I will share my story, maybe it will be useful to someone. This is about manjaro and u-boot. After installing manjaro, I couldn't boot properly if the pinebook had a microSD card installed. The boot always hung up until the manjaro logo appeared. The boot was successfuly only if removing the microSD card, or after 3-4 reboots. The problem was solved simply, but I found a solution a year later.
1) Prepare a bootable USB flash drive with manjaro using the "balena etcher". I used a USB flash drive, not a microSD card. But you can also use a microSD card
2) Insert the flash drive and turn on pinebook.
3) You need to type several commands during u-boot.
a) if you use a flash drive, then type
printenv
In the output log, we look for something like "bootcmd_usb". I have this "bootcmd_usb0".
If the command is found, type
run <your_bootcmd_command>
In my case, this is
run bootcmd_usb0
Next, the boot is the same as from a microSD card
b) If you use a microSD card, type "mmcinfo" and see which mmc device number corresponds to your microSD card. Next, type
mmc dev <your_SD_card_number>
In my case, this is
mmc dev 0
And boot with the "boot" command
4) All this is necessary in order to boot from the manjaro live-cd and edit the partitions on your eMMC drive. There was only one partition on my eMMC disk after installing manjaro. But to save the u-boot settings correctly, we need a first partition with the FAT32 file system at the end of the disk. I create it about 50 MB. I was only able to create a partition correctly using the 'gnome-disk-utility' (You need to type this in live-cd terminal:
sudo pacman -S gnome-disk-utility
). In the utility itself, change the size of the main partition and then add the second one at the end of the disk.
After all these manipulations, manjaro began to boot without problems, even with the inserted microSD card. Also now I have the ability to boot from a usb flash drive
1) Prepare a bootable USB flash drive with manjaro using the "balena etcher". I used a USB flash drive, not a microSD card. But you can also use a microSD card
2) Insert the flash drive and turn on pinebook.
3) You need to type several commands during u-boot.
a) if you use a flash drive, then type
printenv
In the output log, we look for something like "bootcmd_usb". I have this "bootcmd_usb0".
If the command is found, type
run <your_bootcmd_command>
In my case, this is
run bootcmd_usb0
Next, the boot is the same as from a microSD card
b) If you use a microSD card, type "mmcinfo" and see which mmc device number corresponds to your microSD card. Next, type
mmc dev <your_SD_card_number>
In my case, this is
mmc dev 0
And boot with the "boot" command
4) All this is necessary in order to boot from the manjaro live-cd and edit the partitions on your eMMC drive. There was only one partition on my eMMC disk after installing manjaro. But to save the u-boot settings correctly, we need a first partition with the FAT32 file system at the end of the disk. I create it about 50 MB. I was only able to create a partition correctly using the 'gnome-disk-utility' (You need to type this in live-cd terminal:
sudo pacman -S gnome-disk-utility
). In the utility itself, change the size of the main partition and then add the second one at the end of the disk.
After all these manipulations, manjaro began to boot without problems, even with the inserted microSD card. Also now I have the ability to boot from a usb flash drive