Risc-V on PINE64

A Quick Community Update on PinePhone Pro and What’s Next

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone! As many have noticed, the PinePhone Pro is currently out ot stock on the Pine Store. Unfortunately we have to deliver you the following news: the PinePhone Pro is officially discontinued. We were told it didn’t sell well enough to keep production going. But the good news for current owners are that spare parts will still be made for up to two years, depending on demand. Meanwhile, the trusty PinePhone (A64) is still alive and kicking, and Pine Store plans to keep it rolling for about two more years.

No new PinePhone (Yet), future with RISC-V

Right now, we’ve got no insider info on a brand-new PinePhone, so don’t expect any surprise announcements soon. Pine Store is steering its energy toward other projects (including RISC-V and a little bit of AI), which you’ve probably noticed with the Oz64, STAR64, StarPro64, and Alpha One launches.

And one last thing: later this month there’ll be a small batch of refurbished PinePhone Pros up for grabs — your final shot at owning one of these little powerhouses.

PineTab-V and PineTab2 launch

Mon, 10 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The PineTab2 and PineTab-V pre-orders begin on April 13th. Both tablets feature a 1200x800 10.1” IPS LCD panel with wide viewing angles, a sturdy metal metal chassis, two USB-C ports (1x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0 with charging), a digital video out port, a front 2MPx and rear 5MPx camera as well as a 6000mAh battery. Both come bundled with a magnetically fitted detachable backlit keyboard (connecting via pogo pins using USB 2.0 protocol) that doubles up as a carry case, and are available in two hardware configurations: 4GB LPDDR4 RAM / 64GB eMMC 5.1 flash storage and 8GB LPDDR4 RAM / 128GB eMMC 5.1 flash storage. Finally the PineTab2 and PineTab-V both start at $159.

On the outside the only thing that differentiates the two devices is the color of the chassis: the PineTab-V is deep matte black while PineTab2 is silver-gray. But the real difference between the two resides on the inside. The PineTab2 features the well supported RK3566 64-bit Arm SoC, which has been a part of our line-up for over a year, and the tablet ships with a build of DanctNix Arch Linux for Arm. The software can be best described as early but very serviceable, and there is little doubt that before long improvements will be made and additional functionality enabled. Like the PinePhone and PinePhone Pro before it, the PineTab2 will reach a high degree of functionality in time and make for a great work or entertainment travel companion.

First image: PineTab2 PCB with RK3566. Second image: PineTab-V with JH7110

Unlike the PineTab2, the PineTab-V is based on the JH7110 64-bit RISC-V SoC. In late 2022 we announced our plans to help grow the RISC-V hardware ecosystem alongside our existing Arm-based device line-up (see 2023 Sneak Peek section in December Community Update) – to this end the PineTab-V is to the Star64 single board computer released earlier this month what the PineTab2 is to the Quartz64. The JH7110 RISC-V SoC, and the RISC-V architecture in more general, is currently best described as having limited Linux support. The PineTab-V is therefore an experimental device, which ships without an OS and without any promises. You can think of it as a convenient development platform targeted at those of you interested in bringing Linux support to JH7110 and, by extension, the entire RISC-V ecosystem.

To sum it up, the two tablets launching on April 11 look near-identical but in actuality are very different devices. The PineTab2 is Arm-based, ships with working software, has solid Linux support that will only get better with time, and has an already-established community of developers waiting for their units to arrive. The PineTab-V is built upon a RISC-V SoC and holds much promise but comes without working software. The PineTab-V is an experimental device geared towards developers and those who wish to explore the architecture. The open source community surrounding RISC-V is just taking shape and still growing, and we hope that the PineTab-V will further solidify this community and help accelerate development.

Go to Pine Store

* PineTab2 and PineTab-V pre-orders will be available under the ‘Tablets’ category (drop-down) starting Thursday, April 13th

August update: RISC and reward

Sun, 28 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This month we take a close look at the Star64, check out PineBuds (Pro) progress and discuss the Pinecil V2. I also come bearing good news concerning the PinePhone Pro, which has seen a small but significant hardware redesign and some important software updates.

Let’s get into it.

You can watch the synopsis of this month’s community update on YouTube (embedded below) as well as on Odysee and PeerTube. To stay up-to-date with PINE64 news make sure to subscribe to this blog (subscription widget at the bottom of the webpage), follow the PINE64 Telegram News channel, the announcements channel in Discord as well as our Twitter and Mastodon.

I’d like to thank Alex (clover), Gamiee, JF and PizzaLovingNerd for their contributions to this community update.

N.B. Comments on the blog post need to be in English and follow our Community Rules and Code of Conduct.

Note: This image preview protects your privacy. Click to load the video from the Google servers.

Video synopsis of the August community update

TL;DR

Housekeeping
- We’re sponsoring Akadamy; meet us there!
- Community Q&A was held August 13, you can now watch it on YouTube
- A call for sticker design - looking forward to seeing what you come up with
- Blade hostboard for the SOQuartz is now in the PineStore
- The PinePower in the Pine Store and EU store is grounded - cause for confusion outdated photographs
PinePhone (Pro)
- Spare parts for the PinePhone Pro are now in stock
- Small hardware redesign - the PinePhone Pro now takes nano SIM
- Megi’s patches bring improvements to sound on the PinePhone Pro
- New releases from postmarketOS, DanctNIX, OpenSUSE and Manjaro; OpenSUSE shows off Qi Wireless charging
- Work-around instructions for Mobian installer issues
Star64
- Pictures of the first Star64 prototype
- Overview of the final Star64 IO layout, components (WiFi 6 & BT 5.2among them) and features
- Debian and Fedora already being ported to the SoC; we trust many other OSes will follow
Pinecil
- First batch of Pinecil V2 sold out in record time; next batch in EU store early September and Pine Store mid-September
- Pinecil V1 vs V2 and tip comparison by end-user - very cool video
- Pinecil V2 online authenticator; a walk-through of how to check whether if your unit is legit
- Ships with newest IronOS firmware
PineTime
- Watchmate: new companion app for desktop and Linux phones
- Watchmate works with InfiniTime and incorporates key functionality
- InfiniLink iOS companion app transferred to PINE64 community

Housekeeping

We’re once again one of the sponsors of this year’s Akademy, which is taking place in Barcelona 1-7 October. For those of you who don’t know about Akademy - it is an annual non-commercial meetup organized by the KDE Community. From memory, this is the 5th time that we’re a part of and sponsoring the event. Since this year’s meetup is an in-person event we’ll be flying into Barcelona to attend. Keep an eye out for Marek, TL and myself during the weekend of 30 September and October 3rd. We’re taking this as an opportunity to meet and mingle with people, so it is unlikely that we’ll be holding any talks or the like.

If you live in Europe, are a fan of KDE and happen to like our products then drop-by Akademy in Barcelona this year

We held the quarterly Q&A on August 13. As usual, Marek and I answered questions from the chats and for the first time managed to answer nearly all the questions posed. This time around we also managed to stream the Q&A to both Youtube and Peertube, while simultaneously having people in the Discord stage. Kudos to Marek for getting it all working this time around. The recording of the full and uncut Q&A session is available on Youtube, and thanks to Pak0St there are chapters available so you can easily find the bits and pieces you’re particularly interested in. The next Q&A will be held sometime in November.

Note: This image preview protects your privacy. Click to load the video from the Google servers.

Live recording of the third community Q&A held on August 15, 2022

In other community news - we’ll be printing PINE64 stickers for upcoming community events (I am keeping my fingers crossed FOSDEM 2023 is an in-person event). While we’ll surely be printing some fairly generic PINE64 branded stickers, we also want to reach out to you for submissions. So if you’re artistic and would like to submit a PINE64-centered sticker design, then we’re more than happy to receive it. Make sure to have the sticker design include your name or handle. As for design requirements, it needs to be a grayscale and read well in a small size. If we receive multiple submissions, then we’ll run some sort of community poll and have you select the ones you feel represent the project best. Please post your submissions on the forum or, if you prefer, in the #offtopic community chat; make sure to ping the mods to make them aware of the submission.

The Blade hostboard for the SOQuartz is now available in the Pine Store. In case you missed it, I wrote about the Blade and other SOQuartz hostboards back in May. This hostboard has been designed for clustering and fits inside a standard 1U server rack. You can fit 12 or more Blade hostboards into a single rack. I had the opportunity to check out a Blade prototype in May and was really quite surprised by how slim it was and how much I/O was present in the tiny space that the PCB provides. If you’ve been interested in clusters and were waiting for a spiritual successor to the Clusterboard then here it is.

BLADE hostboard with 8GB SOQuartz installed

Lastly, I want to make it clear that the PinePower desktop currently sold in the Pine Store and EU store is grounded (and has 3 prong plug) as requested by the community. I wrote about this new hardware revision already in the April community update -I encourage you to read the blog entry in case you missed it. I am aware that the pictures in both stores were outdated for a couple of days when the new batch arrived, which led to some confusion as to whether the hardware is from the new revision. All PinePower desktop units currently on sale and produced in the future will be grounded. Apologies for the confusion caused by outdated pictures.

PinePhone (Pro)

Let’s start with some hardware news. Spare parts for the PinePhone and PinePhone Pro are now in stock. I know that many users with cracked screens or damaged back-cases have been waiting for these parts to return to the store. I am happy to let you know that spare PinePhone (Pro) keyboard PCBs are now also available for purchase. I am mentioning the availability of these parts explicitly at the start of this section because I’ve recently seen people question our commitment to creating repairable hardware. So, let me assure you that we’re as committed to making repairable hardware as we always have been. The reason why spare parts were out of stock for a period of time is simply due to them selling out from the last PinePhone (Pro) production batches - spare parts are usually only delivered with a new production run. The spare parts are basically unassembled PinePhone (Pro) units. Same goes for keyboards and other equipment. If there is a break in hardware deliveries then it is likely that spare parts will temporarily sell out too. However moving forward we’ll hold a larger stock of spare parts.

In other hardware news, the most recent production run of the PinePhone Pro has seen a small but important redesign, at least for newcomers. One of the most common failure points on the PinePhone and PinePhone pro is the SIM slot. Users were required to use an adapter for their nano SIMs to fit into the micro SIM slot - some would insert the adapter without a SIM, pull it out, and damage the pins in the process. Others would insert a micro SD card into the SIM slot thereby damaging it. For this reason, the new production run of the PinePhone Pro incorporates a nano SIM slot instead. The slot has a clever design which prevents new users from accidentally inserting a micro SD inside too; to insert the SIM card you need to pull out a little tray (which doesn’t come all the way out), into which the SIM is inserted. We hope that this small improvement will result in fewer broken SIM and SD slots moving forward.

Nano SIM slot on the PinePhone Pro

There are a few software news I’d also like to cover this month. The most notable of which, and one which will eventually surely find its way into all OSes, concerns sound on the PinePhone Pro. Megi has recently released a set of patches that address some of the issues people have been experiencing: sound codec not working after boot (prior to an app playing audio), changing controls while headphone or speaker output is active breaks audio, sound stutter when serial console is enabled in CLI, OUTMIX and RECMIX drivers not matching the schematic and microphone quality. I invite you to read and follow megi’s development (b)log to learn of the details but, in short, the patches ought to improve the sound situation on the PinePhone Pro. I hope to see them make their way into individual OSes soon.

As for the OSes, we’ve seen a few releases for the PinePhone and PinePhone Pro this past month. This includes (at least to my knowledge - there may be others) postmarketOS, Manjaro, OpenSUSE and DanctNIX (Arch). Most of the distributions shipping the Phosh mobile environment have now updated to the newest version which adds swiping motions; I haven’t had the opportunity to try the newest version of Phosh myself, but I hear very good things about it. I would also like to note that OpenSUSE shared an image of the PinePhone charging wirelessly using the Qi wireless charging case (currently out of stock), which is super cool to see. I am including a picture from the tweet below.

Wireless charging on the PinePhone running OpenSUSE - via Adrian Campos Garrido

There is one more thing I’d like to mention in this blog post that is distro-specific: I’ve seen reports that Mobian users have issues with the installer image. The problem it seems concerns the root partition not expanding properly during the installation process. I reached out to Mobian developers about a potential work-around and Undef was really helpful in emailing me comprehensive instructions. I should also note that Mobian’s dev team is aware of the problem and actively working to resolve it.

Here’s the work-around:

Resize the primary partition using parted.

$ sudo apt install parted

Make sure to select the right storage device (exchange for x below); 2 will usually be eMMC while 0 is likely to be SD.

$ sudo parted /dev/mmcblkX

Inside parted run print just to make sure you are using the proper

device. You should see two primary partitions:

(parted) print

Enlarge the 2nd to 100% capacity:

(parted) resizepart 2 100%

Print to see if the partition expanded correctly and then quit the program:

(parted) print
(parted) quit

If you’re using an encrypted device run the following command - you will be asked for your encryption password:

$ sudo cryptsetup resize calamares_crypt

Then proceed to resize the ext4 filesystem:

$ sudo resize2fs /dev/mapper/calamares_crypt

Finally resize the btrfs filesystem and check results:

$ sudo btrfs filesystem resize max /
$ df -h

Once again, many thanks to Undef for the detailed instructions.

Star64

This month I come bearing good news about the Star64 RISC-V single board computer. Just three months after the board’s initial announcement today I get the privilege of unveiling the prototype - and I hope you’ll admit that it looks mighty cool. Star64 is the first true RISC-V SBC from us (I mean, unless you really consider the Pinecil a SBC), but as I wrote last month it certainly isn’t the last RISC-V piece of hardware you’ll be seeing from us. Just as a short recap: Star64 comes with a StarFive JH7110 64bit CPU sporting quad SiFive FU740 cores clocked at 1.5GHz. The SOC is equipped with BXE-4-32 from Imagination Technologies, which is said to be a solid mid-range GPU. Star64 will be available in two configurations - with 4Gb and 8GB of RAM, similarly to the Quartz64. Both hardware versions include USB 3.0 and a PCIe slot as well as two native Gigabit Ethernet NICs.

Star64 IO – left: dual Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI & power-in // right: 3X USB 2.0 & USB 3.0

The IO arrangement is very similar to what you’ve come to expect from one of our model-A type boards. Along the long leading edges you’ll find PCIe on one end and GPIO on the other. At one end of the board you’ll find a digital video output, a double-stacked Gigabit Ethernet port and a 12V barrel plug for power. On the opposite side, you’ll find 3x USB 2.0, 1x USB 3.0, an audio jack as well as a power button. There are also two U.FL ports for antennas - one for bluetooth and the other for WiFi.

Star64 – left: top view // right: bottom view

The onboard WiFi/BT module is RTL8852BU MIMO WiFi 6 with BT 5.2; it may already be supported in mainline Linux. The Star64 also has an MiPi display output complete with a touch panel (TP) input, a 12V power port, a CSI camera port and an eMMC slot. A micro SD card slot can be found at the bottom of the PCB. Similarly to the RockPro64 and Quartz64, the 12V port on the Star64 can be used for powering other hardware directly from the board - a popular example is powering one or multiple SSDs connected to a PCIe SATA adapter. I’ll add that, at least in theory, the Star64 would make a great NAS because of its SoCs low thermals and idle power. I am looking forward to seeing NAS-focused Linux or BSD* OSes available for the board.

Speaking of software, efforts to support the SoC in Linux have already begun. I’ve been told that both Debian and Fedora are already being ported to the StarFive JH7110, which is great news. We are certain that many other OSes will follow swiftly - especially once we start delivering the Star64 to interested developers. On the subject of availability: the Star64 will be available in a few weeks time, and will initially be available to developers. Given the interest in the Star64’s and the SoC powering I hope to see functional distributions available for the board soon after launch. We will obviously be monitoring the Star64’s software progress in the months to come and keep you posted on how development proceeds.

PineBuds Pro

A quick foreword about PineBuds changing name to PineBuds Pro prior to release: the hardware stays the same, it’s just naming convention - or branding if you will - changes to include the ‘Pro’ suffix. We’re doing this to indicate the additional functionality that the earbuds are capable of - ANC in particular. That’s all.

I am glad to report that development of the PineBuds Pro is proceeding well. In fact, CE/FCC testing is scheduled to start early September, so a mid-Q4 release is highly likely. In July I shared pictures of the first moulded PineBuds carry case without the electronic guts - today I get to show pictures of the first moulded and working prototypes. This time around this includes the pods and the case, both of which arrived from the factory just the other day. As you can probably tell from the picture, the final mould of the carry case looks much more refined than the CNCd version shown in April. It is hard to make it out from the photos, but the case features a textured finish on the outside and a smooth finish on the inside. The buds themselves have a two-texture finish too, with the stems made out of shiny plastic and the body of the buds being matte. While none of the pictures below depict this, the case now also features a small row of LEDs on the front, used to indicate charging status and remaining battery. But let me stress this again - these are pictures of prototypes, and thus everything you see is subject to change.

PineBuds – left: buds in carry case // right: buds seen next to the casa

Since the last post discussing the PineBuds we received much feedback regarding our initial decision not to brand the buds. This is not the first time we receive feedback concerning branding from the community; as a rule of thumb, we usually try to keep branding to a minimum on our hardware. As was the case with the Pinebook Pro, PinePhone and PineTab - we always try to incorporate the PINE64 logo in some tasteful and non-intrusive way. But this is a bit hard to achieve on something as small as a pair of wireless earphones. However, it does seem people are keen on rocking buds with a PINE64 pine cone, so we’ll run some test prints in the next few weeks and see how they turn out. I am attaching some impressions for you to take a look at below.

Lastly, the Pine Store commissioned development of an alternative SDK and firmware for the PineBuds. The hope is that the new SDK will make development of community customised and user-tailored firmware easier to achieve. The custom firmware and SDK builds are about 2 weeks away I am told - once delivered we’ll have developers evaluate the efforts. If this is the first time you’re hearing about the PineBuds I invite you to read the April and May community updates in which the hardware was introduced and discussed at some length. I am sure I’ll have more information about the PineBuds to report next month, so stay tuned.

Proposed PineBuds branding - let us know what you think

Pinecil [by Gamiee]

The Pinecil V2 landed earlier this month and sold out almost instantly. The next production run of the ought to be available soon however - you can expect the next batch to land in PINE64 EU at the beginning of September and in the Pine Store a few weeks later. There will likely be a limit on how many units can be ordered by one person to make sure that everyone who wants one can get one (if they order within the first 72 hours or so). To be notified of availability, please follow PINE64 and PINE64 EU on Telegram, Mastodon and Twitter. We’ll make sure to give everyone a solid 24hrs heads-up before the next Pinecil batch becomes available again.

Earlier this month I came across a very interesting comparison between Pinecil V1 and V2, which also includes a performance overview of the new tips. Spoiler alert, the V2 performs better when supplied enough power, but the new tips heat up much faster on both the V1 and V2. When combined with the right power source and fitted with the short 6.2 ohm tip the V2 heats up to a temperature of 300*C in under 3 seconds. It is a really interesting video by one of our community members, and I advise anyone interested in the Pinecil V2 to watch it.

Note: This image preview protects your privacy. Click to load the video from the Google servers.

A comparison between Pinecil V1 and V2 as well as the new 6.2ohm tips - by River B.

As we mentioned in the previous community update, we have implemented a few anti-counterfeit measures into Pinecil V2. One of them is the possibility to verify that your Pinecil V2 is original. And you can do this on our authenticity verification page, which you can find on https://pinecil.pine64.org/. The process is quite simple: on your Pinecil enter the debug menu by holding down the minus (-) button, scroll down to the ID tab using plus (+) and enter the serial number (first row) into the online authenticator. You’ll be immediately informed whether your V2 is an authentic PINE64 product or a knock-off.

Authenticity checked page

The Pinecil V2 is being shipped with IronOS v2.18, which is still up-to-date at the time of writing. There are no requirements to update the firmware, but if anyone wants to update their V2 then it is not currently possible. This is due to the new Bouffalo chip not using the DFU protocol for flashing and the flash tool, which supports the Bouffalo’s flashing protocol, is still a work in progress. It should, however, be available soon; stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks and months.

PineTime [by JF]

This month, we welcome a new companion app in the PineTime ecosystem: watchmate. The author announced it on Twitter and Mastodon a few days ago. Watchmate is a companion app which runs on desktop and mobile Linux and is compatible with PineTime running InfiniTime. Written in Rust and based on libadwaita and BlueR it already supports many features from InfiniTime, such as setting the time, reading battery level, recording the heart rate value, controlling media player and OTA firmware updates.

The UI is really nice and easy to use and a bit similar to Siglo: once connected, it displays various info, allows you to select the media player that will send info to the Music app and upgrade the firmware over the air (OTA). Watchmate will display a notification when it detects that a newer version of InfiniTime is available in the project’s repository, which is a very convenient feature!

Watchmate functionality

A few features like secure pairing and notifications are not implemented yet but they are already listed in the project roadmap. They waited to test watchmate and have enough time to maintain the project, and that they would transfer the project to anyone who would like to take over it. Since then the Github project has already been transferred to the InfiniTime organization and the application on the app store has been transferred to an account managed by Pine64 to ensure that it remains available on the Apple Store until it finds a new maintainer! Thanks again to xan-m for their work on InfiniLink!

Watchmate running on the PinePhone Pro and Pinebook Pro

Thats all for this month, I’ll catch you all in September.

June Update: Who likes RISC-V?

Tue, 28 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This month we reveal that we are working on a powerful and affordable RISC-V single board computer, discuss PineNote’s huge software improvements and provide updates on PinePhone, PinePhone Pro and Pinebook Pro’s availability. I am also taking the opportunity to let you know that, after 6 years of holding PINE64’s community manager post, I’ll be resigning from my position shortly, once PINE64 EU launches next week; Marek Kraus will gradually be taking over my responsibilities.

There is much to cover this month, so let’s get cracking.

I’d like to thank dsimic, Alex (clover) and PizzaLovingNerd for their contributions to this community update.

N.B. Comments on the blog post need to be in English and follow our Community Rules and Code of Conduct.

TL;DR

Housekeeping
- Read JF’s post about using the Quartz64 as a NAS
- QuartzPro64 developer coupons have started going out - devs, check your inbox
- New PineTalk is out
- Pinebook Pro available in July - a post on PCB revision coming soon
- PINE64 EU launching after (over) a month long delay
- Marek becomes community manager at PINE64
Who likes RISC-V?
- We’re making a powerful and affordable RISC-V model-A type SBC
- SBC in final layout phase
- Comparable specs and price point to Quartz64, but with RISC-V SoC
- Be the first to solve the riddle and receive our first RISC-V SBC
PinePhone (Pro)
- PinePhone and PinePhone Pro are back in stock - shipping mid July
- Installing community modem firmware is now easy
- You can play Doom on PinePhone (Pro)’s modem!
- Camera developments and major improvements to Megapixels postprocessing
PineNote
- Linux on the PineNote is now in good shape
- Major developments for the e-paper display - work by Smaeul on the driver detailed
- It is now possible to write using EMR pen on the PineNote running Linux in a standard Debian installation
- Showcase of smooth (quickly appearing) handwriting

Note: This image preview protects your privacy. Click to load the video from the Google servers.

Video synopsis of the June Update

Housekeeping

Earlier this month JF wrote a guest post in which he showcased the Quartz64 model-A’s functionality as a NAS. The post details retrofitting a standard ATX computer case to fit a Quartz64 model-A and outfitting the setup with 6 SSDs. JF also provides general guidance to reproduce the setup and offers a handful of benchmarks of the NAS’ performance. While JF used Manjaro as the basis for his NAS, I feel this is a good time to let everyone know that Debian Armbian builds for the Quartz64 are now available for download. I know that many people are in favour of Debian’s stability when it comes to building something such as a NAS, and therefore I am thrilled to see that now it is available as an option on the Quartz64. I should also mention that I expect to see many more OS builds available for Quartz64 and SOQuartz shortly.

JF’s NAS - via guest blog post

Staying on the subject of single board computers, the QuartzPro64 developer edition coupons will start going out shortly. If you’ve signed up to purchase a unit, please keep an eye on your inbox. If you receive an email with a coupon code, you will have limited time to complete the purchase. The email will also include the link to the page where you can complete your QuartzPro64 purchase.

Last month I had the pleasure of bringing the much anticipated news that Pinebook Pro is re-entering production. This month I am glad to confirm that the Pinebook Pro is already in production, and we expect units to be delivered from the factory sometime in July. We will make sure to notify you once stock is available on social media and in the news channels. Dsimic will soon be publishing a guest post about PCB changes made to this production run, so keep an eye out for his impressions in the coming days.

A peek at the Pinebook Pro’s 2022 PCB - via dsimic

In case you missed it, a new PineTalk episode was released at the beginning of this month. In this month’s episode, Brian and Justin covered topics covered in the May community update and discussed their experience with open and security-focused Android ROMs. Justin also talks about an idea he pitched to me concerning a smart-speaker. The duo also promised to read and respond to the audience’s questions, so make sure to bombard them with emails, toots and tweets. I too think that the show deserves a higher degree of community engagement. If you haven’t yet added PineTalk to your RSS feed, then here is a handy link: RSS feed.

PINE64 EU is finally ready to open its doors for business. I don’t have a specified launch day yet, but it will be next week - it largely depends on how quickly I manage transport, unpack and inventory everything. I once again wish to apologise for the delay in the store’s opening - I ran into issues with EU regulation that needed to be addressed. Suffice to say, relevant institutions take their sweet time with every piece of submitted paperwork; in my case, it took some 4 weeks for a complete review. Anyways, here is what will be available for purchase on day one: PinePhone Pro, PinePhone, the Pinecil, PinePhone (Pro) keyboard case, protective cases for the phones as well as the PineTime. As I mentioned in the past, this is just the beginning, and the aim is to have the EU store grow its selection to include other hardware in the future. I should also mention that customers will be able to select from Mobian, Manjaro and postmarketOS to be installed on their PinePhone (Pro). I also have a small surprise which will be announced on the day of the store’s launch, so make sure to follow PINE64 EU on Twitter, Mastodon and Telegram (news channel, not a chat).

Lastly, at the beginning of next month, as the EU store’s launches, I will give up my position as community manager at PINE64. But fret not, I am leaving you in very capable hands - Marek Kraus will be taking on the role of steering the community in the future. Marek has been a part of the project for a long time and played a crucial role in PINE64’s success. He is highly personable, cool headed and, unlike me, also very technically skilled (including hardware and software). This means that not only is he able to communicate with contributors, engineers and partner project developers, but he is also able to speak their language. I am handing down this post to Marek with complete confidence and I know that he’ll do an incredible job. As for myself, while the PINE64 EU will be my core focus from now-on, I will remain a part of PINE64 and the community - I’m not going anywhere. I’ll also keep on writing the updates, hosting quarterly Q&As, engaging with the community, etc. The transition of responsibilities between Marek and I will be gradual and fluid; it will take time. Congrats Marek and take good care of my beloved project :)

Who likes RISC-V?

We have hinted at this for some time, and many of you knew it would become a reality eventually: we’re now in the final layout phase for a powerful, yet affordable, RISC-V single board computer. I need to be a bit cagey about what I write, partly because I want you to solve the riddle at the end of this section, and in part because not all information has been set in stone and disclosed publicly by the SoC vendor. Before I get into some of the details I’ve been allowed to disclose, here’s the spiel: the board will premiere in our signature model-A form factor, feature CPU performance which falls somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Quartz64, offer plenty of IO, and sport a price-tag similar to that of the Quartz64. In a nutshell, a Quartz64 model-A type board but with a RISC-V SoC. Sounds good? Then keep on reading.

PCIe is important to industry clients; ROCKPro64 in RoninDojo Tanto - via RoninDojo

The board will be available in two configurations, with 4GB and 8GB of RAM. Similarly to the Quartz64 model-A, the RISC-V board will feature both USB 3.0 and a PCIe slot. Having an open-ended PCIe slot on a board offers it a high degree of versatility, which we know is something that developers, end-users and industry clients want. The SoC features two native Gigabit Ethernet NICs, but I am not certain if there are plans to expose both of them on the PCB - this hasn’t been determined yet. Regardless, I figured it is worth mentioning it as an available option. The SoC has Imagination Technologies’ BXE-2-32 GPU for which the source code ought to be made available soon. Imagination Technologies have recently come through on their promise of open sourcing their other GPUs, so there is no reason to believe that it will be any different in the case of the BXE-2-32. Since the formal introduction of the board to the market is still a few months away, the code may very well be available on launch day.

The model-A SBC form factor should be familiar to everyone (pictured: Quartz64 model-A, PINE A64(+), ROCKPro64)

The last thing I want to communicate is that the RISC-V platform is something we wish to pursue in parallel to our well established ARM-based hardware. While we don’t have set-in-stone plans regarding the platform, be on the lookout for more RISC-V hardware offerings from now through 2023. We have some candidate devices for a RISC-V conversion and ideas for future iterations of hardware based on the architecture, which is something I believe many of you will find exciting. In short: we have made a decision to commit to the RISC-V platform.

I’ve decided to keep the name of the board out of this introductory post so that you can decipher the riddle below. As we’ve done in the past, the first person to correctly decipher the name of the board will receive the first unit that rolls off the factory floor. Your guess needs to be filed in the comments section; guesses posted elsewhere don’t count. Don’t worry if your guess doesn’t immediately show up in the comments - it needs to undergo moderation. All comments are time-stamped, so there is no chance of being leapfrogged by someone else submitting their guess after you. I’ll have more information about our RISC-V board for you next month.

Victoria Line Station

I sing, act and dance

celebrated by them all

I never climb my stage

but I sometimes fall

In the sea I dwell

and in every magic book

By heaven!

adding 64 is all it took

On my stage I shine

and when I feel truly blue

then there’s nothing

This is the final clue

PinePhone (Pro)

Let me open with a short update on Pinephone and PinePhone Pro’s availability; we currently expect to receive the next production-run in approximately mid July at which point shipping will commence. At the time of publishing this post, both PinePhone and PinePhone Pro should now be listed as being in-stock.

As most of you are aware, the PinePhone (Pro)’s Quectel EG25-G modem is effectively its own single-core Arm computer running a closed Linux-based firmware. Over the past 2 years the community put in an immense effort to improve and adapt the IoT modem’s firmware to better serve the PinePhone (Pro). Work by Biktor and Konrad, as well as that of other contributors, opened the modem up to tinkering and thereby also to alterations and improvements to its software. Before I write another word, I need to underline that it is PINE64’s and Pine Store’s position that the licensed proprietary firmware on the modem should not be tampered with, and it is my duty to notify you that altering the modem’s firmware may violate your local laws, which in turn can have very real consequences. Therefore, please consider the following to be a progress report and a showcase, which I find to be fitting well with the community spirit of this blog, but it is not an enticement to use alternative firmware on your PinePhone (Pro).

Until recently it was very difficult to switch from the closed Quectel firmware to the much more open firmware by Biktor. This community firmware contains no binary blobs in the userspace, and significantly reduces the modem’s power consumption and heat output by running the SoC at just 100Mhz instead of the default 400Mhz/ 800Mhz. Until recently, installation of the community firmware required you to have a firm understanding of the command line and ADB. Now, however, the process has been completely streamlined and achievable via fwupd, and from a GUI no less. I decided to try the process on my own hardware running DanctNIX Arch Linux. The process is as simple as opening up the GNOME software centre, searching for “Firmware” and downloading the GUI utility. Upon launching the Firmware utility the Quectel modem is automatically listed as eligible for firmware updates. Tapping the modem provides information about the current vendor firmware, vendor ID as well as many other information. Scrolling down reveals available releases from Biktor. The installation is as simple as tapping the chosen release, reading the precaution popup, and agreeing to proceed with the installation. The installation takes approximately 10 minutes, and at the end of which the phone needs to be rebooted.

Note: This image preview protects your privacy. Click to load the video from the Google servers.

Installing modem firmware using GUI - via Martijn Braam

I have now run Biktors firmware for a handful of days and I am very pleased with its performance. I can tell that the phone as a whole runs considerably cooler and the additional quirks it offers are fun to toy with. I also haven’t experienced any issues with LTE, GPS, making and receiving calls nor with sending or receiving SMS. If anything, on the default firmware I would sometimes experience issues with receiving calls (usually after a few days of the PinePhone running) but as of today, my PinePhone running the community modem firmware hasn’t dropped a single call - at least, not to my knowledge. But Biktor’s firmware has another tangible benefit over its closed-source counterpart: namely, it is more secure and not susceptible to the malware first distributed in December of last year. This is a major boon, especially to all those who are getting a PinePhone (Pro) strictly for privacy and security purposes.

But an open firmware opens an avenue for doing a wide variety of things, some of which are not necessarily related to telephony at all. Indeed, some applications may not even be useful, and only serve as an illustration of what can be achieved when running open source software. One such example is running Doom on the modem, because, ya’ know, everything needs to run Doom. Biktor put together a special (pre)release of the firmware which bundles X11, a VNC server and Chocolate Doom for those of you who wish to try this out. Below you’ll find a short video showing Doom running on the PinePhone’s modem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvLlP6BEPPk

Doom on PinePhone’s modem - original video via Biktor on Twitter

While I can neither recommend nor suggest flashing this community-built modem firmware, I privately think that it clearly serves a purpose and has an application if you reside in a region where unlicensed modem firmware is permissible. From what I can tell, the firmware offers many benefits to PinePhone (Pro) users and no obvious drawbacks. I should also mention that if you attempt flashing your PinePhone (Pro)’s modem firmware and something goes wrong, then neither we nor Biktor bear any responsibility for it. Lastly, I know that Biktor would appreciate help developing this firmware further, making it even more secure and its feature-set more robust, so if you are interested in this project then please consider donating via ko-fi or liberapay, or contribute code.

Lastly I’d also like to mention that the cameras on both the original and Pro versions of the PinePhone have received some major improvements. As I reported last month, thanks in large part to Megi’s efforts, the camera on the PinePhone Pro’s is now functional - although it will take time for it to be incorporated into an application like Megapixels. For the past month Megi has been working on a calibration application for PinePhone Pro’s cameras. In his recent blog post, Megi writes: “I started writing a GTK4 based app that connects to the Pinephone Pro over WiFi and allows to modify parameters inside the sensor and ISP, while monitoring the effects of various correction in real time, inspect histograms for various color components, and in general to experiment with the cameras and the ISP fairly painlessly. This should help with the calibration process as much as possible“. The application also allows live mjpeg streaming over HTTP to as a convenience feature. Megi also explains that he is putting a lot of time into the design of the UI controls and CPU optimisation, so that the application is both cognitively ergonomic and only utilizing a single core for a lag-free experience. Ultimately, the goal of his efforts are to make it easier for end-user applications, such as Megapixels, to properly calibrate and incorporate his code.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/H-S8F5zAUAY

Streaming video via the PinePhone Pro application app - via Megi’s blog

On the subject of Megapixels, Martijn Braam released a video showcasing new post-processing modes that will soon be included into Megapixels. Users will now be able to manually select from three different post-processing modes: the original mode (currently available), single and stacked. The new post-processing modes are not only much faster, but they also result in much nicer, richer and more natural photographs on the original PinePhone. Taking photographs is one of a smartphone’s core features, and the picture quality on the original PinePhone has just received a major ‘bump’. This is something all PinePhone users ought to be looking out for.

First image: old camera post processing / Second image: new camera post processing - via Martijn Braam on Twitter

PineNote

It has been some time since I wrote about the PineNote. This is partly because much of the work at this point centers around the e-paper display. But let me back up a little bit. The PineNote has benefited from all the progress made on the Quartz64 platform. In case you missed it, I described Quartz64 progress back in March and in last month’s update; much work has gone into making the RK3566 platform functional, and with patches being upstreamed a sizable portion of the core functionality is now available in mainline Linux. In other words, the basis upon which the PineNote is built is in good shape. However, the PineNote is not a single board computer and it also doesn’t rely on a traditional video output. The first breakthrough for the PineNote came in January of this year, when developers managed to initiate the e-paper display under non-BSP Linux. Since January much of the work concerning the PineNote centered around making the e-paper display more usable. Whilst the PineNote could display images for some time now, the refresh rate remained very low thereby limiting its scope of usability. The other issue with a very slow refresh rate is that it makes it impossible to write on the PineNote - negating one of the devices main features and selling points.

Note: This image preview protects your privacy. Click to load the video from the Google servers.

DOOM on PineNote - via Danct12

But this is about to change. Recent breakthroughs by Smaeul and Maximilian, as well as other developers, bring us much closer to realising the dream of a fully open and well supported e-paper device. The PineNote can now use the A2 waveform which allows for fast transitions between black and white on e-paper; for those who like me are uneducated in this matter, you can think of it as a very fast local refresh rate, for instance just under the tip of the stylus. But that’s not all. Smaeul has also been working on a global refresh mode (entire panel, not local), which only refreshes ‘damaged’, or altered, sections rather than the entirety of the panel. As he explained, this leads to a dramatic reduction in memory bandwidth requirements. Referring to the video I am embedding below, Smaeul writes: “ Global refreshes with diff mode turned off for clarity (…) I’ve configured the window registers so only the damaged portion of the screen (the flashing part) gets read from DRAM. (…) We could add some heuristic to switch to a global refresh if a large enough portion of the screen is damaged. Since global refreshes only use 2 buffers instead of 3, this would minimize the peak memory bandwidth_”._

Note: This image preview protects your privacy. Click to load the video from the Google servers.

Video showcasing the A2 waveform in Smaeul’s driver - video shared in chat

I also had an opportunity to talk to Maximilian, who showcased his build of Debian bookworm/sid with GNOME running under Wayland. This build runs a slightly modified version of Smaeul’s e-paper ebc driver with tweaks to the system configuration. Maximilian explained that his tweaks reduce artifacts and auto refresh, and force the driver to only output black and white pixels so that the A2 waveform can be used without dealing with colors and text rendering issues. The result? Smooth pen input and, from what I can tell, near flawless writing tested for example in a default and unchanged LibreOffice, which ships with Debian.

As you can see in the video from the user hrdl below, writing in a regular Linux on the PineNote (in Xournal++ with just two minor patches and configuration tweaks) does not only look viable but downright great. It is one thing to describe it and a different thing to see it, so below I am attaching the example video of handwriting using an EMR Pen in a pretty standard Linux installation on the PineNote.

Note: This image preview protects your privacy. Click to load the video from the Google servers.

What the PineNote now needs is a default Linux distribution and user interface to ship. The OS doesn’t need to be polished, nor flawless, all it needs to be Linux with all the device’s core capabilities enabled. Marek and I will be talking to PineNote developers and partner projects in the coming weeks in a hope to work out an arrangement so that the PineNote can finally ship with Linux preinstalled. Here is the take-away from this section: we (and by ‘we’, I actually mean the devoted developers) are getting closer to realising the dream of an e-paper device running regular Linux, with a regular desktop, which allows you to do regular computational things on the device.

That is all for this month’s update, catch you all in July!

December update: a year in review

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Seasonal greetings from the PINE64 community team! In the last community update of 2021 we’ll take a look at progress made this year and discuss potential avenues to explore in 2022.

As far as news is concerned, we are happy to let you know that the PinePhone Pro Explorer Edition and PinePhone Pro keyboard production is steaming ahead with units available soon.

Let’s get into it.

You can watch the synopsis of this month’s community update on YouTube (embedded below) as well as on Odysee and PeerTube. To stay up-to-date with PINE64 news make sure to subscribe to this blog (subscription widget at the bottom of the webpage), follow PINE64 Telegram News channel, the announcements channel in Discord as well as our Twitter and Mastodon.

I’d like to thank JF, Alex (clover), Brian (33YN2), PizzaLovingNerd, CounterPillow and Marek (Gamiee) for their contributions to this community update.

N.B. Comments on the blog post need to be in English and follow our Community Rules and Code of Conduct.

Note: This image preview protects your privacy. Click to load the video from the Google servers.

Video synopsis of this month’s update

TL;DR

Housekeeping
- Merry Christmas everyone!
- PineTalk recorder live on December 15 - listen and join us after the show
- Serious incident with malware made for the PinePhone; a run-down of what happened and steps taken
A look back at 2021
- Component shortages, logistics hurdles and brown-outs; a difficult year to manufacture and introduce new hardware to the market
- Introduction of Quartz64-line of devices, including the PineNote
- Crucial year for laying foundations for PineDio LoRa devices and peripherals
- The introduction of the PinePhone Pro
- High LCD prices stalled Pinebook Pro and PineTab production for much of the year
A sneak peak at 2022
- The RK3588 will be announced at Rockchip’s event tomorrow and it’s looking great
- We’re pushing to bring PineDio to the Market ASAP; this is our main goal for early 2022
- A small, but super cool, mystery project will be announced in Q1
- We are interesting in exploring RISC-V architecture; something we may tackle in 2022, if production / component availability permits
PinePhone Pro
- Developers have been getting their PinePhone Pro (PPP) over the past 2 weeks; positive response and good software progress means we’re proceeding With PPP Explorer Edition
- Explorer Edition edition available soon for $399
- Great software progress: modem, voice calls, LTE data, audio output, torch and LED all work now
- OS images available include: postmarketOS, Manjaro, DanctNIX (Arch), Mobian and NixOS
- Small spec-bump since announcement - production PPPs have a higher resolution 8MP front-facing camera
PinePhone (Pro) hardware
- Keyboard is in production and should be available in a few weeks, likely in early January
- PineDio LoRa back case will be in Pine Store soon; thanks to efforts from devs it now works
- Fingerprint back case progress made and QA OS image for factory delivered; likely release in Q1 2022
PinePhone (Pro) software
- KDE Plasma Mobile 21.12 release brings a change from Ofono to ModemManager
- Plasma Mobile’s new release includes many new UI improvements and resolves some pesky bugs
Quartz64
- Linux 5.15 brings Quartz64 device tree
- Quartz64 now outputs video via HDMI at 1080p 60hz for now; audio out via SPDIF also works out of the box
- GPU works using the Panforst open driver
- Tianocore EDK II implemented and allows for full UEFI
PineTime
- Car game utilizes PineTime accelerometer for steering; awesome demo of the device’s hackability
- Many features coming to InfiniTime: BLE bonding with a PIN code to establish encrypted secure communication with the smartphone (or computer)
- BLE filesystem API allows access to the PineTime’s internal filesystem via BLE
PineDio
- PinePhone PineDio LoRa back case works and can receive messages from other devices
- PineDio PinePhone back case is coming to the Pine Store soon
- Work carried out on new PineDio STACK prototypes
PineCube
- Work on reverse engineering the H.264 encoder driver for the PineCube SoC underway
- A new closed-source H.264 driver works with the mainline kernel; can be used in the meantime

Housekeeping

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the projects in 2021. I particularly want to thank our admins, Matthew (Fire219) and Marek (Gamiee), for their work. For those who don’t know, they are the people who put out the occasional fires and make sure that the cogs of the project keep turning. And a big shout-out to the moderators, who are doing a great job keeping our communication protocols clutter-free and safe. I also want to thank all of our partner projects - Manjaro and KDE in particular - for their work on our devices and their commitment to our shared community. I cannot forget about all the contributors, whom there are too many to mention individually, that make projects such as the PinePhone (Pro), the PineTime, and PineDio possible. Lastly, I want to thank all of you in the community for actively supporting us - I hope we did right by you yet another year. My best wishes to everyone - have a great holiday season.

This month’s PineTalk will be recorded live on December 15th. Brian (33YN2) and Justin (Porky) will be using the ‘stage’ feature on Discord, found at the bottom of the server’s channel list. I encourage you all to join in, ask questions and stick around afterwards for a chat with the hosts and other community members. In case you miss it, the episode will be available in an edited format a few days later on the podcast streaming platform of your choice, as per usual.

Notification about the malware was issued in the News channels and in the chat platform - top: Telegram // bottom: Discord

Lastly, I want to address a serious issue that transpired last week. A malware was shared in the chats, with the perpetrator claiming that it is a snake-type game and asking people for feedback. The malware has been made specifically for the PinePhone, wiping the phone’s file system and targeting a known vulnerability of the vendor’s modem firmware. It is important for me to note that the malware requires you to manually download and install it using root privileges (sudo). Here is a short run-down of what we did to mitigate and investigate this situation:

Removed malware from chat and banned offending account(s) on more than one occasion
Carried out an internal investigation of the incident
Consulted Hacker Fantastic from Hacker House and received further assistance as well as a suggested course of action
Secured website(s), the forum and Wiki; this includes more stringent rules for file uploads and additional screening of packages
Deployed mitigating countermeasures to the chats and other communication protocols
Notified our user base
Having gathered the necessary information, authorities were informed of the incident - a formal investigation is underway and involves two law enforcement agencies

I am not going to go into more detail at this time, but I will keep you informed once the case reaches an end. What I will say is that we have good reasons to believe we can bring this to a satisfying conclusion. Before I head onto the next section, let me state the obvious: be cautious when installing software from unknown repositories onto your device.

A look back at 2021

This was a gratifying but difficult year. At the beginning of the year, we initially believed that the worst was already behind us. As it turned out, however, 2021 proved to be even more challenging than last year. Component shortages, price-hikes of electronic parts, shipping hurdles caused by ongoing pandemic mitigation strategies, and production difficulties caused by state-imposed power consumption limits; are just some of the things we had to tackle this year. The circumstances forced us to prioritize and focus on the things that we could actually deliver. Although this may seem like a straightforward strategy to adopt, in reality it wasn’t. Figuring out what will be available, how much it will cost, and where it can be manufactured, was a complex jigsaw to solve. Regardless of the circumstances, there was a sense that we need to press on rather than wait until things take a turn for the better. With the year 2022 looking only marginally better than 2021, I think this was a painful but good strategy, as waiting it out is clearly not an option.

As if component shortages and pandemic mitigation measures weren’t enough to cripple production …

Three decisions were made early on in the year: to introduce single board computers and devices based on the RK3566, to start working on our own LoRa-based communication platform, and to bring a higher-end PinePhone to the market. The Quartz64 model-A was unveiled in February and was made available two months later. In June we introduced the SOQuartz compute module, which started shipping to developers and early adopters just recently. Both devices were met with much interest (I’d go as far as to say that the SOQuartz is very popular) and software enablement for the platform is proceeding quickly. The promising pace of software development also convinced us that now is the right time to introduce the PineNote - an e-ink device based on the Quartz64-line of single-board computers. PineNote’s announcement is something many in our community have waited years for and, with the RK3566 SoC being a perfect fit for the job, we launched production.

An adapter for the MNT Reform laptop with SOQuartz installed (our best wishes to Lukas and the team) - picture via MNT Reform Twitter

This year we also announced our plan for a LoRa-based communication platform called PineDio, which will allow all of our devices to communicate over vast distances without the need for a GSM/CDMA modem. We have a long-term commitment to the PineDio ecosystem, and I’ll talk more about it in the following section, but suffice to say I am very impressed by the progress made this year; I am looking forward to seeing PineDio deployed across the globe.

Lup Yuen Lee documents in detail PineDio development on his blog - picture via Lup’s Twitter

Last, but certainly not least, we announced the PinePhone Pro in October this year. This is certainly one of the most anticipated devices we’ve created. We worked on the PinePhone Pro for over a year prior to making the announcement, and the process of bringing it to the market was no simple feat. We tried at least three different hardware configurations before settling on the final device design. Hardware development proved particularly difficult due to various components drifting in-and-out of availability - making it hard to determine production viability in 9 month’s time. Uncertainty was high throughout the process and the decision to proceed with production was made just a month prior to the announcement. Only once all components and factory floor-time were secured did we feel like it was safe to launch the PinePhone Pro. One benefit of these circumstances is that it has only been 2 months since the announcement, and we have already shipped units to developers, and will be shipping the Explorer Edition in just a few short weeks.

One out of many PinePhone Pros in the wild - source on Twitter

Concluding this section, and for the sake of diligence and fairness, it is also important to note that we didn’t manage to produce more than a single production run of the Pinebook Pro this year. The reason for the prolonged halt in Pinebook Pro and PineTab production is related to the elevated price-point of LCD panels. Even with the current price increase of the laptop, we could not cover the production and assembly costs with a good quality LCD (something that the Pinebook Pro is known for). The price of LCD panels has remained high throughout the year but recently we saw some indications that prices may gradually start coming down; this makes us cautiously hopeful that production can resume soon after the Chinese New Year. To this end I want to make it clear to everyone - the Pinebook Pro, in its current configuration, will keep on being produced, and production will start as soon as we can source panels at a reasonable price. I’ll write more about this in the next section.

A sneak peek at 2022

The year 2022 will be, by and large, all about the PinePhone Pro and the Quartz-line of devices. By this time next year - granted no disaster strikes - there ought to be (tens of) thousands of active PinePhone Pro users worldwide as well as a significant number of PineNote testers and developers. We also hope to bring back the Pinebook Pro and PineTab after the Chinese New Year that is celebrated at the start of February 2022. LCD prices have been coming down in price steadily these past months and we expect to see broader availability of affordable panels soon. We are looking forward to having the Pinebook Pro and the PineTab in stock just as much as you do. Lastly, Rockchip will finally be introducing the RK3588 on December 16th (which means I can’t write about it on the day the update goes live - sorry), which will most certainly be of interest to us. What I will say is that it will bring entry-level desktop-class Arm CPU performance and plenty of IO options; keep a lookout for press coverage of Rockchip’s event.

keep an eye on Rockchip’s press release website

While the prospect of a high-end computational device is certainly exciting, it also isn’t at the top of our to-do list. Something that is on our agenda however, is launching our LoRa range of PineDio devices. JF and Lup, as well as a handful of other developers, have been working on the PineDio gateway and device nodes for much of this year. Thanks to their efforts (most of which have been well documented in the community updates) the PineDio platform has now reached a significant degree of maturity. RTP has recently contributed a dedicated Armbian-based build for the PineDio gateway, which makes the initial setup and operation simple. I don’t currently have any firm dates for the roll-out, but we should have a preliminary timeline established by the end of next month.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bustSeT2QEg

A look at the PineDio gateway OS image - via RTP Privacy Tech Tips on Youtube

At the start of 2022, we will also be introducing a cool small project into our lineup. Let me first clarify what ‘small’ means in this context: a small project is limited in scope and completely community-driven. Examples of such existing PINE64 projects include the Pinecil and PineTime. Small projects benefit from two things: 1) software for them can be completed to a high degree of satisfaction in a short(er) period of time; 2) and we can do them better than big brands for less. The Pinecil, in particular, has shown that we can upset a stagnant market by introducing a better and open device for half the price of existing options. This time, however, we’re hoping to bring something that can be enjoyed by enthusiasts and mainstream customers alike. It will be the first open device of its kind (to my knowledge) and we’re making it from the ground up with the help of experts. There will also be a dev board for it, which will likely be released at the same time as the device itself. This is all I can say right now, but an announcement should follow in Q1 2022.

Another area we wish to explore next year is RISC-V. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that RISC-V SoCs are of interest to us, as we have already spoken about plans for an entry-level RISC-V SBC in the past. While our plans to use Allwinner’s RISC-V SoC stalled, our curiosity in the platform has not waned. We’re interested in both microcontrollers as well as much more powerful Linux-capable SoCs, and we are already drawing up plans on how each type can be used in novel and innovative ways. As is usually the case, the journey will likely begin with a development platform and eventually make its way into enthusiast-grade devices. These devices will likely not appear anytime soon, however, so don’t hold your breath. In any case, if the supply line and component shortages subside, we’ll surely be taking a close look at what RISC-V can offer the PINE64 community.

Lastly, we will be working towards improving the global shipping times of the most popular devices. I don’t want to make any promises at this point - I just wanted to let you know that we’re exploring an option that would potentially allow us to ship globally regularly. We’ll start slowly, probably with the PineNote, due to the relatively lower volume of sales compared to our smartphones and laptops. If the dispatch option turns out to work well, then we may start using it for other devices. We’ll also await your feedback. I’ll make sure to keep you posted.

PinePhone Pro

By the time this update goes live, you will likely have already seen countless developers posting photographs and videos of their PinePhone Pro units. The task of sorting, issuing and shipping developer’s orders was carried out within the time frame we initially aimed for. I am happy to report that much of the early feedback has been very positive: developers find the unit fast, easy to work with, and well-executed. It also appears there are no major flaws in the design. We are, therefore (still) aiming to open PinePhone Pro sales late this month or early the next. The price of the Explorer Edition remains unchanged - $399. The exact availability date will depend on how quickly we can establish a viable QA testing methodology at the factory; QA testing hurdles make for a boring story so I’m not going to describe the ordeal, but if you want to learn more then leave a comment below and I’ll respond with the details. The take-away is that it shouldn’t be long now. I will publish a blog post when the PinePhone Pro becomes available for purchase. The Explorer Edition launch blog entry will include detailed information about the device and software maturity so that everyone ordering a unit will know exactly what they’re getting (into). I don’t want people expecting full functionality picking up a PinePhone Pro at this time, instead, I‘d like to see well-informed early adopters who are willing to engage with the community and contribute to the development process.

Porting of OSes has started - screenshot of Software Releases section on Wiki

If you fall into the category of a competent early adopter, then I am glad to say you’re in for a treat. Last month I listed 5 things needed to reach software parity with the original PinePhone - today we can already cross 3 of these off the list. The following are now functional: 1) USB for data and video, 2) sound output and, 3) modem including voice calls. Credit for these enablements go to A-Wai from Mobian and Megi; obviously, neither of them develops in a vacuum, and input from other developers contributed to these features now being functional. Even little things, such as the torch or notification LED now work. Mind you, these implementations are in a preliminary enablement stage, and regressions are to be expected at this development stage. More importantly, however, this means that the main outstanding missing core features are the cameras and power management improvements. The latter also includes finding a solution for the smartphone’s failure to wake from suspend. There are other, smaller, issues that need to be addressed, but from an end-user perspective, these are the major two.

Note: This image preview protects your privacy. Click to load the video from the Google servers.

Audio now works on the PinePhone Pro - via Manjaro dev team

There are now postmarketOS, Mobian, Manjaro, DanctNIX (Arch) as well as NixOS OS images for the PinePhone Pro. Some of these can be found on the PinePhone Pro docs, whilst others - like Mobian - are yet to be added to the list (but can already be found on the project’s repositories). I am sure that more OSes will follow shortly - indeed, some may already be available by the time you’re reading this. As was, as still is to some degree, the case with the original PinePhone, there will initially be discrepancies between functionality across distributions. Things that work on one OS will not work on another and vice versa. These differences will eventually fade and a similar experience will be available across the board. But this will take time. I have been using my PinePhone Pro daily for over a month now, mostly running Manjaro with KDE Plasma Mobile, and I can see myself dumping my Android in the future (once resuming from suspend works). Needless to say, I am very pleased with the software progress and the hardware itself. My assessment is obviously biased, but thankfully there are already plenty of hands-on accounts available for you to make your own mind up whether this is your future daily driver or not. Some devs already do really fun things with the device to showcase its raw power, as illustrated by the emulation of GameCube. Honestly, this exceeded my expectations.

Note: This image preview protects your privacy. Click to load the video from the Google servers.

GameCube (Dolphin) emulation on the PinePhone Pro is pretty crazy - via FOSSingularity on Twitter

There is one more thing I’d like to touch upon - the final design of the PinePhone will feature a higher-end (8MP) front-facing camera than originally (5MP) planned. The rest of the specs remain the same, just as they were initially announced. This is a small and likely relatively insignificant spec bump, but it is also something I have to make you aware of. Information on the device page and Wiki should now also be updated to reflect the upgraded hardware. For those of you who want the specifics: the camera is an ov8858 8MP 1/4-inch sensor, known to produce good quality pictures. Anticipating the question: yes, the current dev units already have this camera module installed. I am told that it is a significant step-up from the sensor (OG PinePhone’s main camera) in every sense of the word - consider it a small bonus.

Lastly, I have put in some initial work to draft a Wiki layout for the PinePhone Pro (which I closely modeled after the original PinePhone’s Wiki), and I am happy to see people already contributing content. I would like to encourage all of you who have already received their PinePhone Pro and those who will soon be receiving one soon to fill in as many outstanding information knowledge blind spots as possible. Anyone can create a Wiki account and contribute content to any section, and if you are registered on the forum your existing credentials should work. The more of the basics we can collectively cover at this early stage, the better the experience Explorer Edition users will have with their devices. Thank you!

PinePhone (Pro) hardware

The PinePhone keyboard and LoRa PineDio back case will be available in the Pine Store shortly - likely at the very beginning of January. I already described the reasons why the keyboard was delayed at the last moment in the November update; long story short, both the developers and production team weren’t completely satisfied with the keyboard’s membrane. Consequently, the vendor was asked to improve the responsiveness and consistency of the key presses. Given how the keyboard has now already been in prototyping and testing for over 6 months, another few weeks to get it just right is a small price to pay to deliver a better piece of hardware. And we really want to get it right from the get-go rather than having to revisit design choices in the future. That said, I do apologize for the delay, and I am very aware that many of you are growing impatient. The good news is that we’re having many keyboard units manufactured, so the chance of us selling out in a very short amount of time is slim to none. In other words, everyone who wants one will be able to pick one up. DanctNIX (Arch), postmarketOS, Manjaro, and Megi’s multiboot OS images have all been updated to support the keyboard at this time - there may be others that I’m not aware of, please check with your OS maintainer.

Note: This image preview protects your privacy. Click to load the video from the Google servers.

p-boot now has portrait mode - via Megi

The PineDio back case is now functional thanks to work done by JF and Lup. It will be available in the Pine Store soon, as early as next week. I won’t be writing more about the PineDio back case in this section, since I am sure JF will cover the key developments further down in this community update (you may also want to read last month’s update for more PineDio news). I am super thrilled that the back case will be available by the time the PineDio gateway hits the store. Since we’re on the topic of back cases, then I am also happy to report we’ve also made progress on the fingerprint back case. Zachary, the community developer behind the first fingerprint reader prototype, delivered a custom QA fingerprint sensor testing OS image to be used at the factory floor; if the factory finds this build sufficient for testing purposes then we may finally see the fingerprint reader back case launch in Q1, 2022.

PinePhone (Pro) Software [by 33YN2]

Plasma Mobile has seen some major changes that have now been released in the Plasma Mobile Gear 21.12 release. The biggest is that it now has fully switched over to using ModemManager for telephony functionality. It also now has support for MMS messages in its SMS app, and additionally the SMS application now automatically detects links and 2FA codes and gives a copy shortcut to quickly copy them to your clipboard. Aside from the telephony changes, the shell itself has seen lots of work. Not only will the buttons now move to the right-hand side of the display when the device is rotated into landscape mode, but it also now has the new list view app drawer layout. The task switcher has also seen a major redesign, with a more efficient card style similar to that which is used by Lomiri. This is far from the end, however, there are more improvements and fixes coming for the new task switcher, and more to be done to the shell too. Make sure to check out the Plasma Mobile Gear 21.12 blog post for a more detailed look!

Note: This image preview protects your privacy. Click to load the video from the Google servers.

Showcasing performance of an early build of Manjaro with Plasma Mobile on PinePhone Pro

Quartz64 [by CounterPillow****]

A lot has happened this past month in terms of Quartz64 software. Linux 5.16 finally has the Quartz64 Model A device tree, which describes the Quartz64 Model A’s hardware and allows the mainline kernel to actually boot on the board completely out of the box, without patching needed. But the biggest news is probably the VOP2 patch set, enabling video output on the RK356x family of SoCs, of which the Quartz64 uses the RK3566. It’s in a very rough state; its internal state tracking logic is broken, the frame presentation is buggy, and it only supports 1080p monitors at 60 Hz at the moment, but it’s great to finally see movement on this front.

HDMI output on Quartz64 model-A

The patch set comes courtesy of Sascha Hauer, whose work is based on the downstream Rockchip BSP kernel’s driver. A small follow-up patch by Michael Riesch to enable it on the Quartz64 Model A has also been contributed. Both Manjaro and pgwipeout’s CI Debian installer already have the patch set applied, which allows people who are interested in the board to have a go at it without having to patch their own kernel. We still recommend you have a UART adapter such as PINE’s Woodpecker to troubleshoot any issues. It’s only $1.99. Don’t have regrets.

In terms of booting, Jared McNeill ported Tianocore EDK II to the Quartz64 Model A, which means that there is now full UEFI available. The port is still in an early stage, but it’s an exciting move towards getting the board ARM SystemReady certified. The port still requires Rockchip’s firmware blobs, however, as Rockchip has yet to release the ARM Trusted Firmware sources for the RK3566 and RK3568. At the same time, pgwipeout has begun tinkering with mainline u-boot. Albeit there is some manual hackery and binary blobs involved, he managed to get mainline u-boot running. This is another promising route towards a better booting experience on the board. He also experimentally ported the mkimage utility changes over to the mainline version.

VM on the Quartz64 - via Jared McNeill on Twitter

As for the Linux kernel, I have been doing a bunch of small work here and there. SPDIF audio works in kernel 5.16 right out of the box on the Quartz64, if you’re into that. Analog audio works as well, thanks to the i2s-tdm audio controller driver I’ve ported. As soon as the VOP2 patch set dropped, I also got to work on HDMI audio, which works, but isn’t merged yet because the VOP2 patches aren’t merged either. We depend on the HDMI output and a video clock to get HDMI audio, so there’s a dependency on that patch set. Additionally, I submitted the SPI nodes to the RK356x device tree, which means that starting with kernel 5.17, people will be able to simply enable the SPI node in the Quartz64 device tree and add their SPI device definitions to it.

Rockchip’s engineers have been very busy with unspecified other projects, but they have submitted some patches to the Linux kernel as well. The naneng combo PHY, which handles the physical interface for SATA, USB 3, and PCIe, has been submitted for review by Yifeng Zhao and is currently in its third iteration. pgwipeout’s Quartz64 CI kernel has this patch set applied too. Sugar Zhang of Rockchip has also contributed some SPDIF driver updates to make it work with the newer Rockchip SoCs.

Note: This image preview protects your privacy. Click to load the video from the Google servers.

Slightly patched kmscube showing a shadertoy shader

Oh, did I mention yet that the GPU works? Yes, the GPU works. Alex Bee took over Ezequiel Garcia’s GPU enabling patch set, and with a recent enough version of Mesa, you’ll have working 3D acceleration. It can even thermally throttle now, in theory, but in practice, the GPU doesn’t really get hot enough. In my stress tests with a medium heatsink on the device, the GPU never got hotter than 45°C (around 25°C over ambient.) Thanks to the VOP2 patch set, a couple of bugs have been found in other drivers. Alex Bee discovered a bug in the IOMMU driver that made video output fail on 8GB boards. This was fixed during the Linux 5.16 bug fixing cycle, so now the video output will work on all Quartz64 boards, no matter the amount of RAM.

I’ve also discovered a bug while working on the VOP2-prompted HDMI audio patch set, namely that my i2s-tdm audio controller driver wasn’t happy being loaded multiple times. Oops. I’ve fixed this in Linux 5.16. Many of these improvements will of course affect the PineNote, as it uses the same SoC: if somebody adds something to the RK356x device tree, it’ll also be available to the PineNote device tree that smaeul wrote.

As always, you can track our continued progress on the Quartz64 Development Wiki page which I try to keep as accurate and up to date as possible.

PineTime [by JF]

Remember when last month I mentioned this nice demo from Petterhs, showing him controlling a 3D object using the motion sensor of the PineTime? Peter has now extended this demo which now allows him to control a car in a car racing game. I really enjoy such demos, since they showcase how hackable PineTime is and how endless the possibilities are!

Note: This image preview protects your privacy. Click to load the video from the Google servers.

PineTime as a game controller

InfiniTime developers and contributors are working on a few great features for the project. I won’t go into the details right now since we are still working on them, but here is an overview of what you can expect in future releases of InfiniTime.

First, the secure BLE bond. This feature, contributed by evergreen-22, enables BLE bonding with a PIN code that establishes a secured (encrypted) communication. I did check that the communication was actually encrypted using my sniffer setup. The screenshot below on the left shows a “sniffing” session from a PineTime running InfiniTime 1.7.1. As you can see, everything is visible in plain text: BLE commands, characteristic handles and notification content (“Hello world”). The screenshot to the right shows the same scenario but running on a build which includes this new feature. Now we no longer can make out of the content of the BLE messages:

Left: unencrypted connection // Right: encrypted connection

The next massive feature is the **BLE filesystem API**. Geekbozu implemented this API which allows companion apps to access the internal filesystem of InfiniTime. For now, this filesystem is only used to store user settings, but the end goal is to also store pictures, logos, fonts, translations, and much more in the memory. This feature is a major step toward reaching this goal. As a demo, I sent multiple random pictures to my developer PineTime and used them in a custom build of InfiniTime as the background of my clock:

Background pictures set via BLE filesystem API

Note that those features are not stable yet, and therefore we have not released them in a public version of InfiniTime. They are however available in the develop branch of the project and everyone is free (and welcome) to test them and provide feedback!

That’s it for this month! I wish everyone a Merry Christmas, a happy new year, and happy unboxing for those of you who’ll receive a PineTime as a Christmas gift!

PineDio [by JF]

As you probably know, the PineDio range of devices aims to deploy LoRa (Long Range low-power wireless communication) everywhere and across all PINE64 hardware . We have already talked about the LoRa PineDio gateway, the USB adapter, and the PineDio STACK (development kit based on the BL604 microcontroller) in previous updates.

Did you know that Pine64 is also working on a LoRa backplate for the Pinephone? This backplate will allow the Pinephone to send and receive LoRa messages thanks to the integrated LoRa module and antenna.

PinePhone (Pro) PineDio back case disassembled - a close took at the LoRa antenna

These last few weeks I worked on bringing this backplate up and running, and succeeded in receiving LoRa messages from other LoRa devices. This is still mostly a work in progress, but it clearly shows that the integration of LoRa in a mobile phone running Linux is possible and, indeed, already functional! For those interested in the technical details, I documented everything in this series of 3 articles: First look at the LoRa backplate, Flashing the LoRa backplate and A driver for the LoRa backplate.

See the video here

Receiving LoRa messages on the PinePhone with PineDio back case

Note that the LoRa backplate is not available yet in the store, but Pine64 is actively working on it and even requested software to test the board in production, so they will probably be available in the near future! [edit from Lukasz] Indeed, with the software now in a functional state, we will be starting to sell the PineDio back case for the PinePhone and PinePhone Pro in the next few weeks.

On a similar topic, Lup Yuen Lee is currently working on bringing NuttX to the PineDio STACK. He also documented the testing of the new prototype version of the STACK we received last month. This new prototype comes in an enclosure and is equipped with GPS and a motion sensor in addition to a display and a LoRa module.

PineCube [by Gamiee]

As we have seen in previous community updates, the PineCube is already very usable with software MJPEG encoding. But it’s still not perfect, since software MJPEG encoding uses a lot of CPU power and, but to the PineCube’s single ARM Cortex-A7 core, not much power is left to other things. Because of this, PineCube’s SoC has a hardware H.264 encoder core, which can encode video with minimal impact on the CPU. But for this core to be functional we need a driver. The current driver is closed sourced and doesn’t work with the mainline Linux kernel; it only works with ancient Linux 3.10 kernel. So I started to reverse-engineer this driver, and I’m creating an open-source implementation of it; you can track the progress of this project and learn more about it here.

While I was working on this project I learned a lot about how the whole driver and encoding core works. But I also found newer drivers, which can work on the mainline kernel with some modifications. So I modified and built the latest Linux 5.15 kernel, prepared the Debian root filesystem, and tried to see if the drivers would work. And it did!

PineCube running mainline Linux kernel

So in the meantime, while I work on an open-source re-implementation of the driver, the PineCube can have hardware accelerated H.264 encoder using a modified closed source driver. Since I didn’t have enough time to test it fully it remains uncertain if popular libraries like FFmpeg or GStreamer will be capable of using this driver, but it should work and I will let you know in the next community update about the progress made.

That’s it for this month, Happy Holidays everyone!

RISC-V SBC Riddle

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The riddle has been solved by DALTON. I’ll be contacting the winner in the coming days.

Thank you to everyone who played along!

The correct answer is: PINEONE

In the event you’re interested, you can learn more about this and previous riddles here.

It is time for a bit of community fun. Below you’ll find a riddle, or a cypher to be precise, pertaining to the name of our upcoming affordable RISC-V single board computer (SBC) announced in the February community update.

The previous riddles were solved in a matter of hours, so I put in a bit more effort into crafting this one.

Correctly deciphering the riddle will reveal the name of the SBC - please enter your answer in the comments section. Only answers submitted on this blog post will count, as they are time-stamped, which makes it easy to verify who was first. You get bonus points if you explain how you arrived at your answer.

The person to solve the riddle first will win the RISC-V single board computer*.

Latin slant

Under the scorching sun

An old Roman senator sat

Studying it all

And slowly came to realize that

He bears witness to the empire’s fall

And so began his intricate plan

For the imminent end

So savage and so cruel

Was this strive to mend

It lay waste to the Roman rule

_*****The winner will receive the first production version of the SBC. Prototype devices destined for developers will ship first. _

The Pine Store cannot ship to countries under international embargo (North Korea, Iran, etc.,).

February Update: Show and Tell

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to this month’s community update. As many of you know, we have now entered the Chinese New Year (CNY) period, which means that all manufacturing and related business activities have ground to a halt. It is always a mad rush to complete ongoing work prior to CNY, but now that the festive period is upon us we get a chance to catch our breath and evaluate the progress made.

In this month’s update we’re going to take a close look at the Quartz64 model-A, showcase headway made on the PinePhone keyboard, discuss our first RISC-V single board computer and introduce plans for making LoRaWAN a staple of the PINE64 ecosystem.

You can watch the synopsis of this month’s community update on Youtube (embedded below) as well as on LBRY and Peertube. Stay up-to-date with PINE64 news and make sure to subscribe to this blog (subscription widget at the bottom of the webpage), follow PINE64 Telegram News channel as well as our Twitter and Mastodon.

I’d like to acknowledge JF, Marek (Gamiee), Alex (clover), PizzaLovingNerd, Konrad, Biktor and Dylan for their contributions to this community update. Thank you!

This may just be the most news-packed update since July last year, so strap in for some PINE64-goodness and let’s get to it.

Note: This image preview protects your privacy. Click to load the video from the Google servers.

Video Synopsis by PizzaLovingNerd

TL;DR for this month’s update:

Housekeeping: Two PineTalk episodes are out!
Housekeeping: Pinecil back in stock late Feb/ early March
Housekeeping: Shipping status of PinePhone Mobian CE
Housekeeping: Manufacturing difficulties expected after CNY and for much of Q2/Q3 this year
Quartz64: Detailed specs listed and pictures of the SBC shown
Quartz64: Comparison to ROCKPro64 connectivity & performance
Quartz64: Generic benchmarks on par with most popular SBC on market
Quartz64: More than a stand-alone SBC - a dev platform for future devices
Pinebook Pro: Production resumes in March; pre-orders mid-March
PinePhone pt.1: End of CEs; PinePhone to ship with Plasma Mobile on Manjaro from now on.
PinePhone p.1: A close look at the PP keyboard; fitted with 6000mAh battery
PinePhone p.1: We decided on the keyboard layout with community - the keyboard will be programmable, for those who wish to alter keyboard functionality
PinePhone p.2: Opensourcing the modem - a status report by Biktor, Konrad and Dylan
PinePhone p.2: Modem - work done on kernel 5.11; running open userland on kernel 3.18; making phone calls from open firmware
PinePhone p.2: Expected modem improvements using FOSS firmware
PineTime: 3 versions of InfiniTime released in short succession in last 30 days
PineTime: Blob-less heart rate monitoring working on InfiniTime + improvements to OTA flashing
PineTime: Navigation on PineTime synced to Linux or Android Phone
RISC-V PINE64 SBC: We’re entering the RISC-V SBC game
RISC-V PINE64 SBC: Starting with an entry-level SoC combined with a RISC-V WiFi/BLE currently being opensourced (Nutcracker challenge)
RISC-V PINE64 SBC: Goal to make RISC-V accessible to all at a reasonable price; fun SBC with multiple potential applications; sub $15 SBC
RISC-V PINE64 SBC: Stay tuned for a name reveal via riddle
LoRa & LoRaWAN PINE64 integration: we are doubling down on LoRa integration - coming to all PINE64 devices
LoRa & LoRaWAN PINE64 integration: we will build our own base stations based on next gen technology with better range, lower power consumption & higher transfer-rates
LoRa & LoRaWAN PINE64 integration: Novel use of technology - text-based communication without a middleman

Housekeeping

I want to start by giving Peter and Ezra - our PineTalk Podcast hosts - a huge shutout. They’ve worked really hard on the first two episodes of the podcast and, judging by the number of episode downloads, so far their style has resonated well with the community. In the last episode they spoke to Dalton Durst from UBports, discussed the recent announcement of PinePhone Community Editions coming to a close and answered some questions from the community. PineTalk is now available on all major platforms, including Spotify and Apple’s Podcast app, and I highly encourage you to subscribe to the RSS feed.

Yes, of course, you can listen to PineTalk on your PinePhone too

Over this past month we received a significant amount of feedback concerning the new PINE64 website. This included suggestions on improving the site’s responsiveness, functionality as well as a variety of various minor bugs encountered by community members. As a result, responsiveness has been significantly improved and sections of the site have been reworked to offer a better experience on mobile devices. There is now also a dedicated blog button (honestly, I was surprised to hear people had issues finding the blog on the new site) and the blog itself received some much needed tweaks to improve navigation. A number of fixes were also made to make the page less taxing. Thank you to Gamiee for his continued work on the community site and to all of you who submitted feedback and suggestions.

As I mentioned in the opening bit of this blog entry, CNY is now upon us and there will be no manufacturing or shipping activity until late February. All Pine Store contractors in Malaysia, China and Hong Kong are now enjoying time off with their families and close ones (where permissible, of course, given COVID19 is still rampant). To those of you awaiting a response from the support or info teams, please be aware that you will not receive a reply until after CNY. If you have an urgent query concerning your shipping or order status, i.e., a query which cannot wait, then please reach out to me or one of the moderators in our chats.

I’d like to quickly touch upon the Pinecil’s availability. I get bombarded with questions about when it will be back in stock, so I’m answering the query here: stock will be available again late this month or early the next. Don’t expect it to show up in the store before the end of CNY.

I must say, the Pinecil looks good in red - picture via Dan Lien on Twitter

Before proceeding to the main topic of this month’s housekeeping section, I want to write a few words about the Mobian Community Edition PinePhone shipping status. As some of you are aware, we ran into issues with DHL shipments in late January and early February. Long story short, we effectively had to reship an entire palette of KDE CE PinePhones twice due to a DHL error. This threw a wrench into our schedule; the shipping team worked hard to dispatch as many phones as possible prior to CNY, but unfortunately most Mobian CE units ended up waiting at the warehouse to be shipped to their rightful owners. Only phones destined for Europe were successfully shipped before work ceased. Please follow the dedicated forum thread to stay up to date on the shipment process.

I’d like to finish this housekeeping section by making you aware that difficult times are ahead of us manufacturing-wise. It was a year ago to the day when I first wrote about the impact the COVID19 pandemic would have on the supply chain and manufacturing process in China. I reported on the situation more than a month before any big brand even murmured a word about the severity of the electronics shortages, which we all witnessed mid-and-late last year. You see, big brands don’t really want customers to know that their devices will not be available or in short supply. So here I am, a year later, once again being a bearer of bad news (edit: since originally writing this passage, 10 days ago or so, some reporting of the issues already begun in the media). We expect severe component shortages and major component price hikes after CNY. I am writing this to prepare you for what is to come. Production-wise, we’re entering a difficult phase and compromises will be made - there is no doubt in our minds that the emerging market situation will have a significant negative impact on PINE64. However, the extent of the impact won’t be known for at least an entire month, so let’s not worry too much about the unavoidable and hope for the least disruptive outcome. Keep your fingers crossed! I will, of course, keep you up to date on how things pan out.

Quartz64

It is finally time for us to take a look at Quartz64 model-A, the first installment in our ‘Quartz-line’ of next generation single board computers (SBCs). The doc page for Quartz64 is now available for those of you who wish to study the schematics and datasheets. Keep in mind that photos of the Quartz64 depict a prototype device and some modifications to the hardware may prove necessary prior to the SBC’s release. Any changes made, however, will be very minor at this point and only implemented to remedy issues identified by developers, if such arise. In other words, although this is an engineering sample, production units will look indistinguishable from it. With the board’s layout now finalized, we’re happy to share all the details you’ve been waiting for with you.

Top view of Quartz64 model-A

Many of you will immediately notice the close resemblance, in terms of both the available I/O and general layout, that this board shares with the ROCKPro64. Both boards feature USB 3.0, alongside 2xUSB 2.0 ports and have an open-ended 4xPCIe slot, which can be populated by a variety of peripherals. The similarities don’t end here: the Quartz64 features un-populated IR and SDIO headers (current IR and WiFi/BT modules are compatible), has HDMI capable of 4K output at 60FPS as well as a DSI and CSI output and MiPi interface. There is also 128Mb of onboard SPI flash, just as on the ROCKPro64. The eMMC and mSD card slots too can be found in the exact same position on both boards. There are also FAN, VBAT and 12V power headers, situated in the same model-A layout locations. A RTC connector is also located on the PCB. The 12V header is capable of powering up-to two 2.5" SSDs or HDDs when using our 12v 5A power supply, just as on the ROCKPRo64.

While the SBCs share many similarities, there are some significant differences between the two. For one, as you have likely already spotted, the Quartz64 has a native SATA 6.0 port located right behind the USB ports. The Quartz64 has one USB 3.0 port, while the ROCKPRo64 has one USB 3.0 and one USB-C port. The Quartz64 PCB also features an integrated battery charging circuitry. This means that, similarly to the PINEA64-LTS, the board can be completely battery operated. A unique feature of the Quartz64 is its native e-ink port; as I already mentioned in last month’s update, we hope to have a 10" e-ink panel available in the Pine Store when the SBC releases to the public. Perhaps most importantly of all, Quartz64 is capable of supporting up-to 8GB of LPDDR4 RAM.

Front view of Quartz64 model-A

Back view of Quartz64 model-A

Performance-wise, early testing indicates that the Quartz64, with its 4 cortex A55 cores clocked at 1.8Ghz, is only 15-25% slower in computational tasks than the ROCKPro64. Do keep in mind, however, that the Quartz64 isn’t a Pro-grade PINE64 single board computer. The intended purpose for it is to eventually supersede the PINE A64 and ROCK64, rather than the higher-end ROCKPro64. If anything, the fact that I am comparing a non-Pro next generation SBC to a Pro-grade current generation board should be rather exciting. Lastly, since I know that many of you are curious, the Quartz64 delivers computational performance that is very similar to the most popular single board computer on the market (based on generic benchmarks). Do keep in mind, however, that such benchmarks do not always translate well to real-life tasks, so one board may be superior to another depending on the nature of the scenario. I also ought to mention that from our initial testing, the RK3566 runs really cool - under load, without a heatsink, it rarely spiked above 60*C.

Don’t read too much into these generic benchmarks

Designing the Quartz64, we envisioned that it will serve an additional purpose in the future. Aside from being a stand-alone SBC, it will also be used as a development platform for future non-Pro devices. We have been thinking about democratizing development for some time now, and we intend to start the process with the Quartz64. Creating dedicated development platforms, such as the Don’t Be Evil PinePhone kit, is expensive and time consuming. Such kits also limit the number of people who can participate in the bring-up process, as usually a very limited number of such devices are manufactured. The Quartz64, however, features all the necessary circuitry to start work on a next generation phone, tablet or laptop. Plug a display into the DSI port, a modem into the USB port and add a battery - voila, you’ve got yourself a next-gen phone dev kit. So to those who aren’t usually interested in SBCs in general - it may be worthwhile picking one up and helping the Linux bringing-up process on the RK3566.

Speaking of the bringing-up process, a small number of Quartz64 boards have now been shipped to low-level developers. I am looking forward to seeing how Linux takes shape on this RK3566 platform in the coming months. A major encouraging factor in the bringing-up process is that the Panfrost open source GPU driver ought to ‘just work’ once Linux is brought-up and functional to a point where video output is possible. GPU drivers are always tricky and usually take a long time to open source, so the fact we already have a FOSS GPU for this SoC is a major boon.

Under high load it manages to stay cool, even without a heatsink

It is too early to talk about general availability at this point. A lot will depend on how quickly rudimentary Linux support can be brought to the Quartz64. That said, I place a lot of trust in the developer’s abilities. You can expect an update on Quartz64 in the next community update.

Pinebook Pro

I am happy to let you know that we will be resuming production of the Pinebook Pro shortly after CNY. We were fortunate enough to secure A-grade LCD panels and the necessary RAM (currently in short supply) for the production to begin, and we already have an allocated slot at the factory for the assembly process. I presently do not have a pre-order date for you - that will be announced at a later time. But if you’re interested in picking up a unit then I strongly suggest you follow our Telegram news channel and/or social media for pre-order news (links in the opening paragraph of this post). I know, however, that many of you would appreciate a ballpark idea of when stock will be available, so to this end: based on our current schedule, pre-orders are set to open sometime mid-March 2021.

The Pinebook Pro is now a mature platform with a lot of fun development - image by Clover

PinePhone Part 1

Earlier this month we announced the end of the Community Editions. The Community Edition program was a vital step not only in bringing support to the PinePhone, but also in bringing attention to mobile Linux outside of our immediate bubble. Countless people worldwide were made aware of alternatives to the duopoly of Android and iOS, and I’m sure that we can all agree this is a good thing. This exposure is obviously good for PINE64, but I’d argue that it is equally good for the entire Linux community. Promotion of the Community Edition PinePhones propelled mobile Linux development like nothing else in recent years and gave birth to multiple new projects. With tens of thousands of PinePhones in people’s hands, it is no longer an unlikely possibility that a mainline Linux smartphone will take hold, but rather an inevitable certainty. Before moving on, let me once again thank all the projects and their developers who participated in the Community Edition scheme. You all did a great job.

While the Community Edition program is now closed, we’re working on a plan to actively support mobile Linux projects moving forward. Talks are held with all major projects and we already have some ideas on how to provide developers with ongoing support. Aside from projects which received a Community Edition, we are now also talking to Maemo Leste, LuneOS, openSUSE, DanctNIX and Fedora developers. While we haven’t settled on a means to achieve this type of support just yet, I hope that a part of the strategy will be an introduction of branded back-covers to the Pine Store. In short, the idea is to sell back-covers with projects logos at approx. a $15 price-point, out of which $10 would go towards the donation. I think that this is a good and fun way of supporting development, which provides end-users with a tangible benefit for submitting their donation. It will take a couple of weeks for us to figure this out, or maybe even longer, but once we do arrive at a suitable arrangement I’ll write a dedicated blog entry about it.

At this stage I know many of you are wondering what the future of the PinePhone holds. A question that I frequently receive concerns the default operating system and user interface that will ship on the PinePhone. Today we are very pleased to announce that the PinePhone will ship with Plasma Mobile on a Manjaro ARM base from this point on. We have a long-standing relationship with Manjaro and KDE Community, and both projects have supported us and our efforts since the dawn of PINE64. I’m not sure if I wrote about this publicly in the past, but the promise that Plasma Mobile held in its early stages was the deciding factor for us to proceed with creating a Linux smartphone in the first place. Needless to say, we have been excited to see the UI environment mature and flourish on our platform over the past 12 months. Manjaro is our core partner, offering support for all our flagship Linux devices, including the ROCKPro64 and the Pinebook Pro. Their work on the PinePhone has been indispensable, and their current OS images are among the best and most fully-featured for the platform. Working with both projects on the PinePhone has been a pleasure and I am convinced that together we will reach new heights in the months to come.

Manjaro and Plasma Mobile is just a great combination (picture of widget on main page)

Earlier this month we also received the PinePhone keyboard, perhaps the most anticipated accessory of them all. It literally arrived a week ago from the factory. Looking at the pictures below, those eagle-eyed of you will probably notice the missing key caps. The key caps and the keyboard’s PCB are the two outstanding parts we’re still waiting for - we expect both to be delivered shortly after CNY. The molding is completed however, and has now been submitted to us for review. I’m happy to let you know that our initial impressions are very positive and we’re convinced that you’ll be pleased with it too. Please keep in mind that the pictures are of an early preview unit, and everything you see is a subject to change before they keyboard becomes available in the Pine Store.

PinePhone in the keyboard chassis from the front and side

PinePhone in the keyboard chassis from the side

PinePhone in the keyboard chassis closed top

PinePhone in the keyboard chassis closed bottom

From the very inception of the keyboard design we wanted to include a large battery in the base of the chassis. Aside from the obvious benefit of significantly extending the PinePhones operating time, a large battery also serves as a counter balance to the PinePhone placed in the top section of the keyboard’s body. We wanted to cram as much battery power as possible into the keyboard, and we were lucky to find a 22Wh 6000mAh battery which fits the bill perfectly. From my estimates, the PinePhone fitted with the keyboard will be able to remain in standby mode for nearly a week with the modem active. With the modem disabled, however, it will last you more than two weeks on a single charge when placed in deep-sleep. Due to the battery’s size taking up the bulk of the space inside the keyboard’s bottom section, the charging circuitry had to be shrunk down to a tiny PCB. But don’t be deceived by it’s tiny size, this charging circuit can simultaneously charge the keyboard and the PinePhone via the keyboard’s USB-C port. Since I know someone will ask: the USB-C port on the keyboard can only be used charging, it doesn’t support data or any alternate modes.

PinePhone keyboard charging PCB

Look at the size of that battery!

This effectively completely frees up the USB-C port on the PinePhone. You can plug a convergence dock into it or use it for any other common USB-C devices, e.g. thumbdrives. A quick web-search revealed to me that there are now a number of USB-C wireless mice available on the market (something I wasn’t aware of!). So you can pick one up and plug it into the PinePhone, thereby transforming it into a pocketable Pinebook. Many GUI environments available for the PinePhone - including Phosh, Plasma Mobile and Lomiri - already work well in a desktop mode, but I am sure that the keyboard accessory will entice people to bring MATE, XFCE, GNOME and full-fledged Plasma to the device. And why not - after all the keyboard converts the PinePhone into a PDA capable of running full-blown Linux.

Before moving onto discussing software, I quickly wish to touch upon the keyboard’s layout. We spent a weekend in January ping-ponging ideas about the layout with the community. After some push and pull we finally arrived at a compromise that most end-users should be happy with, given the space and design constraints. The illustration attached below depicts the layout we arrived at and submitted to the vendor. I know that not everyone will agree with every design decision made; to those of you who would prefer a different layout, or really need a CAPS key (for whatever reason), rest assured that eventually you’ll be able to flash your own firmwares to the keyboard via the i2c pins, and thereby change the keys functions. This will, however, require input from the development community - an effort similar to that made on the Pinebook Pro will be needed. The time it took to get the community’s approval of the design led to a delay in delivering the keycaps prior to CNY. But even without its keys, doesn’t it just look awesome?

Here is they keyboard layout we agreed on with the community

PinePhone Part 2 [by Konrad, Biktor and Dylan]

We are currently working on three different fronts modem-wise: 1) porting the mainline (kernel.org) kernel; 2) open-sourcing the userspace and; 3) improving the way incoming calls and texts are handled while the phone is suspended.

The modem can now boot version 5.11 of the Linux kernel with minimal functionality (serial, USB and NAND). Konrad has been working hard on all the low level drivers that are needed (PMIC, clocks etc) so the rest of the devices inside the SoC can start. There’s still a lot of work to do, since the SoC has never seen an official release from Qualcomm ever since kernel 3.18.x, so even if some pieces can be adapted from other mainlined Qualcomm models, there’s a lot of code that needs to be written from scratch. Work is being done by Konrad to send his existing patches upstream, so that they can get merged and so that he can further continue the work.

VoLTE blobless audio calls will be possible in the future. Original Twitter post By Biktor

On the present factory firmware, there are about 150 closed source binaries and libraries that make the modem work. Biktor is working on replacing all of them with 3 open source alternatives that will hopefully get 90% of the required functionality. At this point we can initialize the modem, establish data connections and make both CS (normal) and VoLTE calls without any binaries, although sometimes audio fails, and call reception doesn’t work yet. Stay tuned for more information about the open sourced userspace in near future.

Dylan has been tackling one of the biggest complaints concerning the modem, namely the slow recovery from suspend and its USB resets, making the PinePhone lose incoming calls and texts when using ModemManager (since it cannot reconnect to the modem fast enough after suspend). These patches, currently in a testing stage, should make the PinePhone wake up and start ringing on the first dial tone when there’s an incoming call or text, as well as fix intermittent USB resets that show up when resuming from suspend.

Note: This image preview protects your privacy. Click to load the video from the Google servers.

We currently have: i) An open-source bootloader, allowing us to flash and boot custom software; ii) A temporary, open 3.18.140 kernel with minimal patches, that gives the same functionality as stock with less vulnerabilities and the chance of debugging drivers while moving to 5.x. iii) Open userspace options, with or without blobs, giving varying degrees of functionality, based on Yocto 3.2, or postmarketOS. iv) Modem SDK which serves as a playground for anyone who wants to build his or her own firmware based on Yocto. v) Initial support from the postmarketOS team that allows to create flashable pmOS images for the modem.

The end goal has always been the same, to have the modem as open source as possible. We aren’t touching the modem’s ADSP firmware, because in addition to the inherent difficulties that come with it, modifying the ADSP firmware could lead to problems with RF regulations or certifications.

PineTime [by JF]

January was a prolific month for InfiniTime: we released no less than 3 versions of InfiniTime in this short period of time. The biggest release was InfiniTime 0.11, which came with 2 major features - the long awaited integration of the heart rate sensor and a brand new navigation application from Adam.

Why did it take so long to integrate the heart rate sensor in InfiniTime? Well, in fact, I implemented a working demo of the HR sensor more than 6 months ago but couldn’t release it because it was based on a non-free/proprietary library. This library implements the algorithm that converts raw data coming from the sensor into human readable values (beat per minute).

From the beginning of the InfiniTime project, I always wanted it to be fully open-source. That’s the reason why I chose the GPLv3 license for InfiniTime. One of the implications of this choice is that we cannot include non-free/closed source modules into the codebase. This heart rate processing library was then conflicting with the license of the project and one of its main values.

But still, many people were asking for the heart rate sensor in InfiniTime, and fortunately, Daniel from WaspOS implemented a brand new algorithm for WaspOS and released it under the LGPL license, which allowed me to port his code in C++ and integrate it into InfiniTime. Thanks again to Daniel for his amazing work!

Heart rate measuring in-app (left) and displayed on watchface (right)

I teased the Navigation app in the last community update. I’m happy to announce that it’s now released! This app, written by Adam works in conjunction with Amazfish and PureMaps, and InfiniTime displays the navigation instructions from PureMaps when it’s connected to Amazfish. Best of all, these apps run on many Linux devices, such as the Pinebook Pro and the Pinephone!

See the video here.

Navigation instructions displayed on the PineTime

Speaking of Amazfish, Adam has also improved the integration in non-SailfishOS Linux distributions like ManjaroARM and Ubuntu.

The BLE connectivity has been greatly improved in InfiniTime 0.12 by updating NimBLE, the open source BLE stack integrated in InfiniTime. With this upgrade, you should expect less failed OTA and less unexpected disconnections from the companion app.

This month, I would also like to highlight Nico’s blog. In his blog, Nicolas writes about SailfishOS, smartwatches and… the PineTime! The first article is an overview of PineTime with SailfishOS. In a second article, Nico explains how to upgrade InfiniTime using Amazfish on SailfishOS. Finally, he reviewed InfiniTime 0.11 and 0.12 in this 3rd article. I really appreciate these blog posts, they are short, easy to read and give honest and accurate opinions about the progress of the project.

RISC-V PINE64 Single Board Computer(s)

It will probably come as no surprise to anyone following our project that we’ve been watching the RISC-V space very closely in the past 18 months. Many of you correctly concluded that the Pinecil, our recently released and very popular RISC-V soldering iron, was our first foray into the world of RISC-V SoCs. Indeed, the choice of the RISC-V SoC for the Pinecil was not mere coincidence. That said, Pincil’s SoC is rather rudimentary and incapable of running an advanced operating system such as Linux. We’re now at a point where we’re willing, and indeed keen, to dip our toes in the RISC-V pond and build our first single board computer capable of running full-blown Linux (and possibly also other FOSS operating systems). I’m not sure about you, but we’re rather excited about the prospect of this decision and its importance moving forward.

While we’re not quite ready to talk about the specifics of the SBC at this point in time, in part because many PCB-design decisions haven’t been set in stone yet, I do nonetheless want to give you a general sense of the sort of hardware that we’ll be delivering. Our first SBC will feature two RISC-V CPUs, the main one being a C906 64-bit SoC coupled with an auxiliary 32bit BL602 SoC for WiFi and BLE. The C906 is already capable of running Linux and, from what I understand, is completely open while the BL602 is in the process of being open sourced (including firmware) in our Nutcracker community challenge. The SoC has solid I/O, including USB 2.0 and Gigabit Ethernet, and I see it as a great entry-level Linux-capable RISC-V platform.

The C906 feature list for those very tech savvy of you

I am making the specifications known well ahead of time to manage your expectations. The overarching idea behind this board is to make an inexpensive board, accessible to all who wish to explore the RISC-V architecture, and to get it into the hands of as many people as possible. We’re aiming at a sub-$15 price point. We also want it to become a gateway to more powerful RISC-V SoCs in the future. While it’s our first entry into the world of this particular architecture, it most surely isn’t our last. The board will allow you to create fun IoT, learning and DIY projects, but I won’t be surprised to see someone make Doom, Sonic the Hedgehog or MarioKart run on it in a matter of weeks. In a month or two, I’ll share more details concerning the board-design and the exposed IO. Lastly, as you noticed already I haven’t mentioned the name of the SBC - you can expect a riddle in the coming weeks.

LoRa and LoRaWAN PINE64 Ecosystem Integration

In the past 6 months I’ve mentioned LoRa and LoRaWAN on many occasions and in multiple posts. If it wasn’t clear until now, we have been quite interested in the technology and its potential for novel applications. After extensive internal considerations, we now feel ready to double-down and make LoRa an integral part of the PINE64 ecosystem. I’ll explain a bit more about the core premises of our vision further down in this section, but let me start by writing about the actual equipment we’re planning to deliver. For one, we will offer next generation modules for all our devices - this includes, but is not limited to, the PinePhone, the PineTab and Pinebook Pro. We will be using next generation LoRa chipsets in our expansion modules, which deliver better performance while consuming less power. We will simultaneously introduce LoRa modules for North America, Asia and Europe, that conform to the respective regional regulations.

We will also build our own LoRaWAN base station, which too will utilize next generation LoRa technology. This chipset does not only allow for higher efficiency and lower power consumption, but also for an improved data-transfer rate when compared to presently available technology. We intend to introduce two versions of our base station, the first of which is intended for deployment indoors, while the second arrives enclosed inside an aluminum waterproof container for use outdoors. The theoretical range of the base station is measured in tens of km’s, at least in unobstructed line of sight. That said, a range of 5-6km is much more realistic in most scenarios due to terrain and other obstructions found in urban areas. As you have come to expect from us, the brains of the base-station will be running FOSS software atop of mainline Linux.

We aren’t the first ones to think of using LoRa for communication - source

So, then, why are we doubling-down on this? While LoRaWAN is usually used for a variety of IoT type deployments, we wish to use it for text-based communications. In its implementation we expect the functionality to be more akin to HAM radio rather than SMS or instant messaging. Most importantly of all, however, we see LoRaWAN as a means for communication without a middleman. To allow communication over vast distances, each base station can be connected to the internet. We hope that, in time, urban areas will see some degree of coverage and that people will be willing to join in on the fun. And yes, in the initial phase of this experiment, the purpose of LoRaWAN stations is to have a bit of fun, whilst simultaneously exploring the limits of the technology’s application for communication. Needless to say, getting developers onboard to support this novel implementation of the technology will prove crucial. Over the next months I’ll do my best to convince relevant parties that it makes sense to explore this LoRaWAN application and that it may be a first step in rethinking secure communication mediums.

That is all for now, I’ll catch you all in a month!

Risc-V on PINE64

A Quick Community Update on PinePhone Pro and What’s Next

No new PinePhone (Yet), future with RISC-V

PineTab-V and PineTab2 launch

August update: RISC and reward

Housekeeping

PinePhone (Pro)

Star64

PineBuds Pro

Pinecil [by Gamiee]

PineTime [by JF]

June Update: Who likes RISC-V?

Housekeeping

Who likes RISC-V?

PinePhone (Pro)

PineNote

December update: a year in review

Housekeeping

A look back at 2021

A sneak peek at 2022

PinePhone Pro

PinePhone (Pro) hardware

PinePhone (Pro) Software [by 33YN2]

Quartz64 [by** CounterPillow**]

PineTime [by JF]

PineDio [by JF]

PineCube [by Gamiee]

RISC-V SBC Riddle

Latin slant

February Update: Show and Tell

Housekeeping

Quartz64

Pinebook Pro

PinePhone Part 1

PinePhone Part 2 [by Konrad, Biktor and Dylan]

PineTime [by JF]

RISC-V PINE64 Single Board Computer(s)

LoRa and LoRaWAN PINE64 Ecosystem Integration

Quartz64 [by CounterPillow****]