STICKY: PINN - An enhanced version of NOOBS.

[Haris1977]

I just wanted to get rid of my openelec build as i do not use it anymore (on this specific device). I Dont have any space issue. I thought it could be done through the menu but i guess (still) not..

Anyway Thanks again

[beta-tester]

i installed PINN to my SD card to install and use multiple OS'es on one SD card.
is there a way to customize the background color of the boot menu screen?
when booting the RPi in a dark room, the default background (bright white) of the boot menu screen is way too bright.
i want to change the background color to black.
but i don't know where to change the background color of the boot menu screen.
is there a flag or parameter i can use?
maybe also the color of the window frame and its background?

[procount]

This has already been mentioned before, along with changing the default wallpaper/logo
I will look into it for a future version.

[pool7]

HW: Raspberry Pi 3 connected to HDMI, Ethernet, Keyboard and mouse
Sandisk Extreme 32gb microSD A1 formatted with the SD Card Formatter from sdcard.org

I installed PINN 2.4.4c, then selected the following list of OS to download/install:
cstembian
retropie
batocera
retrox frambu
amibian
lakka
recalbox
raspbian
xbian
openelec
libreelec

I'm a new pi user, so I want to test all these and choose which ones I'll keep. According to PINN, they all fit in the 32GB microSD.
PINN downloaded some 17+GB and installed them. At one point near the end, it threw an error message about no more inodes (unfortunately I didn't take note of the exact error).
I tried booting raspbian and it failed, so I thought I'd try again the installation.
Formatted the card with the SD Formatter, then copied PINN, booted, chose the same OSes, downloaded, installed... this time it gave a different error message at the end:

Error creating filesystem
mke2fs 1.42.12 (29-Aug-2014)
mkfs.ext4: Device size reported to be zero. Invalid partition specified, or partition table wasn't reread after running fdisk, due to a modified partition being busy and in use. You may need to reboot to re-read your partition table.

I rebooted the pi and got the menu with all the OSes installed; tried all of them, they all seem to work.

Questions:
1-How can I check (either from the pi or from a Windows computer) if the card is really full?
2-Should I be worried about the error, despite the fact that all seems to be working?
3-Is there any limit in the amount of OSes installed (besides card size)? (either due to PINN or due to filesystem or something else)

Additional (unrelated) question:
Whenever I boot PINN for the first time (ie. before downloading/installing the OSes), the Exit option is always greyed out. Is this normal?
Anything I can do to ensure it is enabled?

Thanks in advance.

[MysticWhiteDragon]

I may have missed it, but is there a way to output through GPIO for an Adafruit TFT with this program?

I second this notion! Anyone have an idea of how to get this to work? Would be really useful for portable Pi projects!

[procount]

@pool7 - I suggest you first reformat the whole SD card as FAT32 with SDformatter and and then check it with H2testw to rule out a fake or broken Sd card.

Regarding the limit of OSes, the RPi cannot currently boot any partition higher than #63, so PINN will prevent you installing too many. The actual number depends on how many partitions each OS requires, and where you install the boot/root part partitions: SD card or USB. The more OSes you install on an SD, obviously the less space you will have available in each OS for storing any data (or games).

It is normal for the Exit button to be greyed out when you don't have any installed OSes to exit to

[dvaitman]

I've setup a USB with PINN and several OS to try. Can't make it work with Google AIY. doesn't boot into the os and sends me to a cmd line screen with an error (can't remember exactly) but something about the root password locked. any advise?
Edit: it's "emergency mode" with instructions that say: type journal.... to view logs, systemctl reboot to reboot, etc....

[procount]

It looks like AIY Projects is not compatible with USB. I'm not sure why because Raspbian is. So for the time being I shall have to disable USB install for this OS.

[efa]

PINN has the ability to change the recovery key instead of SHIFT via text file option?
I'm using this controller for media player:
https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B008RTE16K
that has numbers, letters, CAPS/NUM LOCK, cursor key, mouse, ENTER, ESC, and some other keys, but miss SHIFT.
I read about using jumper or forcetrigger option at:
https://github.com/raspberrypi/noobs/bl ... oard-input
but certainly changing the recovery trigger key is better.

[Trash_Can_Man]

Is there any chance for a future update to allow install of some or all OSes on a network share? ive seen the option to boot from something called iSCSI on berryboot but i kinda want to stay away from BB because i feel that if i need any help im gonna need to pay for each answer i get (the main page say that he is charging even for hosting torrents to custom images, i know he wrote the code, he can do watever he wants with it but i can also stay away from that)...anyway, im fading to far from the subject here, is there any way to include the suggested option for future consideration? want me to add the suggestion as an issue on https://github.com/procount/pinn/issues as you suggested someone else?

Mini TLDR: Suggestion: add the option to install OSes to a network share

Note: i can betatest the code if you need, im going to get my hands soon on a mini nas contraption (orange pi pc2+omv+usb hdd) that should cover most use cases mostly because omv use pretty standard daemons and settings i think

[dvaitman]

It looks like AIY Projects is not compatible with USB. I'm not sure why because Raspbian is. So for the time being I shall have to disable USB install for this OS.

So, I've installed and tested all the OS on my USB. Got an issue with rtandroid as well. Got the following error message when trying to boot:
fs_mgr: _mount(source=PARUUID=71259655-0c,target=/system,type=ext4)=-1
fs_mgr: Failed to mount an un-encrypted or wiped partition onPARTUUID=..(more stuff).... at /system options: (null) error: No such file or directory
fs_mgr: _mount(source=PARUUID=71259655-0d,target=/cache,type=ext4)=-1
fs_mgr: Failed to mount an un-encrypted or wiped partition onPARTUUID=..(more stuff)... at /system options: nomblk_io_submit,errors=panic error: No such file or directory

and then it won't continue...
any ideas?

[mironto]

Hello,

would it be possible to include support for GPIO IR receiver, so I can change the OS during boot selection with a remote? Thanks.

[procount]

@efa - I added this as a github enhancement issue, so that I don't forget it.

[procount]

@Trash_can_man - I'm unlikely to add network booting in the short term - I have too many other things to do first. But feel free to add it as an enhancement issue on the github.

[procount]

@dvaitman - I guess I will have to disable rtAndroid USB boot as well

[procount]

@Mironto - I'm unlikely to add IR receivers in the short term, but please feel free to raise it as an issue for enhancement on my github.

[pool7]

@pool7 - I suggest you first reformat the whole SD card as FAT32 with SDformatter and and then check it with H2testw to rule out a fake or broken Sd card.

Regarding the limit of OSes, the RPi cannot currently boot any partition higher than #63, so PINN will prevent you installing too many. The actual number depends on how many partitions each OS requires, and where you install the boot/root part partitions: SD card or USB. The more OSes you install on an SD, obviously the less space you will have available in each OS for storing any data (or games).

It is normal for the Exit button to be greyed out when you don't have any installed OSes to exit to

Thank you for the replies

Couple more questions if you don't mind:
1-The exit button being greyed out, if I want to exit without installing any OS (ie. reboot / shutdown the pi), is my only option to Alt+F# to a terminal and do it via command line? Or is there a button/option I'm missing?
2-Is there a software and/or hardware limitation that makes NOOBS/PINN use customized OSes, instead of the regular .img files that most RPi OSes are distributed as?
3-If I want to try an OS that is not included in PINN, what's the fastest/safest way to convert it to a PINN supported format? Is there maybe a script that automates the process?

Thanks again.

[procount]

1. PINN runs from a ram disk image, so there is very little chance of SD card corruption if you just pull the plug to shut it down. Rebooting without any OS will just land you back in PINN. You can reboot from the keyboard using ctrl-alt-f2, followed by ctrl-alt-del. From ssh, you could type

Code: Select all

echo b>/proc/sysrq-trigger

2. I thought I had answered this question in your other thread: viewtopic.php?f=56&t=201683#p1255212 .
PINN can already support the following raw image types: .img.lzo, .img.gz, .img.bz2, .img.zip, .img.xz, .lzo,.gz, .bz2, .zip, .xz
and the following archive formats: .tar.lzo, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tar.zip, .tar.xz
But it needs a file per partition.
A traditional raw image file is a bit-by-bit copy of an SD card starting from the beginning of the card, including the MBR and primary partition table etc. You cannot just rewrite this image to another part of an SD card (i.e. to other logical partitions) and expect it to work. It needs modifying/adapting to account for the change in position and partitions.
3. (see 2), but more specifically: https://github.com/procount/pinn/blob/m ... os-version and https://github.com/procount/pinn/wiki/H ... using-PINN . Each OS throws up it's own peculiarities to be overcome in the conversion, but there are a lot of similarities so I created my own script to automate most of them. It's not really suitable for public release though and it is specific to my setup.
The quickest way to try a single OS is to just burn the img to an SD card using Etcher. It's only worth converting it to NOOBS/PINN format if you want to multi-boot it, or you want the benefits of PINN.

[pool7]

Wow, thank you so much for the detailed and quick reply!!!
Sorry, I never got a notification of further replies, and didn't see you posting in my other thread earlier

[procount]

Make sure User Control Panel - Board Preferences - Edit posting defaults - Notify me upon replies by default is set to 'Yes'

[Trash_Can_Man]

So after some hours researching i found how to reboot to a different OS from command line on any of the OSs on the system, being super noob on linux stuff it took me allmost a whole day to find the correct info:

Code: Select all

sudo reboot 6

and where to get the correct number from your own system as seen here:
viewtopic.php?f=91&t=202268&p=1257823#p1257823

So i humbly suggest to add a few lines explaining how to use both commands on the pinn guide so other noobs like me dont waste so many hours searching lol

[procount]

I think you just documented it for me But I'll see if I can write it up, maybe the wiki is a place for it.
EDIT: I added it to my wiki Manual booting between OSes

The first trick from AndrewS was from 2014 and probably wouldn't work if you have a Pi 2 or later. For the later models, you need to replace the 2708 with 2709 or 2710.

EDIT: You can also get the partition numbers from the /settings/installed_os.json file, which might be easier if you know how to mount that partition, since it specifies the partitions used by each OS name.

[Trash_Can_Man]

Exelent, at least i helped a tiny bit the community
btw simply:

Code: Select all

sudo reboot #

works for me, but maybe its only for rpi3? or maybe only for raspbian? just curiosity

[procount]

PINN has been updated to v2.4.5

V2.4.5

This is a small maintenance release for some cosmetic changes and bugfixes mainly.

• background - Specify the background colour as background=r,g,b
• style - Change the style with style=motif/windows/platinum
• configpath - (partially) allow remote flavours to customise an OS
• dsi - Allows the HDMI/DSI switching option to work with OSes installed to USB

Several people requested changes to the colour scheme as it was too bright in some cases. The new background=r,g,b option is a small concession to this. It is not ideal as a full solution would have a big impact on the code, but at least it can tone the colour down. The r,g & b values should be 0-255 and I suggest values >127 to avoid too many horrible artefacts on the screen, since this does not change any of the other colours.

Another new option is `style` which changes the look and feel to be more Windows or Motif like, if you prefer that. This is a standard Qt feature.

A lot of enhancements are being made to the `noobsconfig` code to allow customisations of an OS as it is installed. This is not complete yet, so I will document it in a future release. Suffice to say that it will now apply custom flavours to be applied when downloading from the Web. This is useful for Retropie using DSI screens, or the the Lineage OS for Android 7.1. The `configpath` option allows the specification of an alternative location for customisation files, rather than them being stored alongside the distro. It sill needs some work to allow the `flavours.json` file to be stored elsewhere too. Note that if you download an OS for local installation, the customisation files are not downloaded. You can either download them manually, or use the configpath to specify the remote URL to customise from, but the same configpath is used for ALL OSes.

Finally, the dsi feature was not working for OSes installed to a USB device, but this has now been fixed.

Retropie has has been updated to v4.3 and Linaege OS has been added as an alternative Android 7.1 distro.

[beta-tester]

PINN has been updated to v2.4.5
V2.4.5
This is a small maintenance release for some cosmetic changes and bugfixes mainly.

• background - Specify the background colour as background=r,g,b
• style - Change the style with style=motif/windows/platinum
• configpath - (partially) allow remote flavours to customise an OS
• dsi - Allows the HDMI/DSI switching option to work with OSes installed to USB

thank you very much !