Pamac, the package manager that's included in the Manjaro OS that shipped with my PineBookPro has a utility that we can install; it's called "GNOME Disks" 3.38.0-1. I was able to use it to get some OS images on some SD cards, using this here laptop! I've never used dd before and I was a bit apprehensive about using it because I didn't want to risk destroying any disks, so I was happy when I saw that Disks worked. Although, I'm sure some "damage" might be done with this as well, you just have make sure the empty SD card is really the target when you transfer an image, I suppose.
Hello everyone,
Just want to let you know that this thread helped me a lot. I had to flash my eMMC (internal storage) because I forgot the passwords! So I followed the instructions and was able to boot via sd card, however was a bit confused how to flash the eMMC. I used https://gitlab.manjaro.org/manjaro-arm/p...c-flasher/ to flash the eMMC, but needed lot of time to figure out how to properly use it. Here the most important tips in my opinion to make that script to work properly:
- You need to have the Manjaro ARM image compressed in xz format.
- The script will look for that image in the /var/tmp directory.
I suggest you to read the script to know and get familiar with what the script is trying to do (wish I did this sooner). You can also modify the script but I prefer to adjust to what the script wants.
I hope this is helpful to someone who doesn't much experience like me.
(11-15-2020, 01:23 PM)Leopr1 Wrote: Hello everyone,
Just want to let you know that this thread helped me a lot. I had to flash my eMMC (internal storage) because I forgot the passwords! So I followed the instructions and was able to boot via sd card, however was a bit confused how to flash the eMMC. I used https://gitlab.manjaro.org/manjaro-arm/p...c-flasher/ to flash the eMMC, but needed lot of time to figure out how to properly use it. Here the most important tips in my opinion to make that script to work properly:
- You need to have the Manjaro ARM image compressed in xz format.
- The script will look for that image in the /var/tmp directory.
I suggest you to read the script to know and get familiar with what the script is trying to do (wish I did this sooner). You can also modify the script but I prefer to adjust to what the script wants.
I hope this is helpful to someone who doesn't much experience like me.
Thanks for helping keep this post relevant and with more details for users. The SD burning and burning to eMMC processes are fairly easy and work well - if you do them correctly the first time and don't create issues for yourself... positive feedback coming your way. 
-----
pAULIE42o
. . . . . . . .
/s
I'm waiting on my 128GB eMMC to arrive from China, but when it does I'd like to dd over the bionic mate install I've been using as a daily driver on an SD card, is this something that can work or would it likely fail to boot due to differences between eMMC and SD boot process? I guess it's probably advisable that I do start from scratch but installing all of the software I've put on the SD install will be a bit of a pain.
11-22-2020, 03:28 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-22-2020, 03:41 PM by wdt.)
Some thoughts and gotca's
One hopes that the new emmc is blank, sometimes it "helpfully" comes with an android install
If you have another bootable SD and a usb SD card reader it gets a lot easier
(hopefully a usb3 card reader, 3x as fast)
Do be aware, your SD boot is using uboot FROM emmc, you really don't know
just how good the uboot on SD is,,, good/mediocre/bad
mate in reader, plugged into usb,,, some other SD card boot, blank emmc
sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/emmc bs=1M status=progress
Then check (on emmc) if fstab and extlinux.conf point to right place
cfdisk and resize2fs to expand root fs on emmc
If you want to cover all possibiities , copy 1st 16M from original emmc to ~/Documents on SD card first,
the you have a probably good uboot if the SD uboot is not good,, as so
cd ; cd Documents
sudo dd if=/dev/emmc of=1st-16M.emmc bs=1M count=16
(09-28-2020, 05:00 PM)Paulie420 Wrote: Hello team Pine64:
I hope that this small write-up has relevance and information that will help newcomers to the land of PBP who want to experiment with other operating softwares on the platform. I've been reading many horror stories of Pinebook Pro's that were damaged, or that the owner THINKS are damaged because they won't boot properly... after a user found themselves with an inoperable OS on their internal eMMC storage.
It seems that once a rookie user has an issue with their eMMC the first thing they do is open the laptop and flip the reset button next to the eMMC storage. This isn't always necessary. I wanted to go over how I reinstalled the original [or updated, if you have an older version of the PBP] Manjaro OS back onto the eMMC without opening the system. From what I can gather, you can certainly open the system and access the internals to get things done - and in some cases this needs to happen... but I'd be willing to bet that in most rookie scenerios, this isn't the case.
Anyway, I hope this long ass write-up helps someone so that they don't get down the rabbit hole. We got this...
Paulie, mucho props for the great help to us PB noobies. I got my brand new PB Pro a couple of days ago and Manjaro installed great... at least I thought it did. When I type in my password I get weird script characters ( almost looks to be Hindi or Thai). Obviously I can't get the password in correctly and I suspect there is an issue with the locale or language with my US Keyboard. I've tried to boot from a flashed SD Card with Manjaro on it but the Pinebook always ignores the SD and boots to the flawed install. I have seen where some are saying you have to open the laptop up and reset a switch to have it boot from a USB or SD. Is that true or is there certain keys to hold down during the boot to get it to the UEFI to enable SD or USB boot sequence? Or, do I need to go into the laptop and flip the reset switch?
Thanks
Randy
No UEFI, no magic keystokes, not x86, sorry
The only magic keystroke, to get vt (tty, virtual terminal),, control-alt(hold both)-F2 (or F3,F4,F5,F6)
I see that you know trick to check password (type it 1st),
maybe try switching input methods (languages), this varies, shift space or control space or caps lock
There are probably more, maybe it would be easier to re-install
If you have problems with SD boot, try another distro, SD boot should have priority
What may be happening is that emmc rootfs and SD rootfs have same label,
so it is booting from SD /boot and mounting emmc rootfs (with bad language choice)
If you have a linux box, you could change SD (maybe e2label /dev/sdb2)
and fstab and extlinux.conf
Thanks for the response. I ended up downloading the latest image and flashed it to the emmc. This allowed me to reset the language and locale. Working great now!
Thanks
Randy
12-24-2020, 07:07 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-24-2020, 07:09 PM by merklegroot.)
Is there anyone out there that has permissions to make changes to this file?
<http://files.pine64.org/sw/pine64_installer/json/default/pinebook_pro.json>
The Pine64 Installer app uses this JSON file to compose the list of images that you can download / install.
Because pinebook_pro.json is out of date, the Pine64 Installer app tries to have you download Manjaro KDE 19.12, which is no longer available.
At the time of writing this, 20.12 is the latest version.
The downloads for Manjaro KDE 19.12 are here:
https://osdn.net/projects/manjaro-arm/st...de-plasma/
I was able to flash an SD card with that image using the normal version of Etcher.
I haven't checked if the other images are out of date / retired.
02-27-2021, 09:22 AM
(This post was last modified: 02-27-2021, 09:43 AM by dhosh.)
This was a very helpful post. I might suggest noting something that took a while to sink in with me ...
The 'look for mmcblk2, and don't use boot0 or boot1' ....when the designations are mmcblk2boot0 and mmcblk2boot1. To clarify to morons like myself , it might be 'look for "mmcblk2" .... and not "mmcblk2boot0" and "mmcblk2boot1", as those are mounted partitions'.
It would probably make sense for the flasher to only list USEABLE devices, and simply not show mounted devices/partitions.
Such is the life of a NOOB. :-) I know these devices are development machines, and is a bit of a jump for true LINUX NOOBS .... but the cost sucks you in! ;-) That being said ... I'm, not a total beginner, but there are SO many nuances between different platforms, that it gets very co
Anyway ... nfusing.
Kudos to Manjaro! I was getting pretty frustrated with the PBPro for a while, until I tried the Manjaro-ARM distribution. It seemed to be a much more well developed flavor, to actually be USEABLE, while I played around with different software and AUR apps.
Anyway, but dilemma of the day is, I'm trying to get a close-to-PBPro Manjaro image on my PineTAB. I know they are different devices, and PineTAB development lags, but I would like to get the 2 as close together as possible (and along with the PinePhone! :-) . My current PBPro instaill is:
KDE Plasma Ver: 5.21.1
KDE Frameworks Ver: 5.80.0
Kernel Version 6.7.19-1-MANJARO-ARM
When attempting to usemanjaro-arm-flasher on an SD card with an existing PineTAB distro on it .... the SD card doesn't show up in the flasher's Target Block Device list ... only my mmcblk2boot0 and ....boot1. When I plug the SD card in, the BOOT_MNJRO volume shows up with an option to Mount and Open. The SD card shows up with an fdisk -l command as:
Disk /dev/mmcblk1: 29.16 GiB, 31312576512 bytes, 61157376 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xfda654c1
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/mmcblk1p1 62500 500000 437501 213.6M c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/mmcblk1p2 500001 61157375 60657375 28.9G 83 Linux
.... but does not show up in the flasher's Target Block Device list ... if it is mounted, or not.
What am I missing?
Thank you in advance!
Dennis
I solved my own problem ... I guess .... Once I downloaded and used gparted to delete the partitions on the SD card, stopped and re-started manjaro-arm-flasher .... the "mmcblk1' bock device showed up, and allowed my to download an image.
But .... shouldn't have "mmcblk1boot0" and "mmcblk1boot1" have shown up as options, like the mmcblk2boot0 and ....boot1 did?
Dennis Hoshield
PBPro/ANSI/Manjaro
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