix.

Possibly. I have tried Guix in the past. I liked it, but found it rather slow to evaluate things on my rather slow machine. Maybe I should revisit it. "Porting" for both OS's will likely consist mostly of similar steps:

1. 1. Choosing appropriate source repos and / or patchsets to build u-boot and the linux kernel.
   
2. 2. Checking how the RK3399 boots (Does it expect certain binaries at certain offsets, etc.)
   
3. 3. Packaging any device-specific applications & services.
   

It looks like those working on the kernel have nice clean source trees (It's no fun trying to decipher the undocumented code 'dumps' that some hardware comes with), and the RockPro64 with the same CPU is already working with NixOS, albeit with an older kernel, so I'm optimistic it shouldn't be too hard to get working.

[aleksei]

I plan to get NixOS working on it, then use it as my laptop

Any chance you'll try GuixSD as well? It's built on the same principles as Nix.

Possibly. I have tried Guix in the past. I liked it, but found it rather slow to evaluate things on my rather slow machine. Maybe I should revisit it. "Porting" for both OS's will likely consist mostly of similar steps:

1. 1. Choosing appropriate source repos and / or patchsets to build u-boot and the linux kernel.
   
2. 2. Checking how the RK3399 boots (Does it expect certain binaries at certain offsets, etc.)
   
3. 3. Packaging any device-specific applications & services.
   

It looks like those working on the kernel have nice clean source trees (It's no fun trying to decipher the undocumented code 'dumps' that some hardware comes with), and the RockPro64 with the same CPU is already working with NixOS, albeit with an older kernel, so I'm optimistic it shouldn't be too hard to get working.

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for your reports then.

[MrTester]

If nobody else does it first I'm sure I can get an ARM64 build of Ubuntu up and running, like this one I did for the original Pi 3B:
http://privacyenhanced.blogspot.com/2017...tions.html

Trick I found was using their mk-sbuild utility (ubuntu-dev-tools package) to create the root filesystem. If you're familiar with Gentoo that'll leave you in a position like after a stage 3 tarball. You have to manually install the init ststem and kernel but otherwise getting a base image together isn't that hard. Getting a GUI desktop going with accelerated graphics... well, that's a bit more of a challenge.

This would be fantastic, I prefer consistency in my OS ecosystem and already have ubuntu running on my Elitebook i7.

[tophneal]

I got KDE going on the Pi a while back but there were a bunch of problems. Biggest was I couldn't right click plasma widgets. Still, Kubuntu would be great. I'm an Android guy too and KDE Connect is simply the best interoperability tool available, IMHO.

EDIT: And now that I think back on it the reason I gave up on my KDE4Pi2 project was because I found a bug report for the right click problem that had been open for something like a year (maybe it was several months) and I'm just not that patient of a person. That was ARMHF though and I see they're more into the mobile side of things now, so maybe the situation has improved.

KDE Plasma is a lot leaner now, and even run pretty well on the Pinebook 1080. I was initially skeptical, too, as my last experience with KDE was late v3/early v4 and it was not low spec friendly. Apparently Plasma came with a huge push to slim down and speed up.

The only issues I've noticed is on occasion custom icons won't show, but they come back on a reboot. The only performance issues I've noticed have been from programs pushing the little laptop to its limits, KDE has yet to freeze mine up. I think with the better specs in the PBP, KDE will be a top DE choice.

[Watercourse]

As a humble (and lazy) end-user type, i'd be looking forward to an Ubuntu LTS install (did i mention lazy?) but am just as happy with alternative DE's.
Never too lazy to learn a little, Just not so much i gets a headache.