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

[alxtrnr]

Big thanks for making this resource.

The img flashed, hash checked and stretched to fit the SD card (32gb) all as described and without a hitch. I've given Pure OS and Ubuntu Touch a try out and both are functional. Wifi and mobile data both working straight out the can with each OS no messing. Glitches encountered so far have been the sound settings with Pure OS and connecting to a NextCloud instance on Ubuntu Touch which has yet to complete. It's early days and I've not spent any time tinkering about beyond initial installs.

[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 !

I got this too on the first SFOS boot. Second and subsequent times thru it functioned as expected.

For me it's a boot loop and if I'm lucky after 5m+ it will go back to the spinning blue circle. At that time I can pulley down the notification tray (nothing works), adjust the volume, and then after ~5m more it'll lock on the circle and hard reboot.  (example of "boot stuck": https://youtu.be/YZ_IshYJDa0)

Yeah, I didn't get past the tutorial, because it was so slow and boring. If anyone has a simple way to skip/disable it, I'm all ears.

EDIT: I finished the tutorial, and Sailfish seems to work for me, so I'm not sure what the loading icon is about, I don't see it.

Anyway, their terminal app is the best I've seen so far! Other terminal apps on other distros make essential symbols hard to access. Not so the sailfish terminal app. | > _ =  / all easily accessible. That looks like a work of someone who actually uses the app.

Looks like there's a way to skip it!
https://forum.xda-developers.com/jolla-s...?nocache=1

Hey @megous, pursuant to the SFOS "oops! all spinning circles" above is there some btrfs magic now or possible in future to store the original volumes "untouched" so that one could "reset" the distro? I'll have to dd the image again now, so if there's a handy way of setting it back to stock from the image that would be super cool.

A few more small thoughts -- would a battery indicator be something that could be added?
Also Mobian doesn't boot at all (https://youtu.be/hjDwVmqXw5I).

[bujiraso]

I re-dd'd and now stretched the partition using steps from https://xnux.eu/log/#toc-resizing-the-pa...-the-image.
A couple notes there (cc @megous)

1. I goofed on the block device (misread it) and fell back to my comfort zone of cfdisks which worked fine, too. I used '[resize]' on the second partition, then '[write]'.
2. the "$ df -h"  final step likely belongs *before* the umount so that you can see the size looks right

That all went well and the Pine boots it so I thought to try the SailFish OS, again.
I can confirm that (after you set locale agree to EULA, etc.) when it says "Start" you can press as guided by the XDA dev (firmly, hold for a quarter second, towards the far corners, top left->right then bottom right->left) and it will skip the tutorial.

That being said, I still ended up in the same loopy place I did last time. It also says "Network Connection failed" despite being authenticated to my wifi. I did say "No Jolla Account" does that deny me from using the system? ?
Video footage of the foolishness and that'll be it for me and SFOS for a while: https://youtu.be/d_iKqvzPfK8
The funniest part was the part I didn't catch where holding the power button gave me a friendly "Goodbye!" before powering off from Jolla

[megous]

I re-dd'd and now stretched the partition using steps from https://xnux.eu/log/#toc-resizing-the-pa...-the-image.
A couple notes there (cc @megous)

1. I goofed on the block device (misread it) and fell back to my comfort zone of cfdisks which worked fine, too. I used '[resize]' on the second partition, then '[write]'.
2. the "$ df -h"  final step likely belongs *before* the umount so that you can see the size looks right

That all went well and the Pine boots it so I thought to try the SailFish OS, again.
I can confirm that (after you set locale agree to EULA, etc.) when it says "Start" you can press as guided by the XDA dev (firmly, hold for a quarter second, towards the far corners, top left->right then bottom right->left) and it will skip the tutorial.

That being said, I still ended up in the same loopy place I did last time. It also says "Network Connection failed" despite being authenticated to my wifi. I did say "No Jolla Account" does that deny me from using the system? ?
Video footage of the foolishness and that'll be it for me and SFOS for a while: https://youtu.be/d_iKqvzPfK8
The funniest part was the part I didn't catch where holding the power button gave me a friendly "Goodbye!" before powering off from Jolla

Way to reset the distro is to use btrfs-utils:

btrfs subvolume delete /mnt/distro
btrfs subvolume snapshot /mnt/distro.orig /mnt/distro

You'd have to have the root volume mounted though, so it may only be possible with SD card reader in PC, or as I did it, with Arch Linux ARM running from eMMC, while the multi-distro being on a SD card.

If it's possible to mount multiple btrfs volumes at once, it should be possible to just do it from one of the distros on the multi-boot image itself (just not the one you're trying to reset), if you install btrfs utils.

---

Also don't hold the power button for anywhere close to 6s or more. That just forces the PMIC to cut power, without a proper shutdown of the OS. May or may not cause some corruption. (Probably depends on SD card and current write activity level)

[bujiraso]

I re-dd'd and now stretched the partition using steps from https://xnux.eu/log/#toc-resizing-the-pa...-the-image.
A couple notes there (cc @megous)

1. I goofed on the block device (misread it) and fell back to my comfort zone of cfdisks which worked fine, too. I used '[resize]' on the second partition, then '[write]'.
2. the "$ df -h"  final step likely belongs *before* the umount so that you can see the size looks right

That all went well and the Pine boots it so I thought to try the SailFish OS, again.
I can confirm that (after you set locale agree to EULA, etc.) when it says "Start" you can press as guided by the XDA dev (firmly, hold for a quarter second, towards the far corners, top left->right then bottom right->left) and it will skip the tutorial.

That being said, I still ended up in the same loopy place I did last time. It also says "Network Connection failed" despite being authenticated to my wifi. I did say "No Jolla Account" does that deny me from using the system? ?
Video footage of the foolishness and that'll be it for me and SFOS for a while: https://youtu.be/d_iKqvzPfK8
The funniest part was the part I didn't catch where holding the power button gave me a friendly "Goodbye!" before powering off from Jolla

Way to reset the distro is to use btrfs-utils:

btrfs subvolume delete /mnt/distro
btrfs subvolume snapshot /mnt/distro.orig /mnt/distro

You'd have to have the root volume mounted though, so it may only be possible with SD card reader in PC, or as I did it, with Arch Linux ARM running from eMMC, while the multi-distro being on a SD card.

If it's possible to mount multiple btrfs volumes at once, it should be possible to just do it from one of the distros on the multi-boot image itself (just not the one you're trying to reset), if you install btrfs utils.

---

Also don't hold the power button for anywhere close to 6s or more. That just forces the PMIC to cut power, without a proper shutdown of the OS. May or may not cause some corruption. (Probably depends on SD card and current write activity level)

Excellent tips. I'll try that out as I appear to have updated Mobian "wrong". dpkg is repeatedly failing on an init script.

Also, I notice your kernel fixes https://gitlab.com/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/issues/735 on the pmOS boots. Sweet!

Finally, I have a couple feature ideas for pBoot.
-> Boot to eMMC (edit: from the running sd card image, if possible)
-> Wrap around indexing (so I don't have to hit vol down as many times)
-> Battery indicator

If you're looking for another developer to help tinker on stuff like that, @megous, PM me!

[defactofactotum]

Megi...thanks for all your great work....I sent you a few coffees a few weeks ago.
I tried to update SFOS on p-boot and got this:
"Fatal error: Subprocess failed. Error: RPM failed: error: unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/bin/droid/disable-modem.sh: cpio: rename failed - Operation not permittedb9fa9-1.10.13.jolla.armv7hl  SailfishOS HW Adaptation error: droid-config-pinephone-1+master.20200918102341.2fda27f-1.53.1.jolla.armv7hl: install failed".
Any ideas?

[megous]

Megi...thanks for all your great work....I sent you a few coffees a few weeks ago.
I tried to update SFOS on p-boot and got this:
"Fatal error: Subprocess failed. Error: RPM failed: error: unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/bin/droid/disable-modem.sh: cpio: rename failed - Operation not permittedb9fa9-1.10.13.jolla.armv7hl  SailfishOS HW Adaptation error: droid-config-pinephone-1+master.20200918102341.2fda27f-1.53.1.jolla.armv7hl: install failed".
Any ideas?

Yes, I made files I modified unmodifiable, in order for updates not to break functionality. This is one of them.

I don't know if rpm has some option to ignore single file errors during extraction, but if it does, this is the right time to use it.

---

Finally, I have a couple feature ideas for pBoot.
-> Boot to eMMC
-> Wrap around indexing (so I don't have to hit vol down as many times)
-> Battery indicator

If you're looking for another developer to help tinker on stuff like that, @megous, PM me!

Boot to eMMC already works. Just flash the image to eMMC.

Wrap around is a nice idea. Battery indicator is already on the TODO.

[jmorris]

Something seems a bit off.  None of the PostmarketOS images can update, apk complains about untrusted signatures.
The software update app on PMOS-Phosh extends off the side of the display but the original one on the eMMC doesn't and it still doesn't after updating to edge on the preload.  And the usb port doesn't seem to work.

Pure OS couldn't update from the graphical software tool either, error message not very clear.  Apt-get worked though so meh.  Hadn't used PureOS before now so don't know if it is supposed to offer anything when the USB is plugged in, but if it was supposed to it doesn't here.

The USB port did work with Sailfish so it isn't just totally borked.

Loving the concept here, just keep trying stuff and updating until eventually one of them works.  Some come close and every day things improve.  Exciting times, riding the cutting edge of Open Source development.

[megous]

Something seems a bit off.  None of the PostmarketOS images can update, apk complains about untrusted signatures.
The software update app on PMOS-Phosh extends off the side of the display but the original one on the eMMC doesn't and it still doesn't after updating to edge on the preload.  And the usb port doesn't seem to work.

Pure OS couldn't update from the graphical software tool either, error message not very clear.  Apt-get worked though so meh.  Hadn't used PureOS before now so don't know if it is supposed to offer anything when the USB is plugged in, but if it was supposed to it doesn't here.

The USB port did work with Sailfish so it isn't just totally borked.

Loving the concept here, just keep trying stuff and updating until eventually one of them works.  Some come close and every day things improve.  Exciting times, riding the cutting edge of Open Source development.

For package managers that use signatures, you typically need to have time set up correctly on your phone, because certificates are issued for a certain time window.

Also apparently package managers don't like to hit files that I marked as unchangeable, and instead of ignoring them, they fail the whole update. Workaround is to remove immutable flag on those files, back them up before update, and copy my versions back after update. It's usually various modem scripts.

Better fix may be to use NoUpgrade NoExtract options of pacman and equivalent options for other package managers, next time.

---

Looks like pacman and dpkg have ways to ignore select files by specifying the ignored files in the configuration files. Alpine package manager doesn't even have a config file that I can find, and it doesn't look like it has this functionality, so not sure how to work around this issue on distros that use it. Maybe someone else has some suggestions?

[jmorris]

For package managers that use signatures, you typically need to have time set up correctly on your phone, because certificates are issued for a certain time window.

Also apparently package managers don't like to hit files that I marked as unchangeable, and instead of ignoring them, they fail the whole update. Workaround is to remove immutable flag on those files, back them up before update, and copy my versions back after update. It's usually various modem scripts.

Better fix may be to use NoUpgrade NoExtract options of pacman and equivalent options for other package managers, next time.

---

Looks like pacman and dpkg have ways to ignore select files by specifying the ignored files in the configuration files. Alpine package manager doesn't even have a config file that I can find, and it doesn't look like it has this functionality, so not sure how to work around this issue on distros that use it. Maybe someone else has some suggestions?

PMOS-Plasma is hopeless, you can't set the timezone, changes just don't stick.  But the clock is right, correctly displayed in GMT.  PMOS-Phosh has the right time and timezone so that is where I started digging first.  Tracked it down.  /etc/apk/keys is empty.  You are defaulting to having device mapper claim /dev/mmcblk2, but I didn't bother encrypting my preload, so had to figure out a way around that.   Then it was easy enough to copy the keys from the preload install over and the error about untrusted repos went away. Now it has a dependency issue.

# apk upgrade
ERROR: unsatisfied constraints:
  cmd:kpartx (virtual)
  provided by: multipath-tools
  required by: postmarketos-mkinitfs-0.14.1-r1[cmd:kpartx]

Made any changes in any of that or is that just life on the edge and it will get fixed upstream in a few hours?