PBP won't boot from eMMC or SD card: a saga

[archaicmeander]

Frankly, I hate to say this because I'm not a guy with a "modern gaming computer" or whatever it is that most people have.  (I'm still an Amiga guy).  But you really need another computer to support your PBP.  Kudos for getting this far without one, but sooner or later you're going to need it.  Even if it's a Raspberry Pi or one of the Pine64 SBCs with an external micro-SD slot.

Here's what I recommend: go to the wiki, and download the Debian Desktop image, and ditch Manjaro, at least for now.  All of the kinds of problems you are describing seem to be reported by other users of Manjaro.  The Debian install that you'll end up with isn't quite as polished, but it's much more stable and less likely to put you in a bind.

At least, put it on a micro SD, and keep it for emergencies.  But really, I recommend putting it on the eMMC and if you want to use Manjaro, use that from an SD card.

My usual MO when something doesn't work is to just steamroll towards it until I make it work in order to understand why it didn't at first, even if I do change gears later. But if this stuff is just a symptom of the current state of Manjaro, it seems like my best bet is to take your advice and go for a different distro. I had only resisted up until now because of the official support of Manjaro (and my ol' steamrolling habit).

Seems like Debian is always recommended over pretty much anything else - any particular reason for this? Is it just very popular or is it more reliable on the PBP hardware specifically? Are derivative distros like Ubuntu equally recommended? It also seems common to describe it as "unpolished" but I'm not really clear on what that implies. As long as the screen, trackpad, keyboard, and wifi work as expected, everything else seems surmountable.

As far as another computer, I am technically still a young 'un by many standards, so I do have a MODERN GAMING COMPUTER™ desktop running win10, which is what I'm posting from. It just has no SD card slots. This is almost certainly a dumb question, but I assume getting a card reader for it is adequate rather than getting another Linux device specifically?

@wdt - would this be the correct thread on how to do the MrFixIt update you're talking about?

Thank you both!