I'm a professional software developer (but not a Linux developer) so this question is not "How do I code an app?"  The question is "What's the easiest way to write Pine64 code to handle GPIO events."


Details:  I want to build a background process for my Pine64 (running Debian) to handle GPIOs so that I can power on/off a few things either via Node-Red (already installed on the pine), or by manually pushing a button on my Pine64 case.  The program logic is done, but I'm struggling to find a tool chain that I can use to create the program.  Either I can't compile the code, or once I get an executable running, it doesn't seem to run.  

In a perfect world, I'd love to get C# on the Pine64 working, but I'd be happy with any standard language (C, C++, etc.) that I can write and compile on my main dev machine, which runs Windows 10.  (It can run Linux in a VM if required for compiling.  Heck, I could write it and compile it on the Pine64 via VNC, if that is what is needed.)

What I need is a "Hello World" or "Blink an LED" guide to get a background app/service going on the Pine64 from my Dev machine that covers:

• What needs to be installed on my dev machine (software, dependencies, etc.)  and how do I execute builds (command line commands, etc.)? 
  
• What language I should use (Needs to read/write to GPIOS, run as a background service, and make Node Red calls.  Minor file IO would also be nice)
  
• What do I need to install/configure on the Pine 64 to get the executable to run?
  
• What debugging patterns/tools can I use?  (Is there an IDE supporting debugger breakpoints?  Can I pause running code to inspect its state?  Am I limited to logging style debugging similar to on Arduino?  Are there Pine64 emulators that I can test the code with virtual GPIO inputs?) 
  
• How do I deploy the compiled executable to run as a background service?  How do I update the executable with a newer executable each time I make a new version?
  

Hello, hoping someone can help me - I got in over my head with my Pinebook settings (using Pinebook with Ubuntu Mate 16.04) and increased the size of my /boot partition by unmounting, increasing the size and remounting. The updates that were required before but couldn't complete because of lack of space worked but after a reboot, nothing comes up on the screen. Have tried to restart it in safe mode (hitting Escape button, tab button, etc when booting up). All I get is a power light and nothing on the screen. I tried loading an .img of 16.04 to an SD card in hopes it would boot from that but that didn't work either.
No response from the Pinebook support team.
Wondering if anyone can help?

Thanks,
gmoney604

Hi,

I am thinking of changing the hardware I use, by hardware with low consumption, less space use on a room  and on hard drive, easy replacement and something more easy to evolve. And definitely something more fun.

Actually I have a home made server which runs on AMD 4 cpu for storage (2 hdd with LVM)  and backups (2 hdd with BTRFS). I have a laptop with i3 cpu and SSD.

Their are 2 issues with this, the server is using too many power but it is not really powerfull to be a remote desktop. My laptop is old and during last years I change too many times my laptops due to hardware problems (my last dislikes beer  )

The idea is to split every part in something more efficient. The server could be split in two machines : one for backup and one for storage. I was thinking to have a better desktop PC (with intel ix or Ryzen) because the price is the same as a i3 laptop and finally a pinebook as laptop replacement.

For the server, I am thinking to use a mini itx board with celeron (TDP 10). For now I could use just one box with 5 disks, one ssd for system, 2 for storage (btrfs raid 0) and 2 for backups (btrfs raid 1).
Do you think it's possible to do the same kind of things with pine64 or rock64 boards ? I don't ask for the sopine because I do not really understand it's possibilities. But if it's a solution, I can learn !

For the desktop, I am thinking to use a mini-itx with a ryzen 5/7 or i5/7, a starting GPU card (GT 710) and a small SSD for the system only. The data will be stored on storage server (NTFS). The idea here, is with the same budget as a i3 laptop (< 850$) I could buy hardware that will be sufficient for the next 5-10 years. I am doing basic desktop (libreoffice, mail, browse) and development (python/web). The server and the desktop will sit on the same room and are wired connected (1Gb/s). 
I had a look to the pine64 clusters project, and I do not know if it could be an alternative solution, what do you think ?

And last, the pinebook. Here my idea is to connect to the desktop from local and internet network.
- I would like to use the desktop cpu and gpu so which is the best solution to use a remote desktop ? SSH/XForwarding, vnc, wayland, another ?
- 99% of the time I have a good internet connection (100Mbit/s) but at home I have an upload bandwidth of 1MBit/s, is it a limitation for remote desktop by internet ?
- I do an hypothesis that the pinebook will use at a minimum it's CPU and GPU this way, do am I right ?

Thank you for the time you spent to read this.

Hi all,

After a much disappointment from the Pine64 2GB which does not support HDMI - AVR pass-through I would like to know if this new board support HDMI pass-through via AVR?

Thanks,
Moshe.

i want to use 2 li-ion batteries in parallel on my pine 64, but 1 of the batteries has no thermister, will the 2nd battery charge without it?

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hi all , i'm new here and applied for the BTO of the 14" pinebook.
at first i thouhg the ""BTO" meant i can customize some things, but then i saw the product page in the store, which explains the term better than the bto page itself ^^;

i do have some questions about the pinebook
1: why is is so cheap in comparision to the olimex open source laptop?
2: is there any upgrade path for the mainboard in the future, by which i only need to swap it and plug the emmc module in?
2-1: if so, what will those specs be? (i hope for >= 4gb ram, extra storage options, like a second emmc slot or a sata 3 or m.2 slot)
3: can there be a bigger battery in the unit, as i saw on google images that the insides between the 2 pcb's is unused space.
4: what is the sound quality like? if it is 'meh' , then i would sugggest for a newer revision the have a pair of high note speakers pointing out at the back of the system, like between the 2 hinges for the display (i did a similar mod to a el cheapo yepo 737s and the sound sounded waaay fuller, even pleasant for such a thin laptop!)
5: will there ever be a usb type c connector on a newer revision of the laptop?
6: would be fun to have an internal usb 2 port as well, for a usb to sata hdd for the lose space in the laptop
7: is the headphone jack also a mic in (2-in-1 solution?)
8: what are the thermals under load right now? does the cpu throttle? and what is the TDP of the SOC in watts peak?
9: is there a possibility of extra cooling by adding a flat copper plat or something?
10: what is the bottom panel made of? i hope aluminium, as my yepo 737s had that, and it acted as a cooling plate for the intel atom with a TDP of roughly 6W peak (2w average SDP (scenario design power))
11: does it run u-boot or some other bootloader?
12: what's the maximum battery lifespan on the default OS, at 50% brightness of the lcd, while having firefox with a youtube video running? (at the refernce 360p)
13: if i place a BTO request like right now, what will the expected waiting time be? (so i know around what period i can pay)

The production units DO NOT have this problem, apparently; several have tested.

If you have a pre release pinebook, please read on !

I first noticed this problem on the 14" pinebook while using weechat irc client;  the meta key combination alt-L to pull up the raw window does not work on my client... I used the manual command and moved on (forgot about it frankly)

Tonight after update and upgrade I tried to pull up one of the fbcon (black screen) terminals with Ctrl+Alt+F1 and it did not work.  In fact none of my fbcon terminals will come up ( Ctrl+Alt+F1 - F7 ).

Next I tried using xev ( as well evtest ) to get the keycodes of the Ctrl key, as well the Alt meta keys (left and right). And to my surprise the meta keys on my 14" do not produce valid keycodes ( neither Alt key ) on either of the test instruments ( xev nor evtest ).

So, I'm interested to know whether anyone else with a Pinebook 14" with the new production keyboard has this issue too?  To test just start  xev  tool and then press and release several of the keys on you keyboard , but specifically the left Alt and right Alt keys;  do you get a valid keycode for each Alt key, or does it not respond ??

Thank you.

Cannot get the micro SD slot to keep the micro SD card in.  Pushed in and held, the computer recognises the card, but it springs out as soon as you release pressure.  Tried deep insertion.  Tried several cards.

It'd be great to get a better power adapter for the Pinebook (e.g. longer cable, in-line power brick instead of wall wart). I've considered taping an extension cord to the to the wall wart that came with my Pinebook, but I'd prefer something a little nicer looking. Has anyone found an adapter online that they prefer for their Pinebook?

Note: If you came across this thread because you wanted to find the great OpenMediaVault images for the rock64 that ayufan has slaved over, jump over to https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-b...ses/latest and look for the jessie-openmediavault-rock64 images. But please do come back and read this topic at some point soon, to ensure you get the best possible performance from your setup! 

Due to the rather attractive feature set of the rock64 for it's price point (USB3 port, dedicated USB2 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, up to 4GB of RAM, up to 1.5Ghz quad core 64bit processor ), one of the expected uses for it is as a Network Attached Storage device, either running your own custom setup, or perhaps OpenMediaVault (I'd recommend the latter... you can't beat a pre-configured web-gui driven setup that's ready to go out of the box!  ). And talking of performance, I can't resist not posting this excerpt from tkaiser as to just how good the rock64 can be when configured right:

tkaiser Wrote:We're talking about +380MB/s on average with UAS. This is close to the maximum what we can get with USB3 SuperSpeed anyway (400MB/s or to quote the specs: "At a 5 Gbps signaling rate with 8b/10b encoding, the raw throughput is 500 MBps. When link flow control, packet framing, and protocol overhead are considered, it is realistic for 400 MBps or more to be delivered to an application.")

• Some OMV GbE transfer statistics
  
• USB3 Storage device benchmarks - OpenMediaVault, USB3 performance thread 
  

• If you're thinking about NAS / OMV, you're probably thinking about external storage. The best chipsets to use are JMS567, JMS578 or ASM1153E (the latter is only an issue in Seagate disk enclosures due to branded/broken firmware). And the pine64 store stocks a pretty cheap JMS578 USB3 to SATA cable (which is suitable for 3.5" disks with additional 12V/2A PSU, and *possibly* 2.5" drives without a powered USB hub, although one would be strongly recommended). If you want other optoins, similar items under the YEYI and ORICO brands, with the latter also having a full 3.5" disk enclosure relying on the JMS578 chipset. They can be found for as little as US$4.99 on AliExpress at the time of writing, and you might even be able to get them cheaper with the odd coupon that goes around...
  
• A lot of other people have used the Odroid XU4 as their NAS/OMV device. And when you consider the specs, it's no wonder why. However, specs are not everything in a NAS/OMV devices, real-world performance is. Configured correctly, and with the right hardware, the rock64 can probably outperform the Odroid XU4, whilst running cooler and consuming less energy. However, please make up your own mind on this... have a look at the threads on the Armbian Forum and the OMV Forum where tkaiser has collected a lot of benchmaking data, and stimulated discussion about real-world performance and usability. 
  
  

• USB RAID: In a home use application, it is a plain joke, as it isn't true RAID to start with. Plus, you can get into funky situations where your RAID setup actually shuts itself down due to undervoltage, making it lose and corrupt things all by itself. Someone on the IRC chat put it like "USB RAID (with one USB hub in between -- let some disks do some work --> under-voltage --> hub disappears from bus --> all disks are gone at the same time --> RAID my *aunt*).
  
• Undervoltage: This is very common issue in the SBC world, and is because mobile phone / USB chargers are simply not suited for powering SBCs. Save your self some unnecessary pain and suffering, and get the proper rock64 power supply. Its good, cheap, and will prevent random file system corruption, crashes and your rock64 suddenly powering off due to a undervoltage issue. And if you want to use external hard disk drives... you really should use a powered USB hub, as the rock64 will probably be able to power them if used with the correct power supply, but you are simply asking for undervoltage issues or for your external HDD to not power on properly. 
  
• MicroSD fakes or poor performance: This issue crops up again, and again, and again. Regardless of if you buy a 'name brand' microSD from your electrical supply store, supermarket, or from a reputable online seller, fakes can be introduced anywhere in the supply chain without their knowledge, and regardless of that, the microSD could be faulty on arrival, or just not a suitable one for SBC applications. My personal recommendation is that you should get yourself a Samsung EVO(+) MicroSD. They have been tested numerous times, and provide excellent performance at a good price. And after you get one, still use something like h2testw (on windows), or F3 for linux and Mac, to check that your microSD is really the size it claims it is, and doesn't have any faults right from day 1.
  
• Error messages not quite meaning what you think: For example these logs might make you think that the uas_eh_abort_handler errors are an indication there is is something wrong with the UAS drivers or support on your system. However, in this particular case, the issue was actually an underpower issue for the cradle, and was occurring during some random write tests, as as that is when a disk drive is the most power demanding.