Cannot find a method of flashing to EMMC that works

[MarkF]

Hi All,

I've just received my Pinephone Convergence Edition (3GB/32GB) running PostmarketOS.  I'd really like to install Mobian on EMMC.  If I flash Mobian to MicroSD, the phone will boot it and it runs quite happily.

The problem comes if I want to flash Mobian to EMMC.  I tried flashing JumpDrive to MicroSD, but if I try to boot the phone with that MicroSD inserted, nothing happens.  And I mean literally nothing - the phone won't even switch on.  I tried the flash with Etcher and again using dd, with the same result for both.

I then tried the second method from the Wiki - copy (not flash) the Mobian img file to MicroSD, insert the MicroSD, boot the phone and should see an option to flash the img file to EMMC.  But I don't - sometimes PMOS just boots as normal, with no such option being presented, and other times the phone refuses to boot at all - again it won't even switch on.

I'd really rather not do a dd directly from a mounted partition on the MicroSD - does anyone have any idea why neither JumpDrive nor the other method is working, and what I can do about it?

Many thanks,

Mark

[dukla2000]

...

The problem comes if I want to flash Mobian to EMMC.  I tried flashing JumpDrive to MicroSD, but if I try to boot the phone with that MicroSD inserted, nothing happens.  And I mean literally nothing - the phone won't even switch on.  I tried the flash with Etcher and again using dd, with the same result for both.

...

Odd - presume JumpDrive has yet to receive the memory fix but don't have a 3Gb phone to test that theory myself. Checking the download site it seems you need the 0.6 alpha version.

IMHO JumpDrive is preferred, but if you get mobian booted from an SDcard then you could dd the image from there to /dev/mmcblk2

[MarkF]

...

The problem comes if I want to flash Mobian to EMMC.  I tried flashing JumpDrive to MicroSD, but if I try to boot the phone with that MicroSD inserted, nothing happens.  And I mean literally nothing - the phone won't even switch on.  I tried the flash with Etcher and again using dd, with the same result for both.

...

Odd - presume JumpDrive has yet to receive the memory fix but don't have a 3Gb phone to test that theory myself. Checking the download site it seems you need the 0.6 alpha version.

IMHO JumpDrive is preferred, but if you get mobian booted from an SDcard then you could dd the image from there to /dev/mmcblk2

The 0.6 alpha worked fine - thank you!  The flash worked and I now have Mobian on emmc.  Thanks again.

[yoursunny]

Jumpdrive never worked for me. https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Ju...-692379199
So far the only method succeeded is to boot from microSD, then run

Code:

curl -sL http://files.example.com/image.gz | gunzip | dd of=/dev/mmcblk0

[discogribbs]

You can also install Ubuntu Touch onto an SD card then when it is booting up hold power and volume up. Per my Noob-ish perspective, it puts the phone's eMMC in a similar state as Jumpdrive then you can flash it from there.