PineTab

halucigenia · 9 Sept 2020, 12:42

Got a couple of Kingston Canvas Select Plus microSD Card SDCS2/64 GB SP Class 10 to test with.
Worked fine and formatted OK on the PinePhone.
The PineTab booted OK with it in and recognised it but would not format it. I got "There was an error while formatting the device.
I noticed a small switch next to the SD slot so i changed the position - switched it down towards the bottom of the tablet and rebooted. It still booted OK and formatted the device.
Did I just find the SD card write protect switch?

arubislander · 9 Sept 2020, 13:14

@halucigenia said in PineTab:

Did I just find the SD card write protect switch?

~~Indeed you did~~.

EDIT: I totally misunderstood and thought you were referencing the switch on the sdcard, but you meant the one next to the sdcard slot on the PineTab.

andybleaden · 9 Sept 2020, 13:45

@arubislander Have either of you worked how we can boot from the SD Card yet? ie with another distro ?

andybleaden · 9 Sept 2020, 14:01

@halucigenia Checked the sound issue.
Tested the Uart/Headphone switch (next to SC Card slot) - nothing
Ran sudo alsamixer and noted Headphones were set to Mute!
Hit tab to get to the Headphone bar - Hit M to Unmute and bingo !
Now have sound through headphones

andybleaden · 9 Sept 2020, 15:22

@andybleaden edit - we can use Jumpdrive
https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Jumpdrive/releases/tag/0.3

L-00462 · 9 Sept 2020, 19:49

I think that production PineTabs will be available in less time than production PinePhones due to the lower complexity of the device, yes. It may in fact be the case that this PCBA revision is final - we don't know this yet however. Regardless, small tweaks for efficiency or aesthetics are likely to follow in future batches.

halucigenia · 10 Sept 2020, 15:13

@andybleaden I ran sudo alsamixer and noted that the headphones were set to mute (MM) also but unmute did not bring the headphone up on the PineTab.
re-"Uart/Headphone switch (next to SC Card slot)"
So, that was what I thought was the SD card write protect switch?
The headphones started working after switching that back upwards.
This trick works on the PinePhone too.
Plugging in the headphones does not mute the speakers though and you have to mute the line out to mute the speakers in alsamixer to do that.

Yuri · 23 Sept 2020, 23:51

@Keneda changing the language changes the keyboard.

Yuri · 23 Sept 2020, 23:53

@andybleaden I can't get my sd card to plug in at all.

Keneda · 24 Sept 2020, 02:34

@Yuri
That's not quite this kind of keyboard problem here...

AppLee · 24 Sept 2020, 07:42

@Yuri said in PineTab:

@andybleaden I can't get my sd card to plug in at all.

You have to give more context here.
Are you having the same issue as andybleaden ?
What do you try to achieve ?

andybleaden · 25 Sept 2020, 05:59

@AppLee just to note I have had no sd card issues. Mine were like all others = Bluetooth rotation sound (fixable)

I have read sdcard is hard for some to insert (small space) (upside down !) And boy does it ping the card out fast and far!

I use it to test other distros (too) often but still using and enjoying by Ubuntu Pinetab

Main beef for me still Bluetooth and rotation. Fix those and it's fine for me

tomoqv · 2 Oct 2020, 14:28

I just got my PineTab with keyboard stand and trying it out.

Currently running on UBports devel channel to see the progress to the software. As has been commented on above, it is still rather buggy. Sometimes trackpad will work, sometimes not and sometimes the mouse cursor disappears completely. At times, there seem to be an invisible limit for the mouse cursor movement, which I can't move beyond.

Screen resolution appears to be less than optimal. E.g. indicators are not crisp and window titles text is kind of rugged. Also, scaling in the browser makes address and bottom bars look huge, consuming a great deal of screen real estate. Is this a settings issue, or is it just a screen resolution that works poorly with Unity8?

I haven't tried to many things yet, but among those that work for me are:
Dekko2
Teleports
UT Tweak Tool
Browser (with scaling problems)
Keyboard (trackpad sometimes)
OpenStore
Terminal

Not working:
Rotation
Bluetooth
User accounts
GPS

The device is rather sluggish at this stage, but I am confident that will get better with future upgrades. That probably also goes for battery, which has dropped from 100% down to about 60% in a couple of hours light use.

Interesting to try it out and hopefully it will be able to replace my aging BQ tablet with UBports eventually. I really like the nifty stand with built-in keyboard.

arubislander · 2 Oct 2020, 16:05

@tomoqv said in PineTab:

That probably also goes for battery, which has dropped from 100% down to about 60% in a couple of hours light use.

Try detaching the tablet from the keyboard so that the backlight on the keyboard turns off, you are free to reattach the tablet then if you want. You will be surprised as to how long the battery will last in that case. I think being attached to the keyboard stops the tablet from going into deep sleep once it has been turned on.

matteo · 2 Oct 2020, 18:16

@arubislander you can even turn off the keyboard backlight while you are using it: in fact there is a buttons combination to be executed, i.e. pressing at the same time the Pine button on the left hand side of the bottom bar + the button with a light bulb depicted on the right hand side of the bottom bar

arubislander · 2 Oct 2020, 21:01

@matteo Ah, TIL. Thans!

tomoqv · 3 Oct 2020, 09:42

Since yesterday, my PineTab won't see or connect to any wifi networks. I have restarted the device multiple times, but still the same. I have also toggled wifi and tried to turn on airplane mode (which doesn't seem to work at all), but to no avail.

Edit: I managed to fix this with the nmcli command.

nmcli networking on
nmcli radio wifi on

Yuri · 3 Oct 2020, 17:04

@halucigenia I have the same issues with headphones, bluetooth and the microphone on my Pinetab. Morph takes some getting used to and benefits from uAdblock. Morph has hidden reload and close buttons in the adress bar.

Yugami · 6 Oct 2020, 00:56

@matteo that would be nice, but apparently only works on some people's?

Posted from not my pinetab

Yuri · 13 Oct 2020, 14:53

@Yuri I have five ports on my Pinetab; headphone, power, usb, usb 2 Ahost and micro usb OTG. I can't see an sd slot.