If you are an experienced Linux user then this post is probably not for you, but if you are new to Linux and the Mate desktop then here are a few pointers on how to make the Pinebook your own. To keep this post as newbie friendly as possible I decided to stay completely clear of the command line and focused on what's already there in the GUI. Before you read this post I’d also like to make it clear that what I outline below is not something you have to do, but rather something you may wish to do.  

First things first; before you start tweaking things to your liking, make sure to download the Installer utility to your computer and flash the newest Ubuntu Mate OS image to your Pinebook.
Now you are ready to roll: 

1) Creating a new user

Creating a new user may just be the first thing to do after the initial boot. All first and third party images (bar Armbian) come with a preset user and password. The stock user on the Pinebook Ubuntu image is called ‘pine64’.  Many if not most users will be perfectly fine with being referred to as ‘pine64’ and having a home folder called ‘pine64’s home folder’, but some of you may wish to have a user and home folder in your prefered name. Now, there are ways to rename the existing user and home folder, but they require a bit of tinkering in the command line. Therefore the easiest option is to create a new user from scratch in GUI. To do so, logged in as pine64 navigate to: System → Administrations → Users and Groups. Once the Users Settings window opens, click +Add in the lower left corner and follow instructions. Once you’ve created your user, select your newly creased profile and navigate to Account Type and select Change. You will be given two options, make sure to set your new user as Administrator and exit. Now you can log off pine64 and log into your user name. Logged in as your new user, you can now remove pine64 by navigating to Users and Groups, selecting ‘pine64’ and clicking Delete.  


2) The desktop environment layout
 
Out-of-the-box the Mate desktop looks near identical to old-school Gnome2 that many longtime Linux users recognise and enjoy. While this is great for (some) old-school users accustomed to this type of workflow, those of you coming from Windows or Mac OSX may find it a bit alien. Luckily the mate desktop comes with a pretty nifty utility called Mate Tweak which allows you to quickly and easily adjust the desktop environment to your liking. You will find the Mate Tweak utility under: System → Preferences → Look and Feel → MATE Tweak.  The utility has three tabs: Desktop, Interface and Icons. Under Desktop you can choose which icons, if any, will appear on your desktop. Interface allows you to change the actual layout of the desktop. The first drop-down menu has a number of preset layouts which you can choose from. Surely many of you will quickly recognise that Cupertino and Redmond (Apple and Microsoft’s campus towns) refer to Mac OSX and Windows layouts. Lastly, in the Windows panel you can also switch the close, minimise and maximise button position from right to left by switching from ‘traditional’ to ‘contemporary’.

   

3) Themes and Icons

There is nearly an endless amount of themes available for the Mate desktop. The stock theme that ships with the image is alright and functional, but I find darker and ‘flatter’ themes easier on the eyes.  To change the desktop theme, navigate to System→ Preferences → Look and Feel → Appearance.  You will find that Mate comes with a number of preset themes which you can choose from. It is also possible to further mix and match the look of the desktop by clicking the Customise button. The Customise button with open an new panel in which you’ll find Controls; Colours; Window Border: Icons; and Pointer tabs, all of which are pretty self-explanatory. Aside from the various pre-existing themes and icon-sets, you can also download many others from Noobslab and other similar sites. Noteworthily, you can also set your wallpaper in the appearance window – just navigate to the ‘Background’ panel. Wallpapers can also be set by right-clicking the desktop and selecting ‘Change Desktop Background’. 

   

4) Applets and custom launchers

Applets are indicators which can be added to the top and/or bottom panel(s). Custom applets can display weather, notify you of new email, relay SoC performance, allow you to adjust some GUI parameters on the fly, etc. To add new applets right-click a panel and select ‘Add to panel’ - a new window will open and you will be presented with a number of applets to choose from. On the pinebook, I strongly suggest adding the LCD Brightness applet, which allows you to easily set the desired brightness levels of your screen. You can also create your own application launchers. Launchers can run applications in both GUI and the terminal. I will use Chromium browser as an example; if you follow Prophesi’s guide to installing Chromium, you will notice that it requires a flag to work. Rather than launching Chromium from the terminal, you can create custom launcher to include the required flag. Select and add ‘Custom Application Launcher’, name the launcher Chromium and paste the command including the flag in in the ‘Command’ box. The launcher should recognise the application name and set the correct icon for it automatically; if it doesn’t, you can manually select an image by pressing the icon box. Your Chromium launcher is now ready to use.      

   

If you know what sort of desktop experience you’re after then completing points 1-4 should take no longer than a couple of minutes. I find that it's worth putting in the time and making the desktop experience suit your needs and preferences – after all this is Linux, so it's all about how you prefer to interact with the operating system. 
Did I forget about something or leave out some important information? - let me know.

Edit: Having tinkered a bit with the desktop I arrived at this - I'm enjoy Apple's desktop paradigm, hence the dock and the top bar. Unfortunately I can't embed the image because there's a limit on the number of attachments

Hello,
I've tried replying to the BTO mail I got for the 14" Pinebook with this question, however, I still haven't gotten any response. Strangely enough, four days after I received the said BTO, I got another, exactly the same one. I've added myself to the BTO queue for the 11.6" version of the Pinebook some time ago. Do I understand it right that people (including me) who signed up for the 11.6" Pinebook get the 'Meet your New 14" Pinebook' as an offer if they decide to get the 14" one instead of the 11.6" one? If I do not want the 14" Pinebook, will I get another BTO once the 11.6" is in stock again automatically or do I have to re-add myself to the queue?

Android 7.1 (Pinebook) v0.3.3-r59 (SDCard). Note that, this build is for SD Card boot.

Thanks to Ayufan for building this image. Please visit the GitHub for more details about this image.

Android 6.0 SDK downloaded form: http://files.pine64.org/os/sdk/A64-ver2.....0-SDK.zip

Running . ./build/envsetup.sh, Terminal shows a red line CHIPHD_LICHEE_DIR=builder@192.168.1.22:/home2/builder/release/a83-6.0/lichee

is it ok or some error?

what parameters to be used for lunch  . . . . . . ?

what should be next steps to build and get android img?

Attached Files

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Does anybody know what the SPI running the CD card is capable of? SD interfaces range from 1 to 4 lanes and single to quad data rates in the 20-104mhz range.

Just looking for a high data throughput interface for a peripheral that doesn't require the overhead of USB framing.

So I decided to run some benchmark tests on the Pinebook 11" using a utility available in the Android app store called AnTuTu (I also tried out Passmark but it showed similar results).  I was curious as to how it stacks up against another super-cheap device I've had for a few years now: The RCA 7" Android tablet I bought at Walmart for $39. Model #RCT6773W22

Stats on this device are:
CPU Model: MTK MT8127
Architecture: ARM Cortex A7 32-bit
Cores: 4
Frequency: 1300 Mhz
GPU: Mali-450 MP
RAM: 1 GB
OS: Android 4.4.2
Storage: 8 GB


RCA Tablet
Overall Score: 18607
3D: 1651
User Experience: 5520
CPU: 8419
RAM: 3017

Pinebook 11" (Running Android 6.0.1 image from Pine64)
Overall Score: 21764
3D: 673
User Experience: 10043
CPU: 8983
RAM: 2065

A few things shocked me.
- I figured the Pinebook would kick the crap out of my RCA tablet in the CPU arena. It didn't seem all that much faster in the results, but maybe that can be attributed to the fact that the tablet tops out at 1.3 ghz, while the Pinebook seems to redline at around 1.1 ghz.
- RAM performance on the Pinebook was lower than my cheap tablet. I tried to dig up information on what kind of RAM the RCA tablet has, but could only find references stating that it had DDR3 in it. The only thing I can figure is that the Pinebook states LPDDR3 which is I believe a low-power version of that RAM. Maybe my tablet is not using the low power version... maybe higher performance at the cost of lower battery life?
- Biggest disappointment was the GPU performance. The stats on the Mali 400 / 450 are drastically different and it reflects in the scores. I can play some decent games on my tablet including my favorite Real Racing 3. I haven't really tried any games on the Pinebook other than briefly loading Minecraft PE, but I'm guessing it's not useable for any kind of 3D oriented gaming. The Mali400 just doesn't look up to the challenge.  Probably ok though considering most games on Android are designed to be used with a touchscreen or accelerometer, which the Pinebook won't be able to do.  If more Android games supported keyboard/mouse configurations, this might be a different story.

Hi guys,


do you have an idea about which is the best approach to crypt the entire rootfs (using criptsetup software or other tools) and then decrypt itself automatically on system startup?


Thanks in advance 

Q4OS builds for Pinebook 1080p and Pinebook legacy are available:

Download: https://www.q4os.org/downloads1.html#downloads_spechw
Setup guide: https://q4os.org/dqa013.html

Description: This is a Q4OS build with Desktop Environment based on Debian stable.

Instructions:  Once flashing completed, insert the micro-sd card into the Pinebook, power on and enjoy Q4OS. Optional installation to internal eMMC is available, just click to a desktop icon and follow instructions.

Initial credentials:
 Username: adminq
 Password: adminq

Xenial Mate (Pinebook) 20170505 (MD5: 93bcaf2d33aabf34691ec7b94ead50d3)

Release Notes:
1. This build is base on 0.4.0: jenkins-linux-build-pine-a64-44
2. Added packages: aisleriot, gnomine, gnome-sudoku, emacs, nano, vim, geany, scratch, gcc, htop, smplayer, smtube, mplayer, libvdpau, gimp
3. Fixed left USB port as host
4. Login Credential
Username: pine64
Password: pine64

Known Issues:
1. HDMI output not working yet.
2. Auto detect headphone not working yet.  Currently the audio will output to both speaker and headphone.