Issues Installing NetBSD on a PineBook Pro
You might not want to run -current. I'm running it, but I might switch to 9.1 (which I also run on an SD card) soon. The only real advantage I can see at this point is that you can use the inbuilt Wi-Fi, but you won't want to. It just doesn't work. It crashes hard and will give you headaches. So if you want to use Wi-Fi, get a urtwn USB stick. In this case, you don't "need" -current.
I digress. You'll want to get a serial console adaptor, and turn on the serial console switch. This isn't necessary but it's very helpful.
If you're getting the image from armbsd.org, it should just work. You'll get an orange LED for some time, and then it'll turn green and you'll see the familiar boot messages. What you can't see without the serial console are the U-Boot messages, and the NetBSD boot prompt which waits some time for a keypress (which you can only do from the serial console), and then the first lines of NetBSD boot messages before the display hardware is activated.
On first boot, the partition will resize to fill the SD card. If you don't want to do that, you'll want to interrupt it. Else, it will resize and reboot. Then you should have a fully working installation equivalent to installing with X and nothing else. You'll have to either run sysinst (only available on -current) or manually install pkgsrc etc.
You can't really "brick" a PBP. The only caveat to this statement is if someone tried using the SPI NOR Flash in the past, which is highly unlikely (unless maybe they were using an SSD).
Manjaro is a nightmare, unless you're a Linux guy, I don't know. I find it to be a major pain, and if I have to Linux, I use the former official PBP OS, Debian. But we're dealing with NetBSD, so no need to worry about that just now. Let's get NetBSD running on SD and then deal with that Manjaro, and overwriting it. But if you are ambitious you could install the original Debian and make installing NetBSD just a little easier (don't have to switch the eMMC on during boot, with the PBP disassembled).
To the point of your question, you are either not waiting long enough, or maybe have a bad SD card. There are lots of reports of SD cards that just don't work. I have not run into this but many others have. Try re-writing the SD. Then try another SD.
NetBSD works very well at this stage, minus the inbuilt Wi-Fi, and touchpad multitouch. It should be easy to install and easy to use, if you're already familiar with NetBSD. If you're not familiar, it should still be easy to get running, and at least obvious that it works, when you get to that point. Also if you're not very familiar with NetBSD already, please avoid -current for now.
I digress. You'll want to get a serial console adaptor, and turn on the serial console switch. This isn't necessary but it's very helpful.
If you're getting the image from armbsd.org, it should just work. You'll get an orange LED for some time, and then it'll turn green and you'll see the familiar boot messages. What you can't see without the serial console are the U-Boot messages, and the NetBSD boot prompt which waits some time for a keypress (which you can only do from the serial console), and then the first lines of NetBSD boot messages before the display hardware is activated.
On first boot, the partition will resize to fill the SD card. If you don't want to do that, you'll want to interrupt it. Else, it will resize and reboot. Then you should have a fully working installation equivalent to installing with X and nothing else. You'll have to either run sysinst (only available on -current) or manually install pkgsrc etc.
You can't really "brick" a PBP. The only caveat to this statement is if someone tried using the SPI NOR Flash in the past, which is highly unlikely (unless maybe they were using an SSD).
Manjaro is a nightmare, unless you're a Linux guy, I don't know. I find it to be a major pain, and if I have to Linux, I use the former official PBP OS, Debian. But we're dealing with NetBSD, so no need to worry about that just now. Let's get NetBSD running on SD and then deal with that Manjaro, and overwriting it. But if you are ambitious you could install the original Debian and make installing NetBSD just a little easier (don't have to switch the eMMC on during boot, with the PBP disassembled).
To the point of your question, you are either not waiting long enough, or maybe have a bad SD card. There are lots of reports of SD cards that just don't work. I have not run into this but many others have. Try re-writing the SD. Then try another SD.
NetBSD works very well at this stage, minus the inbuilt Wi-Fi, and touchpad multitouch. It should be easy to install and easy to use, if you're already familiar with NetBSD. If you're not familiar, it should still be easy to get running, and at least obvious that it works, when you get to that point. Also if you're not very familiar with NetBSD already, please avoid -current for now.
