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Interested in testing on Pinebook Pro

avalos - almost 2 years ago -

I know I said it long ago and ended up doing nothing, but I feel like trying Parabola in my Pinebook Pro.

According to the wiki article (https://wiki.parabola.nu/Computers/Pinebook_Pro), the kernel requires patches to run on a Pinebook Pro. One of those patches is for S3 (sleep2ram), and as of today, there is no mainline support for it. However, it is possible to resort to S2 (sleep2idle) as a temporary solution, although it consumes more power. We must learn to live with it, until a proper patch is mainlined.

I'm currently running Manjaro ARM on my Pinebook Pro, using the latest stable mainline kernel (5.18.5 aarch64), so there is no S3. Everything else works fine. Regarding WiFi and Bluetooth, we all know the deal already. Luckily, I have USB dongles!

My existing Manjaro installation (on eMMC) has a working u-boot. I'd like to know if I can use it to boot from SD card, so I don't have to wipe Manjaro.

I think that's pretty much it. If we ignore the current lack of aarch64 support, I'd say the future of Parabola in the Pinebook Pro looks bright! Edit: it's not like Raspbian / Raspberry OS didn't add support for aarch64 until this year.


Replies (4)

RE: Interested in testing on Pinebook Pro - avalos - almost 2 years ago -

I was told that the Pinebook Pro is probably going to need a newer version of linux-libre-64, preferably the latest one (5.18). The version currently available in libre is 5.11.11. Is it possible that you can build a newer version?

RE: Interested in testing on Pinebook Pro - avalos - almost 2 years ago -

My existing Manjaro installation (on eMMC) has a working u-boot. I'd like to know if I can use it to boot from SD card, so I don't have to wipe Manjaro.

So, turns out the existing u-boot gives the SD boot priority over the eMMC, which will make my life easier when actually trying Parabola. Right now I'm running PostmarketOS from the SD card, and booted automatically.

RE: Interested in testing on Pinebook Pro - avalos - over 1 year ago -

After a lot of messing around with linux-libre-64, Bill Auger and I managed to successfully run Parabola in the Pinebook Pro. There's still some work and cleanup to do:

1. Make linux-libre-64 an armv7h package rather than x86_64.
2. In order to achieve that, we need to build aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc for armv7h.
3. We need an aarch64 u-boot for the Pinebook Pro in Parabola. Right now, I'm using the one from my existing Manjaro installation (in eMMC), and booting from an SD.

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