Hello everybody,
I’m dealing with my new amazing PinePhone Pro just arrived.
I’m not new to linux but I’m facing a problem with external USB connections.

Currently, I’m running Kali Linux booting from Micro SSD.
No matter what I connect via USB, nothing is detected by my PinePhone Pro.
“Lsusb” command does not list any external device.

Is there something I’m missing?
Do the USB port have to be “activated”?

Thank you for your help!

Of course I run NetBSD on my Pinebooks Pro, but I kept Manjaru on my wife's.  She doesn't update it; so twice a year I do.  I kind of expected the totally broken boot that I've had before doing this.  But this time was bizarre.  Halfway through the updates it prompted me for the current user's password.  It was at that point I discovered that all user passwords had been deleted/changed/#?

So I used my PBP to create an emergency boot SD and created new passwords for all users on the Manjaru-PBP-in-question.

Now, I can continue updating, but I am faced with "could not satisfy dependencies: kxmlgui required by libkipi - kservice required by libkipi".

What is the way to recover from this, which I presume is due to too much time between updates?

It has not been possible to get a replacement battery for the PineBook Pro from the Pine shop. for some time now.

I've been looking for a compatible replacement. As far as I can tell, the model identifier for the original is WTL-40110175, which appears to have come from WTL in China. Their website no longer lists that.identifier.

I've searched on the numeric (40110175), which produced a couple of hits with different prefixes and suffices. They seem to be similar in voltage, &c., though only 8000 mAh, and look similar.

They are expensive enough that I want to ensure they are mechanically and electrically compatible before buying. (At least one offered has 2 variants, with different numbers of wires. The original battery has 7 to the connector).

Can anyone advise me how to ensure that I order a correct one.

I am interested in using the PCIe connector in the pinetab2, however I can't seem to find a suitable ribbon cable for connecting to it.

The connection appears to be the the part labeled U7001 in the component sheet and it confirmed looking at the schematic (page 36) where the pinout of U7001 connector is given and it is referred to as NVMe PCIE 2.0.

The only connector I was able to find was the connector for the pinebook pro. The problem however is that this connector would place the card exactly on top of the battery where there is no room for a card.

Here I show the outline (white outline) of where the pinebook 2 adapter would be in the pinetab, and the ideal position where an expansion card would fit (green rectangle).

   


The idea is that there are several wifi/bluetooth cards that work with PCIe, with various different physical formats, and most of them are small enough to fit above or below the battery in the pinetab2. The only problem is just getting a cable that will allow it to fit in the right spot.


My two questions are whether anyone knows whether there is another source of the ribbon cable that is needed for this connector? If I could just find the ribbon cable with approximately the right shape, then I could use the adapter from the pinebook pro and move the battery slightly in the pinetab2 to get it to fit.

Alternatively, it could be possible to cut the ribbon cable and solder it again to give it a different shape, however for this I don't know what the tolerance would be for the change in impedence and possible capacitance (perhaps leading to cross-talk) between the wires in such a pcie connection. Does anyone know how carefully engineered a PCIe connection must be for something like a wifi card?

I saw the PineTabV back in stock but shipping comes out at $74!  that's before ~100eur import fees.  So that's going to add up to around 300 eur! more than a galaxy tab A8 LTE   As much as I'd like to continue supporting the pine64 community and concept, I dont see how this will work once they switch to the advertised 'retail prices'. 

But it got me wondering about the pine64 community... I am still new here, and having fun messing around with my PP and Zig, but in the short 8 months since my purchase, blog posts have dried up, developers seem to be leaving, store links are outdated and information missing or misleading.  I know there are other channels more active than this board, but the lack of transparency and updates here is a little concerning.  I'd like to commit more time to the PP, but seems kinda pointless if the community is crumbling?

So what is the state of the union?

Hi there,

For those who wants to take out the most performance out of the rk3399 on your RockPro64, I have here a u-boot and a DTS where on Manjaro works perfectly.

This includes a 1.6GHz on the little cores, a 2.2GHz on the big cores, and 1GHz on the GPU, as well as setting the RAM to 933MHz LPDDR4.

Please find it on the Pine64 > rock64 discord channel:
https://discord.com/channels/46323792798...1534507058

Here are the gains:

GPU and CPU stressed out in a roshambo case, no more than 70ºC.

Unfortunately, on Batocera which I'm most interested, there's no audio using this u-boot.
Any help will be appreciated to fix this on Batocera.

Please note that it's not my work, I just followed these threads and info available:
@generaleramon => https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=13506
https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/ROCKPro64_H...g_the_RAM)
So, credits to them.

I have a setup running 4 Pine 1 boards (the first board developed by Pine).  Earlier this year I purchased a Rock64-2G as well as the power supply listed in the Pine website to use for the Rock64.  I also downloaded the Armbian software listed for the Rock64 on the Pine website.  Using the Etcher executable on Windows I installed Armbian on a micro sdcard.  Then after plugging a ethernet plug, an HDMI plug, a keyboard and mouse and finally the power cord.  A red light on the card turns on but nothing appears on the HDMI terminal.  Again, this setup works fine for my Pine 1 boards.  Does anyone have any idea what I am doing wrong?

Looking at selling my Pinebook Pro, it's a later 2022/4GB RAM/64GB EMMC model with the standard Manjaro install with uboot. Flashed with the updated keyboard and trackpad firmware. I'm thinking since I'm in Canada I could help save someone the shipping costs of buying new if there's interest. I have tow-boot ready on an SD card if the potential buyer would like to have tow-boot flashed to the SPI, since I recently removed it.

I'm not sure if there's a standard format for selling through here, but I have a paypal account setup that I've sold hardware over on Reddit's hardware swaps through so I'm familiar with that process and the associated buyer protection. Pick up is available if you're in Western Canadad and up for a drive but I live in a relatively small city, PM me if you're interested!

Presently I have 2 Pinephones.  I'd like to pack some custom electronics into the phone rather than rely on the USB connector.  The USB is nice, but basically I'm searching for some kind of customized back case that is large enough to pack in an additional circuit board or sensor.

Alternatively, if there are any CAD files for the official case, then I could use them to try and 3D-print what I have in mind.

Any thoughts on where to start?

My PineTime talk was accepted to FOSDEM.

https://fosstodon.org/@jmlich/111578248247468571
https://pretalx.fosdem.org/fosdem-2024/t...GBNJETUGDC

The topic of the talk is more for beginners, but this will be compensated with discussion after the talk and by personal contact. Feel free to reach me for some small talk or a beer.