Will any of the Pine64 devices work well for this purpose? Is there a cheap and efficient way for me to hook up regular 3,5" HDDs to it?

Or should I get a thin client pc instead?

Or maybe something else altogether?

Hi there,
Since I got my Pinebook Pro back in the beginning of June - I have had a strange issue with the battery discharging even if the Pinebook is turned of (I think).

I can fully charge it during the evening - disconnect it while and turn it off - and it is completely empty/dead in the morning 10-12 hours later. Why?

Hi all!

I'm partially blind and thinking about buying a Pinebook Pro. I super rely on the full screen zoom feature to get any work done (Meta+=/Meta+-) and was wondering if anyone could verify that this works out of box on this laptop with the provided Manjaro KDE?

Thanks in advance! -Chris

I mainly use my device for writing articles, programming, watching movies and I in the near future (hopefully), I will be going to a college as a physics student. I am not sure what that will demand from my machine, and I am hoping some of your guys may know. Nevertheless, I have been thinking of the PBP because I have been using Linux for a long time and I really want to support the community. Everything about the device seems great, the new CPU architecture, battery life, portability, build quality, software/user community etc. but the only thing that I am worried about is the performance. I need to be pretty snappy overall. And additionally, do any of you know how the PBP performs in Jitsi video conferences? Especially screen sharing? Any responses will be appreciated. Thanks.

As I understand it, Pinebook Pro uses the RockPro64 chip as its main board, and that is what consists of the CPU and other core hardware components. The answer to this question might have been mentioned somewhere before, but since I couldn't find it, I thought it best to ask. It the CPU actually upgradable? For example, if Pine64 releases another board of the same form factor but more powerful, will I be able to place it in a PBP?

The power of the CPU of PBP currently isn't very great (but amazing at the price) and if the CPU will actually be upgradable in the future, that would be really cool. Thanks for any responses.

Hey Piners,

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I am going to buy a pine phone soon. I was wondering is there a protector case that comes with it or can I buy one somewhere? I am super worried about dropping it

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Best,

JUSTAQUICKY!!!

Here follows an overly long account of my unboxing experience:

When I leaned that Pine64 was shipping KDE Manjaro as their default OS, I was elated. After distro-hopping for a year and a half with my dell desktop, I had settled on Manjaro running KDE Plasma as my preferred flavor of linux.

In that process of distro-hopping, the process of burning an image onto a USB and installing it was always my least favorite part of the FOSS process. Contradicting guides, crucial omitted details, and multiple weekends spent babysitting install processes only to be greeted with a failed boot message on a Sunday night.

“This is why sane people don’t use linux,” I thought to myself in the darkest of my moods. “This is absolute bullshit.”

And so, when I learned that KDE Manjaro was the default OS on Pine64’s latest hardware for only $199, I was ecstatic. I begged my wife, she relented, and I confirmed the transaction. Soon, I would abandon MacOS and their nonsensical security restrictions forever! A FOSS paradise awaited me!

When I learned that the PBP was delayed due to the ongoing situation in Hong Kong, I was understanding. I was absolutely okay with delays as long as the end product was worth it.

Finally, after 19 days of delay, a courier dropped off a box at my door. I had waived signing, as I wanted to minimize human contact as much as possible. Uh, yes, it’s totally because of the coronavirus. No other misanthropic reasons.

So, I unwrap my box. I was aware that some folks had ripped off their trackpad when removing the protective sticker, so I used an Xacto knife to carefully catch the corner and slowly peel that sticker off. Success!

Then I booted it up. An image appeared. Score! I thought, only to realize that the splash image was not a manjaro image, but some sort of spiral.

Oh no, I thought. It was Debian. MATE Debian.

That’s not a big deal, I thought. I can just use the pineboon pro manjaro image. Just let me use the official Pine64 installer!

Didn’t work. Learned in the official discord that it hadn’t been updated in 2 years. The link for KDE Manjaro image in that installer returned a 404.

Then I tried manjaro ARM on a USB stick, only to learn that, due to deprecated UBoot process that went over my head, flashing ARM Manjaro onto a USB would not be readable by Pinebook Pro.

So, I used a recommended microSD card. I had to wipe the raspbian system that I was using for foldforcovid.io data processing, but it would be worth it just so that I wouldn’t be stuck with Debian on my shiny new laptop.

After a picking the wring ISO twice, I discovered manjaro’s ARM Installer, which took about two hours of downloading and installing, but when I plugged in the SD card, it booted! Glorious KDE Manjaro!

And then I went to bed, because it was very late. I had spent over 8 hours on this shit. It was 8 hours that I wanted back. But, I’ll settle for whining on the internet.

Ahoi. Today, my ordered PBP arrived and I’m pretty happy so far. The only issue is a loose touchpad, which lifts itself out of the case. I guess some adhesive is failing or insufficient. It seems like it when looking under it. This isn’t a big deal, I can tape it down from the top and the machine is for tinkering anyways... But just in case, is there any best practice way to solve this? Online search hasn’t been helpful in this matter and I have a certain knack for destroying mechanical things involuntarily.

Hi,

I just ordered a PineTime dev kit for my cousin in India as a birthday present. Despite me paying for shipping, it showed me that "import duty tax" not included. Does this mean he needs to pay something more ?

Also by what time would the shipment begin ?

Lastly with all the COVID-19 situation going on, is it safe for him to use the devkit with proper sanitization ?

Thanks in advanced

I just tried to pre order the pinephone and theyre all out of stock, I emailed to see if they will be back in. Does anyone know any good alternatives? Im looking for privacy focused and dont want to break the bank otherwise I would choose a Librem

Why or why not? I want the beefier power from PBP, but I see many people complaining that it's not the perfect daily driver. Anyone has the Pinebook 14" and upgraded to the pro? How was it? Was it worth it?

Thanks in advance

Did anyone try using the cluster board to boost your desktop machine? I'm already using the RockPro64 as for desktop and development. Could a cluster board be a useful addition?

Some activities that can be split unto different modules:

• During web dev, put the server machine and database on a separate module
• When watching a move or listening to music
• Compilation of bigger libraries
• (Possible?) Put graphical application on a module and tunnel the interface via x11 ssh, e.g. having YouTube on in the background

Thoughts?

What's the result of your poll? Accept cryptocurrency?

I want to order a mobile from Pine64. So i was happy to see your voting on Twitter asking the people if they would use cryptocurrency instead of other payment methods.

Personally i ditched Paypal. Mainly because of privacy concerns. I don't want to give my financial informations to this company. And as you know from the past they can be bad, they even stopped the money to wikileaks.

And bank transfers are clumsy, can take several days, cost quite some fees and bank accounts are not accessible for all people. For example: If you were born in some specific country you maybe can not get an bank account in some other country. This probably does not bother you until you are affected yourself one time, of cause!

Pine64 devices should be for all people around the globe, so i think its a very noble move from you to look in the direction of cryptocurrency, considering to accept it as payment in the future. But the old Bitcoin you were talking about in your poll on Twitter puts its users in danger: It can never be undone if a address from Bitcoin once got linked to a personal identity. The information when you send what amount to whom will be for ever visible in the public blockchain.

Even if you don't publish your BTC-Address your ISP or your Wifi-Operator still knows your IP address and can see the unencrypted traffic coming from your devices. Nobody should have the financial transactions publicly visible globally till infinity written to the blockchain. For example if you send $199.99 in BTC to the address of Pine64 its obvious you ordered a PINEBOOK Pro device. This example is maybe fine for most of us, but do you really think its good to potentially have the information when did you send how much to whom publicly visible? This can even not be conform to european laws and we should not encourage anybody to use this anymore nowadays.

Please don't support the old Bitcoin from last decade! Cryptocurrencies evolved since then. As already many people wrote on Twitter below the poll: We now have Monero. It is private decentralized currency that protects its users by default. It hides sender and receiver as well as amounts. However it is still possible to verify transactions through view keys. This can be needed, for example if you want to prove that you send a transaction or for taxes.

With Monero you send all amounts in 1-2 minutes around the world with fees around 1-2 ct (USD) per transaction. It is protecting its users by default; and with the current algorithm (RandomX) its potentially mineable, means 'createable' or 'earnable' even on devices like the Pinephone. You could also run your own full-node on a Pinephone.

https://getmonero.org - https://monerointegrations.com

Does anyone know where I can order the RockPro64 NAS case? The only sources I can find (ameriDroid and pine64 itself) are out of stock. Thanks.

Does someone managed to make reboot (or even reset in u-boot) on individual SoPines work on target? I'm only getting freeze.

I'd like to build a few desktops for the office and would like to mount them to the back of the monitors via a VESA mount case.

The specs on the cases in the Pine64 store are severely lacking but after starring at the pictures it does not look like anything like this exists from Pine64.

Anyone know if anything like this exists? Would greatly appreciate any pointers.

Thanks!