Debian Installer

  • This is an image creator and Debian installer that runs from an existing Linux OS and installs Debian Bullseye

    • Installer can configure an encrypted rootfs and provides a choice of desktops, including the default Debian desktop based on Gnome 3

    • Strict adoption of upstream Debian packages (with exception of kernel and bootloaders) in order to provide a clean upgrade path as Bullseye matures

  • Download at: https://github.com/daniel-thompson/pinebook-pro-debian-installer/

  • Pull requests welcome but for discussion and support please use the forum topic.

Features

Feature

Status

Notes

Install to micro SD card

Works

Automatically expands to use all available space

Install to eMMC

Works

Automatically adapts for 64GB and 128GB models

Full disk encryption

Works

Run installer with CRYPT=yes. Requires kernel support and this support is missing in the original factory kernel so it it not possible to install a LUKS filesystem from the factory distro. You can make a temporary unencrypted install with this installer and then use the temporary OS to perform a full encypted install.

Wifi

Works

Issues have been reported with WPA2 networks [https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8822]

Firefox

Works

VLC

Works

Fn+ keys

Work

After updating mesa to 20.0.7-1

Current issues

Issue

Category

Status

Workaround

Notes

cdn-dp fec00000.dp: Direct firmware load for rockchip/dptx.bin failed with error -2

Debian issue https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=857054

If having FDE, it fails to load at boot as the firmware is not included in initramfs

Include the dptx.bin firmware in the initramfs

See https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8487&pid=57202#pid57202

Bluetooth doesn’t work bluetooth hci1: Direct firmware load for brcm/BCM4345C5.hcd failed with error -2

Copy those firmware https://gitlab.manjaro.org/manjaro-arm/packages/community/ap6256-firmware to /lib/firmware/brcm/. After that, Bluetooth works fine.

It seems some firmware is missing. See https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8731&pid=57525#pid57525

Suspend doesn’t work properly, when lid is closed, the laptops gets hot and dramatically dry the battery

Install is preconfigured to use suspend-to-idle instead. This offers some power savings compared to normal running but suspend should only be used for short periods.

# echo deep > /sys/power/mem_sleep PBP simply doesn’t wake up after 'deep' sleep.

Often very slow to wake from suspend: 30-60 seconds.

Forum thread https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8822

Sometimes pressing the power key helps wake it up. Set this key to not trigger sleep/shutdown in the Desktop Environment config.