PineBook Pro Bootcrash on Manjaro
#1
I just got my Pinebook Pro today, probably got too exited about no speakers detected and tried to update OS automatically and that concluded in boot crash.
What is happening is just Manjaro logo, below dotted circle do from 2 spins up to 4 and then it freezes.

What should I do to treat it with?

Should I try reinstall Manjaro? if so, is there special repository for Pinebook Pro or drivers?
Should I try ubuntu? what about drivers? Will notebook work without any troubles?
#2
Yes.
No.
No.
?
?
If you're considering something besides Manjaro but don't want to leave Linux, consider Debian. Manjaro supports the Pinebook Pro more completely, but Debian is much more stable, at least in my experience.

But this is a Pinebook Pro. Get yourself a bunch of SD cards and put all different operating systems on them. When you find the one you really like the best, put it on the eMMC.
#3
You can download Manjaro for the Pinebook Pro here: https://manjaro.org/download/#pinebook-pro-kde-plasma
Write it to a micro SD card with something like Etcher.
Boot with the micro SD card and install manjaro-arm-flasher.
Procedure is explained here: https://forum.manjaro.org/t/pinebook-pro...ller/19244
#4
It depends on how familiar you are with Linux distros and how they can be installed. 
I would suggest you spend time in the Wiki for Pinebook Pro.  There is a lot of information.
I did exactly this today.
Used a Windows computer to go to the Wiki, followed the link to Manjaro ARM images, went to the 20.10 folder for both SD and eMMC boot, downloaded the .xz file ( this is a compressed file.  Then I unzipped it using 7-Zip.  Attached a USB to SD card reader, went to Disk Management and found the SD card, formatted it via Windows, FAT32, then once the Windows computer saw the SD card, exited the Dsik Management.  Open Balena Etcher, pointed it to the folder with the unzipped Manjaro, the targeted the SD card and flashed it.
Ejected the SD card from the Windows computer, put the SD in the Pinebook Pro and fired it up.  Booted into Manjaro from the SD card, then went onto the Pinebook pro Wiki and the manjaro-arm-installer.  Clicked that and away it went.  Needless to say on the initial bootup there are some questions about running Manjaro and they seemed self explanatory, user,password,etc.  Keyboard ANSI vs ISO question, locale, file type ? UTF type questions.  
Once I logged into the SD card's Manjaro and ran the manjaro-arm-installer ( you will need to have already logged into your router wirelessly from the SD card version of Manjaro )  the process ran smoothly and I powered down and removed the SD card and then booted up.
Was really happy it went so smoothly, learned a lot.
Good Luck, you can't kill these things!  You may spend a lot of time on the forum and the Wiki pages.  You have a cutting edge piece of equipment and it is not a fool proof system, meaning you can make changes that will make it un-bootable.  However, once you have gone through this you will have a lot more confidence.
Ed
There are lots of knowledgeable and helpful folks on this forum.
#5
I guess will stick with Manjaro and will etch sd on other computer with kubuntu.
Thank you for your help.

Does anyone know why the booting crashed after update?
1. How to do update safely - so the boot won't crash
2. or am I stuck with Manjaro ARM without updates?
Sadly I do not know any way to check the error logs to find out what happened.
#6
Set up a serial console.
#7
My plan is a dd of the working Manjaro to an SD card before updating so that I can go back to what was working before the update.  This does not answer your questions concerning what caused your crash.
From the Windows days we had a restore point created automatically prior to major updates.  Don't know how to effect that automatically in Manjaro, so I do it with CLI dd command.
Had to spend some time learning how to be careful with the dd command.
Ed
#8
(12-11-2020, 04:41 PM)PineHead7 Wrote: I just got my Pinebook Pro today, probably got too exited about no speakers detected and tried to update OS automatically and that concluded in boot crash.
What is happening is just Manjaro logo, below dotted circle do from 2 spins up to 4 and then it freezes.

What should I do to treat it with?

Should I try reinstall Manjaro? if so, is there special repository for Pinebook Pro or drivers?
Should I try ubuntu? what about drivers? Will notebook work without any troubles?

Try to boot from a sd card and makes a fsck to emmc partitions, perhaps was bad closed.

I solve the problem with this.
#9
Oh that's a great point!

It could be an errant mount in /etc/fstab too. I've had that happen in other Linuces, now that I think about it.
#10
Thank you for good ideas. I have tried with Etching SD card, but it was impossible to install to eMMC with manjaro 20.12, there is only one version https://osdn.net/projects/manjaro-arm/st...de-plasma/ with installing to eMMC.

To correctly boot from SD, first need to power off before inserting to pbp. Then after the circle with spin for about 15 seconds, press ESC.
The installation process is simple and self explanatory:
information appears that installing to eMMC will delete all data. Then you are asked to choose eMMC device: chose mmcblk2. Then flashing will be completed in about 4 minutes.

Why boot crashed after update? I do not now. After re flashing eMMC pbp boots correctly. The only issue now is that the updates don't work.


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