Pinebook Pro Initial Impressions
#21
What is the best procedure for charge/discharge during these early days then?

Presumably charge until the little happy light goes out with the Pinebook turned off.
Run any way you like but put it back on charge when the battery symbol goes red (25%?)
Or, run it a bit further down before recharging - if so down to what?
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#22
(10-02-2019, 09:41 AM)neilman Wrote: What is the best procedure for charge/discharge during these early days then?

Presumably charge until the little happy light goes out with the Pinebook turned off.
Run any way you like but put it back on charge when the battery symbol goes red (25%?)
Or, run it a bit further down before recharging - if so down to what?

I don't really think that it needs to be that strict. Have the battery run down to 10 or 5%, then have it charge up to 100% and do the same thing over a few times.
There is also some room for optimization of the software - it will take a few months before its 'perfect'

[edit] it will likely take it a long time to fill up the last 10% (90-100%) the first 2 times, before the charge/discharge curve is recorded accurately.
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#23
(10-02-2019, 09:08 AM)neilman Wrote: Ok yes sorry 3/10 my gut reaction when "simple" stuff seems to be against me - it will be much better when it and I are suitably updated.

Since I bumped the speed up to 1.42GHz chromium is working like a champ, rock solid no problem.
Screen brightness was two battery power tickboxes to untick - reduce background brightness and dim display when idle.
But, since putting the screen on max brilliance the battery level drops fast.
Put it on charge but brightness needs to be turned way down for battery level to increase while running.

Solitaire still broken.
Firefox still crashes after a few minutes.
Printer - had to install printer configuration package from software management now trying to find a PPD for my printer

Not using command line for anything - all functions triggered from system menus.

Maybe a lightweight browser can be a solution ? Something like midori (+ viewtube extension for video support).
By the way, if smartphone can easily handle/show web page, why do desktop browser need that much of ressources ?

If you prefer to use firefox/chromium, maybe you can use it with umatrix plugin. That way you can choose which script is allowed to run . You have lots of control on what is allowed to run, and can help your browser run faster.

And last but not least, there is the SSD (NVMe) solution.
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#24
I seem to be sinking deeper down the rabbit hole Huh 

I turned off the machine when the power got low and charged it until the happy light went out.

I'm only using Firefox/Chromium as supplied with the Pinebook - both seem to be working now.
I added my "standard test" of Aisleriot Solitaire using the add software package - it has never worked on this machine.

I have the eternal problem that my printers (Brother HL4150CDN and Epson XP830) are not listed in most of the limited Linux CUPS system.
Can't remember the one distro I used a good while ago that worked like windows and installed them without any effort.
It's half installed now but mentioned a missing driver element I have no idea how to get.
I copied the PPD file using a pen drive which is perfectly mounted and accessible but refuses to eject citing "no such file" or similar.

I tried to shut down the system at one point, but although video went black it didn't turn off, ever. I had to force power off.

My battery level indicator has now disappeared from the desktop so I can no longer tell how low its going.
The 1.4GHz CPU speed I set on a previous boot has reverted to 400MHz.
And now the system itself crashes and restarts after 5-10 minutes.

I think I might really need to try another Distro and see if that improves my lot.
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#25
Hello 

I got my Pinebook Pro today. 

Wondefull little Laptop.
I took first a lock at the build quality. Better then promised. The cover and the Bottom are made out of metall. The middle section with the keyboard is aut of plastic. Very nice lock over all. 


.jpg   2_DSF2606.JPG (Size: 87.39 KB / Downloads: 1,538)

Every screw goes into e metall nut so the hole laptop feels quite stiff and solid. Feels equal to my Asus Pro Book. 


.jpg   2_DSF2597.JPG (Size: 129.14 KB / Downloads: 1,036)

I also locked at the solderjoints at the mainboard and they looked like a charm to.

After testing the Pinebook, mounting the SSD and making some thermal photos, i screwed the bottom back on.
Im not shure if i mountet the SSD right but i noticed a small problem.


.jpg   2_DSF2602.JPG (Size: 150.43 KB / Downloads: 1,065)

The SSD is to thick for the Pinebook so that the touchpad got pressed out of its holder.
Does somone have this problem to?

I was not really able to test the Software of the Pinebook today and i am probebly not the best in it.


Thats from my side.

PS: The thermal photos are coming soon.

Here some of the thermal fotos. It looks like the SSD is next to the CPU the most power hungry component.


.png   IMGT0005.PNG (Size: 48.19 KB / Downloads: 1,037)


.png   IMGT0002.PNG (Size: 42.46 KB / Downloads: 990)

None of the components got to hot during my messurements.
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#26
I've updated the OP. Just some experiences so far.
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#27
Since the topic came up, you can easily switch to a more comfortable keyboard format to return @ and # to their expected locations.

Control Center > Keyboard > Layouts

By default mine was set to English (UK), so I changed it to English (US) which will give you this:

.png   Screenshot at 2019-10-03 02-47-44.png (Size: 134.98 KB / Downloads: 899)

VS this:

.png   Screenshot at 2019-10-03 02-48-10.png (Size: 157.05 KB / Downloads: 850)


Obviously you'd need to either change out the keycaps or just ignore them, but it's better than relearning the damn layout compared to what you're used to.   Big Grin
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#28
(10-02-2019, 04:07 PM)Omli Wrote: The SSD is to thick for the Pinebook so that the touchpad got pressed out of its holder.
Does somone have this problem to?

I can confirm there is an issue.  After installing the SSD the left side requires excessive force to activate where as the right only requires a light touch. Although my touchpad doesn't appear to have been pressed out.
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#29
(10-02-2019, 03:23 PM)neilman Wrote: I seem to be sinking deeper down the rabbit hole Huh ortal/portfolio/overview

I turned off the machine when the power got low and charged it until the happy light went out.

I'm only using Firefox/Chromium as supplied with the Pinebook - both seem to be working now.

Seems great to me.
Maybe your browser wasnt working because you did something wrong when trying to fix something and after the fresh restart, what you did was reseted ? (if you played with sysct or did echo XXX > /proc/sys/.... or something like that.
Maybe yesterday you did open at the same time firefox and chromium and you were too short in RAM ?
Maybe your CPU was busy running some garbage ?

Next time, if you have such issue, you can start by running and showing us the result of cat /proc/meminfo ??
And also you could start htop or top (or any other system monitor application you want) in the same time you run your browser ?

(10-02-2019, 03:23 PM)neilman Wrote: I added my "standard test" of Aisleriot Solitaire using the add software package - it has never worked on this machine.

Maybe this application is not working and this may be an issue of the distro/application and may not be related to pinebook ? By the way which OS is shipped by default with this laptop ? armbian ?
Maybe not much people are playing with it.
If I were you, and If I really want this game, I would start searching on the OS forum if anyone is aware of this BUG. You should try to find if this application has a web site with BUG report or forum or something like that
If needed, I would try to rebuild the application in debug mode and will try to get a core. So I could post the bug report to the community.

(10-02-2019, 03:23 PM)neilman Wrote: I have the eternal problem that my printers (Brother HL4150CDN and Epson XP830) are not listed in most of the limited Linux CUPS system.
Can't remember the one distro I used a good while ago that worked like windows and installed them without any effort.
It's half installed now but mentioned a missing driver element I have no idea how to get.
I copied the PPD file using a pen drive which is perfectly mounted and accessible but refuses to eject citing "no such file" or similar.

So your printer is working, isn't it ?
Don't forget that you have an ARM system with small size in comparison to x86_64 ubuntu desktop OS. So it's not a surprise to me that several things that are present in ubuntu aren't in armbian.
But in this case, I think you could have installed the driver by installing some packages. (use google to find which package). But if it's working then dont touch it Wink
Regarding the pen drive .... next time check in the command line.
I suppose the pendrive is automounted. So next time, after mounting it, run the mount command and find your pendrive entry. (do it also before plugging your pendrive to be sure of what you are doing).
Then eject it. By the way how are you ejecting it ?
Check again with the mount command to see if the entry has disappear. If not, then you may have an issue. As a work around you can unmount it using umount command

(10-02-2019, 03:23 PM)neilman Wrote: I tried to shut down the system at one point, but although video went black it didn't turn off, ever. I had to force power off.
What had you on the screen ?
After how much time did you get something on the screen ?
Are you sure your system wasnt in the middle of the shuting down process ?

(10-02-2019, 03:23 PM)neilman Wrote: My battery level indicator has now disappeared from the desktop so I can no longer tell how low its going.
The 1.4GHz CPU speed I set on a previous boot has reverted to 400MHz.

How are the CPU speed changed ? If by doing echo to /proc/something then it's the expected behavior. This is not a permanent config change.
For the battery level, you should check it in the console to be sure that the low level is working
Unfortunately, I dont have yet the laptop so I dont know but it can be something like
cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/capacity

(10-02-2019, 03:23 PM)neilman Wrote: And now the system itself crashes and restarts after 5-10 minutes.

Do you have something printed in the console just before it restart ?
For example a kernel oops or kernel panic
something like that:

RBP: 00000100065cb440 R08: 00000101f8f1cff0 R09: 00000101f8f1c088
R10: 00000101f8f1cfa8 R11: 0000000000000001 R12: 0000010000012780
R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 0000000000000000 r15: 000001022fde7e48
FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffffffff804c0c00(0000)
knlGS:0000000000000000
CS: 0010 DS: 0018 ES: 0018 CR0: 000000008005003b
CR2: 0000000000000070 CR3: 000000000e3f4000 CR4: 00000000000006e0
Process kswapd0 (pid: 66, threadinfo 000001022fde6000, task
000001022fd947f0)
Stack: 00000101f8f1cff0 ffffffff80174ca5 00000000000000d0 0000000000000000
0000000000000001 00000100065cb440 0000010000012780
ffffffff8015ebdd
0000001700000001 ffffffff00000000
Call Trace:<ffffffff80174ca5>{try_to_free_buffers+67}
<ffffffff8015ebdd>{shrink_zone+3369}
<ffffffff8015f3a8>{balance_pgdat+506}
<ffffffff8015f5f2>{kswapd+252}
<ffffffff80133686>{autoremove_wake_function+0}
<ffffffff80130bd5>{finish_task_switch+55}
<ffffffff80133686>{autoremove_wake_function+0}
<ffffffff80130c24>{schedule_tail+11}
<ffffffff80110c87>{child_rip+8} <ffffffff8015f4f6>{kswapd+0}
<ffffffff80110c7f>{child_rip+0}

Code: f0 0f ba 68 70 10 8b 11 8b 41 18 83 e2 06 09 d0 75 51 48 8b
RIP <ffffffff80174a20>{drop_buffers+39} RSP <000001022fde7b28>
CR2: 0000000000000070
<0>Kernel panic - not syncing: Oops

If you have the rebbot every 5-10 minutes, then try to run dmesg command after let's say 3-4 minutes and show us the dump. You may get some hints on what is going on.

(10-02-2019, 03:23 PM)neilman Wrote: I think I might really need to try another Distro and see if that improves my lot.

Why do you have such issue and not other guys ?
It's either an hardware issue (so changing the OS wont fix it, and you may get hints using dmesg command), or you broke the configuration.

Good luck
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#30
As everyone else has mentioned - it's a beautiful machine - no question. Sleek and black, excellent screen, good feeling keyboard.
USB-C to HDMI works perfectly and didn't take too long to recharge from 23% to charging LED extinguish.
Even tried pairing a Bluetooth mouse and that worked easy peasy.

I guess I'm a trouble-magnet but I am mindful of ARM and have bunches of Raspberry Pis and a beautiful and functional Pinebook 1080 so I am not basing my problems on "worked on windows". One thing to note is I'm a "GUI" man - don't launch anything from the command line except when instructed to do so.

The system crashing problem seems to have stopped for now. When it crashed it rebooted immediately so no onscreen message to note down.
The battery level indicator has returned as well.
I also noticed the CPU speed now bounces up and down with varying activities
Screen brightness is defaulted to 1/3rd and easy to tweak when required with the function keys.
Chromium browser also seems stable now

The solitaire game, was acquired from the included software update function, has worked on every machine I had tried it on ... except this one.
You have your benchmark programs, Solitaire is mine. If it works smoothly and I win sometimes then all is good.

Given up with the printer for now but it is very galling to find the excellent Libre office system but unable to print anything.
Admittedly only a few Linux distros I have used in the past have made installing a printer almost automatic. Fighting CUPS is not fun.
Given up with as-supplied Firefox as it reliably crashes after a few minutes uptime, every time.

Probably just me - everyone else will have no problems at all with their machines Sad
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