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Hello I don't know if anyone is currently looking for how to fix these problems. I have a Pinebook 14" (720p) and tried the following: Last published image: Armbian_community_25.2.0-trunk.377_Pinebook-a64_bookworm_current_6.6.72_minimal.img.xz The boot screen is displayed After the message "Starting kernel" the screen turns off completely for about 1 minute Then the backlight turns on but the screen stays black indefinitely The system is unusable Last image available in the archive: Armbian_23.8.1_Pinebook-a64_bookworm_current_6.1.47.img.xz The system boots without showing the boot screen The message "Welcome to ARMBIAN" is displayed and the configuration process begins The system works correctly and allows installation on the eMMC After performing an "update" and "upgrade" the system is unusable as in the last published image.

recent days I find Chromebook may be better Arm devices with laptop form factor. compare with Pinebook pro, Chromebooks are cheaper, and mass product, and better tested. why no much people discuss how to install 3rd OS to its internal emmc, or reflash its uboot? I have searched on ArchArm forum, only 1 topic. but there actually a way to reflash uboot, and mainline uboot already has support for arm based chromebooks. It should be easy, but why no discussion?

I found a workaround for this problem. Need someone to confirm if this works: 1. Download https://archive.armbian.com/pinebook-pro/archive/Armbian_24.2.1_Pinebook-pro_jammy_current_6.6.16_gnome_desktop.img.xz 2. sudo apt update & sudo apt upgrade 3. reboot 4. install to eMMC or nvme Does it survives?

Description This provide an option to set last good kernel for dedicated device. It will prevent upgrading to higher kernels which are known to be broken. For example. At this moment we have Rockchip BSP kernel which was fixed that Radxa ITX has working ports, while this fix will break NVME support on Orangepi. Also this we can use for Pinebook PRO. Configuration: BOARD BRANCH LINUXFAMILY Last good kernel package from repository orangepi5 vendor rk35xx 24.5.3 orangepi5plus vendor rk35xx 24.5.3 orangepi5|vendor|rk35xx|24.5.3 orangepi5plus|vendor|rk35xx|24.5.3 How Has This Been Tested? [x] Test with locally generated repo that contained higer version of kernel. It was hold back. Checklist: [x] I have performed a self-review of my own code [x] I have commented my code, particularly in hard-to-understand areas [x] My changes generate no new warnings [x] Any dependent changes have been merged and published in downstream modules View the full article

What about custom hardware, called Pinebook PRO, that needed years before opensource routines were developed by 3rd party (community)? Until then, hardware already become obsolete, maintainace expensive. I am sure Armbian works perfectly on it I am running it on my x86 Lenovo laptop and it works perfectly too. Armbian Ubuntu is exactly the Ubuntu I want & need for everyday work. Do you run Armbian there too and why not? Are you sure? Start volunteering and after a year, you will understand something, after few years you could understand our perspective. I totally agree with you. We do have a mechanism to determine when to adjust status, but it runs every 3 months and with best effort principle. Its not a professional service and runs without any budget. We have no interest to fool you or deliberately waste your time, like everyone wants to waste ours. We try to educate people, but that is usually difficult and expensive as general expectations are shaped by much bigger forces and not with common in mind. This is our try: https://docs.armbian.com/#what-is-supportedmaintained vs. trash proprietary hardware and naivety of people. This is the only way: "Supported/maintained is not a guarantee." As in this world, this is the best you can expect. They sold you demo device without software support and you don't support us to support you! And other big side is telling you something else. We can't compete with that brainwashing. Keeping status synchronized with reality is also expensive, a professional service and also paid from our private pockets. If we would have a volunteer to talk and motivate maintainers, testers round the clock - perhaps you? - we would know faster, before you complaining that something is not o.k. Its a serious logistic operation, while nobody support that so its a complete waste of our time. Why would you waste your time to save everyone's time? While telling me how we should do thing differently to save everyone's time. Step up, make this change so that everyone's time won't be wasted. Also feel free to use any other Linux for Pinebook PRO if ours stop working. Why there are so many alternatives on non-proprietary hardware? And all of them works perfectly. Everyone covers only 0.5% of all maintainers time. Think from that perspective. Armbian is not random Linux me-too distribution. There are no justifications for that and is IMO stupid. It might get fixed upstream, someone might sponsor our work to fix it for you & everyone and you will be happy again. Once support is moved to community, it costs us close to nothing / same as other Linux distributions, which "supports" the hardware. And most people understand that they have nothing to complain about. And are happy when downloaded image works. We needed several years to come out with something that works better then chaos - if you care to understand: https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Board-Support-Rules/

No, a MacBook is not the answer. Proprietary software never is. I have an x86_64 laptop running Linux that works perfectly. I understand and appreciate that the Armbian devs are volunteers and do a lot of hard work. But if you can't properly support a platform, don't advertise it as supported. That just wastes everyone's time. I see now that the Pinebook PRO is no longer listed as a supported platform. I wish that had been the case a year ago when I made the decision to purchase mine. (It is still listed as "community maintained" which IMO is misleading. It's not maintained by anyone. Please remove it completely from the list of Armbian hardware.)

My final note... I'm unfollowing this thread as I sold my Pinebook Pro. It wasn't worth the hassle. Regards, Dianne.

I've installed https://github.com/Tow-Boot/Tow-Boot/releases/tag/release-2023.07-007 Towboot to SPI and https://dl.armbian.com/pinebook-pro/archive/Armbian_24.5.3_Pinebook-pro_bookworm_current_6.6.36_minimal.img.xz to a uSD card but it will not boot. I thought it was a Towboot problem, but it boots to Manjaro on a uSD card (and on eMMC) just fine also. https://github.com/Tow-Boot/Tow-Boot/issues/319 Which Towboot version and which Armbian image did you use?

Hello. I just tried the latest Armbian jammy for PineBook Pro and the kernel refuses to boot. I tried to replace the 6.6.31 kernel with 6.1.63 from older image and it works without problems.

You are looking at the master branch. We need an orange-pi-6.9 branch. See: https://megous.com/git/linux/tree/arch/arm64/boot/dts/rockchip/rk3399-pinebook-pro.dts?h=orange-pi-6.9#n729 But simply adding this node will not bring results. A set of patches from this rk3399-typec-6.9 branch is needed and there may be something else. Use the instructions to get the necessary README Look at the contents\history (git log -p megi/rk3399-typec-6.9) of the received branches. Special attention is paid to: megi/tcpm-6.9 megi/typec-extcon-6.9 megi/rk3399-typec-6.9 megi/fusb302-6.9

I got in contact with the kernels author and got told, that DP-Alt is not yet implemented for the rockpro64. Looking at the schematics, the usb-c controller seems identically to the pinebook pro. I am ready to start digging in the device-tree file for the rkp64 by comparing the pbp to the rkp64. But I don't know how to create and test the Kernel from these files.

Generating images, once device is in the system, does not burn our expensive time. It costs a lot less then answering this support question. Updates are generated for all devices (of one family) at once. Adding and removing is expensive and perhaps someone fixed this problem? Then we need to put it back. Those are already maintaining activities, which we don't have resources for ... keeping devices in auto-build costs us close to nothing (until compilation succeeded) and this is the same way all others distros do, while they are marking those random auto-build as "supported by Linux X" ... We at least tell you "we don't know if it works", as checking is expensive. Or even impossible as nobody from the team has this device. It was added by someone like you, user, that wanted to keep this device in the Armbian system, which system provides a lot of common fixes and generally helps maintaining those devices. Our interest is that Armbian runs well on as many devices as possible, but the costs of that is super extreme - as you know, we can't sell you our work, you don't want to pay our bills .... Once we bring support on some device, we have copycats that does absolutely nothing but also "supports" this device. It is really difficult as costs dealing with those devices is close to impossible to cover. If you want that device function perfectly and when there is close to nobody helping, one needs to spent serious time / money to support HW dealers business, copycats and you. Its not sustainable. The same applies to other devices that were thrown to the market ... We are maintaining this system, some devices, while the rest are on you - community. Providing images, keeping this device in the system that is getting common updates all the time, is already great added value. Bugs are shared among similar devices, which means when this bug will be fixed for Pinebook PRO, this device will also have working images ... Its pure economy. They can't afford that. Device is here - and if you want to keep it operational, its your problem. Well, our common problem. We add our share and we can't add more. We don't have this device, we don't have anyone maintaining it. Not anymore. Now, a lot of those devices will still work even nobody maintain them. This indicates it stops before loading user space, probably kernel is crashing. Sometimes you need to solder those pins. HW designers aim is to make a device that they can sell well ... Does this device matches that? Yes, its a nice toy. There is no GRUB on those devices, but yes, problems with boot loader are possible. Every major kernel bump renders some devices into not usable state. That is why we have so much work that nobody notice and very little help. If we could allocate needed resources, all of those "Community (not) supported" will be working. This is certainly not in HW designers interests (as they want to sell you new device), while end users can't understand that buying hardware is just a fists step and means nothing. You need to add a lot more to have this device functional. This is not RPi, who has masses of people that will maintain it for free.

Like on the OrangePi's which have problems with the latest Community Edition (kernel 6.6.x and their armbian-firmware) I went back to the most actual stable image before kernel 6.6.x (non-Community Edition?) for the Pinebook A64 which can be found at https://armbian.hosthatch.com/archive/pinebook-a64/archive/Armbian_23.11.1_Pinebook-a64_bookworm_current_6.1.63.img.xz You do get a non-Desktop system with Armbian 23.11.1 Pinebook-a64 bookworm current kernel 6.1.63 then do a Kernel-Freeze in armbian-config -> system apt update/upgrade and you will end with a stable Armbian 24.5.1 Bookworm with Linux 6.1.63-current-sunxi64 This will recognize my 14" Screen, WiFi and Ethernet (USB)

@Gunjan Gupta Today I did try the following images Armbian_community_24.8.0-trunk.205_Pinebook-a64_noble_current_6.6.31_gnome_desktop.img and Armbian_community_24.8.0-trunk.205_Pinebook-a64_bookworm_current_6.6.31_minimal.img on my 14" (1080p?) Pinebook non-Pro A64, but I do get only a black screen It didnt help to use echo 8 > /sys/devices/platform/backlight/backlight/backlight/actual_brightness or the pkexec-command The screen lights up, but to information on the screen. I had only (sometimes) access via a USB-Ethernet-Adapter. But at some boots the ethernet wasnt recognized and the onboard-Wifi doesnt sho up The last version I could get my screen to work - with a CLI-version of bookworm - is 24.2.0 of armbian (after update?) I dont know how to switch via 720p/1080p for the different screensizes of the Pinebook A64 non-Pro (I have 14" and not 11.6") BTW: after updateing the 24.2.0 of armbian via apt update/upgrade the system is also non-working (Black screen and no ethernet and no Wifi) Its has updated to kernel 6.6.31 and this was also the "death" to some of my OrangePi installations The "Community Editions" are at this time unuseable (because non-tested) - this could end in a bad reputation also for the supported devices - as I think. For me its software-obsoleszenz - rendering working hardware into a paperweight

Late reply here, but it seems all the Armbian images are broken. While I understand your frustration with Pine64, I think you should remove the Pinebook Pro from your list of images. Being up front and saying that you don't support the hardware is better / less frustrating than claiming to support the hardware but providing broken images. Anyway, I'm selling my Pinebook Pro and reverting it to the factory Manjaro build. It's too annoying to keep fighting with it.

Hi Referring to https://forum.armbian.com/topic/32667-usb-c-port-doesnt-work-on-pinebook-pro-after-the-latest-update-on-kernel-662/ USB -C is not working. I also tried 6.7.4-edge with no success. Looking for a solution G??gle found this: https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-arm-108/pinebook-pro-usb-c-port-not-working-after-kernel-upgrade-4175732886/#google_vignette referring to Megi`s 6.7 kernel. The link was outdated, but the base worked and had versions 6.8 and 6.9. Tried both with a lot of success: USB-C working and the HDMI monitor output as well as Gigabit Ethernet work like a charm again. 😄 The only small issue remaining: Sound is not working (no analog or digital.) armbianmonitor: https://paste.armbian.com/mamocolodo (I had a small issue following Megi`s Readme: The board.dtb should replace rk3399-pinebook-pro.dtb in one of the existing dtb trees. I used dtb-6.7.4-edge-rockchip64.) any ideas about the sound issue are greatly appreciated. Sepp

@snakekick Thanks, that seems to confirm my findings back a few months ago. Adding a 5ms delay in the test case did not prevent the crash. Though it could be the system load is at play. Maybe adding a delay at the kernel level would do. pcie is tagged on the big CPUs so the SATA disks seem to matter (as the ethernet port). One could try in emergency mode (passing emergency to the kernel (I do it by "setenv extraboardargs emergency" after halting u-boot with a key press then enter "boot"). You will have just the root partition mounted read-only (so no network connection, a serial console is required). Then run the test. Also note that the design of the GPU regulator has the same issue as the CPU b one ... (for my tests I blacklisted panfrost, ie the GPU driver). After looking at the rockchip64 board schematics the design around the CPU b regulator is not similar but exactly the same as the helios64 one (rockchip64 uses a tcs4545 regulator for cpu b and tcs4546 for GPU). I wonder if the easiest fix would not be to pay someone to desolder the syr837 regulator and solder a tcs4545 instead - same for the GPU regulator a tcs4546 instead of the syr838... except that these chips from Torch Chip seem nowhere to be found. Maybe rip them from a rockpro64 board. @aprayoga can you confirm the Helios64 design for the rk3399 big cpu and gpu regulators are the same as the RockPro64 ones? Would it make sense (and would it fix the unstable cpu_b) to desolder the syr837/syr838 to replace them with tcs4545/tcs4546? Ie the tcs4535 datasheet (I am still unable to find the tcs4545 datasheet) I found tells tcs425 has internal pulldown for VSEL and EN which syr837 does not, the syr837 datasheet requires a 22uF capacitor for VIN but the helios64 has a 10uF one like the rockpro64 for the tcs4545. The SW pin of the helios64 has 470uH inductor with 4 x 22uF capacitors like the rockpro64 for the tcs4545 (like the typical application in the tcs4535 datasheet with 470uH inductor with two 22uF capacitors)? Do you know a replacement for the TCS4545/TCS4546 that has closer specs than the syr837/syr838? I cannot seem to find TCS4545/TCS4546 for sale (maybe I could buy a rockproc64 to desolder them at least for a test... or could you check on your side with a helios64 board that the cpufreq-switching-2-b test above crash with syr837 but not with tcs4545 with vanilla rk3399 opp definitions in dts? Sadly the Helios64 filled a market that is left unfilled. People who do not have the know-how to go full low-wattage DIY NAS and who also cannot afford to pay 1K€ for a NAS (and who might need two NASs to make things worse). In the meantime, I spend a lot of time learning about DIY NAS, but it is still hard to get wattage at full load (they tend to give all idle power usage). I probably will end up gambling and buying one build and pray... but with Helios64 I had the metrics before buying. I found that the Rock960 has the same design for the cpu_b and gpu regulators except for the inductor which is 0.240uH on the rock960 and 0.470uH on the Helios64. But hard to tell if the Rock960 is stable with my cpufreq switching test for the big cpus of the rk3399, might be the use of the board does not stress it as much as a raid10 on the helios64 pcie sata which is tagged to the cpu_b ... (initially it was 4 3TB WD Red - the old CMR model WD30EFRX-68EUZN0), from Helios4 setup as advertised by Kobol wiki for the Helios4... the board crashes on first boot after assembly with this raid setup. Mind I found that the Pinebook Pro also has the same design as the Helios64 this time around the syr837/syr838 ... I begin to wonder if either they are all broken (could be the amount of stress of a NAS ethernet or raid10 pcie is not that common) or if this is not the issue at stake.

Moved post to unsupported/community maintained. This is not a supported board. My mistake, misread the post. This is pine64 not pinebook a64. That board should be supported but the forum structure isn't up to date. I have added the correct tag for the post, but left it in the original locatation.

Also on 1st class hardware it does not go without issues: https://www.google.com/search?q=why+kernel+upgrades+breaks+features On trash ultra cheap and forgotten hardware, where Armbian is trying to make a difference, breakage % is significantly bigger. Every kernel, that is work of thousands of people (some forget to test changes), breaks features even we invest tens of thousands of hours into stabilizing it. There is virtually no support from industry and no support from end users, but we still managed to build automated monitor for upgrades on many boards in automated way: https://github.com/armbian/os?tab=readme-ov-file#latest-smoke-tests-results Sadly, we don't test Pinebook, not complex functions as this and not all possible upgrades. Expanding testing to that and patching would cost additional few millions which is simply not possible to secure from this. In past year, nobody applied to serve as test engineer to develop this further. Other Linux distributions are far far away even from this. Install Armbian on a desktop PC.

!!! Warning !!!: Think twice before you upgrade kernel on your PineBook Pro. After years unfortunately I decided to unlock upgrades Armbian Kernels and upgraded kernel to the newest one (current) - 5.15.93. After reboot Armbian couldn't find my encrypted root disk and booting ended every time in (initramfs). I installed again kernel 5.10.60 #21.08.1 and Armbian finds my encrypted disk again. Of course still there is no information that I have to enter the password to unlock disk but only black screen. Happily I know that I have to enter the password when the screen is black. Every upgrade of Armbian is connected with a dose of stress that I'll have to fix my computer. I thought that every following kernel should fix errors not create them.