STICKY: PINN - An enhanced version of NOOBS.

[procount]

Cool! Looks like it should work on all Pi models now, too.

[handsomegenius]

Heads up that RISC OS is back in NOOBS, if you'd like to add it.

This would be excellent.

[procount]

This would be excellent.

It's already there!
(Don't try to use it with the "Replace OS" function though, I think it needs to be installed normally. It will be removed from this function in the next PINN version)

[DarkPlatinum]

Pro count uh I need help. So basically last night I shutdown my raspberry pi 3B+, turned it on this morning and nothing happens. I plugged the SD card into a reader on my Mac and the card could not be initialised. I am thinking the card is dead. Basically I had the boot on the SD card, and installed the OS on a HDD. The HDD still works. How can I get the Raspberry pi working again?

Thanks

[procount]

1. Don't panic. It should just be a case of rebuilding your sd card and boot partitions.
2. Go buy yourself another SD card. A reputable one from a reputable supplier. I suggest a 16 or 32GB one. It needs to be big enough to install your largest OS onto, preferably all of them together.
3. Open an issue on my github where we can discuss this further to avoid cluttering this thread.
4. Provide a list of the OSes you installed if you can.
5. I'll provide some step by step instructions for you so you can recover your system.

[procount]

Alternatively, get a replacement sd card the same size as your existing one, and get a USB memory stick to temporarily install your OSes to.

[DarkPlatinum]

Ok I'll get a new SD card, but here is an issue, I use 3 OSes, 2 raspbian and 1 retro pie setup. Is there a way to transfer them individually so that I can retain all the data?

[procount]

Yes. No need to transfer your data. You will keep your exsting data on your hard disk. You just rebuild the sd card boot partitions to match.

[procount]

https://github.com/procount/pinn/issues/195

[hodlsome]

I decided to try out this installer in lieu of NOOBS after multiple install hangups using NOOBS and i just wanted to report that so far PINN has surpassed the my expectations. Thank you for making this alternative. This is my first Raspberry Pi. Although I received a 16GB SD card with my kit, I did order a 64 GB SD Card and was having issues installing noobs but PINN has downloaded and installed Raspbian with zero issues.

[procount]

Thanks for the feedback! Look out for more exciting features coming soon. Well, maybe not that soon...

[procount]

PINN has been updated to v2.8.5.7

V2.8.5.7

• Firmware - Disabled firmware downgrade on 3B+
• Clear - Added Clear button to clear all selections
• Kernel Bump - Linux kernel 4.14.74, firmware and userland bumped to match NOOBS 2.9
• Replace - Removed RiscOS & Windows_10 from OS replacement
• SilentInstall - Fixed waiting for USB images
• networktimeout - 0 means wait indefinitely for network before silentinstall

The option to downgrade PINN's firmware has been disabled on the 3B+ as this would make it impossible to boot it. This must be done on an older RPi.

A Clear button has been added to clear all selected OSes, both installed and non-installed.

The Kernel and firmware has been bumped to match NOOBS 2.9

RiscOS and Windows_10 have been removed from the OS replacement feature, because they have quite specific partition layouts that must be respected.

The Silentinstall feature with the select option has been fixed to prevent indefinite waiting for USB images in some use cases.

A setting of `networktimeout=0` will now allow indefinite waiting for the network to appear. This is useful for the silentinstall option when deployment is necessary, but the network is not always available.

[procount]

PINN has been updated to v2.8.5.8

V2.8.5.8

• Rpi 3A+- Supports 3A+

This is a minor release to support the 3A+. Earlier versions of PINN will not detect the 3A+ as a new model so it will downgrade the firmware and prevent it from subsequently booting. This is easily fixable and I hope to post some instructions soon. If you can't wait, post an issue on my github and I will try to answer.

Note that the 3A+ requires the latest firmware (newer than the original 3B+ firmware), so not all OSes that boot on the 3B+ can be expected to boot on the 3A+. Hopefully all of the affected OSes have been identified now to prevent downloading of incompatible OSes on the 3A. This will improve over time as the maintainers update the firmware of their respective OSes. Please be patient as I have no control over their schedules!

[procount]

PINN has been updated to v3.0

V3.0 - Now with OS Backups!

• Backup - BACKUP an OS in NOOBS/PINN format
• Time - Added button to set date & time manually
• Download - Fix foldername of some OSes when downloaded
• Iconcache - Icons are cached to speed up startup when connected to the internet

Finally, one of the features I have been wanting to add to PINN for a long while is now included - The ability to backup an Operating System.
So now PINN can truly be used as an administrative management tool for your operating systems.
OSes are backed up in NOOBS format, so they can be installed onto other SD cards by PINN, or restored over an existing OS using the OS Replace function.

OSes are backed up to a USB drive, which must have an /os folder in its root in which the OS will be stored.
The OS name has the current date and time appended to it in the format <osname>#YYYYMMDD-hhmmss to distinguish different backups from each other.
PINN will only know the current time if it is connected to the internet, so if it is not, the time will be prompted for to be entered manually.
Although the backup name has the date and time appended by default, this can be modified manually if another naming scheme is desired.
It is also possible to alter the description of the backup to help identify what it contains.

OSes are backed up in .tar.gz format. These do not compress quite as well as .tar.xz files, but require less memory to produce and can be created faster on the RPi than xz files.
Nevertheless, compressing tar files is still a processor intensive task, so backing up an OS will take longer than installing an OS, especially on one of the slower RPis.

After backing up an OS, the backup will appear as an installable OS in a separate "backups" tab when PINN is next rebooted.
Recall that FAT32 formatted USB drives have a maximum filesize of 4GB, so it may be necessary to format your USB drive as NTFS or EXT4 if your backups are expected to be larger than that.

Some OSes including: Risc OS, XBian and Windows 10 IoT are not supported for backup. This may be improved for some of them in a later version. Other OSess have required modified setup scripts to ensure they are restored correctly. In this case, PINN will attempt to download the latest setup script to permit already installed OSes to be backed up.

Despite the fact that backups are stored in NOOBS format, NOOBS may fail to restore backups properly where a modified setup script is required, as it is unaware of such necessary changes.
A lot of OSes will restore fine, but it is always best to install using PINN.

Please test that any backups can be properly restored before relying upon them. Every effort is made to ensure backups are made correctly, but this is not guaranteed and no responsibility is accepted for any loss. Use at your own risk.

There are other, quicker ways to backup an OS, but this method has the following advantages:

1. It does not require removing the SD card.
2. It is not a live backup.
3. It does not require another computer.
4. Backups are compatible with PINN, so they can be easily restored to the same or different device. Many OSes may be restored by NOOBS (check first)
5. Backups are minimal because only used space is backed up and then compressed.
6. Backups can be restored to smaller or larger partitions (provided they are large enough)

This new backup feature has been thoroughly tested, but it is not possible to test all OSes on all Pi Models in all configurations, so If you find any issues or bugs, please open an issue on my github if possible, or just post to this thread.

You may notice PINN looks a bit different. Hopefully, you'll like the new wallpaper, but If you don't you can delete wallpaper.png from PINN's partition, replace it with one of the samples in the /wallpapers folder, or use one of your own.

Please see the documentation for full details and instructions.

[DarkPlatinum]

I am excited to try out the backup option! Great work you have put in here dude. Have you tested it thoroughly? I know you said to test it out first, but just wanted to ask.

[procount]

We have tested it as thoroughly as we can and I believe I have squashed all significant bugs.
But with over 50 Oses, ~7 significant models of RPi, 3 sources of OSes and 2 target destinations, that adds up to 2,100 combinations. Now multiply that by the average time it takes to install, backup and restore an OS, and you can soon see that it is impossible to test everything. It is a natural consequence then that testing concentrates on combinations of significant variations and worst cases, so it is not unexpected that some corner cases may be missed.
The nature of backups is that they are expected to work 100% all of the time. I cannot guarantee this without testing everything, hence the disclaimers. I have done my best and believe it now works well, but I urge you to test the first backup you make of any OS before you rely on it.

I hope you as excited about using this new feature as I was in bringing it to you. Many thanks also go to Matt for helping me test it out.

[mattrix]

YAH for Backups and new version 3.0 milestone

[DarkPlatinum]

Ok so basically I have a 64 GB sandisk usb drive I would like to store my backups on. I have formatted it as FAT. Do I add a folder named "os" or "/os"?

[procount]

Just call the folder 'os'.

(Folder names cannot include '/'. It is used to separate folders in a path. '/os' just means the 'os' folder in the root of the drive).

[Patrick76]

Backup option has no function. Tried different usb-thumbdrives in different sizes and formats (Fat32/ExFat/NTFS) with an os -folder.The only os (Rasbian) on SD-Card should be backed up. Simply nothing is working after selecting usb-thumbrive and os in the area below and pushing the highlighted backup-icon!

[procount]

Hmmm. I can't imagine what is going wrong for you.

If the USB drive is formatted correctly and has an os folder, then it will show up as a target drive.
(If it has no os folder, then you will be prompted to format it for installation, which you don't want to do)
It is not sufficient to just highlight the os in the installed list, its check-box must be ticked. When it is, then the backup icon on the button should become coloured (enabled) instead of greyed out.
When you then click the backup button you should at least get one or more dialogs prompting for more information, not nothing at all.

Did you tick the check box, and did the backup button become coloured (enabled)?

[Patrick76]

Yes, I did it all! And the icon got coloured, but it doesn't work for me.

[procount]

@Patrick76
OK. So what model of Pi do you have?
Which format of PINN did you install (pinn-lite.zip, pinn.zip or the Etcher version)?
Which form of Raspbian did you install (lite, normal or full)?
Is PINN connected to the internet?
Can you see any error messages in the debug log? (press ctrl-alt-f2, login with root/raspberry, then type `less /tmp/debug` and browse the log with the cursor keys. Press q to quit and ctrl-alt-f1 to get back to the desktop).

EDIT: Please create an issue on my github where I can provide you with more specific help.
EDIT2: Please also see Step 6 of my troubleshooting guide and add the log to your github issue to help me diagnose your problem.

[Patrick76]

My Raspberry Pi3B is online with PINN-Lite and Raspbian-full. No error-message.

[procount]

I can only suggest you follow my advice above:

Please create an issue on my github where I can provide you with more specific help.
Please also see Step 6 of my troubleshooting guide and add the log to your github issue to help me diagnose your problem.

in order to help you further, because I'm a bit blind without any more info.