04-06-2021, 03:00 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-06-2021, 03:04 PM by ab1jx.
Edit Reason: added ANSI note
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I don't know whether to blame hardware or software. I'm using Daniel Thompson's Bullseye, I've been running it a few months.
In the past week or so the numlock suddenly sticks on, and you can't type much because all the keys with little numbers in addition to letters will only type numbers. I can't turn it off with F10/Numlock, it does nothing, other keys like brightness also don't work, there's probably firmware missing or something. It's mostly minor, but when the numlock sticks I have to ssh in from another machine and reboot it. It just happened for the 4th time.
Searching the PineBook Pro area of this forum for numlock doesn't seem to find anything, anybody else seeng this? Oh, I use the ANSI keyboard and that's up to date as far as I know.
I would first see if you can replicate the problem with a different OS on SD card.
04-06-2021, 04:35 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-07-2021, 09:51 AM by ab1jx.
Edit Reason: adding
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Hmm, this is an sd card, a new Sandisk I bought about January to do this with. My last backup image of it is dated 3/23/2021. I make them with dd onto my nvme drive when I think of it, but I only kept the last one. My original eMMC with Stretch is still in place, thats what I boot to to make backups, but it crashes a little more often than the numlock problem. This is happening every couple days at this point. I could just turn numlock off except that doesn't work. I can't turn it on or off from the keyboard. I don't know what most of those Fn+top row keys do normally, Insert is the only one I use. There's something missing in the way generic arm64 Debian got debootstrapped on here, they've never worked.
04-07-2021, 05:11 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-07-2021, 05:27 PM by dsimic.
Edit Reason: Clarified a bit
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Please excuse me if I missed it in your posts, but what Linux distribution are you actually running when the issue happens? I would suggest that you try running Manjaro ARM or another distribution that ships with mainline Linux kernel, and see if the issue persists.
I am running Debian Bullseye installed with this debootstrap kit: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8487. It can also be found here: https://github.com/daniel-thompson/pineb...-installer It's real Debian but the kernel is from Manjaro or Gentoo.
Linux pbp 5.7.0-2-pinebookpro-arm64 #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Jan 14 03:12:22 UTC 2021 aarch64 GNU/Linux
I've seen uptimes over a week but it is missing some customizations that are in the mrfixi Debian Stretch it came with. The brightness keys, numlock, etc. don't work and the video is slightly slow like something's not quite right with the Panfrost. I can do the normal apt-get update and upgrade.
04-07-2021, 07:27 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-07-2021, 07:50 PM by dsimic.)
That kernel is rather old. Manjaro ARM is currently at 5.11.11 (but still ships 5.11.6), so the kernel on your Debian should be updated before doing any further debugging. Unfortunately, my experience with Debian is very limited, so I'm unable to provide further advice on how to actually do that. The easiest and quickest way to go forward with the debugging should be to boot Manjaro ARM from a microSD card, test the "Fn" keys, and check if the original issue is still there.
Based on your description, either something is really wrong with the keyboard in your PineBook Pro (which hopefully isn't the case) or something is wrong/missing in the variant of Debian you're running. On my PineBook Pro, which is running Manjaro ARM, there are no issues with the "Fn" keys; the screen brightness keys, speaker volume keys, NumLock, CapLock, etc. all work as expected out of the box.
Edit: Based on my limited insight, it seems that the configured APT kernel repository points to a custom repository that contains no kernel packages newer than 5.7.0. I have no idea if there is a repository that offers newer versions of the kernel packages. Also, please have a look at this wiki page, which contains instructions on how to resolve some of the issues you're experiencing.
I seem to have a valid /proc/config.gz, I could in principle start from that and clone the kernel I think using modern kernel soutces. But it would probably have the same shortcomings. The config to mimic I think is the original mrfixit stretch which was just about perfect.
Or could I stick in just the kernel from Manjaro again? Work is being done in the debian-arm mailing list, I should ask there I guess. A mainline installer is the goal I think,whether it will boot from nvme I don' know. I boot from an sd card and manually mount a partition on the nvme now, it's only once a week or so. I don't really care for Manjaro. Or use a Manjaro kernel config to start..
The last i knew mainline Debian needed a serial console to bring it up at least the first time, I have one around somewhere.
04-10-2021, 01:33 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-10-2021, 01:43 PM by dsimic.
Edit Reason: Clarified a bit
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My suggestion was to temporarily boot Manjaro ARM from a microSD card and see if the issues you're experiencing still persist. That would be used just for the purpose of debugging and isolating the issues. I am not suggesting that you start using something you actually don't want to use.
OK, it only happens about once a week now, it will be hard to tell. Manjaro's OK I guess, I just like Debian's apt, dpkg, synaptic, aptitude package choices. I used it for a couple weeks once, 64-bit Manjaro on a Raspberry Pi I think.
Totally understood, every Linux distribution comes with its own flavor of how things are done.
By the way, I wonder if the issue could be somehow related to the way privacy switches are implemented on the PineBook Pro? Also, have you already updated the keyboard and trackpad firmware? If not, it would be worth a try.
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