Installing Pinebook beta ROMs

At the moment, the ReadMe file included with the Pinebook Beta ROMs don’t come with any instructions, simply stating that “Currently there is no support in !SDCreate for the PineA64”. I’m aware that there are some pending changes in GitLab to include tools for upgrading an existing SD card, but I’d rather not make potentially breaking changes to my current setup. Does anyone have any instructions on how to prepare a blank SD card for use with RISC OS on the Pinebook?

I’ve recently been working on creating an SD card to boot into Linux on the Pinebook with the root filesystem hosted on an NVMe drive rather than on the boot SD card itself. It seems that the Pinebook loads U-Boot off an unallocated area at the start of the SD card, immediately after the partition table. I wonder whether the RISC OS SD card works in a similar way, with the actual RISC OS ROM taking the place of U-Boot? I have not yet investigated this, but the whole RISC OS boot SD card appeared as unallocated in GParted, so it has no conventional partitions, unlike on a Raspberry Pi where the ROM is on a FAT partition of some sort.

The data sheets says that the ARMX6 boots up by loading a specified numbers of sectors above the partition table at an absolute sector address on the disc. Such sectors are marked as defects to hide them from filecore. Judging by the speed of start up, the Pinebook Pro probably loads the RISC OS ROM into memory and jumps to it directly.

It should be possible to have an application in RISC OS called !GoLinux that will start Linux from within RISC OS by putting UBOOT into memory and jumping to it.

Hi Cameron, If it is a 12" or earlier discontinued 14" Pinebook, NOT the later black Pinebook Pro.
And you purchased it through Rcomp, there is a link to updates in the manual provided.
There are tools and instructions in there that should enable you to prepare a blank SD card.
I think I tried this process successfully a long while ago.
It is a private link, so I can’t share details.

And you purchased it through Rcomp, there is a link to updates in the manual provided.

..and if you didn’t purchase it through R-Comp you can still contact them to buy into the support setup they do.

True, and people like me, Cameron, and Rick should be getting one for free. ;p 🤣

Ummm, I don’t have a Pinebook, so… ;)

Thanks for the thought, anyway.

Hi Cameron, If it is a 12" or earlier discontinued 14" Pinebook, NOT the later black Pinebook Pro.
And you purchased it through Rcomp, there is a link to updates in the manual provided.
There are tools and instructions in there that should enable you to prepare a blank SD card.
I think I tried this process successfully a long while ago.
It is a private link, so I can’t share details.

Thanks, I’d forgotten that !A64ROM-scsi0 allowed starting from a blank card on a different machine. It is slightly inconvenient having to do all of it on another RISC OS machine instead of being able to image the card from Windows, but the process turned out to be fairly straight forward.

However, I haven’t been able to install images from ROOL yet, just the ones from R-Comp. Presumably doing so requires building from source with both RiscOS/Sources/HAL/HAL_PineA64!7 and RiscOS/Utilities/Autobuild/ABRelease!9 from GitLab applied, so I’ll report back if I can get that working.

How is the RO sound output from the Pinebook Pro progressing?

What sort of format do Local Library’s use for downloaded books & Magazines and can they displayed with RISC OS?

Google suggests it’s a DRM encrusted type of ePub called a ACSM file, that may require the use of some sort of app or extension in order to use a service called “Overdrive”, which I think uses Adobe encryption tech?

The reason for all of this nonsense is that they want you to borrow the book, not keep it. So they’ll pile it full of DRM and restrictions and we’ll all pretend that you can’t just prod your favourite search engine to find a clean copy…

That being said, I much prefer the feel of an actual dead tree book. Pixels on an eink display just aren’t the same.
Plus, for the moment, once I’ve bought a book it is mine. The vendor doesn’t reach out and snatch it back, or demand that I only read it in the living room or only while sitting on the rocking chair…

So, in a word, no.

There are several different library systems—Overdrive/Libby is not the only one; my local library uses BorrowBox.

The problem I find with “dead tree” books is that they take up a lot of space. If I buy such a book, I will have to find another to get rid of to make room for it, so I do buy ebooks from Amazon, and (if the book is not available on Kindle in the U.K.), from Apple Books too on occasion. It is often a lot cheaper too.

I grew up in a home where the entire side wall (living room through to the dining room) was a row of bookshelves. Always plenty to read, or sometimes, reread.

In the living room, making a start: https://heyrick.eu/blog/index.php?diary=20230612 ;)

As to different library services, do you need different apps for those to work? Does it only work with specific ereaders? (my library isn’t quite that advanced, but then it mostly caters to children and has a subscriber count measured in the hundreds)

I also grew up in a home with a long wall with floor to ceiling bookshelves, and now have my own home similarly equipped. I would have downsized the collection when we moved last year, but it was forbidden.

Our local library also uses BorrowBox, as I discovered when I offered them three decades worth of almost pristine Scientific American magazines.

The problem I find with “dead tree” books is that they take up a lot of space. If I buy such a book, I will have to find another to get rid of to make room for it

You’re thinking that the house must have a fixed volume, it can be replaced with larger, or enlarged.

It sounds like Rick and Clive are familiar with the thinking that explains why there are two people and three cats in this 4 “bed” room house.
There are no bookshelves in the bathroom or the downstairs toilet, the other rooms have an insulation assistance layer that involves dead trees in horizontal strips supporting close packed dead-tree-assemblages.

why there are two people and three cats in this 4 “bed” room house.

What you mean is you and your wife share a room, and the cats have a room each, right?

What you mean is you and your wife share a room, and the cats have a room each, right?

Time for Aldershot I think.

However, I haven’t been able to install images from ROOL yet, just the ones from R-Comp. Presumably doing so requires building from source with both RiscOS/Sources/HAL/HAL_PineA64!7 and RiscOS/Utilities/Autobuild/ABRelease!9 from GitLab applied, so I’ll report back if I can get that working.

Following up on this, I’ve now managed to boot using a Pinebook ROM built from source. The (somewhat simplified) steps for doing this are:

1. Follow steps 1 and 2 of the Beginner’s guide to ROM builds.
2. For the HAL_PineA64 submodule, add the branch containing the changes from RiscOS/Sources/HAL/HAL_PineA64!7 – this can be done with the following commands under Linux:
   1. cd RiscOS/Sources/HAL/HAL_PineA64
   2. git remote add jballance https://gitlab.riscosopen.org/jballance/HAL_PineA64
   3. git fetch jballance
   4. git checkout jballance/programmer_updates
3. Follow step 3 of the "Beginner’s guide to ROM builds, with “ROOL.PineA64” specified as the build environment.
4. Run “RiscOS.Sources.HAL.HAL_PineA64.tools.InstPrgrmr” – this should convert the BASIC components into tokenised form and copy them into “RiscOS.Install”.
5. Run “RiscOS.Install.!CreateImage” – this should merge the previously build ROM with the bootloader and install it into !A64ROM-InSitu and !A64ROM-scsi0.

This should result in a similar package to the one supplied by R-Comp, which can be installed using these instructions. When using custom or nightly builds, I’d strongly recommend using !A64ROM-scsi0 to create a new SD card rather than trying to install it over an official build. Hopefully the relevant merge requests will be merged soon-ish so that nightly builds will be ready to install out of the box.

Note that this process is not currently supported by R-Comp, RISC OS Open or myself, so use this at your own risk.

Everyone should have enough books to break into L-space, I think. (And, yes, Aldershot.)

Is sound working on the Pinebook Pro with your rebuild of the ROM?

Is sound working on the Pinebook Pro with your rebuild of the ROM?

The Pinebook Pro version of RISC OS is still closed source – the instructions I provided are only useful for original A64-based Pinebooks.