First Pinebook Pro project discussion

[MrTester]

Greetings All,

As we eagerly await the arrival of our new Pinebook Pro's and work out the kinks, I am curious to know;

What are your anticipated first projects you want to work on? 

Besides general testing, I look forward to having a console to monitor via VNC/RDP some test equipment I have set up on SBCs around my lab. Nothing too exciting for now. We will see how testing goes! 

[InsideJob]

First thing I plan on doing with it is trying to get latest kernel 5.3 rc running. That'll help me get up to speed quick on the firmware and uboot, even though it sounds like I'll probably break the graphics and need to ctrl-alt-f1 into a text console. Still, I'll have a better idea what's working with mainline and what isn't.

[aleksei]

My main question about Pbook Pro is how well it runs under Linux-libre kernel (5.3 with Panfrost) and fully libre distro (without any closed SW/FW). I don't really have spare 200$ to risk ending up with laptop that's only usable with blobs, so I'm waiting for someone else to test this
If built-in WiFi/BT chips don't work - that's fine with me, I'm cool with usb WiFi/BT dongle.

[InsideJob]

Mesa seems to think panfrost is ready anyways. I guess I'll need to build that in addition to the kernel.

Oh well, I didn't get in on the first 100 so guess I'll have to wait two months to find out for sure.

[tsago]

My intended destination is Arch, so I'll be trying that out to see how well it works.
If Chrom[e|ium]OS is functional and install-able, I'd like to give that a try for a day or two to get a feel for it, as I've never seen it in action so far.

[Wizzard]

I want to use it the same way as my primany notebook, it means web browsing, music, video, etc. and sometimes game playing on RetroArch. The same thing I wanted to use the first Pinebook, but it was too slow

[Thra11]

I plan to get NixOS working on it, then use it as my laptop

[aleksei]

I plan to get NixOS working on it, then use it as my laptop

Any chance you'll try GuixSD as well? It's built on the same principles as Nix.

[MrTester]

I want to use it the same way as my primany notebook, it means web browsing, music, video, etc. and sometimes game playing on RetroArch. The same thing I wanted to use the first Pinebook, but it was too slow

What OS are you planning to use as a daily driver?

[InsideJob]

If nobody else does it first I'm sure I can get an ARM64 build of Ubuntu up and running, like this one I did for the original Pi 3B:
http://privacyenhanced.blogspot.com/2017...tions.html

Trick I found was using their mk-sbuild utility (ubuntu-dev-tools package) to create the root filesystem. If you're familiar with Gentoo that'll leave you in a position like after a stage 3 tarball. You have to manually install the init ststem and kernel but otherwise getting a base image together isn't that hard. Getting a GUI desktop going with accelerated graphics... well, that's a bit more of a challenge.