I would really like to upgrade to Mate 17 for my Pinebook to make it run smoother, but I can't seem to run or open Installer.
It's unzipped, permissions is "Me,' and the make executable box is checked, but double-clicking does nothing and nothing I've found works in the command line.
I repeated the download and unzip on a computer running Mint, but got the same result.
I tried Etcher on both machines with same result, so it must be something I don't know how to do.
I used Unetbootin on the other machine to creat a bootable USB and it took me two days to learn that the Pinebook will boot only from the mini SD card, so I bought an 8GB Sandisk.
I'm totally missing something so I hope someone can point me in the right direction.
Thanking everyone in advance.
stanley
What installer are you trying to run? The PINE64 Installer or some installer for Mate 17 (did you mean Mint 17 by any chance?).
I suspect your problem is that you are trying to write an image with Etcher that is not actually a disk image, hence why it's not working. If you could be a bit more specific about what download you did (perhaps giving the link might save confusion?)
And yes, the Pinebook only boots from the eMMC and SD, with the SD having higher priority than the eMMC. There is no BIOS, UEFI, etc... this is an ARM(64) based machine, not an x86/AMD64 one.
This also brings with it the caveat that you can't just use any old linux distro with it... it needs a specific boot loader and kernel, which is why the PINE64 Installer provides a list of ready to use images, which at this point consists of Ubuntu (Minimal, Mate or i3) Q4OS and Android. There is absolutely nothing to stop you bolting your own preferred distro together, but it won't be 'easy' and it may not work well, as the pinebook hardware isn't up to running fancy desktop environment stuff.
(07-02-2017, 09:29 PM)pfeerick Wrote: What installer are you trying to run? The PINE64 Installer or some installer for Mate 17 (did you mean Mint 17 by any chance?).
I suspect your problem is that you are trying to write an image with Etcher that is not actually a disk image, hence why it's not working. If you could be a bit more specific about what download you did (perhaps giving the link might save confusion?)
And yes, the Pinebook only boots from the eMMC and SD, with the SD having higher priority than the eMMC. There is no BIOS, UEFI, etc... this is an ARM(64) based machine, not an x86/AMD64 one.
This also brings with it the caveat that you can't just use any old linux distro with it... it needs a specific boot loader and kernel, which is why the PINE64 Installer provides a list of ready to use images, which at this point consists of Ubuntu (Minimal, Mate or i3) Q4OS and Android. There is absolutely nothing to stop you bolting your own preferred distro together, but it won't be 'easy' and it may not work well, as the pinebook hardware isn't up to running fancy desktop environment stuff.
Thank you for your helpful reply. I'm late responding because I didn't know where to look for responses.
The installer I was trying to use was:
- 55.6 MB pine64-installer-2.0.0-beta.2-linux-x64.zip
Maybe I should have used the one endng in .dmg?
I mentioned Etcher in my first message only because I had tried using it as a alternative when I I couldn't get Installer to run.
Then I used the unzip command for my first time to, I hope, correctly produce:
/home/pine64/Downloads/ubuntu-mate-17.04-desktop-amd64.iso
I then tried to follow the steps and screens to check the executable box at:
https://github.com/pine64dev/PINE64-Inst.../README.md
Double-clicking didn't work and my effort to use some kind of Run command always produced a Not able to find or open the file message -- even when I think I had "cd" to the right directory.
I want the Pinebook update because I had read in the blog that the fixes may make my 14" Pinebook run more quickly and with fewer "internal error" messages. (My keyboard misses a lot of what I type, but I read somewhere in the blog that I can pop the key cover and maybe correct the position of the rubber bulb to improve the response.)
I had read descriptions of Mate's trying to stay with Gnome during the last yeae at Liliputing.com.
The Pinebook is slower than the Acer Chromebook overlayed with Ubuntu that I was using, but I don't mind its being slow to have a true Linux machine where I can go back to my Tor browser. Intenet privacy is a hobby of mine and I use Runbox.com because it's not in the US; DuckDuckGo (and maybe there's a more private browser called Dooble? And YaCy?)
Anyway I've already bragged to my wife that I'm in touch with the "Moderator," and I do sincerely appreciate your taking some time with me.
stanley -- new york city
lol... brag away... have to earn those brownie points somehow to ensure you can keep buying toys 
Ok, I *think* I might have finally gotten my head around what the problem is... you're trying to run the pine64-installer on the pinebook itself, aren't you? If so, it won't work, and neither will etcher, as they do not have a ARMHF/ARM64 version for you to run.
What I would suggest you do if this is indeed the case is
- Download the current Ubuntu Mate build for the pinebook
- Use the Disks utility in Ubuntu Mate (System -> Preferences -> Hardware -> Disks) to write it to a MicroSD card, so you can boot from the microSD card. [In the Disks tool, you'll want to highlight the SD card reader, then click the menu button up at the top right of the window (has three horizontal lines), choose 'Restore Disk Image' and then find that ubuntu Mate image you just downloaded]
- Reboot the Pinebook with the newly made boot microSD, and it should boot from the microSD you just wrote to.
- Connect to the internet (wifi, ethernet over usb, etc).
- Open a terminal (Applications -> System Tools -> Mate Terminal) and run 'sudo pine64_install_to_emmc.sh xenial-mate' to download and install the Ubuntu Xenial Mate image to your Pinebook's eMMC.
You are right that I was trying to run the installer on the pinebook itself. I thought it would be like the upgrades I used to download on Ubuntu every year or two.
I would my Pinebook to hesitate less when I'm typing and to give fewer "internal error" and "script still running" messages and I thought this was the way.
I notice that last week when I ran Software Updater I could have selected to download a new version upgrade. Would this be better for me?
But now when check to see if it still there I get a insufficient memory in boot directory. I emptied my email trash but I don't know how to do more. And I also ran some old sudo apt-get remove --purge commands I once knew how to use to remove old kernels, but that reported that there were 4 and 0 to be removed. I don't know how to list the kernels and maybe I was in the wrong directory.
Maybe I should just be bold and follow the instructions you've given? I understand the sequence and I think I can do it.
stanley
(07-07-2017, 02:33 AM)pfeerick Wrote: lol... brag away... have to earn those brownie points somehow to ensure you can keep buying toys
Ok, I *think* I might have finally gotten my head around what the problem is... you're trying to run the pine64-installer on the pinebook itself, aren't you? If so, it won't work, and neither will etcher, as they do not have a ARMHF/ARM64 version for you to run.
What I would suggest you do if this is indeed the case is
- Download the current Ubuntu Mate build for the pinebook
- Use the Disks utility in Ubuntu Mate (System -> Preferences -> Hardware -> Disks) to write it to a MicroSD card, so you can boot from the microSD card. [In the Disks tool, you'll want to highlight the SD card reader, then click the menu button up at the top right of the window (has three horizontal lines), choose 'Restore Disk Image' and then find that ubuntu Mate image you just downloaded]
- Reboot the Pinebook with the newly made boot microSD, and it should boot from the microSD you just wrote to.
- Connect to the internet (wifi, ethernet over usb, etc).
- Open a terminal (Applications -> System Tools -> Mate Terminal) and run 'sudo pine64_install_to_emmc.sh xenial-mate' to download and install the Ubuntu Xenial Mate image to your Pinebook's eMMC.
I downloaded from the link in your responsee "xenial-mate-pinebook 0.6.-74.img.xz" as a Raw disk image (xz compressed) and the make executable box was checked. Mate's Disk utility reported that the image was 7.9GB smaller than my 8GB Sandisk SD card. When I enter Restore, nothing happens. there are 4 partitions on the Sandisk, the largest is 7.6GB as "linux," and their contents are the same before and after Restore three times.
I tried extracting the image, but get an "insufficient space on :/root, please delete files," but I haven't how to do this in searching some of the threads.
Otherwise, I did manage a command line solution for "insuffcient room to update and upgrade."
Maybe I should just stay with my 16.10/3.10 kernel instead of worrying about 17, until it comes through Upgrade?
I also found some "Hardware" advice about how to tolerate the unresponsive keyboard.
I did go to the IRS channel, but I think the conversation is too fast for me to really participate there. Maybe I'll look again.
Thank you again for any advice you'll have time to post.
Come visit us on-line live at the irc channel; its so much easier to help with this sutff live;
marcushh777 
please join us for a chat @ irc.pine64.xyz:6667 or ssl irc.pine64.xyz:6697
( I regret that I am not able to respond to personal messages; let's meet on irc! )
07-18-2017, 07:26 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-19-2017, 06:09 PM by MarkHaysHarris777.)
stanley9000, not sure why that wasn't working for you, but at least you tried
You will be unable to use the graphical "Software Updater" build in to ubuntu due to a bug in it which requires a minimum amount of free space in the /boot partition, which was only recently fixed by resizing that partition. Kernel updates are not handled via apt yet, and multiple versions, which is why that was not doing anything. Because of that the Software Updater glitch, you will need to run the command line update commands you probably found... ie. sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
As far as system updates, I would *not* recommend updating from 16.04. Yes, it will mostly work, but is not supported, and there are some known issues already with going to 17.04. 16.04 was chosen as the version to support because it is a LTS (Long Term Support) version, and will continue to get security and maintenance updates until April 2019.
To get other upgrades, you can run some system scripts, but if you are still running the 'stock' image on your pinebook, we need to get it off that, and onto one of ayufan's builds, and the best way to do that is to run the pine64 installer on a normal desktop computer, download a pinebook image, put it on a microSD card, and then boot your pinebook from that. You can then use the pine64_install_to_emmc.sh script to download the latest version of ayufan's pinebook image and install it to your pinebooks onboard emmc storage.
It is certainly possible to prepare that install image on the pinebook itself, but it would be much better if we can talk it through on IRC (you can talk to me via PM there so you don't get confused by all the other stuff that is going on if you want... just /msg pfeerick Hi pfeerick me or something and I'll respond when I see the message).
Essentially the idea would be to check what device your SD card is being mounted as (using fdisk -l), and then using a command similar to this to download and write the latest pinebook release image to your microSD card:
curl -L hhttps://github.com/ayufan-pine64/linux-build/releases/download/0.6.2/xenial-mate-pinebook-bspkernel-0.6.2-77.img.xz | unxz -c > /dev/mmcblk0
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