I am switching over my new pbp from Manjaro to ArchARM. I forgot what I put in for my user pw and couldn't find anything on a default pw for root, so failed to make a boot SD on the pbp, used a laptop with Slackware instead. I followed the instructions at github (Installation on microSD card or eMMC module) for making the SD card and installing it.

The first reboot put me at the Arch prompt, but 'wifi-menu' didn't work. I looked at PCI devices and nothing was showing up for wireless devices. Wifi was working under the default Manjaro. I went ahead with the rest of the install without a network connection. It didn't give any complaints while initializing and populating the keys.

I then went ahead and with the install for the eMMC (Installation on eMMC module without a USB adapter). I'm not sure what USB adapter is being referred to or how the install would go if I had one, figured this would work regardless. After a reboot, it goes through the Tow-Boot sequence, but then fails to mount /boot.

I repeated the process with rewriting the SD card but it gives me the same error. I looked through the journalctl logs and don't see anything more than generic error info, not sure what to report here. I can't exactly cut and paste with the state the pbp is in. There were some warnings and extra steps (keeping or removing a file system for the second partition) while preparing the SD that I made guesses on since they weren't mentioned in the install guide.

Not sure at this point if I should check this SD card for problems, try a different card, or a different install method...?

This guide is broken up into main recovery steps, and two separate guides for fixing your partition size and setting up GPS(not even needed in bookworm) referred to as steps in the main install guide, I am live editing it for a bit to add links and clean it up.  Most of this is copy/paste fixes over ssh and file transfers over USB, pretty easy way to get a better than fresh system in under an hour.

This is a kludgy guide I made after needing to wipe and restart at an auspicious time right before the serious system breaking Mobian Bookworm issues of August 2022.

*******!!!Use towboot to mount your / over your USB cable to rescue your /home we will use it later!!!**********

Get tow-boot and set it up on a SD card if you haven't already, we need it for install and salvaging your old /home and it's recovery, you can easily install it on a broken system

https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=tow-boot

this should be an easy copypasta fixit toolbox to get a working everyday driver pinephone in under an hour, jsut hold on updates until Mobian is fixed soon.
this works for me, edit what you want for install packages, I am sure the mobian issues could be hand fixed but this is the fast fix I have right now.
This fix works for me in a repeatable way, let me know ways to improve it!
_____________________________________________________________
Use towboot mount(boot with volume up button pressed you get a blue LED) to easily copy /home or at least copy a backup of phone contacts from ~/.local/share/evolution/addressbook/system/contacts.db to your computer

******remove your SD card or at least unsocket it!!!******  (if you forget to remove SD how-to de-booting the SD card at end of main guide)

reinstall Mobian over towboot/USB an image I used https://images.mobian-project.org/pineph...814.img.gz

There's a new version of tow-boot, upgrading is just repeating the first install? Flash to sd and run it in the phone?

An apt-get dist-upgrade command as of last night and today, August 22, removes the setup app and does not allow reinistallation. The pinephonepro-tweaks package is removed by the dist-upgrade in favor of mobile-tweaks, and does not allow recovery.

I need to copy back the image that I saved last night by way of the USB mode of Tow-boot.

The settings icon disappeared after the last update.

Hi all, this is just a question to stimulate conversations and ideas, in the hope that something useful might come out of it;

I have had personal success on an original pinephone in saving significant power by disabling cpu's, and though I do not own a pinephone pro, I just thought I would post a copy of a post I have just made in the original pinephone section of the forum, in case there is anything of value in it for the pinephone pro??

Please bear in mind that I have never used a pinephone pro, and don't know how the script could be implemented, if at all, -and what problems it might cause, so this information is simply provided "as is", for research purposes for competent developers.


Here is a copy of the post:

Post Title:  Will this battery-saving script cause problems?

Just thought I would try to get some feedback on this script that I use on an older (6 months ago?) Mobian version which saves me quite a bit of battery life.


Disclaimer: though I use this myself, I don't know if there are negative side-effects, so I'm only seeking opinions from developers, I'm not recommending that anyone should try this themselves


I only use my pinephones (2gb and 3gb editions) in a very simple way, for file-management, storage and utility purposes, like a handheld computer, not even for web-browsing, and I do not have the modem enabled, though I sometimes enable wifi to update and install programs.


I use the following scripts to enable or disable all cpu's except for cpu0



Script to disable them:

#!/bin/bash
echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online
echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu2/online
echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu3/online



Script to enable them:

#!/bin/bash
echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online
echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu2/online
echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu3/online


the results are surprising, as can be seen in the powersupply app, with a quite significant reduction in power usage.


Because the reduction is while the phone is in use running programs, it gives a noticable improvement in power consumption during use, as sleep mode already works well when it is not in use. I suppose it would increase my phone-use time by 1-to-several hours depending on what was being run.


Speed is not affected hugely, though there is some effect. I suppose that most programs I use are using one just cpu anyway. I have found it far preferable to have extended use time, and to put up with an occasional second or so delay in program start times etc.


Shutdown is the only thing where I've noticed a problem, and I have to reenable the other 3 cpu's to shutdown properly, or I don't see the splash screen.


Disabling and reenabling the cpu's seems flawless, even multiple times. I can't remember it failing (although maybe it happened and I forgot...).


As stated, I do not use the modem (or gps or bluetooth), and I have no idea how they would react to this.


PS: I also tried reducing the cpu frequency, but that did not reduce power very much, and had a big impact on speed, so I did not bother to try to incorporate it into the script.


Does anyone have any feedback, opinions, warnings or suggestions in regard to doing this?


Regards everybody.

Just thought I would try to get some feedback on this script that I use on an older (6 months ago?) Mobian version which saves me quite a bit of battery life.

Disclaimer: though I use this myself, I don't know if there are negative side-effects, so I'm only seeking opinions from developers, I'm not recommending that anyone should try this themselves

I only use my pinephones (2gb and 3gb editions) in a very simple way, for file-management, storage and utility purposes, like a handheld computer, not even for web-browsing, and I do not have the modem enabled, though I sometimes enable wifi to update and install programs.

I use the following scripts to enable or disable all cpu's except for cpu0



Script to disable them:

#!/bin/bash
echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online
echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu2/online
echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu3/online


Script to enable them:

#!/bin/bash
echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online
echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu2/online
echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu3/online


the results are surprising, as can be seen in the powersupply app, with a quite significant reduction in power usage.

Because the reduction is while the phone is in use running programs, it gives a noticable improvement in power consumption during use, as sleep mode already works well when it is not in use. I suppose it would increase my phone-use time by 1-to-several hours depending on what was being run.

Speed is not affected hugely, though there is some effect. I suppose that most programs I use are using one just cpu anyway. I have found it far preferable to have extended use time, and to put up with an occasional second or so delay in program start times etc.

Shutdown is the only thing where I've noticed a problem, and I have to reenable the other 3 cpu's to shutdown properly, or I don't see the splash screen.

Disabling and reenabling the cpu's seems flawless, even multiple times. I can't remember it failing (although maybe it happened and I forgot...).

As stated, I do not use the modem (or gps or bluetooth), and I have no idea how they would react to this.

PS: I also tried reducing the cpu frequency, but that did not reduce power very much, and had a big impact on speed, so I did not bother to try to incorporate it into the script.


Does anyone have any feedback, opinions, warnings or suggestions in regard to doing this?

Regards everybody.

as Volla Phone 22 promises freee choice of OS, removable Battery, and is not so very much more expensive than PinePhone Pro. Built in Multi-Boot may be as funtional as boot from card. Build quality wise, I am a bit disappointed by my PinePhone.
What's everybody thinking: Could this be a interesting alternative, and in which aspects?

Hi everyone, 

I've been tinkering with my PinePhone for a while and noticed that eMMC is likely corrupt/being corrupted sometimes.
I tested that by downloading files from remote host and checking if their sha256sums match, which they didn't. Also rsync just fails to copy file quoting the same mismatch error.
After running PostmarketOS update using apk update && apk upgrade it just stopped unlocking (lock screen just reappears after a valid pin code), though apk verify said nothing about that.

I'd like to know if anyone else has/had that problem and if there're any workarounds to get eMMC stable.

I managed to install NetBSD on eMMC by booting from an SD card with 9.3 arm64.img and running sysinst.

Now have trouble booting up the installed system. Tow-Boot on SPI complains

"Wrong image format for "source" command."
"Can't get kernel image!"

I reinstalled kernel just to be sure