I hate to have my first post as a request for assistance. But here I am.

I got my PineTab in early December.  My wife "let me" check it out to make sure it was working, then had me hand it over for my Christmas present.

So took ownership of it on Christmas.  First thing I noticed is that Ubuntu Touch is way slow with multiple issues.  I downloaded Mobian Phosh on the PineTab and burned it to a Micro Center branded micro SD card.  I powered down, put in the SD  card and powered up.  No lights, no sign of life.  I figured it could have been that I burned it incorrectly.  So I downloaded the image again and and burned it to a 64 Gig SanDisk Ultra.  Same problem.   Decided to try a smaller card.  Burned to a 4 Gig SanDisk micro SD card.  Same issue.  I looked at each card on my Ubuntu laptop and each card showed that the boot partition is set to bootable.

Are there any known issues booting from an SD card on the early adopters PineTab?  I thought maybe it was a hardware issue, but since I was able to burn the card on the tab, it's likely not that.  I attempted from both a 64 Gig and a 4 Gig SanDisk card, it's not likely an issue with the card.  

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Hi everyone!


I just got my brand new Pinebook Pro a few days ago. I started to play with it and I must say that I like it.


I am mostly a Windows guy alghouth I played a little bit with Linux (I have a Rpi2, a NextCloud instance, etc.) mostly Ubuntu/Debian and CentOS.


I bought the Pinebook Pro for it’s « Open source » nature in design and the fact that there is a lot of different OS for it, etc.


And, that why I am writing now, I am ready to start playing with the different OS avalable.


Before doing that, I started to read the Wiki and a few forums post about the boot process, the differents flashing options, etc. And I am a little lost!


So here am I to ask some clarifications and confirmation of what I understand and a few more questions.




1 – Boot Order / eMMC
If I understand correctly, the SoC boot from eMMC first. Right now, the eMMC has a U-Boot loader on it that make the computer search the SD card for a bootloader and switch to it. If not found, it continue on the eMMC. If the u-boot bootloader on the eMMC become corrupted, the computer won’t boot, even from SD card. In that case we need to disable the eMMC from the switch under the laptop, boot from SD card, re-enable the eMMC and force redection (instruction from Wiki) and reflash it.


So, Am I right with my understanding of the boot process?
Are the instructions in the Wiki to redetect the eMMC works also for Manjaro? The Wiki says it is for Debian.




2 – Restoring a factory image of Manjaro


On first boot, the Pinebook asked me to create my user account, set hte root paassword, and select the langage. How do I restore the Manjora system on it to act the same way? I took a look at the script to install to eMMC from SD but the script seems to ask the question during the restore process. I would like to know how to restore the eMMC so it act as a new system on first boot.


Should I use an old Manjaro image (eMMC installer) or there is a way to use the new script to have it ask the questions only on next reboot?




3 – Creating a full image of the eMMC from Linux


What is the best way to create a image of the eMMC (when booted from SD card) that will includes everything on the eMMC including the current U-BOOT loader?




4 – Creating a full image of the eMMC from Windows


When using the eMMC to USB adapter, underr Windows, what is the best way to backup the whole eMMC including the U-BOOT bootloader?


5 – Restoring the full image of the eMMC from Linux including U-BOOT


What is the best way (command with parameterrs) to restore the eMMC from a previous backup (see previous question) including the U-BOOT bootloader and everything?




6 – Restoring the full image of the eMMC from Windows including U-BOOT


What is the best way to restore eMMC using USB to eMMC from Windows incldding the u-boot bootloader?


7 – Restoring a eMMC that is corrupted / Non working U-BOOT


Is there a way to backup only the U-BOOT part from the eMMC from Linux (or Windows using the adapter) to restore it if it becomes corrupted or a full image reinstall is always required?




8 – What are the mmcblk2boot0 and mmcblk2boot1 device?


LSBLK show me the eMMC device itself with the ROOT and the BOOT partition as mmcblk2. There is also 2 otherrs device, mmcblk2boot0 et mmcblk2boot1. Are there physical partition on the eMMC? Is the U-BOOT bootloder written there? When using DD to mmcblk2 does it write in that section of the chip also or not?




Thanks all! I know I ask alot but your help will be reallly appreciated to put some light on the differents things I read.


Have a nice day!

I write to you from Spain, and I have a few questions about PinePhone. I am a fervent user of linux system, using it daily on my computer. But I'm not an advanced user, and don't have high knowledge about it.

So the question is: I would love to buy PinePhone for me, is it possible with my linux level?

The other question is: are they going  to sell another Manjaro's version again? If not, is the KDE version easy to use? which is the easier OS to use? 

And the ultimate: could I use Whatsapp on it?

Thanks a lot for your attention,

Waiting for your answer.

The "Location" section of the Mobian wiki says:
When the Mobian first time setup wizard asks if you want to send location data to Mozilla Location Services answer “Yes.”

I answered "No" to that question.  

I don't know how important it is WRT obtaining location and usable maps, but how do I "undo" my selection? I've searched these forums and also "grep-ed", "locate-ed" and "find-ed" on my Mobian system as best I can to locate the controlling proggy, script or configuration file to no avail or discovery.

Thanks for any help.

Hi,

I use the stable Ayufan kernels. The kernel automatically updates with `apt upgrade`. I am on 4.4.190-1233-rockchip-ayufan-gd3f1be0ed310 right now.
However the last release was more than a year ago on Nov 23, 2019.
https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-kernel/releases

I am beginning to wonder if I can still leave the Rock64 exposted to the internet via SSH or if that's getting too risky.
Is the Rock64 kernel still getting security patches?

Hi.

The Device list on the Wiki Main page has been slightly re-worked and the entry for the Pinebook 1080 has been dropped.

This article might have been mostly similar to the still existing Pinebook article, however there was one additional paragraph FAQ with several setting tips. That is now not accessible anymore.
Can that be brought back ?

Update 2: Convergence does work. A user pointed out to me that I need to drag the application onto my screen. I was under the assumption that I would see the main interface on the screen. There is one small problem with it though. It doesn't handle anything outside the main browser window very well. For example, on Firefox if you click a menu button the mouse pointer does not line up with the actual menu. You may have to go  a few pixels down to highlight the option you want. Another example, if you download an extension a dialog pops up asking you to give it permission to add the extension and you can't see the Add button on the dialog. You might be able to see the very top of it only. 

Firefox browsing: I think this had to do with the 12/15 build, but in the 12/28 build it's much faster.

Chatty App: This has to do with the phone waking up from a deep sleep if you have WiFi turned on. It doesn't wake up properly and disables texting. If you turn off the WiFi, I have noticed it wakes up more gracefully for me and the texting works. 

Update 1: Issue 1 is no longer an issue. I flashed the Pine Phone with the 12/28 nightly build and the software app now updates the packages under the "Updates" tab. However, if you go to the "Explore" tab in the software app and press any of the categories the software app crashes. 

Back in the summer when I received my new Pine Phone I had high hopes that it could be a daily driver so I could break free from Samsung/Apple. Of course, this was a pipe dream as none of the Linux OS's for Pine Phone were even close to being acceptable as a daily driver. So I came back just now in December to see the progress of Mobian over the last 3 or 4 months. 

Unfortunately, I think Mobian has gotten worse over the last 3 to 4 months as an overall product with the December 15th build with the exception of the battery life. I think they've done great work there as I can now go a day with normal use on one charge. That is great improvement over what it used to be 3 or 4 months ago. 

Here is a list of major things I noticed without even looking.

1. The software app is a disaster. You go to updates and let it find new updates for your phone and then you try to update it and you get an error about some package that isn't installed. What makes it worse is that the package name is in black and can't be read so I don't even know which package it's talking about.

2. The chat app, which is how you send/receive texts, is a disaster.
     a. I received a text that wasn't in my address book. I then tried to add the contact from the chat app, but that option did nothing.  
     b.I then went to the command line and updated this app to the latest version to see if they fixed functionality to add a contact and it erased all my texts and then  
        it wouldn't even let me create a new text!

3. The web browsing experience is beyond terrible. I'm sure everyone knows about this already, but browsing the web with either the included Gnome browser or Firefox ESR takes FOREVER. This would have to improve by 50% to even be usable on a daily basis.

4. Convergence still doesn't work for me. I have read that it works for some people, but when I plug in my monitor all I see is a blank screen with only the wall paper of my phone showing. There are no apps for me to click. This is actually an improvement from 4 months ago because 4 months ago I didn't even see anything from my phone. My monitor wouldn't even get a signal. This is very disappointing because I dream of one day using my phone for almost all day to day tasks which include some development and creating docs.


This is not a comprehensive list, as there are many smaller bugs that aren't even worth talking about yet. If the people developing Mobian can focus on items 1 thru 3 first, I think it will be in a state where people can start using it as a daily driver. Until then, the state of the OS is not very good. 

I don't mean to be harsh and I really do appreciate all the work being put into this project. I know this is a very difficult project to undertake. I'll be back in 3 months to see how things are going and give another review at the end of March. 

Thanks

I received my PinePhone and was super happy.  Then I went to charge it up and it gets super hot.  Not warm, but hot.  This is just within a couple of minutes or so.  I have never charged it all the way or even put my sim card in as I don't know if it can be used getting so incredibility hot.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I don't know it I need to send back for an exchange or there is a reason for this intense heating up.  Thankyou

Hi, after reimaging my emmc with the new December updated Manjaro XFCE, I lost the ability to boot from my sdcard with Debian MrFixIt on it. It now just boots straight to emmc disregarding the sdcard. Could the reimaging of the emmc have messed up the booting of the sdcard?  How do I restore boot priority to the micro sdcard?  Thanks for youir help.