An unofficial Debian Installer for Pinebook Pro

[FeMike]

I didn't have to do any kind of special prep, I just inserted the microSD card, ran lsblk to identify the device file, and ran ./install-debian with explicit BLKDEV (from the Zen of Python - "explicit is better than implicit"). Try re-running? And make sure the script finishes successfully and doesn't output any errors.

So I tried again and it looks to be completed without errors. I'll paste link to the output of script if you'd care to look. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/q3y65eonqph448c/result?dl=0

According to that log no installation ever happened beyond partitioning, boot firmware installation, and file system formatting. And the reason for that is most likely in this last snippet:

Code:

WARNING!
========
This will overwrite data on /dev/mmcblk0p6 irrevocably.

Are you sure? (Type uppercase yes): y

It explicitly asks you to "type uppercase yes", as in 'YES'. Try typing exactly that instead of just 'y'.

Wow thank you. I can't  believe I missed that. Sorry and thank you.

[kuleszdl]

Thank you a lot for all the nice work. Because Crypto was not supported in the default OS, I installed Armbian first and ran your Installer from there but was unable to boot the system. As it turned out, Armbian's U-Boot does not priorize SD over eMMC, so everytime I tried to boot from SD it always booted Armbian from eMMC.

To solve this without opening the case (again), I flashed pcm720's u-boot to eMMC. Now it's booting the Debian generated with your scripts just fine from SD.

[FeMike]

When asked to select keyboard, what does anyone with a us keyboard pick? I don't think the pb one is listed so I picked any that was a us keyboard. I don't know if it matters what keyboard but after picking one does it change how you select the other settings after this point? When the dialogue pops up about selecting one or more desktop environments I arrow down to gnome and press enter. When I get finished and reboot I'm staring at a headless Debian. How do you select options is it not enter button.

[danielt]

Just a quick note to mention that v5.5 has finally landed via the openbuildservice and should start getting picked up by your `apt upgrade` shortly. There are some big changes in what is and isn't a module in this version. This does cause some modprobe warnings during boot (since /etc/initramfs-tools/modules assume the old module structure) but these are harmless.

If you see any problems please put them in the github tracker (although only if you think the problem is caused by the kernel... problems caused by upstream packages are better reported upstream and noted in the wiki)

---

When asked to select keyboard, what does anyone with a us keyboard pick? I don't think the pb one is listed so I picked any that was a us keyboard. I don't know if it matters what keyboard but after picking one does it change how you select the other settings after this point? When the dialogue pops up about selecting one or more desktop environments I arrow down to gnome and press enter. When I get finished and reboot I'm staring at a headless Debian. How do you select options is it not enter button.

I have an ISO Pinebook so I can't give a prescriptive answer but, in general, choose the most generic looking option (for ISO keyboards that is 105-key international). Basically although no modern laptop actually has a 105-key keyboard they are generally designed to *act* like the most common one for the territory.

For the curses (sorry that is jargon... "For the desktop chooser") interface then I think <Space> is used to check the boxes.

[FeMike]

Just a quick note to mention that v5.5 has finally landed via the openbuildservice and should start getting picked up by your `apt upgrade` shortly. There are some big changes in what is and isn't a module in this version. This does cause some modprobe warnings during boot (since /etc/initramfs-tools/modules assume the old module structure) but these are harmless.

If you see any problems please put them in the github tracker (although only if you think the problem is caused by the kernel... problems caused by upstream packages are better reported upstream and noted in the wiki)

---

When asked to select keyboard, what does anyone with a us keyboard pick? I don't think the pb one is listed so I picked any that was a us keyboard. I don't know if it matters what keyboard but after picking one does it change how you select the other settings after this point? When the dialogue pops up about selecting one or more desktop environments I arrow down to gnome and press enter. When I get finished and reboot I'm staring at a headless Debian. How do you select options is it not enter button.

I have an ISO Pinebook so I can't give a prescriptive answer but, in general, choose the most generic looking option (for ISO keyboards that is 105-key international). Basically although no modern laptop actually has a 105-key keyboard they are generally designed to *act* like the most common one for the territory.

For the curses (sorry that is jargon... "For the desktop chooser") interface then I think <Space> is used to check the boxes.

Thank you for your script! I'm new to this so hopefully my simple questions will go away. I will redo my set up and select with space key. Looking forward to this!

[danielt]

For the curses (sorry that is jargon... "For the desktop chooser") interface then I think <Space> is used to check the boxes.

Thank you for your script! I'm new to this so hopefully my simple questions will go away. I will redo my set up and select with space key. Looking forward to this!

No worries.

BTW I think I noticed something about CRYPT=n in some of the other posts. The code to handle variables is a but crude and 'y' is just a mnemonic: you can set it to anything you like and it will enable encryption... if you don't want encryption then don't set it to anything.

[FeMike]

For the curses (sorry that is jargon... "For the desktop chooser") interface then I think <Space> is used to check the boxes.

Thank you for your script! I'm new to this so hopefully my simple questions will go away. I will redo my set up and select with space key. Looking forward to this!

No worries.

BTW I think I noticed something about CRYPT=n in some of the other posts. The code to handle variables is a but crude and 'y' is just a mnemonic: you can set it to anything you like and it will enable encryption... if you don't want encryption then don't set it to anything.

I was just getting ready to ask about that. I thought encryption wasn't supported by default kernel. If I wanted encryption I would have to install first then rerun script with new kernel to get it. Or are those two different things? Getting back to setting up with encryption you're saying that just by calling that variable CRYPT will encrypt it even with saying CRYPT=n?

[danielt]

No worries.

BTW I think I noticed something about CRYPT=n in some of the other posts. The code to handle variables is a but crude and 'y' is just a mnemonic: you can set it to anything you like and it will enable encryption... if you don't want encryption then don't set it to anything.

I was just getting ready to ask about that. I thought encryption wasn't supported by default kernel. If I wanted encryption I would have to install first then rerun script with new kernel to get it. Or are those two different things? Getting back to setting up with encryption you're saying that just by calling that variable CRYPT will encrypt it even with saying CRYPT=n?

Pretty much, yes. The test used is "is CRYPT not empty" rather than "is CRYPT equal to y" (and CRYPT is empty by default). I'm not saying that is the *best* thing... but currently that is what is does.

Regarding the "install first and then re-run" business, it is true encryption wasn't support by the default kernel... but I think that has changed recently. Certainly the fact you got to a bootable SD card (even without a GUI) suggest a direct encrypted install is now possible.

[FeMike]

After the initial set up I wanted to create a root account so it is like my factory Debian. In a terminal I created it by using ($ passwd root) gave it a password and confirmed that it worked by switching accounts in terminal with ($ su root). When I log out of the DE then relogin and this time select different user it won't accept my password for root but it works while in terminal. Did I set this up incorrectly? Also I noticed that when in terminal as normal user I have to click the x in the top right corner to close terminal but while using root in terminal as soon as my mouse hovers over the x to close, it automatically logs out of DE causing me to sign back in. I'm still noobish but that doesn't seem right. Does this happen to anyone else?

[carletes]

Thanks for your work on this, danielt! I'm happily running Debian Buster now off a microSD card.

Question regarding the `bootloader` Git submodule: It is now pointing to mrfixit2001's branch v1.5, which is not the latest available. Did you choose that branch for any particular reason? I created my microSD card using branch v1.9 (by manually checking it out, and commenting out the `git submodule update --init` command in the install script) and everything seems to be working just fine.