openSUSE for Pinephone

[Kamzzy]

sweet thx testing now

[Alefnode]

Ok, for next release i have sms working too

[hackersgame]

I got this running on the Librem 5.
Keep up the good work Alefnode!
https://youtu.be/K_RpvXSuY2Q

[Alefnode]

Oh, thats so cool, thanks for the video.

Today maybe i have another release, with a lot of changes.

[Alefnode]

New version 0.0.1-8 with some improvements:

- Change kernel to use new compiled kernel
- Modified boot to vibrate on start and load some colours in led before kernel loads
- Added change loglevel to see errors in boot
- Add chatty for working SMS

Updated first post

[Jojonintendo]

Thank you so much for your work on this image, it's not only very smooth even from the microsd, but is very functional.

I have a few questions though:

- If I "zypper dup", will I get all the changes or should I regularly flash new images?
- How (un)realistic would it be to have a working snapper? I believe we need GRUB and BTRFS, not sure if anything else.

To me this would bring the peace of mind that traditional openSUSE gives, but I don't know enough about the boot process on ARM to see how feasible it is.

Thanks again for your time!

[wibble]

Thank you so much for your work on this image, it's not only very smooth even from the microsd, but is very functional.

I have a few questions though:

- If I "zypper dup", will I get all the changes or should I regularly flash new images?
- How (un)realistic would it be to have a working snapper? I believe we need GRUB and BTRFS, not sure if anything else.

To me this would bring the peace of mind that traditional openSUSE gives, but I don't know enough about the boot process on ARM to see how feasible it is.

Thanks again for your time!

That's an interesting approach for reverting a bad update.

GRUB isn't applicable - u-boot is the bootloader. It can't display anything (no display driver) so although it's capable of having a boot menu, it won't show on the screen. It might be possible to use the LED to indicate boot choices, and use the buttons to navigate, but I've not tried it yet. Assuming that works you'd need to add support for it to whichever tools alter the grub config. I would expect btrfs to work if you enable it in the kernel config.

[Alefnode]

Yeah, i am working on mask kernel package update as it is the only problem when updating system with zypper

[Jojonintendo]

I have been searching a little more and I have found some interesting things, especially thanks to this blog post: https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2020/0...rockpro64/

It's for the RockPro64, but probably a sign that it might be portable enough to the PinePhone. It seems that some distros like Debian and Fedora can be installed via USB, provided that you have U-Boot flashed on the SPI.

There are still some caveats which are being worked on (like graphical boot not always working/requiring some workarounds), but it's almost there. Even GRUB can be installed, although it's obviously redundant with U-Boot, but at least it would mean that for the time being, complex use cases like snapper rollbacks could be done.

I'm going to try installing openSUSE on the Pinebook Pro and see if I can get somewhere relevant.

[Alefnode]

Thank you so much for your work on this image, it's not only very smooth even from the microsd, but is very functional.

I have a few questions though:

- If I "zypper dup", will I get all the changes or should I regularly flash new images?
- How (un)realistic would it be to have a working snapper? I believe we need GRUB and BTRFS, not sure if anything else.

To me this would bring the peace of mind that traditional openSUSE gives, but I don't know enough about the boot process on ARM to see how feasible it is.

Thanks again for your time!

With the new version you can update system with zypper