How to install Ubuntu to eMMC and to install KDE (Neon)

[richfm]

Hi, I will share my experiences with installing Ubuntu to eMMC, cause I want a fast and up to date system

1. Write Ubuntu image to SD card. I used Mate build: https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-b...mhf.img.xz and decompress it using unxz and write to SD.

I RECOMMEND TO CHECK LSBLK OR GPARTED WHICH DEVICE IS YOUR SDCARD BEFORE RUNNING "DD" COMMAND!

Code:

sudo apt install gparted

Code:

unxz bionic-mate-pinebookpro-0.9.14-1159-armhf.img.xz
sudo dd if=bionic-mate-pinebookpro-0.9.14-1159-armhf.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M status=progress

2. Boot Ubuntu from SD card.
3. Download Ubuntu image again when booted from SD or copy the downloaded file from eMMC.
4. Write Ubuntu image to emmc.

I RECOMMEND TO CHECK LSBLK OR GPARTED WHICH DEVICE IS YOUR EMMC BEFORE RUNNING "DD" COMMAND!

Code:

unxz bionic-mate-pinebookpro-0.9.14-1159-armhf.img.xz
sudo dd if=bionic-mate-pinebookpro-0.9.14-1159-armhf.img of=/dev/mmcblk1 bs=4M status=progress

5. Turn off PBP, remove SD card and turn PBP on. It should boot with Ubuntu installed.

When it does not boot, boot from SD card again and check the partitions on the eMMC in Gparted. I had the problem that boot partition was written in different fs (fat32 instead of fat16) so I needed to delete that boot partition from eMMC and to copy the boot partition from SD to eMMC in Gparted. Then it worked. I also resized the rootfs on eMMC to fill whole available space.

6. Now you have Ubuntu installed on eMMC and you can also boot from SD card, but only the same operating system. If we need also to boot other operating systems, we need to apply uboot fix. So download all the files from here https://github.com/mrfixit2001/updates_r...filesystem and run the mrfixit_update.sh script while running from eMMC. From now on you should be able to boot also other OS from SD like before.

7. For installing KDE I suggest to install the following packages. I also suggest to enable ubuntu-backports and ubuntu-proposed repos in sources.list to get more recent packages.

My sources.list:

Code:

deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ bionic main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ bionic-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ bionic-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ bionic-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ bionic-proposed main restricted universe multiverse

Installing KDE:

Code:

sudo apt install plasma-desktop kde-full kubuntu-full kubuntu-desktop krusader konsole plasma-nm muon kwin sddm kinfocenter systemsettings powerdevil kde-config-sddm kde-config-screenlocker kde-config-gtk-style partitionmanager libkdesu5 kubuntu-notification-helper libkf5su-bin

Optionally install Calligra Office Suite, what is KDE alternative for LibreOffice.

Code:

sudo apt install calligra

After installing you may just restart the computer and select Plasma in SDDM login screen.

I also recommend to enable Kubuntu PPA Backports to get a little newer packages:

Code:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports

To enable Netflix and Spotify in Chromium, run:

Code:

sudo install_widevine_drm.shremely helpl o me.

Credits: @ayufan for Ubuntu builds and @Mrfixit2001 for uboot fix.

Thank you, Wizzard. Your tutorial on flashing bionic-mate-pinebookpro-0.9.14-1159-armhf.img to MMC was extremely helpful to me. I had to flash Ubuntu+Mate becuause the default OS wouldn't load firefox and Chrome was very slow. After I flashed the img file, it wouldn't boot so I followed your directions to expand user space with gparted and then it booted. I suggest that your instructions be included in the wiki.