Pinephone tutorial

canadien666 · 7 Feb 2020, 17:51

Hi, any guides available for writing UT from the SD card to the BH eMMC?
Thanks...

AppLee · 7 Feb 2020, 19:21

@canadien666
It can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.
And the fact that you didn't figure out a way to do it by yourself is probably a warning that you shouldn't do it.

But hey, it's your phone.
I'm making assumptions here because I don't want to brick my phone while testing

So if I have a quick look at devices on the PinePhone you'll notice 2 MMC blocks. One is the sdcard and I suppose the other one is the eMMC.
To avoid damage, you'll have to copy data from the sdcard to the eMMC, but you have to know where you can so you won't mess up the bootloader.
With that you'll be able to call dd

But my advice is : Wait for an official script from Pine64. You can check their forum...

Blabla I'm not accountable if you did try that out

canadien666 · 7 Feb 2020, 19:30

@AppLee Yeah... Probably good advice. Thanks!!!

AppLee · 8 Feb 2020, 23:10

@admsjas
In addition to my previous message, someone confirmed my guess ; mmcblk2 is the eMMC on the PinePhone BraveHeart.
This guy did flash an image from the sdcard to the eMMC and so you can clone your sdcard to the eMMC.

I won't give a command because if you cannot come up with it it's better not to try the operation.

dd is a powerful tool but in the wrong hands it can bring havoc on your devices. Don't mess with dd (after all it's Dexter's sister).
Ok I need my pills now

admsjas · 9 Feb 2020, 00:53

@AppLee thanks. I'm quite familiar with the DD command as its what I've had to use to write to my SD cards because etcher isn't available for manjaro on the PBP. Theres a utility on the KDE bistros that show the separated block devices so its fairly easy to figure out which one to write to.

admsjas · 9 Feb 2020, 01:34

For anyone interested I can confirm it works. I definitely notice quicker response and boot time, now is there a way to use screen rotation?

Irenicus · 15 Feb 2020, 18:21

dd works, but it doesn't verify the image so it is better to use pm tool.

I made a script that helps with that - https://github.com/goddard/pinephone

It downloads the latest successful build and verifies everything downloaded correct. It then asks you what root path to flash the image to.

More improvements coming soon.

kugiigi · 27 Feb 2020, 10:25

@Irenicus This is supposed to be ran on the PInePhone itself? on UT?

AppLee · 27 Feb 2020, 11:12

@kugiigi
If I'm not mistaken, it should be run on the PinePhone on any OS running on it.
The root path for eMMC or SDCard is not exposed on your computer when you plug the phone.

In order to do something similar you'll need to be in FEL mode and use a serial connection via the jack connector of the phone...

kugiigi · 27 Feb 2020, 16:15

@Irenicus I tried this but looks like root size isn't enough for the script. it ran out of space. I'm not sure how to resize the root on the pinephone. I think I'm not qualified for the braveheart LOL

kugiigi · 28 Feb 2020, 03:20

@AppLee So I went with dd and seems to work well but I can't install any app from the store. It just downloads and just show the install button again.

AppLee · 28 Feb 2020, 08:45

@kugiigi
Probably the user partition needs resizing.
I don't have a reference link right now and I have a meeting soon but if you cannot find how to do it, I'll dig in later.

Marathon2422 · 3 Jan 2020, 05:38

If you dd from sdcard to emmc keep your size below 14.5g or your emmc will not boot, don't ask how i know this.
Or label your sdcards , and know what is on them.
Its easier to adjust the size with gparted or similar before you “ dd ” it.