I have had my PBP for about 48 hours now and am really impressed. Everything seems to work with the exception of the audio system following wake from suspend. First noticed it with YouTube in the Chromium browser, and in my troubleshooting efforts, tried just a standard mp3. I can play the mp3 fine, put the PBP to sleep via the lid or the power button. When it wakes I have no audio when I try to play the file. I can tell there is some high pitch noise and some clicks from the speakers, but that is it.
Based on some related posts here, I tried reinstalling pulseaudio using the --reinstall flag on the apt install command line but that did not change the behavior. My next step is to install another operating system and see if the behavior is present there as well.
Last month I posted a simple zram-swap script that I wrote for my PBP on IRC for people to use. I took some time to package it and make it "release worthy" and pushed it to github with updates today: https://github.com/foundObjects/zram-swap
This makes a huge difference if you're memory constrained on your PBP, and even if you aren't I encourage you to check it out simply to avoid the NAND wear of swapping to your eMMC when you eventually do need to swap.
I also added a fixed-size swap feature for people who know ahead of time exactly how much swap they want, so if you're doing something like building GCC with -lto on the PBP and need 10+G swap I've got you covered: just set "_zram_fixed_size=10G" in the /etc/default/zram-swap config file along with your prefered swap algorithm and you're good to go. Yes, you can use lzo-rle.
README.md:
Code:
# zram-swap
Simple zram swap setup + teardown script for modern systemd Linux systems
https://github.com/foundObjects/zram-swap
### Why?
There are dozens of zram swap scripts out there, but most of them are overly
complicated and do things that haven't been neccessary since linux 3.X or have
massive logic errors in their swap size calculations. This script is simple and
reliable, modern and easy to configure.
### Installation
```
git clone https://github.com/foundObjects/zram-swap.git
cd zram-swap && sudo ./install.sh
```
### Usage
zram-swap.service will be started automatically after installation and during
each subsequent boot. The default allocation creates a zram device that should
use around half of physical memory when completely full.
The default configuration using lz4 should work well for most people. lzo may
provide slightly better RAM utilization at a cost of slightly more expensive
decompression. zstd should provide better compression than lz* and still be
moderately fast on most machines. On very modern kernels the best overall
choice is probably lzo-rle.
Edit `/etc/default/zram-swap` if you'd like to change compression algorithms or
swap allocation and then restart zram-swap with `systemctl restart
zram-swap.service`.
Run `zramctl` during use to monitor swap compression and real memory usage.
### Debugging
Start zram-swap.sh with `zram-swap.sh -x (start|stop)` to view the debug trace
and determine what's going wrong.
To dump the full execution trace during service start/stop edit
`/etc/systemd/systemd/zram-swap.service` and add -x to the following two lines:
```
ExecStart=/usr/local/sbin/zram-swap.sh -x init
ExecStop=/usr/local/sbin/zram-swap.sh -x end
```
### Compatibility
This should run on pretty much any recent (4.0+? kernel) Linux system using
systemd. If anyone wants to try it on something really old and let me know how
far back compatibility goes I'm interested, but I don't have any legacy systems
to test on at the moment.
The script will also work on non-systemd Linux without issue and I welcome PRs
supporting SysVinit.
I work in computer forensics and I am looking forward to purchasing and using a PinePhone both for general privacy sake as well as my desire to learn how to create forensic images of Linux smartphones and then perform forensic analysis of the resulting forensic images.
For imaging iPhones, smartphone forensic software basically invokes iTunes to create a "mobile backup" of the iPhone being imaged; the resulting image is a logical image, not a physical image, though. In order to generate a physical image of an iPhone, one must jailbreak the iPhone first.
For imaging Android phones, smartphone forensic software will first install an "agent" on the Android phone; the installed agent will then export out files to external media, sometimes through the use of the Android Debugging Bridge. Similar to iPhones, one cannot generate a physical image of an Android phone unless one can root the Android phone first.
I am curious to see if traditional workstation imaging software will be able to generate forensic images of the PinePhone.
For example, I oftentimes use Guymager (https://guymager.sourceforge.io/) to generate forensic images of workstation hard drives. Typically I will use a Live USB running a "free-to-use" Forensic Linux distribution such as Paladin (https://sumuri.com/software/paladin/). I am able to boot the target workstation to the Linux distribution, which gets loaded to the target workstation's RAM and will not mount the internal hard drive, or only mount the target workstation's internal hard drive as read only.
I am new to this forum so I do not know if there are any other fellow forensic practitioners here, but if there is interest, I will update everyone with my forensic imaging and analysis progress once I get a PinePhone.
Average-to-good sound, little bass, would use to watch movies and listen to music if no other choice
7/10
Replacement went well, except for 1 thing: new speakers were about 2mm thicker than old ones. I had to move them farther from the sides a little, removing sidewalls in the process. I can confirm that while the BPB material feels like metal, it's plated over some plastic core. 2 sided tape was used to fix them in place. See attachments for replacement process pics.
In the process, I had to open the PBP for the 4th time. I'm afraid this isn't PBP friendly. Will have to imagine some bottom panel replacement hack soon. Would be nice to have a more thinkerer friendly choice shell design for next PBP iterations, even at the price of a thicker laptop. What should matter most is rigidity, stiffness and weight. Not trying to copy Mac Book laptop designs, which are, by the way, computers made for never being opened.
Could you give me your opinion for the feasibility of a little project? I'm a software developer, very familiar with open source, but totally unfamiliar with any hardware tinkering, soldering etc. I can put a plug in a socket, and that's it :-)
For an elderly friend, I'd like to have a watch that shows the time, and which at several times of the day beeps, or vibrates, and shows a message "Please take your medicine now!" and requires some kind of complex action to switch the alarm off. (This could be tapping three times on a button.)
This is more about IoT than "smart". My friend does not use a smartphone, and does not want one. The fact that it wouldn't be connected to a phone or to any kind of network - that's a big advantage here, and the long battery life of the PinePhone looks very attractive.
So, instead of getting an expensive smartwatch and spending days to deactivate everything, I'd love to get a PineTime and spend weeks of tinkering with it. Embedded Rust sounds fun! I'm not pressed for time. If I can get this to work somewhen in 2020 I'm happy. (Until then, there are other reminders in place for my friend.)
My question to you: Does this sound like a feasible plan? Can the PineTime beep or buzz? (On the wiki I only read about the vibration motor.) Can I develop for this watch without soldering - be it by connecting/holding wires, by Bluetooth (no matter if it's slow), by emulators?
Earlier this week I got a Sabrent Rocket NANO 512 to try out in my PBP as a shared data drive.
Upon installation and first boot, everything seemed hunky-dory and normal. I took it to work, as usual, and noticed more battery drain than normal. After poking around with nvme-cli, I learned that drive doesn't have ideal power consumption or power savings settings for the PBP. When I took it home, I put it back on the charger, as I usually do, to let it sit until the next morning.
The next day (NVMe still installed) I grabbed it, went to work, and started it up. It was then that I noticed the PBP started with only 66% battery and it was still dropping fast. That day I initiated a return of the drive, wiped it, and removed the drive when I got home. I, again, plugged it back into the charger while off, to sit until the next morning.
Now that the drive is out, I'm still getting a max charge of 66%, whether I boot into Manjaro or Chromium OS. The only changes made were the installation of the NVMe drive, so I'm curious if anyone else has noticed this issue with a drive installed?
I'm pretty bothered that suddenly I lost ~40% battery life/capacity, and there's been no indication as to why or how to resolve it, from what I can tell. If anyone has any helpful suggestions to troubleshoot, please share!
First, I am not really a noob even though this issue will sound like it! I have used Linux almost 20 years and ARM chips about 5...
Got my new Pinebook64 Pro a few days ago and love it. Couldn't wait to try some other distros. But I could not get it to boot from the MicroSD any way I tried. Ran updates, etc. to no avail. Then I tried the keyboard update for ANSI keyboard and it seemed to run fine, and requested a reboot.
After the reboot, the keyboard is mapped completely differently and I can't even enter the username or password.
I booted with an external keyboard, which works fine, and checked the keyboard setup, which was still reporting US English. I added a second layout, deleted the US English, and re-added US English. No dice.
So I guess my questions are:
How do I get the correct keyboard layout back?
And, once I do that, how do I get the MicroSD to boot?
Whereas there are a number of problems commonly reported, such as weak WiFi, no sound, unable to set the time, keyboard and trackpad issues, etc., those are all most likely due to software and firmware. Issues with docks and dongles could be either software or hardware problems. This thread is to help keep track of electrical and mechanical issues that cannot be addressed through software or firmware.
1) The NVMe SSD interface adapter sold in the Pine Store did not fit. It was announced that a repair kit would be shipped. When will it ship? Does the adapter that is currently in the Pine store work, or is it the same one that doesn't work?
2) The serial console adapter sold in the Pine Store is apparently the wrong voltage and the wrong chipset for the PBP. Which 3.3V adapters have the correct chipset?
3) We need a Bill of Materials for mechanical parts, including specificity for screws, spacers, and the CPU heat transfer pad.
4) There are reports of the plastic underneath the USB ports breaking.
5) There are reports of the battery discharging while connected to external power via barrel port or USB-C. What is the maximum amount of current that the PBP can safely use from external power?
6) There are reports of various high-pitched or whining noises that seem related to the PBP's power supply circuitry.
