OS installation/flash queries

[wayover13]

I've finally gotten around again to fiddling w the pine phone I bought a few years ago. I dd'd the postmarketos img to a microsd and booted the OS that way. Looks nice and runs fairly well. So I'd like to install it to the internal emmc.

I guess I'm kinda surprised that there seems to be no way to do this from the OS I booted to from the microsd. Am I missing something, or is there really no way to install/flash from it?

I found what seems to be a good online guide for an install at  https://bloggerbust.ca/post/install_and_...pinephone/ but it seems kinda ridiculously complicated. I've installed many OS's on pc's and flashed a number of routers in my day in addition to having a couple decades' experience running Linux so I'm sure I could manage this using those instructions. But honestly I'm hoping there's a simpler way.

I recall reading that someone has created an sd image with mutliple operating systems to try on this phone. It's a bit dated now though. But I seem to recall having read that one can, using that sd, install/flash the booted image to the internal emmc. Is that correct? If so, I'd prolly give that a try. Unless someone can clue me in as to a way I might've overlooked of installing/flashing from the postmarketos rom I've got running from microsd now.

Thanks

[Kevin Kofler]

The easiest way to install postmarketOS to the internal eMMC is to flash an image called "Jumpdrive" to a microSD card, boot your PinePhone from that, connect it to a computer over USB (which will make it look to the computer like a USB mass storage device (USB stick or external USB HDD/SSD)), and then flash postmarketOS (the same prebuilt postmarketOS image that you installed to your microSD card, but of course not the Jumpdrive image) to the PinePhone's eMMC from the computer as you would to a microSD card or a USB stick.

See: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_I..._JumpDrive

[wayover13]

The easiest way to install postmarketOS to the internal eMMC is to flash an image called "Jumpdrive" to a microSD card, boot your PinePhone from that, connect it to a computer over USB (which will make it look to the computer like a USB mass storage device (USB stick or external USB HDD/SSD)), and then flash postmarketOS (the same prebuilt postmarketOS image that you installed to your microSD card, but of course not the Jumpdrive image) to the PinePhone's eMMC from the computer as you would to a microSD card or a USB stick.

See: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_I..._JumpDrive

Thanks for that. Yeah, I actually ran across that too. I mean, if my computer will detect the phone as mass storage I could also dd the .img file to it that way as well. But then the emmc would only be the size of the image file, unless I were to expand/resize it--something I've also done in the past. But not with an emmc. But I suppose the utility maybe creates a boot partition or something like that as well? Anyway, I'll look further into that.

[Kevin Kofler]

As far as I know, postmarketOS auto-resizes to the full size of the eMMC on first boot.

[wayover13]

As far as I know, postmarketOS auto-resizes to the full size of the eMMC on first boot.

I decided to check on this on my currently-booted phone. I wrote the .img file (using dd) to a 32GB microsd card and have the phone booted from that. Checking hard drive size in a terminal by issuing df -h and lsblk both seem to indicate that the drive from which the phone is running it about 32GB. I may just try writing that image to the emmc using dd to see how/whether it works.

[JhonSmith]

Looks like you’re making good progress! Flashing from the microSD can be tricky, but there are guides and multi-OS images that help simplify installing to the internal eMMC. It’s definitely doable with some patience.

[biketool]

I always use the tow-boot(mobian) option to make the phone into a flash drive and flash the OS as an from the OS image.(hold volume up at boot, boots to blank screen and blue LED)
If you have U-boot there is a SD card image called jump-drive you can boot into and to the same sort of USB hard-disc mode.
Either way loading via USB cable is super easy as long as you have a good usb cable which connects securely.

It is also pretty easy to use the same disc-mode to take a backup image o your phone, for the pinephone pro at 128gb it takes 4-5 hours if I recall correctly to reload the whole disc. this is nice if you need to do a full wipe and restart, just use your latest OS installer to get you the calmares encrypted disc set up and then reboot into disc-mode unlock the disc on your computer and reload from disc image.