STICKY: PINN - An enhanced version of NOOBS.

[procount]

I need to move my installed PINN (and OS's, Game ROM's) to a larger SD card. From 8GB to 32Gb.

Boot PINN off your 8GB SD card.
Put your new 32GB SD card in a USB card reader and insert it into a USB port of your RPi
Use the "Clone SD card" feature to clone the 8GB to the 32GB card.

The last partition will be expanded to fill the new space of your 32GB card.
If you need to adjust the partition sizes, then you probably need a tool like gparted to adjust them (offline).

[michaelnewham]

Brilliant!

Thank you for the swift reply..

Where can i donate to the the ongoing development of PINN.?

Cheers,

Michael

[procount]

There is only a blank console after i finish installing my os, no option on "Select OS to boot" console.
The OS was successfully installed with NOOBS

Did you get a dialog box at the end of installation indicating all the OSes were installed ?
Did you click through it, causing the RPI to reboot?
Did you then get the rainbow screen?
Did you get the PINN splash screen indicating you should press shift to enter recovery?
Was the blank console displayed after that or at some other time?
Which OSes did you install?

If you only install one OS, the boot menu will not be displayed (in NOOBS or PINN) and the sole OS will be booted directly (since there is no selection to make).

[Haris1977]

With the general improvement in development of raspie's (both hw and software) is it necessary anymore to install PINN's os's into usb's? I am talking about 2 factors here:

a) in terms of speed
b) in terms of sd card corruption

Any thoughts?

[procount]

Where can i donate to the the ongoing development of PINN.?

Thanks for the offer, but I don't have a donation page. Maybe I should create one...

[procount]

With the general improvement in development of raspie's (both hw and software) is it necessary anymore to install PINN's os's into usb's? I am talking about 2 factors here:

a) in terms of speed
b) in terms of sd card corruption

Any thoughts?

It has never been necessary, but more a matter of choice according to use case. PINN must work across all RPIs, so it will not be restricted just because a newer RPi is improved.

This subject is not restricted to PINN, but applies to all OSes, however installed, so maybe a new thread would be appropriate if you want more general feedback?

I'm by no means an expert on these things, but these are some things to consider that I've picked up:

• SD cards are getting faster all the time
• SD cards are more suitable for linear reading/writing and are not so fast at random access
• SD cards tend to be more prone to wearing out
• SD cards are very convenient - less prone to getting disconnected/knocked out, but can be more awkward to change if the RPI is buried inside a touchscreen case
• USB memory sticks tend to have more sophisticated wear-levelling so may last longer
• USB memory sticks tend to be better at random access
• USB HDDs and SSDs may offer better longevity and less corruption
• USB HDDs and SSDs can be very fast, but they are currently limited to the shared USB2 bus speed.
• USB devices may be easier to change/swap
• Booting from USB introduces a time delay in starting up, but maybe faster in operation
• It is possible to boot from SD card and run the main OS from USB to mitigate some of the above time issues
• USB devices can be more cost effective for very large capacities.

So, it depends! Especially on what you want to use your RPI for.

[Haris1977]

I am opting 4 better longevity and less corruption. So i guess usb is (still) a one-way road (at least for my needs). Thanks

[Nachteule]

Short question: Is the brand new Pi3 + already supported?

[procount]

There is a beta version on sourceforce in the testing folder called pinn-25b1.zip (v2.5 beta 01).
Most works but not fully tested.
Please try it out and report any issues, preferably on github.

[Nachteule]

There is a beta version on sourceforce in the testing folder called pinn-25b1.zip (v2.5 beta 01).
Most works but not fully tested.
Please try it out and report any issues, preferably on github.

Ah ok. I'll try after I have all my XBian updates done for Pi3+. In the meantime I have PINN disabled

[procount]

Yeah, if only we had a bit of warning about these things!
The beta only works on the 3B+ at the moment.

[Nachteule]

Yeah, if only we had a bit of warning about these things!
The beta only works on the 3B+ at the moment.

Oh great Just tested this beta on 3B+, works and I can confirm: works on 3B+ only

[procount]

Still a work in progress Going as fast as I can.

[procount]

pinn-25b2.zip (v 2.5 beta 02) is now in /testing.
Boots on Pi3B+, Pi2 and Pi1A.
Still untested and some wifi drivers still missing.

[jypang]

There is only a blank console after i finish installing my os, no option on "Select OS to boot" console.
The OS was successfully installed with NOOBS

Did you get a dialog box at the end of installation indicating all the OSes were installed ?
Did you click through it, causing the RPI to reboot?
Did you then get the rainbow screen?
Did you get the PINN splash screen indicating you should press shift to enter recovery?
Was the blank console displayed after that or at some other time?
Which OSes did you install?

If you only install one OS, the boot menu will not be displayed (in NOOBS or PINN) and the sole OS will be booted directly (since there is no selection to make).

Hi there, I can see the rainbow screen and able to start the installation.
However the installation aborted with a pop up msg saying failed to get distribution list while installation is around 70% + ( I have no connection).
I am using own customized rpi OS based on Yocto. There is no other OS installed and only 1 OS under /OS dir.
FYI, this OS was able to be installed via NOOBS.
Thanks

[jypang]

There is only a blank console after i finish installing my os, no option on "Select OS to boot" console.
The OS was successfully installed with NOOBS

Did you get a dialog box at the end of installation indicating all the OSes were installed ?
Did you click through it, causing the RPI to reboot?
Did you then get the rainbow screen?
Did you get the PINN splash screen indicating you should press shift to enter recovery?
Was the blank console displayed after that or at some other time?
Which OSes did you install?

If you only install one OS, the boot menu will not be displayed (in NOOBS or PINN) and the sole OS will be booted directly (since there is no selection to make).

Hi there, I can see the rainbow screen and able to start the installation.
However the installation aborted with a pop up msg saying failed to get distribution list while installation is around 70% + ( I have no connection).
I am using own customized rpi OS based on Yocto. There is no other OS installed and only 1 OS under /OS dir.
FYI, this OS was able to be installed via NOOBS.
Thanks

Hi @procount, after few attempts, i have successfully installed my customized OS.
Here come another question, how do PINN use LAN by default instead of WiFi ?

I have set up the ethernet cable to my RPi and set own repo on cmdline.
However PINN pop up a msg saying "internet access is required" and asked me to connect to a wireless network.
Besides, are we allowed to set own proxy for PINN ?

*Ethernet network is working, tried with web browser in PINN.

BTW, Thanks for your great work!

[procount]

how do PINN use LAN by default instead of WiFi ?

It uses whichever interface becomes available first, which is normally LAN, because wifi takes longer to associate to an SSID/access point.

I have set up the ethernet cable to my RPi and set own repo on cmdline.
However PINN pop up a msg saying "internet access is required" and asked me to connect to a wireless network.

This is not the exact error message that displays, so I'm not sure exactly where you mean. But something similar pops up if PINN tries to do something on the network but hasn't got an IP address.
If internet access is required and you haven't established an ethernet connection, but you do have a compatible wifi dongle, PINN will prompt you to connect to a wifi network. If you don't want to connect to a wifi network, remove the wifi dongle, or disable the onboard wifi to prevent the prompt.

Besides, are we allowed to set own proxy for PINN ?

Proxies are not currently supported. See https://github.com/raspberrypi/noobs/issues/279

[Nachteule]

Yep, can confirm, v2.5 beta 02 is working again on Pi3B

Thanks for your work @procount

[jypang]

Besides, are we allowed to set own proxy for PINN ?

Proxies are not currently supported. See https://github.com/raspberrypi/noobs/issues/279

Thanks for the clarification.
Since proxies is not supported on PINN, i have use wget to get the OS tar ball from my own repo within the recovery shell which the shell allowed me to export proxies.
Here come another another 2 question.
First., PINN / NOOBS will resize the partition upon turn on the RPi, and I found that the partition for recovery (which contains /os) will be resized according the file size on sd card. For example, if there's nothing inside os/ the partition will be resize to 50+mb.

Since i would like to wget my tarball into /os, i would need more space on that partition. My current workaround is put a 1GB file in it, so PINN resize that partition to approximately 1.1GB. Do you have any way to set the partition size?

Second, after i wget the tarball and json file, I would need to reboot the rpi so it can silentinstall my OS. How can we reboot from the recovery shell of PINN ?
Thank you!

[procount]

First., PINN / NOOBS will resize the partition upon turn on the RPi, and I found that the partition for recovery (which contains /os) will be resized according the file size on sd card. For example, if there's nothing inside os/ the partition will be resize to 50+mb.

Since i would like to wget my tarball into /os, i would need more space on that partition. My current workaround is put a 1GB file in it, so PINN resize that partition to approximately 1.1GB. Do you have any way to set the partition size?

That's what I do too. Or put your os in the /os folder before you run PINN for the first time.
I was trying to implement a wipe-disk feature to get a round this, but it didn't quite work first time around for some use cases, so I had to remove it again. It will probably show up again in a later release.
You could do it manually - i.e. delete all other partitions and expand partition 1 to fill the whole SD card.

Second, after i wget the tarball and json file, I would need to reboot the rpi so it can silentinstall my OS. How can we reboot from the recovery shell of PINN ?
Thank you!

`echo b>/proc/sysrq-trigger`

[procount]

PINN has been updated to v2.5.1

V2.5.1

• firmware - New firmware for Rpi 3B+
• Kernel - Update to kernel 4.9.80
• OS firmware - Latest firmware is slip streamed onto old OSes
• wifi drivers - Some wifi drivers temporarily removed until they can be upgraded
• Arora - Prevented multiple instances of Arora browser running

Sorry for the wait, but finally PINN is suitable for the Pi3B+.
Thanks to those who left positive comments about the previous beta versions.

PINN v2.5.1 includes new firmware, kernel and drivers to support the new Pi3B+ model. This latest firmware may prevent older OSes from booting from PINN if they have not been upgraded to the latest firmware, even on the older RPi models. PINN will therefore automatically upgrade the older firmware of any OS during installation. This is a bit of an experimental feature to avoid having to upgrade all the OSes individually, as there are just far to many to test. If this causes a probem, this firmware upgrade feature can be disabled by adding `nofirmware` to recovery.cmdline.

The new firmware is stored in /firmware.override. If it is newer than a version on an installed OS, it is automatically copied on installation. If it is older, or it does not exist in the OS, it is ignored.

Many OSes that support the Pi3 will need updating to support the new Pi3B+ model, so the list of available OSes for this Pi3B+ may be limited until the maintainers can release newer versions. Adding the `showall` option may allow the older version to be selected, and PINN's new firmware upgrade feature may allow them to boot, but the kernel and drivers will still need to be updated to allow the new hardware features to be used (LAN, USB, wifi etc).

If you are aware of any distros that have already been updated, but PINN still refers to the older version, please let me know, preferably with a link, and I will endeavour to update them.
Also let me know if there are any OSes that will no longer work with PINN.

Unfortunately, some of the previous drivers for Realtek wifi dongles have not been included in this release. I will add them into a later version when I have upgraded them.

[procount]

Anyone who downloaded the previous beta versions and expects them to self-update to this new v2.5.1 version will be disappointed, as I chose the wrong version number for the beta

There is a simple workaround though: simply edit the BUILD-DATA file on the first (PINN) recovery partition of the SD card and change the version from 2.5betaXX to 2.4. When PINN is next booted, it will recognise the newer version and prompt you to upgrade.

[bacsom]

I tried out PINN light (2.5.1) this morning on my brand new Pi 3 B+ and unfortunately there seems to be a problem with the firmware.

- I can only Install Raspbian from the internet (same with NOOBS, so the root of the problem must be universal).
- BUT, when I install Libreelec (8.2.4) from a USB stick or from the OS folder it sees only 117Mb of Ram and the system is extremely slow. Noobs doesn't have this problem I have the entire 1Gb (- the GPU). I have tried with different SD cards and installations, I even replaced the Pi 3B+ with a simple Pi2, same result.

Any ideas?

EDIT: OK, so I think I got the answer for my first question. Still Libreelec works well on B+, so if it is possible please add it to the list.

[procount]

LibreElec comes from the noobs site so the rpf have to enable it for the 3B+. I think they were made aware that it was already compatible but I'll give them a nudge.

[bacsom]

Thank you! Yes, they are compatible (8.2.4). I have downloaded the tar file from the bottom of the page: https://libreelec.tv/downloads/pi2-pi3/