Forgive me if I seem ignorant. I am. I never heard of Pine until two days ago.
I decided to buy a 43-inch class 4K monitor to get the benefit of a tiling window manager. Secondary use as a large media monitor that doesn't, as far as I know, watch me watch it with it's own camera didn't bother me either.
Until less than a week ago, I was thinking about using a Raspberry Pi 4 to playback media stored on an external USB drive when not using my main laptop. Then I heard about the Pine64. Researching that led me to me the Pine Pro Laptop just a few minutes ago. I've barely begun to look into it.
But the first thought that occurs to me is; wouldn't it be better to use a Pine Pro Laptop in the role of media player/secondary laptop and reap the rewards of improvements over time? I have no interest in Amazon Prime streaming video, NetFlix, Hula, ad nauseum. I don't use them. I don't want to use them. I do not intend to connect this application to any network.
I also have friend who is talking about going back to college within the next six months or year. Wouldn't the Pine Pro be a great option for note taking, paper writing, web surfing, etc? I'm assuming that if it'll run YouTube videos and Doom like I've seen in reviews it will run the full LibreOffice suite without a hiccup. And according to the reviews, as of November 2019, there are still some issues with web browsing like sound in Firefox or no sound in Firefox and some things working better in Chrome or Chromium than FF, etc; but those problems are entirely software-related and being fixed even now as more developers support the Pine Pro.
So . . . what do you think? Media player? Yes or no. Student's only computer? Yes or no. (By the way, this student is not an engineering, math or science major; more likely psychology, sociology or some other soft "science". You know, the pretend "sciences". )
Also, any recommendations for a reasonably priced 43-inch class 4k monitor would be appreciated as well. The LG 43UD79-B has a ton of really good reviews, but a disturbing number of more recent reviews complaining of bad QC. The Philips BDM4350UC, AOC U4308V, Acer ET430K, Acer DM431K have similar mixed reviews and all of them seem to be several years old with limited connectivity options that several reviewers pointed out.
since I think the keyboard is still in the planning stage, would it be possible to discuss its specifications so that we can influence its realization a little?
I know it's a pretentious request because what to develop should only be a decision of the productor, but it would be great if some good ideas were considered.
As for me, I like the idea of the keyboard not so much because I consider it essential (but I could change my mind by trying it) but because it would become part of the phone protecting the screen like a booklet cover (which I like as an idea, I always liked shell phones).
Did I understad well?
And would the keyboard be able to hold the phone like a laptop screen? I don't think so because the weight of the phone should be greater than the weight of the keyboard, but in this case how could we use the keyboard on a table?
Could the keyboard integrate a couple of expansion ports (like a usb, hdmi or an ethernet)? Maybe it's technically impossible but I ask because at that point the pinephone would become in effect a miniature laptop.
I think there are many other aspects that would be interesting to talk about, for example how you plan to keep the keyboard closed, how you plan not to let it touch the screen (have you also considered the thickness of any protective films/glass on the screen?), what kind of keys will be used and the mapping (I like the island ones but I think with that size the style of psion is really better), or as someone said in the chat if you integrate a touchpoint.
I've been using ayufan's OMV for some time. Lately, after some updates, and a reboot, it would not boot properly, and after anpther reboot, it would not boot at all and leave no human readable traces on the SD card.
With some serial connection, it turns out that it boots after all, it just stays invisible.
One of the USB disks has acquired USB connection troubles (btw is there any way to get any USB hard disk working with any SBC? These are extremely rare). Which turns out to be the only backdoor into the system.
Without the broken USB disk, systemd starts some things (notably excluding the network, preventing any troubleshooting), then it complains about the missing disks, it also once ran a (preparation? prerequisite? I cannot remember) job for OMV, with no time limit, and yes it actually never finishes. There is no way to get in and debug or fix anything, all I can do is ... well ... "watch s..omething scroll by".
With the broken USB disk, it goes into maintenance mode, and can demonstrate that indeed the network can be started, there is no reason to hold back.
How can I change the systemd configuration to just start the network? And ssh, rsyslog, ntp at the very least?
I've probably posted about this here and there, and I am still struggling with this. If anyone has any ideas, I would really appreciate them.
After a long power-off time (let's say overnight), I cannot simply boot up.
LED stays off, no UART output.
If I keep trying, it eventually kicks in and boots up.
After that initial hurdle, there's absolutely no problem with subsequent shutdown > boot up cycles, works like a charm.
Currently running an up-to-date Manjaro build. No other Manjaro user seems to have this issue. (or maybe nobody bothered responding over there)
Might be worth noting that for the life of me I just cannot get this thing to reboot properly. (If I try a reboot, I always have to turn it off by long pressing the power button, then boot up)
This is absolutely driving me insane. Instead of normally powering the laptop on, I have to go through several voodoo steps and prayers before I can do anything with the laptop... Should I just go ahead and engage Pine support, perhaps going for a replacement?
edit: Just to update, the problem was that the eMMC chip was somehow faulty. I bought a replacement, put it in, and haven't had a single issue since.
I had Ayufan Ubuntu 0.79 built burnt in a 64GB eMMC for RockPro64. It was running fine until it was powered down and removed and set aside for more than 6 months.
When recently attempt to boot from eMMC, my RockPro64 failed to recognize the eMMC. Then I tried resetting the eMMC using Ayufan's script, still nothing. Then powered down, move eMMC to windows, it failed to recognize. No media was found.
What could have happened to this eMMC? Nothing was done to it, and it was set aside, untouched. How to determine the condition of this eMMC? Is there any tool I can use to test or revive it?
I read AmeriDroid was able to resolve similar issue and sent back the eMMC to their user with image burnt. The user had the same issue as mine. Is there possibly any specific tools they use to do so?
Although it retails at $419, just over double the Pinebook Pro, I think it would still be considered a fairly affordable laptop. It seems aimed less at tinkerers, and more at people who want a fairly nice Linux ultraportable that's ready to go out of the box. It seems to have some fairly nice features for the price, including:
Built for Linux
Intel Management Engine disabled
Firmware updates through LVFS
Full metal case
11.6" 1920x1080 IPS semi-matte screen
8 GB RAM, 240 GB SSD
Intel Pentium N4200 quad core
Dimensions: 0.53" x 11.1" x 7.5", 2.54 pounds (the Pinebook Pro is a little wider but thinner, and a few ounces heavier)
I think either one would look professional in a work meeting. Anyone care to hazard the relative power of the N4200 vs the RK3399?
We are using rock64 v2 for a big roll out in every part of the world in our product. Our product runs 365x24x7 and we have some questions about long term stability of rock64 hardware.
Our hardware configuration: Rock64 (2GB) with Forsee eMMC and Bluetooth Dongle (StarTek) and rock64 recommended wifi dongle and with some other USB interfaces.
1. We would like to know what is the max number of days the rock64 ran with some applications are running with max of 2 cores are being used at all times without rebooting/shutting down and powering up?
2. If we run continuously, is it tend to slow down the processing?
3. Do we need to take any precautions to run this hardware 365x24x7?
We have some observations (not concrete), but we would like to know what is the capacity of the rock64 to run 365x24x7.
I'm a big fan of i3wm and I'm hoping to try it out on the phone, curious if anyone has tried it yet. I think a special approach to using the i3 shortcuts in a touch capacity would be needed to make it worthwhile, but that might not be too difficult. Any other thoughts on tiling window managers?
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