UPDATED (June 2021): 17-distro multi-boot image for Pinephone (incl. 3GiB variant)

[megous]

Here's the updated image that also supports Braveheart: https://xnux.eu/p-boot-demo/
...

Great, thanks!

From https://xnux.eu/p-boot-demo/:

sxmo login/password is mu/1111

Is this a typo? I thought the username is mo.

Yes, typo. Thanks, I fixed it.

[megous]

For those of you who are not able to use the torrent, I have placed the current image on a web server here: https://downloads.reclaim.technology/pin...oot-image/

Thank you. I've added your link to the homepage, too.

[branon]

Very excited to try the updated 13-distro image. Thanks very much for your hard work on this! I'll be seeding the torrent(s) indefinitely.

[yoursunny]

I flashed the Pinephone multi-boot image 2020-09-14 on my 3GB PinePhone.
I tested all 13 distros with a FreedomPop SIM, which is an AT&T MVNO, to determine whether cellular data can be activated.

Arch Linux ARM 2020-09-08
?️ CLI only, not tested.

Lune OS 0.113
❌ Missing APN config option.

Naemo Leste 20200906
❌ No cellular data menu.

Mobian 20200912
❌ 4G icon appears for 10 seconds and then disconnects.

KDE Neon 20200912-132511
❌ No SIM card listed in "Settings - Cellular Networks" menu.

pmOS / fbkeyboard 2020-09-11
?️ CLI only, not tested.

pmOS / GNOME 2020-09-11
❓ I cannot get past initial setup screen on touchscreen because it's too wide.

pmOS / Phosh 2020-09-11
✅ Cellular data works.
? Setup screen is too wide, but I can workaround by changing to landscape layout to reach the "next" button.
? This is a different experience than the original postmarketOS factory image, which means the different kernel or modem power scripts in 13-distro image may have helped.

pmOS / Plasma Mobile 2020-09-11
❗ System freezes when tapping "Settings" icon, but "Settings" app works.
❓ For some reason the APN is already configured. It's possibly coming from the SIM card.
❓ I can't test ping or Firefox because virtual keyboard does not show up.

PureOS 20200908
❌ 4G icon appears for 10 seconds and then disconnects.

Sailfish 1.1-3.3.0.16-devel-20200909
✅ Cellular data works.
❓ For some reason the APN is already configured. It's possibly coming from the SIM card.
❓ Browser doesn't work but I can see the page title retrieved.

pmOS / sxmo 0.1.8-20200726
❓ No cellular data menu.

Ubuntu Touch 2020-09-10
✅ Cellular data works.
⭕ Requires a reboot.

I started these tests booting from eMMC. However, after trying to use "pmOS / Plasma Mobile", the system in eMMC will only boot into Arch Linux instantly and the boot menu disappeared, so that I have to finish the rest of tests with SD card.

[joz_mak]

Newbie has problem installing the multiboot image

I followed the installation instructions on the developer's blog.
The installation of the image went without a glitch except when I resized the card the output didn't show the size of the card as was described in the installation instruction.

[jmak-pc Documents]# mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt
[jmak-pc Documents]# btrfs filesystem resize max /mnt
Resize '/mnt' of 'max'
[jmak-pc Documents]# umount /mnt
[jmak-pc Documents]# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
dev            3.9G    0  3.9G  0% /dev
run            3.9G  1.7M  3.9G  1% /run
/dev/sda3        30G  23G  5.2G  82% /
tmpfs          3.9G  213M  3.7G  6% /dev/shm
tmpfs          4.0M    0  4.0M  0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs          3.9G  8.6M  3.9G  1% /tmp
/dev/sda1      549M  70M  480M  13% /boot/efi
tmpfs          784M  104K  784M  1% /run/user/1000

The image boots up fine but I can't select any of the listed distros. The screen gets frozen and after a few seconds the phone shuts down.
The size of my sdcard is 64 gig.

Could anyone give me a clue how to fix this issue?

Thanks a lot.

I managed to make it work. I don't know how to remove this post.

Moderator note: Deleted post for you.

[megous]

I managed to make it work. I don't know how to remove this post.

Moderator note: Deleted post for you.

Yeah, df -h should be run before umounting the filesystem.

---

I started these tests booting from eMMC. However, after trying to use "pmOS / Plasma Mobile", the system in eMMC will only boot into Arch Linux instantly and the boot menu disappeared, so that I have to finish the rest of tests with SD card.

Nice testing. To invoke the boot menu if some default distro is selected and boots directly, you need to press volume down during poweron.

[robthebold]

I flashed the Pinephone multi-boot image 2020-09-14 on my 3GB PinePhone.
I tested all 13 distros with a FreedomPop SIM, which is an AT&T MVNO, to determine whether cellular data can be activated.

Arch Linux ARM 2020-09-08
?️ CLI only, not tested.

Lune OS 0.113
❌ Missing APN config option.

Naemo Leste 20200906
❌ No cellular data menu.

Mobian 20200912
❌ 4G icon appears for 10 seconds and then disconnects.

KDE Neon 20200912-132511
❌ No SIM card listed in "Settings - Cellular Networks" menu.

pmOS / fbkeyboard 2020-09-11
?️ CLI only, not tested.

pmOS / GNOME 2020-09-11
❓ I cannot get past initial setup screen on touchscreen because it's too wide.

pmOS / Phosh 2020-09-11
✅ Cellular data works.
? Setup screen is too wide, but I can workaround by changing to landscape layout to reach the "next" button.
? This is a different experience than the original postmarketOS factory image, which means the different kernel or modem power scripts in 13-distro image may have helped.

pmOS / Plasma Mobile 2020-09-11
❗ System freezes when tapping "Settings" icon, but "Settings" app works.
❓ For some reason the APN is already configured. It's possibly coming from the SIM card.
❓ I can't test ping or Firefox because virtual keyboard does not show up.

PureOS 20200908
❌ 4G icon appears for 10 seconds and then disconnects.
Sailfish 1.1-3.3.0.16-devel-20200909
✅ Cellular data works.
❓ For some reason the APN is already configured. It's possibly coming from the SIM card.
❓ Browser doesn't work but I can see the page title retrieved.

pmOS / sxmo 0.1.8-20200726
❓ No cellular data menu.

Ubuntu Touch 2020-09-10
✅ Cellular data works.
⭕ Requires a reboot.

I started these tests booting from eMMC. However, after trying to use "pmOS / Plasma Mobile", the system in eMMC will only boot into Arch Linux instantly and the boot menu disappeared, so that I have to finish the rest of tests with SD card.

Thanks for all that testing.  Did you test/try Sailfish as well?

[Paulie420]

I've prepared a multi-boot image for people who want to easily try as many distrbutions as possible. Official website is now here: https://xnux.eu/p-boot-demo/

Video: https://megous.com/dl/tmp/multi2.mp4
Or: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqyuKysK6ag
https://megous.com/dl/tmp/multi4.mp4 or https://megous.com/dl/tmp/multi5.mp4

Some history/details are on my blog: https://xnux.eu/log/

It there ANYTHING like this available for the Pinebook Pro? This is exactly what I'm interested in - as I want to test all the PBP OSes in succession.

If not, would you be interested in creating an option like this for PBP? I am brand new to the party but I'm also willing to be a part of any projects. I currently only own Pinebook Pro hardware, but am going to order a PinePhone just as soon as Pine64 has hardware to ship my way.

I want something like this for the Pinebook Pro, and am willing to help in any way shape or fashion to get an option going... if interested, please PM me and I'll get to work any way that I can.

 pAULIE42o
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
/s

[megous]

Mobian 20200912
❌ 4G icon appears for 10 seconds and then disconnects.

PureOS 20200908
❌ 4G icon appears for 10 seconds and then disconnects.
Sailfish 1.1-3.3.0.16-devel-20200909
✅ Cellular data works.
❓ For some reason the APN is already configured. It's possibly coming from the SIM card.
❓ Browser doesn't work but I can see the page title retrieved.

I tried these two on my 3GiB pinephone and 4G icon doesn't disappear. I think I'll add some simple script that uses can run to send kernel log, battery voltage, and similar helpful info to my email to next image revision, to help debug these kinds of issues.

Though it doesn't seem it will be a kernel thing, if modem works in some distros and not others.

---

I've prepared a multi-boot image for people who want to easily try as many distrbutions as possible. Official website is now here: https://xnux.eu/p-boot-demo/

Video: https://megous.com/dl/tmp/multi2.mp4
Or: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqyuKysK6ag
https://megous.com/dl/tmp/multi4.mp4 or https://megous.com/dl/tmp/multi5.mp4

Some history/details are on my blog: https://xnux.eu/log/

It there ANYTHING like this available for the Pinebook Pro? This is exactly what I'm interested in - as I want to test all the PBP OSes in succession.

If not, would you be interested in creating an option like this for PBP? I am brand new to the party but I'm also willing to be a part of any projects. I currently only own Pinebook Pro hardware, but am going to order a PinePhone just as soon as Pine64 has hardware to ship my way.

I want something like this for the Pinebook Pro, and am willing to help in any way shape or fashion to get an option going... if interested, please PM me and I'll get to work any way that I can.

 pAULIE42o
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
/s

I'm not interested in doing something like this for PBP. That said...

Something like this may be possible using u-boot using the same general approach with btrfs for the root filesystems. I've heard that u-boot may support the display already on PBP. I'm not using u-boot on PBP though, because it's veeery slow to boot. I'm using levinboot https://gitlab.com/DeltaGem/levinboot which is about 7-10x faster already. Levinboot doesn't support multi-boot or display, or keyboard yet, so it's not possible to use it for this kind of project.

All my scripts and documentation on how I did the pinephone multi-boot image is online, so it should not be that hard to replicate this on PBP, if you figure out the u-boot part.

https://xnux.eu/log/
https://megous.com/git/pinephone-multi-boot/

The differences will be only in the kernel/bootloader part.

[bujiraso]

Torrented, unzipped, dd'd and functional.

I'm trying out Sailfish -- it has a big spinning loading icon that won't go away after the tutorial lol. Lots of work to do in this space, should be fun!

Great job on this, @megous !