(10-31-2022, 10:51 PM)wdt Wrote: > I was not successful in getting the spi.installer.img to boot after flashing to a SD card
And..... the reason for that is that a uboot for SD/emmc is DIFFERENT than one for SPI
(this applies to ANY uboot, not just tow-boot)
the code is the same,,, but idbloader is expanded with blank sectors and ALSO
starts at offset 0, not 64 sectors.. IIRR uboot itself is also at 6M, not 8M
If you use the right image, tow-boot on SD/emmc will work OK
I'm afraid even if you use the right image Tow-Boot will not work for many Pinebook Pro people with certain models. I and others spent many days trying to diagnose why mine and some other people could not get Tow-boot to load or display whether we had it on SD card or different version as required for loading directly into the SPI.
It appears Tow-boot is there but it's invisible, screen is dark blue, you can not see the menu. The Above method did not work for me or others. I used Manjaro, PostmarketOS and ArmBian. Until this Display Bug is fixed in Tow-Boot (and PostmarketOS U-BOOT also), we can not use these type of loaders.
TL_Lim reported in the Pine64 Pinebook live chat he thinks it is caused by a bug in Tow-Boot Display driver
"<tl_lim> @River-mochi, from the chat log, I suspect is tow-boot's display driver bug. From your description, your PBP indeed boot up from the tow-boot SD card and your observe the green status LED. My takes the LCD display driver that tow-boot using may not have correct LCD timing and cause some LCD display cannot lock the display team and this is why no display. I think someone already file such issue on tow-boot GitHub and hopefully this issue can be resolved soon by update LCD driver. I think your PBP SPI Flash is OK and no need to desolder."
People with newer Pinebook Pro's from 2022 seem to be ok, my Pinebook Pro was made around March 2020.
