Write SD cards with Etcher for Pinebook Pro

[Mangled]

Does etcher work on manjaro arm if you use pacman? Will it build the package? I noticed it has a Debian extension.

[Mangled]

Just figured from a source that you could build the etcher-git package from aur repository on manjaro in case others are wondering as well. It has been modified for aarch64.

::package failed to build...

Was recommended to use *imagewrite* as a substitute for manjaro.

[Mangled]

Just figured from a source that you could build the etcher-git package from aur repository on manjaro in case others are wondering as well. It has been modified for aarch64.

::package failed to build...

Was recommended to use *imagewrite* as a substitute for manjaro.

Imagewriter was recommended, however after installing it and testing the USB stick, it did not work. 

I found another compatible program for aarch64 called: fedora media writer. I personally tested this one and it works great.

[11Eleven]

Just figured from a source that you could build the etcher-git package from aur repository on manjaro in case others are wondering as well. It has been modified for aarch64.

::package failed to build...

Was recommended to use *imagewrite* as a substitute for manjaro.

Imagewriter was recommended, however after installing it and testing the USB stick, it did not work. 

I found another compatible program for aarch64 called: fedora media writer. I personally tested this one and it works great.

I had my hopes up about flashing OS's to SD cards using PBP... I have manjaro but it looks like we can't get Etcher to run on it yet? I've installed imagewriter, but it looks like that's only for USB's and not SD cards... I'd test it out if I had a spare SD card, but I'm all out, for now.  I'm just starting out trying all this stuff out! I'm interested to see if anybody makes any progress doing this on manjaro.

[bcnaz]

Just figured from a source that you could build the etcher-git package from aur repository on manjaro in case others are wondering as well. It has been modified for aarch64.

::package failed to build...

Was recommended to use *imagewrite* as a substitute for manjaro.

Imagewriter was recommended, however after installing it and testing the USB stick, it did not work. 

I found another compatible program for aarch64 called: fedora media writer. I personally tested this one and it works great.

I had my hopes up about flashing OS's to SD cards using PBP... I have manjaro but it looks like we can't get Etcher to run on it yet? I've installed imagewriter, but it looks like that's only for USB's and not SD cards... I'd test it out if I had a spare SD card, but I'm all out, for now.  I'm just starting out trying all this stuff out! I'm interested to see if anybody makes any progress doing this on manjaro.

If you use a usb to sd card adapter, your computer will see a usb drive.

[11Eleven]

If you use a usb to sd card adapter, your computer will see a usb drive.

Right on! I'll give that a try as soon as I get my hands on another SD card! Thank you.

[SanjevR]

This is really complicated, but is it possible to boot from microsd on the PBP, install Etcher, and then flash the EMMC inside the Pinebook Pro with it? I am relatively new to Linux and would prefer to use the Etcher UI instead of the command-line DD command.  Thanks!

Yes, you can boot from an sd card, and no you dont need to flash anything. Just install your desired distribution or OS to an sd card and then reboot. The pinebook pro boot order prioritized the sd card over the internal storage.

But you really should try get more comfortable running commands in the terminal, it is your friend, and you can most often accomplish a complex task that would take tons of clicks in a GUI, with only one command line.

For example to install Ubuntu and create a bootable sd card only takes 3 commands and about 15 minutes.

Insert SD card then in a terminal run:

wget https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-b...mhf.img.xz
unxz bionic-mate-pinebookpro-0.9.14-1159-armhf.img.xz
sudo dd if=bionic-mate-pinebookpro-0.9.14-1159-armhf.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M status=progress

When complete just reboot with the sd card still inserted and you'll be running Ubuntu.


In Terminal do you have to cd into the microsd card? If so how do you cd into removable devices

[Alex007]

Have you tried warm-booting to the sd card?
I've found that my bran new (arrived Thursday) PBP will warm boot from the sd card, but won't cold boot from etcher software.   I too am looking for answer as to how to control uboot on this machine.

You can now download the U-Boot image onto your target's boot storage device using the appropriate procedure. If you already have U-Boot or one of its ancestors (PPCBoot or ARMBoot) installed on your target, you can use the installed copy to update U-Boot to a new version, as we shall see in Section 9.5.10. If you have another bootloader installed, follow the procedures described in that bootloader's documentation for updating bootloaders. Finally, if you have no bootloader whatsoever installed on your target, you need to use a hardware programming device, such as a flash programmer or a BDM debugger, to copy U-Boot to your target.