Hello,
 
     While the rest of the world may have moved on to the Pinebook Pro, I personally still love my Pinebook 1080P.  Yes, it is a bit quirky, but not so quirky as to be unusable.  In fact, most of the quirks have simple workarounds that teach you about how Linux works, so I see it as a fun and interesting challenge.

     I have been making Slackware work on my Pinebook in one way or another since I first received it.  For a long time, I was using Anarsoul's ArchLinux with XFCE as the base, then I would strip everything out except /boot and /lib/modules and /lib/firmware.  Then I would copy over a root filesystem, and build it up from there.

   Wanting a newer kernel than 4.20.0 (despite the appeal of the number itself), and after many failed attempts to build my own kernel (these ARM devices sure can be tricky...), I finally reached out on LinuxQuestions.org, and got help from sndwvs there.  If you would like to follow that thread, here is the link:

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions...175669005/

    The build script at gitlab is not currently working, but I can still build fresh images using a commit from a few weeks ago, details are on the link above.  If you are interested in following the build script development, that his happening here:

https://gitlab.com/sndwvs/slackware_arm_build_kit

   And if you would like to skip all of that and just grab the latest working image, you can find those here:

https://3space.xyz/pineslarm/

   I will put up a full image there soon, so that you do not have to do any downloading after installation to get a GUI desktop.  Stay tuned for that, it should be uploaded sometime this week.

   Note that this last link also contains a directory of the SlackBuilds that I have built for Slarm64.  Not all of them work, some I have built for testing purposes only.  Some might be outdated, sometimes I build a package, try it out, and never update it after that.  So, there are no guarantees here, I just provide them in case you want to use them instead of building them yourself.

   A build of note is LibreOffice with a single dependency (libfreehand), which I am currently building an update for, hopefully with no dependencies at all.

   FWIW, I am finding that this image with JWM as the window manager (see my builds above) is the snappiest and smoothest image I have ever tried on the pinebook, and I have tried all that I can find, including everything on the Wiki (even the BSDs).  Your mileage may vary.  And, "nostalgic" is not the word that I would use when referring to Slackware-current.  Yes, you can go retro with it, but it is just a base to build from, so I see it as basically the same thing as Anarsoul's ArchLinux without systemd and easier to build your own packages on, more or less.  This only has to be as "nostalgic" as you want it to be.

   Oh, and I believe this script supports Pinebook-Pro as well, but since I do not have one of those, I cannot comment on how that one is working.

   One last note:  I do not think that Slarm64 has received the official blessing from either Pat Volkerding or Stuart Winter, so I do not think this is "official" Slackware in that sense. But nothing has been added beyond boot files and kernel modules needed to make the Pinebook work.  This is a true Slackware experience on the Pinebook, regardless if it has been Blessed By "Bob" ™ or not.

Enjoy.

Hi, wanting to try another OS (the new Manjaro) I downloaded the emmc installler image and flashed it to a 16GB SanDisk microSD with the PINE64 INSTALLER utility.

However, my Pinebook Pro refuses to boot from the SD card as long as the internal eMMC drive is swithced on. After switching it off with the little toggle under the hood, I can boot from SD card but then... How to install to the internal drive?

Can anyone point me to some clear instructions either on the wiki or these forums? For a noob it's completely confusing...

Thanks!

Excited to hear that Manjaro KDE will be the default OS on new PBPs. 
I got my PBP in January with Debian though. Which is the official link for the new default Manjaro build? I'd like to install it on my MMC.

I'm tempted to try the link in the wiki, but the page still mentions Debian as default.
https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/Pinebo...MC_Boot.5D

Dear Pinebook Pro fans,

I have a PBP and it has Debian with Linux 4.4.213 on it. I have installed i3wm beside the MATE

I have a problem with powering off the machine though. In MATE if I press the power key a dialog appears and if I press shutdown the machine shuts down and power offs as expected. However, if I run `sudo poweroff` or `sudo systemctl poweroff` the system shuts down but does not poweroff. The screen goes black and a pointer keeps blinking forever. It does not matter if I run this command inside MATE or i3, the result is the same.


According to this thread I configured the power key for i3wm and also used systemd-inhibit to prevent systemd from handling the power key when i3 is running. I think it has nothing to do with the above mentioned problem though, since that problem happens in MATE too.

The question is, what MATE does differently that its shutdown dialog can poweroff the PBP properly? Doesn't MATE use systemd to poweroff the machine?

I appreiciate any of your comments.

Update
Adding `--force` to the poweroff command solved the issue, i.e. `sudo systemctl --force poweroff`. However, I don't know what prevents the poweroff without the force flag.

I am very sorry to report that my PBP has suddenly and inexplicably locked me out, it will Not recognize my passwords for any ID I have created, nor for the default rock ID.  

My guess is I will simply need to make a new boot stick and reload the OS?  

My daily use has just been to boot up, enable any machine and the Debian OS updates, and then proceed with using the machine.  Last session was trying out Geany as an IDE, and using the web to help with that.  I have not been pursuing any assembler coding, nor any similar thing that may have interfered with the OS password operations.  

So, I am here to ask for guidance, where do I download an ISO file of the default Debian OS please, and where are there instructions on making up a new OK install?

Hi,
I am trying to enter single use mode.
The purpose is to move /var /usr and /home to a newly installed ssd.

I tried typing "init 1" and I got a black screen with a blinking cursor, no text input.
The same thing happens when I tried "systemctl isolate rescue.target".

Are there boot options to allow me to enter single user mode?
I could always boot from an sd card and do it from there, only I don't have one handy at the moment. Besides single user mode should work.

I've tried several different os's. And each time i try to make a call the diaper app closes the call screen. The latest one i tried was the kde plasma mobile image. The apn screen would not let me change anything or edit the apn. I did do an update && upgrade before trying. 

It's more than possible I'm doing something wrong. I'm so ready to ditch the Android ecosystem it's not funny. The biggest things I'm needing to do, is calls and texts. Which are supposedly working on most of the os's available. 

Any advice would be appreciated. 
Thank you.

Has anyone been able to get Bliss OS on a Pinebook Pro? Being that it's basically a desktop centric Android, it would seem that this would be a great OS to have in the list of images on the Wiki.

I finally got around to installed my nvme adapter and an SSD. A Sabrent Rocket Nano SB-1342-512 (listed as OK in the wiki). The SSD works as expected on every OS I've tried booting from an SD card (Debian, Ubuntu, Manjaro, Q4OS). The eMMC has the default Debian that came with the machine (update-to-date with both apt-get update/upgrade and the mrfixit_update.sh script).

The OS on the eMMC shows no sign I can find that the drive is there - no /dev/nvme* entries, nothing from lspci. modprobe shows the nvme modules present. I even went as far as to re-load the eMMC with the latest available debian image. The SSD showed up after the reload, but by the time I finished updating everything (as described above) and re-booted, it was gone again ???

So I'm hoping someone has a suggestion of where to look for error messages, diagnostics to try, ... The SDD works fine when booted from SD card (so I don't believe it's a hardware issue). It even works with the default Debian load, fully updated (like the one I put on the eMMC). What Am I missing?

I haven't tried loading a different OS on the eMMC yet. Thought I'd reach out before trying any more reloading ...

I am having an issue where my battery is being used up even when the computer is off.  I had it charged to 100% last night and when I turned it on a few minutes ago the battery was at zero.  I turned it off through the system menu and left it on bookshelf unplugged.  Is anyone else having this problem?  Any thoughts?

I have manjaro with plasma installed on the mmc if that makes a difference.