Armbian is [edit: no longer] dropping support for Pinebook Pro

[TRS-80]

Armbian has recently announced that they are going to drop support for the bulk of the boards to secure better quality on those that will remain.

Armbian team took over what was possible, while the remaining boards, which won't get a maintainer by December 1st, will lose supported status and will be removed from the download pages.

If you would like to keep Pinebook Pro supported, apply for its maintaining.

EDIT: One or more people stepped up to Maintainer role(s).  As long as this continues to be the case, the PineBook Pro will continue to have Supported status.

[poVoq]

Other Pine64 boards also seem to be effected. Would be nice if some new maintainers could be found.

[TRS-80]

Yes, and other boards besides PINE64 products as well (I personally also have an old Cubietruck that's still working just fine for years now). Anyway, this is why I am trying to help get the word out. I am even thinking about trying my hand at some maintainership. I don't think you need to be a kernel hacker necessarily (I certainly am not!), just own 2 or more of device in question and test new images as they come out. Keep in touch on forums, etc.

[River]

I just found  NEW  Armbian  released for Pinebook Pro  dated  Nov 30, 2022  here  on Armbian official pages.

https://www.armbian.com/pinebook-pro/

Are you SURE  they discontinued support?  I almost  did not  bother to look  at  Armbian when I saw this post. 

 if  Armbian  is still releasing  Distros packaged for  Pinebook Pro  as recent as  1 week ago Nov 30, 2022,  then this  orginal  post  will scare people  off  when  it is indeed able to be installed and has  Updated  releases.  It's very nice too. I'm having fun with the distro.

got a used  pinebook pro  a couple weeks ago,  Armbian  distro is not only  very new and updated for  PB Pro but it also booted  with no issues unlike the  Postmarket OS I installed which  kept making me  connect to  wifi on every single reboot, and kept setting my clock back to Jan 2013  on every reboot, even when I changed and check Calendar clock settings.

There is one issue with Armbian PinebookPro from Nov 2022 version, the bluetooth does not work. Hopefully they will fix it soon since it did work in previous version.

[TRS-80]

Thanks for the reminder, River, and your concerns of not wanting to scare people off from Armbian.  They are appreciated (and I agree with you)!  Armbian is a great distro.[0]  I just hadn't logged in over here in a while (just been busy with life).

A lot can change in a year.  The Armbian project put out a call for help and several people stepped up to various roles (including Maintainer for PineBook Pro).  Since then I think Igor even took a sabbatical from $DAYJOB and is working on Armbian full time.  And they received some nl.net grant funding as well (and maybe others?).

I suppose that I would be remiss not to point out that (AFAIK) PINE64 have never really significantly helped Armbian in any way, financially nor otherwise.  In fact they seem (to me anyway) to go out of their way never to mention them in their monthly updates or other official communication channels.  While at the same time bringing attention to downstream projects which are actually in fact based on Armbian (lol).

I am not surprised your experience was good on Armbian.  Mine always was too, hence me trying to help out wherever I can.  It seems to me they have a high standard for themselves of what they consider 'Supported', and that shows in the finished product.

I have updated the OP (and title) to reflect the current state of affairs.  Thanks again.

[0] Technically Armbian is actually just a build tool, they automate that tool + their CI and infrastructure to produce, host, and distribute flashable images just for people's convenience.  But it actually took me some years to understand that fine distinction.