Is there an equivalent for the RHEL/Fedora emergency shell boot for Pine Pro/Manjaro ARM/Plasma?
I've tried various key combinations including ctrl-shift-F2. Inserting a USB having burned a downloaded Manjaro-ARM-kde-plasma-pbpro-20.12.img.xz image onto it does nothing.
Been using linux (mostly RH, Fedora and Ubuntu) for nearly 30 years; ARM (Chrome OS) for six months. I can't say I'm terribly impressed with the Pinebook. And this from a guy who's partial to KDE/Plasma.
System is stuck, by the way, on (not) mounting a 2TB sd disk whose PARTUUID I'd inserted in fstab. Meant to comment out the line when a manual test mount didn't work, but must have somehow not saved the file after inserting the hash character. Stuck on it whether the sd is in or out.
Oh well. Appreciate any help. A search on the forum turned up no results that I could see.
moving thread to appropriate forum.
Are you certain that you're actually booting from the SD card? Default Manjaru U-Boot doesn't allow booting from SD card as far as I know.
I thought the key combination was Alt-F2 (but I don't normally use Linux so my memory might be off).
Ctrl-Alt-F1 would work for BSD. Either way you already tried those so maybe the system is hung. In that case, you'll have to disable the eMMC, boot from SD, and re-enable and mount the eMMC live.
(05-31-2023, 08:48 AM)KC9UDX Wrote: Are you certain that you're actually booting from the SD card? Default Manjaru U-Boot doesn't allow booting from SD card as far as I know.
I thought the key combination was Alt-F2 (but I don't normally use Linux so my memory might be off).
Ctrl-Alt-F1 would work for BSD. Either way you already tried those so maybe the system is hung. In that case, you'll have to disable the eMMC, boot from SD, and re-enable and mount the eMMC live.
Thanks for your response. I had noted various threads regarding a switch to turn off the eMMC, but I believe that for the Pinebook Pro the switch is enclosed inside the case. My overall impression regarding the product is that it failed to meet my limited (as a thin client inside the local network) expectations. I have started the RMA process. It's a shame... it's an attractive device, and very close to being useful.
If you bought it from the main web site here, they wont let you return it over this kind of issue. You'll be better off selling it here.
The switch is under the bottom cover. It's sort of a finicky process to use it. But this is not unreasonable for this kind of hobbyist machine. If you decide to proceed, we can walk you through the process; it's been done numerous times before.
Bear in mind that the problem is Manjaru, not the Pinebook Pro. You could fix Manjaru, or probably replace it with a newer copy of Manjaru and make it very usable. Or, there are other, less temperamental, operating systems you could use.
(05-31-2023, 10:33 AM)KC9UDX Wrote: If you bought it from the main web site here, they wont let you return it over this kind of issue. You'll be better off selling it here.
The switch is under the bottom cover. It's sort of a finicky process to use it. But this is not unreasonable for this kind of hobbyist machine. If you decide to proceed, we can walk you through the process; it's been done numerous times before.
Bear in mind that the problem is Manjaru, not the Pinebook Pro. You could fix Manjaru, or probably replace it with a newer copy of Manjaru and make it very usable. Or, there are other, less temperamental, operating systems you could use.
I don't mind getting my hands dirty... but by under the bottom cover, you mean that it must be removed, yes?
05-31-2023, 12:35 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-31-2023, 12:39 PM by KC9UDX.)
Yes there are ten #0 Philips head screws. 6 long and 4 short. This computer was designed to be opened and tinkered with.
Do this:
1) open the "lid" 90 degrees, as you normally use a laptop.
2) turn the power off and insert a bootable SD card.
3) hang the monitor half over the edge of a table.
4) take the bottom cover screws out.
5) remove the bottom cover. It may be a little stuck. Note that the bottom cover is the entire strength of the bottom half. If you need to move or handle the PBP with the bottom cover off, only handle it by the monitor half, and don't try to operate the hinges.
6) turn the eMMC switch off. The location is described in the wiki. It's near the eMMC module (I think).
7) turn the power on.
8) at a certain point, early in the boot process, you can turn the eMMC back on. If you miss the opportunity, you can still attach and mount it later (I don't know how but there should be info in the wiki).
9) now you can either fix your fstab. If you like, you can put the bottom cover back on at this point. Be mindful of the shorter screws which go towards the front.
*also note that when the bottom cover is off, if you tilt the unit, small plastic parts (spacers) will fall out
When you're all done, it would be a good idea to install a different U-Boot or tow-boot that will actually allow you to boot from SD card in an emergency.
(05-31-2023, 12:35 PM)KC9UDX Wrote: Yes there are ten #0 Philips head screws. 6 long and 4 short. This computer was designed to be opened and tinkered with.
Do this:
1) open the "lid" 90 degrees, as you normally use a laptop.
2) turn the power off and insert a bootable SD card.
3) hang the monitor half over the edge of a table.
4) take the bottom cover screws out.
5) remove the bottom cover. It may be a little stuck. Note that the bottom cover is the entire strength of the bottom half. If you need to move or handle the PBP with the bottom cover off, only handle it by the monitor half, and don't try to operate the hinges.
6) turn the eMMC switch off. The location is described in the wiki. It's near the eMMC module (I think).
7) turn the power on.
8) at a certain point, early in the boot process, you can turn the eMMC back on. If you miss the opportunity, you can still attach and mount it later (I don't know how but there should be info in the wiki).
9) now you can either fix your fstab. If you like, you can put the bottom cover back on at this point. Be mindful of the shorter screws which go towards the front.
*also note that when the bottom cover is off, if you tilt the unit, small plastic parts (spacers) will fall out
When you're all done, it would be a good idea to install a different U-Boot or tow-boot that will actually allow you to boot from SD card in an emergency.
Thank you, I shall do so tomorrow if I don't hear back regarding the RMA. Perhaps I should make a project of a script to make an emergency start SD disk, or instructions on adding another TTY at boot so that others can more easily interrupt the boot process. This appears to be a major design fail to me.
I agree; this is one of (many) things I don't like about Manjaru. I sort of wish the PBP would ship without an operating system. But on the other hand, I can appreciate that it does ship with one. And frankly, when Manjaru isn't failing catastrophically, it does seem to work pretty well for the typical user who doesn't want to have to monkey with it.
Or, you could flip the switch to change audio to serial, and make/buy an adapter
For my rockpro64, it has had a serial connection its whole life
boot_targets for its uboot is mmc0 mmc1 ........ (in uboot mmc0 is emmc)
so, about 3 seconds in, I hit space and get a uboot command line,, then
env set boot_targets mmc1
boot # and then it boots SD
if the boot fails, it comes back to uboot command line
I don't think you could do this blind, I tried with rockpro, only input over serial was accepted
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