I've pushed out the latest recovery images.

The SPI recovery image does indeed erase the SPI flash before flashing its own U-Boot, *but* unlike on the RockPro64 where you can easily bypass the SPI flash by bridging two pins, it's far more involved on the Pinebook Pro. The Slackware installation guide describes how to bypass the SPI flash if need be (section 'Any issues with installing to SPI flash') but I never got it working and according to the Pine64 wiki not many people have. There's another method you can try (linked from the Install guide), but I never had the need since my machine booted the Slackware recovery SD Card without issue.

Good luck!

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I finally have this sorted out!!! First remove the cover on the main PCB It didn't require as much leverage as I expected but it is a bit of a pain to snap back down on the board.

If the VSS and CLK pins are shorted on the SPI Rom, SPI will be bypassed and whatever's on the sdcard is next up. I put the latest spi recovery image on an sd card and was then able to load the slackwareaarch64 boot loader to flash. I can now start the installer but haven't done an install yet.

This procedure is a bit awkward as two hands are needed as well as viewing the screen while the pbp is upside down. I used pointy surgical tweezers to short the pins but a paper clip bent to suit should work. I opened the pbp half way and set it upside down over a towel so it wouldn't slide about and placed a small mirror under the pbp to see if there was anything scrolling on the screen. While shorting the CLK and VSS pins with my right hand I reached around with my left hand pressed the power button. As soon as I saw text scrolling in the mirror I un-shorted the pins and let the spi recovery re-write the SPI.

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This is consistent with how I recovered my Pinebook Pro after wiping Manjaro from the eMMC. I didn't use a mirror or even look at the monitor. The serial connection (head phone jack) was used so I could see what was happening on the screen while the laptop was upside down. Sometimes the reset button comes handy if you do not manage to short VSS and CLK pins.

The best way to avoid having to do this is by changing the boot order in the Manjaro u-boot to look for SD first. Then you can boot the SA64 recovery image and wipe out SPI flash. After that you should disable the eMMC all together by flicking the switch before Slackware first boot. The metal plate that covers up the SPI ROM is very easy to remove, so be careful if you have to go about it all again.

This procedure for the RockPro64 is much simpler since you can short the pins located on the GPIO header. I forget which GPIO pins but it is listed on docs.slackware.com in the documentation for Aarch64.

@mralke: Never liked smoke or mirrors but this close to halloween (o dia de los muertos), so as long as I can see myself (or my display) in a mirror I'm Ok.

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Thanks for the writeup - I'll link to this thread from the install doc next week.

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drmozes, yes please keep docs up to date.

Done!

Finally did an install on my pinebook pro and I am impressed. Gave two bananapros away to good homes last week, ... time to do the same with my lenovo thinkpad ... drmozes is a darn nice guy ... I don't care what anybody says!

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I'd like to get a pinebook pro too, thanks for sharing your conundrum.

Only PineBook Pros with American keyboards are available right now. With chip shortages in the PRC who knows when Pine will do another production run. Note that they will only ship the PBP as a single item due restrictions on shipping with its internal lipo battery. An nvme adapter and anything else you want would have to be ordered separately. I purchased my 5V3A powers supply locally (in Australia) and charge via a USB C cable. Quite happy with it. Wireless worked out of the box but I has to manually edit the network manager's config for our lan where I wanted it to have a permanent IP. Bluetooth found the printer OK ... stoll thinking about getting a Bluetooth mouse as my logitech keyboard/mouse combo which connect to desktop box via usb dongle is not recognised.

mralk3

Not having any luck with reset/recovery buttons or shorting the CLK and VSS pins, can't seem to find where to change boot order in manjaro, please explain where, thank you.

I have zero experience with Manjaro or the eMMC (as a bootable medium). I removed/disabled the eMMC as the first step. I shorted my SPI flash (the VSS and CLK pins) with a set of tweezers from a Swiss army pocket knife. Make sure it is something conductive and that it, or yourself, are grounded. You do not want to short the board permanently by damaging it.

Also, the reset and recovery buttons should only be pressed if you missed the small window to short the spi flash pins. You will know you are late in the process if u-boot starts trying to find the operating system. You need a serial console so you can see the early messages in u-boot. Without the serial console you will not be able to short the spi flash at the right time.

When u-boot starts the countdown timer it is the time to short the SPI flash. u-boot will find your sd card once it cannot find your spi flash.

Make sure you are using the recovery image from here: https://slackware.uk/slackwarearm/pl...covery/rk3399/

You want the flash-spi-pinebookpro.img.xz image. As root:
Here is the Slackware documentation describing it more accurately: https://docs.slackware.com/slackware...r_to_spi_flash

Read the docs, as I am sharing my experience from memory. It has been quite a while since I did all this.

There will be some error messages complaining about not finding SPI flash. If your screen looks like the attached image you were successful.

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mralk3, thank you so much for the excellent followup.

I followed justwantin steps, I followed your steps, still not getting anything on the display, seems like I need to get serial console adapter.

I flipped emmc switch back and plugged emmc back in, manjaro boots and runs, so I haven't shorted the board.

Found this S03E03 - Making a serial cable for the PineBook Pro, did as explained

emmc switch is to the left, emmc module is removed, uart/audio switch is set to uart

as root
sd card is inserted in pinebook pro

as root
powered up pinebook pro, no output on pinebook pro display, no output via serial console adapter, seems like there should be some display output, as in the above video

I've done slackwarearm on two rpi3, one rpi4, one banana pi pro(did serial console), 3 rockpro64, I'm not exactly an expert but I'm not clueless, I'm not sure what I'm missing.

booted manjaro, inserted flash-spi-pinebookpro.img sd card into sd card slot in pbp

sd card is new "SanDisk Ultra 32GB UHS-I/Class 10 Micro SDHC Memory Card"

is the following relevant as to why there's no display output on pbp lcd or via serial console

or is this just manjaro os issue and not pbp issue?