Can't install Manjaro

[Bismarck]

Hello,

I received my PBP in January (I think from the second publicly sold batch). After some trying out on the original Debian install, I was able to install Bionic Mate on it following instructions. Given that I messed up that install a bit by trying to install software that I think was incompatible (Anbox, VMWare Horizon, R Commander), I decided I wanted to give Manjaro a try (at that time I think it was still 19.12). I followed the instructions per manjaro.org, however Whenever I booted up with the etched Manjaro image on sd in my PBP, it would either hang, or decide to boot up in my Bionic install. I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong. I've already tried at the Manjaro Froum, but they keep repeating the instructions (and I keep repeating following them to the letter and failing).

I have tried numerous times downloading (both 19.12 and later 20.04 versions), writing the image with Balenaetcher (on my Windows laptop, btw I've also tried several times writing the image to my sd using dd on my PBP), than booting up on my PBP. I've tried it with two different sd cards (including the one I used successfully before to install Bionic Mate), however I keep failing. I finally found out how to get a boot log from a previous boot, so I have the log of my latest failure.
log.txt

[tophneal]

It could be the SD card you're using. What SD card are you trying to use? Have you been able to boot other OS options from it?

[rossk]

When you say "hangs"-- does it get stuck with the white Manjaro logo on a black background?

If so, it sounds a bit like you might have downloaded the EMMC installer image-- which boots directly to an installer, not an environment where you can actually try out Manjaro. It has a quirk where it stays on the Manjaro logo screen until you hit escape.

[Bismarck]

I' ve tried with a no name 8GB Class 10 Micro SD and a Sandisk Ultra 16GB Class 10 (the last one I used successfully before to get Bionic on my PBP). I also tried and failed to install Chromium with one of these (forgot which one). If it hangs during boot up with the sd in (which happens rarely), it gets in to some sort of loop with script running on my screen (every few minutes it will retry something and hang again etc.). Usually though, within seconds it will instead boot up the Bionic from my emmc. I' ve never ever seen a Manjaro logo appear (and I' ve by now tried probably over a hundred times). Btw my goal is not to try out Manjaro, but install it on the PBP.

[slyecho]

It may be the uboot on the eMMC that is unable to boot the SD card. I would try temporarily removing the eMMC from the the board inside (or was there a switch to disable it?) and see if the SD card is booted.

There was a way to set the Pinebook Pro into eMMC recovery mode where you could flash it over the USB-C.
Or you can overwrite the uboot on the eMMC with the one on the SD card (BE VERY CAREFUL as it can make your computer unbootable at all).
Or you can order the USB to eMMC adapter from the Pine64 store and flash it from another computer.

But start with disabling the eMMC to see if you can boot from SD.

[MrDitchy]

I used the eMMC version and had to hit the esc key after a few second to get the installer to work. The Manjaro website said that this was a known Bug. On my first attempt the Pinebook Pro seemed to ignore the microSD and boot the eMMC. May be worth a try

[Bismarck]

It may be the uboot on the eMMC that is unable to boot the SD card. I would try temporarily removing the eMMC from the the board inside (or was there a switch to disable it?) and see if the SD card is booted.

There was a way to set the Pinebook Pro into eMMC recovery mode where you could flash it over the USB-C.
Or you can overwrite the uboot on the eMMC with the one on the SD card (BE VERY CAREFUL as it can make your computer unbootable at all).
Or you can order the USB to eMMC adapter from the Pine64 store and flash it from another computer.

But start with disabling the eMMC to see if you can boot from SD.

Okay I screwed off the bottom, found the eMMC switch, switched it off, booted up with Manjaro on SD. That worked, I got into Manjaro.

However, now the next problem presents itself: How am I going to install Manjaro on eMMC when it's switched off?

[nathanielwheeler]

It may be the uboot on the eMMC that is unable to boot the SD card. I would try temporarily removing the eMMC from the the board inside (or was there a switch to disable it?) and see if the SD card is booted.

There was a way to set the Pinebook Pro into eMMC recovery mode where you could flash it over the USB-C.
Or you can overwrite the uboot on the eMMC with the one on the SD card (BE VERY CAREFUL as it can make your computer unbootable at all).
Or you can order the USB to eMMC adapter from the Pine64 store and flash it from another computer.

But start with disabling the eMMC to see if you can boot from SD.

Okay I screwed off the bottom, found the eMMC switch, switched it off, booted up with Manjaro on SD. That worked, I got into Manjaro.

However, now the next problem presents itself: How am I going to install Manjaro on eMMC when it's switched off?

You have to get a new disk image on the microSD card and use manjaro on that card to do a bit-by-bit copy of that image  onto the eMMC.  There’s a CLI tool for this in the form of:

Code:

dd if=<target>.img of=<disk destination>

I made a step-by-step guide last week if you’d a more thorough explanation.

[Bismarck]

I'm still stuck with the fact that eMMC is (hardware) switched off (necessary to be able to boot from sd). If I turn off the PBP and switch on the eMMC, on next start it will boot up from eMMC (and therefore my Bionic install).

All I could come up with was hardware switching on the eMMC while booted up in Manjaro (from sd), but I guess some action in Manjaro is still needed to mount(?) the eMMC, because it does not accept the dd command like that (and in the device viewer, only mmcblk1 = sd card shows up).

[slyecho]

There is some console magic you need to do to initialize the eMMC if it was turned off while booting.

https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/Pinebo...nformation