STICKY: PINN - An enhanced version of NOOBS.

[DieHardjagged]

That suggests you have not allocated enough space to Raspbian. Try the recommended size of 8GB then it should be ok.
The OSes indicate a minimum size to install, but sometimes it is not really enough, especially if you want to update it later. I am contemplating adding a minimum recommended setting to each OS as a warning to overcome this.

I resized Raspbian to 8GB and everything works without problems, thanks again for the help.
I will experiment with the partition sizes to see how much i can shave off and still make it work, if not i will just keep it as it is.
And i think your idea of adding a minimum recommendation setting for each OS would be pretty good.

Edit: I resized Raspbian down to 7GB and it still works without problems, i think i will just keep it at 7, because making it any smaller makes no difference in the big picture for me.

[procount]

Matt's webapp has now been adjusted to account for this situation, although the recommended size (or similar) still needs to be implemented in PINN.

[procount]

PINN has been updated to v3.1.1

V3.1.1

• alias - Fix underscores
• backup - Much faster backups on multicore processors
• silentreinstallnewer - exits to boot menu & stops remotetimeout
• menu - Removed PageDown->nextmenu function because it conflicts
• Translations - Updated IT & zh_TW translations

The major enhancement in this release is a significant increase to the speed of OS backups.
This is due to parallel compression on multicore processors.
On the PI3B+ it means the backup time is almost as fast as the installation time.
There probably won't be much of an increase on single core processors like the PiZero.

The rest of the changes are some minor enhancements for some corner cases.

Finally, PINN is proud to welcome Sakaki's self-hosted repository to the list of distributions available.
Currently this includes her 64-bit Gentoo distribution, but I look forward to others coming along later this year.

[procount]

Just out of interest, I did some benchmarks to measure how fast the new backup was.
I used the gentoo64 image which is pretty large at about 8GB in size.

Time to download & install from internet: 10m45s

Time to backup to USB (All times approximate)
on a 3B+: 12m 00s
on a 3B : 13m30s
on a 2B : 20m47s
on a Pi0: 1h46m00s
For comparison, the previous time to backup on a Pi3B+ was over an hour.

As all 4 cores are being used, your RPi may get quite hot, so any throttling may reduce the times accordingly.

[DieHardjagged]

I have two question so far, is there any way to change the order the Os´s are shown on the startup menu manually?
The option ín the menu (when using shift at the startup) doesnt make that possible.
And the other question i have is, when Raspbian is started up the first time, you see the window that guides you through to finish the setup, including getting updates, how do i trigger this window again, or do i just use a commandline to make that happen?
Thats so far the only things that i want to get working.
Cheers

[procount]

1. No. Not possible at the moment but it has been asked before so I may look into it.
2. That's a feature of Raspbian and I have no idea, I'm afraid.

[DieHardjagged]

1. No. Not possible at the moment but it has been asked before so I may look into it.
2. That's a feature of Raspbian and I have no idea, I'm afraid.

1. Oh i would be really glad to have such a feature, so far i was only able to get the position to switch once, but i attribute that to internet lag when i started up my pi, since it never happened again, i made a sd copy because i never got it again afterwards.
2. I think the only way to retrigger what i meant, would be to completely re-install Raspbian through the recovery menu. (I will try to find out more by doing internet research)
There could be another way to make it appear, but i havent found such an option yet.

[procount]

2. It will be a script or program that is started from one of the usual auto-start locations (.bashrc, .profile, cron, systemd rc.local etc) and will then self delete that initiator. So install a fresh copy of Raspbian and examine it from another OS before it boots.

[sakaki]

And the other question i have is, when Raspbian is started up the first time, you see the window that guides you through to finish the setup, including getting updates, how do i trigger this window again, or do i just use a commandline to make that happen?

Do you mean the first boot setup wizard?


If so, then per this article, you can just run "sudo piwiz" in a terminal to make it run again.

hth, sakaki

[DieHardjagged]

And the other question i have is, when Raspbian is started up the first time, you see the window that guides you through to finish the setup, including getting updates, how do i trigger this window again, or do i just use a commandline to make that happen?

Do you mean the first boot setup wizard?

If so, then per this article, you can just run "sudo piwiz" in a terminal to make it run again.

hth, sakaki

Thanks alot, that was exactly what i was looking for.
Cheers

[Haris1977]

Just a more general question.

I am about to install PINN for my friend. I always use a usb 3.0 drive to install PINN's os's (and of course an sd card for pinn it self) because as far as i know i can diminish sd card corruption and prolongue sd card life and stability. But that was 2-3 years ago. So is that right? Can i only use an sd card without the need of a usb? What are the thoughts here?

[procount]

As you state, this is quite a general question and is not restricted to just the use of PINN. You may get a better response if you started a separate thread (? :shrug:). There are also many threads on here discussing the merits of using USB sticks rather then SD cards.

I will just re-iterate some of those points:
In general, SD cards are not designed for the random access nature of operating system use, whereas USB drives tend to be better.
(Do you mean a USB HDD, USB SSDD, or USB memory stick?)
You can also now boot off a USB device with a RPI3B/3B+/3A+, so in this case you can put PINN on the USB drive as well. However, doing so will slow the boot process up whilst the firmware searches for the correct device. But this can be mitigated, even with the older models, by using a very small SD card with just the latest bootcode.bin on it which can then boot off other USB drives. (I've not tried this with PINN, but may still work).

Personally, I tend to use SD cards because they are neater and don't get knocked off or damaged when being transported (which i do a lot) and I've only had 1 or 2 fail over the years.

[Haris1977]

Thanks procount for your answer.

I was talking about standard usb flash drives like e.g the Sandisk Ultra Flair 32GB USB 3.0. I do not want to boot off a USB device, i would prefer an sd card for this. So, to sum up, i will try only one sd card for all of my friend's os's.

He just wants the best combination for a long term reliability (in terms of sd card corruption etc).

Thanks again:)

[procount]

Just remember not to cram too many OSes onto the one SD card. Each one needs additional space for upgrading and data etc.
I would suggest 4 OSes as a maximum on a 32GB card (depending on what they are , of course). Less is better.

Also, one of the key considerations for long term reliability, whatever the media, is a good backup strategy.
At least with PINN, you can now back-up each OS individually to a USB stick, and then restore them if the card does fail.

[Haris1977]

Thanks again

[procount]

Other backup solutions are available, too.

[procount]

PINN has been updated to v3.2

V3.2

• Added file checksums
• More robust file transfer
• Resumable download
• Change boot selection order
• Added options dialog

There's been a lot of file changes in this release, most of which you will hopefully never see!
The biggest change is the support for checksums of the OS tarballs and setup script.
This means that the OS files can be verified to be correct when downloaded or installed.
If a checksum error is found the download can be kept, retried, discarded or the whole process can be aborted. See the full details in
https://github.com/procount/pinn/blob/m ... -checksums .

The download of the tarballs has been made more robust to rideout certain failures.
If the download of an OS to a USB drive fails, the download can now be resumed to avoid having to start the process again.

The order of the OSes on the boot selection dialog can now be changed by moving OSes up or down in the list.

And finally, I have added a new dialog box to make setting the various command line options for PINN much easier which also avoids having to remember all the option names.
This dialog is accessed by selecting the Edit Config button on the PINN entry and then clicking the new Edit Options button.

The FULL version of PINN.ZIP includes the latest version of Raspbian released yesterday (2019-04-08)

[Haris1977]

It seems that v3.2 completely ruined keyboard/hdmi cec control in boot menu. When boot menu is loaded it is now "focused" on up/down tabs (in the right side of sticky default) and NOT on os menu it self.

PS1: If you managed to go to os boot menu it self, while up/down arrows work, enter/ok does not (it only mooves the os up).
PS2: Os boot order doesnt seem to work after reboot

[procount]

Oops! Sorry, I forgot about CEC. I'll look into it.
If it's a big issue you can revert to 3.1.1 (don't overwrite recovery.cmdline!) and hold it at that version, or I can do an interim version with that feature removed.

[nuco]

Friend, thanks for the next release of your utility. I'm from Russia.
Why don't you update Lakka for Pi Zero? On the official website version 2.2 (December 24, 2018).

[Haris1977]

It is a "thing" for me but most of the time i dont use my hdmi cec control to change my boot os (as 99% of the time i use LE as my default boot operation system) so at this point i dont want to mess around with downgrade process.

I think i will wait for a fix.

[procount]

@nuco - Hi & Welcome.
Thanks for pointing out the later release of Lakka.
The version I link to is the same one referred to by the RPF for NOOBS that is maintained by Lakka.tv themselves.
But following the link, it seems they have 2 versions of Lakka images, and NOOBS is linking to the old one. I'll see what can be done.

[nuco]

@procount

Good! Thanks for the feedback! I would hope for a possible update

[procount]

@Haris1977 - Please try https://sourceforge.net/projects/pinn/f ... p/download
(Unzip and copy everything EXCEPT recovery.cmdline over your existing PINN version)

• Fixed initial focus
• Changed tab order.
• Added shortcut keys U & D
• Added CEC keys 1,2,3,4 for Up,Down,Cancel,Boot

Any adjusted boot order is only saved if you click the BOOT button. Cancel will revert back to the original order.
(I've not been able to test the CEC function myself yet).

[Haris1977]

Well when i removed my sd card and put it back in my pc i had that pic poping up:

https://imgur.com/a/NuqPeHY

(it showed all of my sd card's partitions).

But I guess i did smth i shouldnt have done . I formatted my e: partition (with sd card formatter) and copied all contents (except recovery.cmdline that i copied it from my previous build) to my fresh sd card. It completely broke my system (didnt have a backup too) and now i have to re-install everything from scratch (i guess i wont use pinn anymore - at least for my mom's build).

When i get the time i will try to create an other image with pinn-32a.zip