Do I really need PINE64-Installer?

[anaumov]

Hello,

I would like to try to install some xz-image. I downloaded already this image and... asking myself about necessity to install PINE64-Installer.

1. Do I really need PINE64-Installer to copy this image and make it bootable? Is there another way to copy image to microSD?
2. How to manage boot configuration in pinebook?

Thanks,
Alex

[skot]

1. No, you can unxz then dd the image to your sd card with linux (see below) or mac. On windows you need an unzipper and w32diskImager or similar.
2. If a sd card is in at powerup/reboot, the pinebook will attempt to boot from it.


unxz -c /path/to/pinebook_linux.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX

[Luke]

There are instructions for flashing images on Linux, OSX and Windows on the wiki. You can just grab the OS you want from ayufan's git.

[mule.ear]

That's fine for booting from an SD card, but how can I burn image whatever.img.xz to the emmc. I just got my pinebook last week. The distro it came with (Ubuntu w/ Mate) is faulty - Java causes a segmentation fault and 'man' is broke - looks like there's a problem with troff, but I didn't dig deep enough to be sure. I could work around both issues, but stopped there. I'm not mad or anything, these things happen - but I want to be able to install whatever distro I want to the emmc.

I tried installing the Armbian image that the pine64-installer downloads. I burned that with dd to a USB stick, then dd from the stick mounted on my pinebook to /dev/mmcblk0p1, but no joy yet. I don't know what's in /dev/mmcblk0boot0 and 1 because I can't mount them.

Linux, as we all know, is about freedom. So, to build on @anaumov's question - how can I install my distro to the emmc?

Also - if you need beta testers for the images you're sending out on these Pinebooks - I'll be happy to volunteer.

[anaumov]

1. No, you can unxz then dd the image to your sd card with linux (see below) or mac. On windows you need an unzipper and w32diskImager or similar.
2. If a sd card is in at powerup/reboot, the pinebook will attempt to boot from it.


unxz -c /path/to/pinebook_linux.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX

Unfortunately, my pinebok doesn't want to boot from SD...

Code:

# unxz -c openSUSE-Tumbleweed-ARM-XFCE-efi.aarch64-2017.06.10-Build2.3.raw.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/mmcblk1p

How can I check that SD-image is correct in default pinebook OS (ubuntu 16.04)?
I believe, that problem is in image (bootloader is broken or something like that) and pinebook really tried to boot from SD...

[MarkHaysHarris777]

You don´t need the installer -- you want the installer !

The reason you cannot boot the SD is that either the SD is bad, or corrupt, or the image did not burn correctly;  ( or its the wrong image )

The installer eliminates most of that problem.  The installer makes sure you get the right image, it makes sure that the image burns (loads) correctly, and it makes sure that the image is the most recent one.  

Use the Pine Installer.

[anaumov]

Yes, but you should to build and install it manually, right? You will need to install all dependencies. There is no package for GNU/Linux, right?
And I pretty sure that I will get it working in the next few days. And don't forget - experience! That's exactly the reason... and to getting a lot of FUN of course

[mule.ear]

That's fine for booting from an SD card, but how can I burn image whatever.img.xz to the emmc. I just got my pinebook last week. The distro it came with (Ubuntu w/ Mate) is faulty - Java causes a segmentation fault and 'man' is broke - looks like there's a problem with troff, but I didn't dig deep enough to be sure. I could work around both issues, but stopped there. I'm not mad or anything, these things happen - but I want to be able to install whatever distro I want to the emmc.

I tried installing the Armbian image that the pine64-installer downloads. I burned that with dd to a USB stick, then dd from the stick mounted on my pinebook to /dev/mmcblk0p1, but no joy yet. I don't know what's in /dev/mmcblk0boot0 and 1 because I can't mount them.

Linux, as we all know, is about freedom. So, to build on @anaumov's question - how can I install my distro to the emmc?

Also - if you need beta testers for the images you're sending out on these Pinebooks - I'll be happy to volunteer.

Replying to my own post - parted does not show /dev/mmcblkboot0 as being part of /dev/mmcblk0 - so I dd the image to mmcblk0 and it boots to Armibian now. I was concerned that I'd be overwriting some system specific stuff, which is why I didn't dd to the root of the volume to begin with. There is also a shortcut on the default Desktop call Config - and inside that ncurses tool is <Install>. I haven't tried it but I bet that would work too.

This is a great product and I'm looking forward to playing (and probably working) with it.

[MarkHaysHarris777]

Yes, but you should to build and install it manually, right? You will need to install all dependencies. There is no package for GNU/Linux, right?
And I pretty sure that I will get it working in the next few days. And don't forget - experience! That's exactly the reason... and to getting a lot of FUN of course

You did not quote me correctly.

...  no, I disagree with your assertion(s).  The best thing you can do is to use the Pine Installer;  I seriously recommend it !

[shirman]

There are instructions for flashing images on Linux, OSX and Windows on the wiki. You can just grab the OS you want from ayufan's git.

I can't find any images for Pinebook directly - can I use images for pine64? Like that?