An unofficial Debian Installer for Pinebook Pro

[danielt]

Has somebody tried linux-image-5.5.0-rc5-arm64 from experimental?

I haven't but, to be honest, I would expect the display not to work! There is a patch needed for the display that didn't land until v5.6-rc1 .

I have currently got a local v5.5 based build (which does include the display patch and many of the other things @tsys has been working on). I found and fixed an integration bug related to the maxcpus=4 hack .

I've not done much with it but it appears to be working (although panfrost feels less stable than it did with the v5.4 family but I could be imagining that). However I am seeing a pile of warnings about missing modules as the system boots up. I think it is simply that the kernel is less modular and most of the warning reflect modules that are not built in but I'd like to double check that before pushing it to OBS.

[maya.b]

You don't happen to have a linux-headers package for the 5.4.2.2-pinebookpro-arm64 kernel by any chance?

There's a linux-headers-5.4.2-2-pinebookpro-arm64 package.

huh - how'd I miss that ...

Thanks!

[ab1jx]

I like it but I'd like to see a couple more menu options.  Partition table type - I don't like GPT, rather have MBR.  Or if it has to be GPT have the option of a real swap partition (user specifies size).  Gparted doesn't successfully resize a GPT partition the only time I tried it.

And I'd probably rather have Buster than Bullseye, so an option to choose would be good.

[bsammon]

I'm curious about the files in /lib/firmware --
two questions:
1) Where do they come from? - in case I want to download them again/check for new versions.
2) why aren't they package-ized, so I can poke at them with dpkg? Should/shouldn't they be? (Has this changed since a few weeks ago when I used the installer?)

[xmixahlx]

you can read the installer and the git submodule configs. they are blobs pulled from other git repos.

[danielt]

I'm curious about the files in /lib/firmware --
two questions:
1) Where do they come from? - in case I want to download them again/check for new versions.
2) why aren't they package-ized, so I can poke at them with dpkg?  Should/shouldn't they be?  (Has this changed since a few weeks ago when I used the installer?)

Yes, they should be packaged... however ideally that should happen by the firmwares being pushed into the upstream linux-firmware repository (which may need help from Rockchip to sort of out the legal details). From they will flow into the Debian packages and eventually the existing not-packaged firmwares will be overwritten.

I don't really want to create (or maintain) a package that reduces the pressure to get it fixed properly.

[simeon]

I may have done something wrong, but using the debian installer default kernel, or with an updated (5.5 thanks to @tsys ) one, I can't have sound on the speakers and jack output.

I tried to use the asound.state from @danielt 's repo but it doesn't change anything.

Is there anybody with this kind of problem ?

On the default @Mrfixit2001 debian it work's

[xmixahlx]

use the asound.state from manjaro, it is updated. i've edited the installer to do so, see my patch in my sig.

for ...post install changes:

pull pinebookpro-post-install from manjaro
place asound.state in /var/lib/alsa
sudo alsactl nrestore
reboot (optional...)
configure in pavucontrol
if that doesn't work, alsamixer (f6 for default and es8316)

should work.

while your at it read the PKGBUILD from manjaro and consider the additional changes they have tested.

---

I'm curious about the files in /lib/firmware --
two questions:
1) Where do they come from? - in case I want to download them again/check for new versions.
2) why aren't they package-ized, so I can poke at them with dpkg?  Should/shouldn't they be?  (Has this changed since a few weeks ago when I used the installer?)

Yes, they should be packaged... however ideally that should happen by the firmwares being pushed into the upstream linux-firmware repository (which may need help from Rockchip to sort of out the legal details). From they will flow into the Debian packages and eventually the existing not-packaged firmwares will be overwritten.

I don't really want to create (or maintain) a package that reduces the pressure to get it fixed properly.

just pull the second firmware repo from manjaro and dump into /lib/firmware/brcm/ like the other. see my patch for a bunch of changes  such as this.

[simeon]

use the asound.state from manjaro, it is updated. i've edited the installer to do so, see my patch in my sig.

for ...post install changes:

pull pinebookpro-post-install from manjaro
place asound.state in /var/lib/alsa
sudo alsactl nrestore
reboot (optional...)
configure in pavucontrol
if that doesn't work, alsamixer (f6 for default and es8316)

should work.

while your at it read the PKGBUILD from manjaro and consider the additional changes they have tested.

---

It works great !  Thanks !

My next and last problem is the wifi 5ghz stability, do any of you have this kind of problem ? The speed is stuck to 6mbit/s, on the default debian it was working pretty fast. I think it's related to the firmware but I don't understand anything to the broadcom blob firmware

[FeMike]

Thank you for sharing this @danielt . I'm new to this but would like to try this out. What would be the basic steps to get this working? Say I want to run this from sdcard, I download the script while booted from stock Debian and run it from terminal, just make sure I select the right device to install to? I saw a few pages back that the installer switches the naming of the devices where sdcard is normally mmcblk0 and pb64 is mmcblk1 it is opposite so I need to pick mmcblk1?

Edit: Disregard, I found the instructions on github. If I have issues I'll try to work it out then post here.