An unofficial Debian Installer for Pinebook Pro

[danielt]

Any thoughts what might be causing the following error during the kernel section of the Makefile?  Seems a strange place to break on an install command.

Entirely my fault.
There was an entry in .gitignore that was hiding unchecked in files called kernel/... meaning I forgot to commit the etc/kernel/ directory that this command installs. Fixed and pushed to github... please pull and have another go.

[acr]

Any thoughts what might be causing the following error during the kernel section of the Makefile?  Seems a strange place to break on an install command.

Code:

>>>> kernel

cat etc/default/u-boot.append | sudo tee -a /home/rock/src/pinebook-pro-debian-installer/sysimage/etc/default/u-boot > /dev/null
cat etc/initramfs-tools/modules.append | sudo tee -a /home/rock/src/pinebook-pro-debian-installer/sysimage/etc/initramfs-tools/modules > /dev/null
sudo install etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/* /home/rock/src/pinebook-pro-debian-installer/sysimage/etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/
sudo install etc/apt/sources.list.d/kernel-obs.list /home/rock/src/pinebook-pro-debian-installer/sysimage/etc/apt/sources.list.d/
sudo install etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/* /home/rock/src/pinebook-pro-debian-installer/sysimage/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/
sudo install etc/kernel/postinst.d/* /home/rock/src/pinebook-pro-debian-installer/sysimage/etc/kernel/postinst.d/
install: cannot stat 'etc/kernel/postinst.d/*': No such file or directory
Makefile:131: recipe for target 'kernel' failed
make: *** [kernel] Error 1

The `/home/rock/src/pinebook-pro-debian-installer/sysimage/etc/kernel/postinst.d/` folder doesn't seem to exist, create it beforehand and try again.

That’s the strange thing... That folder does exist.

[danielt]

The `/home/rock/src/pinebook-pro-debian-installer/sysimage/etc/kernel/postinst.d/` folder doesn't seem to exist, create it beforehand and try again


That’s the strange thing... That folder does exist.

It's not the sysimage/etc/kernel/postinst.d/ folder that was missing (that will be created by some of the packages installed by debootstrap). The thing missing was the contents of etc/kernel/postinst.d/ (e.g. no sysimage).

It will be fixed if you refresh the repo with a git pull (and if you haven't rebooted, don't forget the make umount before trying again).

[acr]

The `/home/rock/src/pinebook-pro-debian-installer/sysimage/etc/kernel/postinst.d/` folder doesn't seem to exist, create it beforehand and try again


That’s the strange thing... That folder does exist.

It's not the sysimage/etc/kernel/postinst.d/ folder that was missing (that will be created by some of the packages installed by debootstrap). The thing missing was the contents of etc/kernel/postinst.d/ (e.g. no sysimage).

It will be fixed if you refresh the repo with a git pull (and if you haven't rebooted, don't forget the make umount before trying again).

Worked perfectly. Thanks!

[wasgurd]

Hey,

I am waiting for my PBP and I want to use Debian there.
Are there any known issues If I will use that installer? Like a suspend doesn't work or etc?

Thanks and marry Xmas!

[e-minguez]

I'm a proud PBP user with encrypted filesystem's Debian installed using this repo
I've also installed Chromium... but I needed to use armhf build and sid because it seems it is not included in testing right now.
Basically:

Code:

# cat /etc/apt/preferences.d/unstable.pref
# 0 < P < 100: causes a version to be installed only if there is no
# installed version of the package

Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 50

Code:

# cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/unstable.list
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian sid main

Code:

# dpkg --add-architecture armhf
# apt update
# apt install -t unstable chromium-browser:armhf

It downloads ~1 GB but it seems to work fine

Also, I'm using gnome as desktop... it feels a bit slow but so far so good.

Thanks @danielt  !!!

---

I'm a proud PBP user with encrypted filesystem's Debian installed using this repo
I've also installed Chromium... but I needed to use armhf build and sid because it seems it is not included in testing right now.
Basically:

Code:

# cat /etc/apt/preferences.d/unstable.pref
# 0 < P < 100: causes a version to be installed only if there is no
# installed version of the package

Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 50

Code:

# cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/unstable.list
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian sid main

Code:

# dpkg --add-architecture armhf
# apt update
# apt install -t unstable chromium-browser:armhf

It downloads ~1 GB but it seems to work fine

Also, I'm using gnome as desktop... it feels a bit slow but so far so good.

Thanks @danielt  !!!

I spoke too soon... I've rebooted after the Chromium installation and now the desktop doesn't load.



Enviado desde mi ONEPLUS A5010 mediante Tapatalk

[danielt]

I've had "rewrite the installer in something that is not make" on my TODO list for a little while since there have been a number of minor issues that are hard to tackle without making the make script pretty horid. To be honest we're not making heavy use of make's build avoidance so we don't lose much by leaving make behind.

Thus I have just pushed a new version of the installer. It is mostly just a transliteration of the exisitng installer but I have thrown in a couple of improvements... in particular it is now easy to run the installer from one of its own installations (which can be useful for encrypted installs).

Have fun!

---

@wasgurd: There are a couple of rough edges (nobody has yet reported working bluetooth and I see frequent memory leaks with panfrost+gnome-shell) but with a couple of tweaks it is working very well for me as the main OS for my PBP. Personally I am happier with the rough edges with this installer over the rough edges in the default @Mrfixit2001  image (Debian Stretch) but that's not so say the mrfixit didn't do a great job... so depending on your taste you might prefer the default image and that's perfectly fine! I'd suggest ordering a couple of A1 (or better) SD cards and experimenting with the various bits of software that are available. 

@e-minguez: Did you get anywhere with the desktop not loading? It's a very odd problem... I don't recall seeing anything like it before.

[e-minguez]

...
@e-minguez: Did you get anywhere with the desktop not loading? It's a very odd problem... I don't recall seeing anything like it before.

I ended up reinstalling the system. I just decided that if Chromium is not available in testing it would be better not using it ;D

Thanks!

[wasgurd]

---

@wasgurd: There are a couple of rough edges (nobody has yet reported working bluetooth and I see frequent memory leaks with panfrost+gnome-shell) but with a couple of tweaks it is working very well for me as the main OS for my PBP. Personally I am happier with the rough edges with this installer over the rough edges in the default @Mrfixit2001  image (Debian Stretch) but that's not so say the mrfixit didn't do a great job... so depending on your taste you might prefer the default image and that's perfectly fine! I'd suggest ordering a couple of A1 (or better) SD cards and experimenting with the various bits of software that are available. 

Dear @danielt,

I've been using Debian over 10 years and want to make PBP as my daily driver. The default system, unfortunately, hasn't LUKS and based on Deb 9.0 while I prefer to use the testing. You have done really good job to adopt mainstream Debian to PBP, thank you!



My PBP has arrived yesterday and here's my short report:

- I didn't see how to set up root pass and host name during the installation.

- FN keys for regulate display's brightness doesn't work until I've added to /etc/udev/hwdb.d/10-usb-kbd.hwdb

evdev:input:b0003v258Ap001E*
KEYBOARD_KEY_700a5=brightnessdown
KEYBOARD_KEY_700a6=brightnessup
KEYBOARD_KEY_70066=sleep

I believe it could be added to the installer to reduce number of post-install tweaks.

- If I plug in 3,5 audio jack, the laptop's speakers doesn't disable.

- Suspend works weird. When I close the laptop's lid, it is going to suspend in 50 % cases. Then, when I open the lid, there was no automatically wake up.
I can't find a pattern to describe how it works. I used to push some keys and then, with 30 sec -1 min delay the laptop is going to woke up.

- Annoying quiet noise from the speakers

[ljones]

Gave the unofficial installer a try here on my pinebook pro and so far most things seem to work (wifi was detected, not tried sound or bluetooth yet). Will note one thing though -- the link for the installer is a github link and if you visit it github offers either a link (which can be used via git clone) or a zip file - but just downloading the zip file,decompressing and running the script will not work (I made this mistake); you need to use git clone.

Should also point out about being careful with partitions and storage devices! I needed to use BLKDEV= with my install although the microsd showed up slightly unusally as /dev/mmcblk0 (would've thought the internal storage would be mmcblk0) . So as not to wipe the internal storage I made a small 100MB partition on the microsd on another PC and then used fdisk to view partitions so I could get the correct partition and avoid accidentally wiping internal storage.

First thing I would like to try to get working (but do not know how) is 2D (xorg) and 3D (GPU) acceleration. If I'm reading things right the 3d requires something called "panfrost", is that correct? But what on earth does 2D acceleration require?

ljones