What is the current status of Pinebook Pro?

 

I see there were Pinebook-Pro-specific install images for older version of Armbian, but there doesn't appear to be any for more recent versions, and currently, the download page points to (non-machine-specific?) UEFI install images.  Is this a transition that was discussed/announced, and can I read the discussion/announcement in archives somewhere?

 

Also, does anyone have any installation/testing reports?  Is 25.02 known to work on the Pinebook Pro?

 

I've tried a few different times to create a Armbian SDCard for my Pinebook Pro.  I've only had one success, one one of my early attempts.  Unfortunately, I did not take very good notes, and I've lost track of which downloaded image file I used to create it.  I still have the successfully-created SDCard, and it still works, but I haven't been able to create another.  When I inspect the contents of the good SDCard, it appears to be 24.8.1, and it boots via GRUB, but I'm not sure if it was made from a PinebookPro-specific image or a UEFI image.

 

There's plenty more testing I could do on my own -- my supply of SDCards is running low, and I should buy a few more, and in an assortment of sizes (successful SDCard was 32GB, some of the most recent attempts (which failed) were to a 256GB SDcard)

@djzort just posted his success story including information on how to get around the issues he ran into.  Check it out, @bsammon 

I used the Debian 12 uefi desktop image with @djzort‘s instructions and it works great! I’m convinced this is the best setup for the pbpro, at least for me. 

Edited August 9, 20251 yr by sb2025

Getting the grub bootloader right with tow-boot's efi implementation seems like the most urgent as it is a hard blocking anyone trying to install.

 

As tow-boot isn't unique to pinebook pro my guess is that handling it impacts other systems.

 

I don't know what would be involved in maintaining it.