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My journey into the Pine64 community

THIS IS A DRAFT!

There is offical wiki here: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_Pro.
PPP stands for PinePhone Pro.
PPPEE stands for PinePhone Pro Explorer Edition.
PPKB -- PinePhone KeyBoard.
OG PinePhone -- "Original Gangster" PinePhone (a precessor of PPP).

  1. Keep in mind that PPP Explorer Edition is for early adopters and developers -- don't expect things work out of the box.

  2. From the news of January 2022:

    [...]there are four major software shortcomings that prevent the PinePhone Pro from being truly daily-drivable (by end-users already acquainted with Linux smartphones). I’ll list them in the order of significance: the PinePhone Pro doesn’t wake from suspension, battery level reporting is poor, cameras do not work and, lastly, audio call quality is poor.

  3. The transporter of PinePhone Pro that Pine Store uses allows only one and only device with a built-in battery per package. So if you want to buy some accessories -- they must be oredered separately.

  4. PINE64 is only a community, the company is Pine Store.

  5. PinePhone Pro is delivered from Hong Kong, other accessories are delivered from China.

  6. Only the soft protective case fits PinePhone Pro. Also you can't use it with any add-on case.

  7. PinePhone Pro is built on chipset Rockchip RK3399S, which supports 4GB of RAM at max. The successor of this chip is RK3588 (up to 32GB of RAM) which is much faster than RK3399 (see RK3399 vs. rk3588_s) and not available yet. RK3566 (SoC for Quartz64) isn't the successor of RK3399 and is slower but supports up to 8GB of RAM. From the chat:

    I mean, it's 2022, and rk3588 is out late this year. I'd say mid 2023 the rk3588 drivers should be kind of mature, so it's not unrealistic to imagine they start binning the chip around late 2023 and launch the dev version of the PPPP in mid to late 2024

  8. PinePhone Pro doesn't support USB Flash Drives yet.

  9. If PinePhone Pro doesn't boot from eMMC then hold the power button during the start to boot from an sd card.

  10. If you attach a keyboard add-on to PPP then charge the device only via the keyboard port, not with the one on the PPP. If you connect both ports to power it may get inflamed:

    don't use the phone's USB port at all when a PPKB is attached

  11. https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_Pro#Installation_instructions says:

    "If the battery is fully drained U-Boot might fail to boot[...]"

    So don't let your PPP be fully drained otherwise it won't start. It's a software bug.

  12. There is no bug tracker at the moment because Pine Store deals only with hardware, it can't cover all the software provided by different companies and distributions.

  13. Why Pine Store can't sell via AliExpress? The Pine64 founder TL Lim replied in the official chat:

    [...]Pine Store locates at Hong Kong/Singapore and is NOT a mainland China based company. The Aliexpress current setup only suitable for China registered company.

  14. -- What has happened to the pine power?
    -- Out of stock and no info if production will resume.

  15. During unboxing of your PPP don't forget to remove the plastic sticker from the battery. Find more precautions in the wiki: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_Pro#First_time_setup.

  16. If you want to install AOSP then follow Glodroid or even https://t.me/pinephone/742944 by phh.
    If you want to launch andoid apps in linux on PPP check https://waydro.id.

  17. Hardware acceleration/Graphics:

    [It supports] currently opengl 3.1 (or 3.3 experimentally and missing some features) and gl es 3.1[.]

    src

  18. Does PPPEE has SPI? Yes, see https://is-spi-on-pine64-devices-used-yet.site ("This makes the SD card for recovery impossible." is misinformation of this site, proof).

  19. PinePhone keyboard accessory comes with a built-in battery which may be used as a power bank.

  20. Pine Store develops its solutions only based on open hardware (may be not true, TODO: check https://www.pine64.org/2020/01/24/setting-the-record-straight-pinephone-misconceptions/).

  21. After you receive your phone coming with Manjaro run this command from terminal to update the system: pacman -Syu. I advise installing new OS upon receival because you really don't know who and how messed with the preinstalled OS.

Cameras

in a few words, cameras don't work in Linux until further notice :)

Battery

[D] <Shadow LAG> The battery is atrociously small for a mid range device. Yes it could be optimized with clocks, voltage, service reduction but man this battery is tiny and prob will still die faster than original Pinephone due to the battery mAh being near the same. I foresee needing the KB or a battery bank case.

Graphical Environment

TODO:

Troubleshooting

Pops/crackles before or after music playback

[I] <dsimic> for anyone experiencing pops/crackles before or after music playback on their PinePhone Pro, could you, please, execute the configuration command below and report did it make any difference?
[I] <dsimic> for confname in /sys/kernel/debug/asoc/*/dapm_pop_time; do echo 1 > $confname; done
[I] <dsimic> of course, you can also execute the echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/asoc/... command(s) by hand :)

Screen doesn't wake up

[D] <Shadow LAG> R, the failure to wake the screen is because Arch cannot suspend from eMMC unless tow-boot is installed. Arch can only suspend from SD card without tow-boot. Think we went over this topic a few times. You will need to disable suspend if you wish to run from eMMC without tow-boot, install tow-boot, or wipe the eMMC and just run Arch from SD card
As far as software make sure you run the following command in terminal: sudo pacman -Syu
Then try to install the software after everything is upgraded.

Solutions

  1. Disabling suspend on Arch (Manjaro?):

Tweaks > Power > Battery on suspend

  1. Installing tow-boot: see https://t.me/pinephone/752242.

Charging

Case 1

Usually the laptop chargers are "power delivery" compliant and can step to different voltages. 5v, 9v, 12v and different amperages at each step. You will have to look at the voltage. The pinephone needs exactly 5V

Case 2

I also had issues with a 5v2a charger. Switching to a proper 15w/5v3a charger worked for me

PinePhone Keyboard

  1. Try to pinch the screen and the back of the cover where the pogo pins are.

Chats

  1. All the official chat rooms: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Main_Page#Chat_Platforms.
  2. https://t.me/mtrx_pine64 -- general Pine64 solutions discussion.
  3. https://t.me/pinephone.

Related Links

  1. https://tow-boot.org
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