STICKY: PINN - An enhanced version of NOOBS.

[procount]

Glad you sorted it.
PINN & NOOBS only work on the primary display (HDMI0), the left one nearest the USB-C power socket on a Pi4.
The other indication that you are using the incorrect monitor is that the secondary display (normally HDMI1, the right most connector away from the USB-C power socket) will display the rainbow screen, but the top left corner will be magenta rather than red.

The boot troubleshooting thread suggested that the right port will only display that rainbow screen on certain 4K60 monitors, though mine is a standard 1080p60.

The boot sticky actually says:

If you want to use a 4kp60 monitor you must use HDMI0, so If you don't get a picture out of your 4Kp60 HDMI monitor you might want to try it with the primary HDMI port, which is the one located near the USB-C power port. The other (right) HDMI port will not generate a picture beyond the rainbow GPU test screen, when you use a 4kp60 monitor.

Which means that if you have a 4Kp60 monitor, you should plug it into HDMI0 because that's the only port that outputs that specification. But both ports will work adequately with a 1080p60 monitor.

[procount]

PINN has been updated to v3.3.4.2

V3.3.4.1

• CloneSD - Remove drive restrictions on Clone SD
• Set Time - Added indication that time is in UTC
• Replace - Fixed shortcut for Replace OS
• Buildversions - Made buildversions more intuitive (for me!)
• Legacy - Accounted for Pi4 when identifying legacy hardware

V3.3.4.2

• Firmware - Update firmware 5.4.45 for usb-boot (beta)
• Name Change - Update recommended OS name
• KeybdTrigger - Fix keyboard trigger option
• Translations - Update Italian language
• Raspberry Pi OS - Included new Pi OS in full version

Some more minor issues fixed.

PINN now includes the latest beta firmware to allow it to run on a Pi4 with latest eeprom code that permits USB-BOOT.
This means you can now boot PINN off a USB drive. HOWEVER, not all OSes that it installs will include this firmware yet, so it may still be necessary to manually upgrade the firmware of an OS to support this feature. I may address this issue once the USB-BOOT firmware has stabilised.

The full version of PINN has been updated to include the latest LibreELEC and Raspberry Pi OS distros as per NOOBS.

[dvaitman]

Is there a PINN mirror site? struggling to download from sourceforge

[procount]

Are you downloading manually or via self-update?
Sourceforge itself should have plenty of mirrors.

[dvaitman]

manually. Trying to start fresh on an external sata drive (via USB)

Edit: tried again, back online. Thanks.

[kartable]

What does "Remove drive restrictions on Clone SD" mean?
Is it possible to clone a SD or a USB flash to a large hard disk while not dedicating the whole disk to PINN?
When you have a disk with 1To, you may want to keep space for additional partitions with data or anything else.

[procount]

What does "Remove drive restrictions on Clone SD" mean?

Previously, I blocked copying a device to /dev/mmcblk0 because that is normally where PINN is, however, that is not the case when using USB-BOOT so I have lifted that restriction. But the user must now be more careful that the target device is correct.

Is it possible to clone a SD or a USB flash to a large hard disk while not dedicating the whole disk to PINN?

There is an option to "Resize last partition". If this is not checked, then it should do as you want.

When you have a disk with 1To, you may want to keep space for additional partitions with data or anything else.

Alternatively, you can reserve some space using ProjectSpaces for later installation of OSes (c.f. PiDrive Foundation Edition), or you can uses Matt's webpage to set specific partition sizes (http://pinn.mjh.nz/)

[messer-germany]

Hi,

first of all - THANKS A LOT for providing PINN - it's a great tool.

Today I tried to a fresh installation of PINN 3.3.4.2 using a new SSD device (via USB) to enable booting my Pi4 without a SD card.

PINN itself is booting from USB device as expected and I can install PiOS, LibreElec, 2 spare partitions and a data partition without any error message.

When the installation process is completed I am getting a curious result after rebooting:

• booting to LibreElec is working fine but

• when booting into PiOS (full version) I am getting error messages that "USB-MSB boot requires new software"

On the screen I am getting the following messages:

Raspberry Pi 4 - 4GB
bootloader: c302dea0 Jun 15 2020
config: 50a2c55b

board: ...
boot: mode USB-MSD 4 order f41 retry 1/128 restart 4/-1
SD: card detected (although no card inserted)
part: 6 mbr ...
updates: enabled 0
fw: start4.elf fixup4.dat

recovery4.elf not found (6)
recovery4.elf not found (6)
...

What did I wrong?

Btw, I had this result after using the PINN full version and after using the actual PINN-Lite-Image.

[tigercat]

Hey folks! Just heard about PINN this afternoon and I'm really excited to try it out. The images that Berryboot had were all sort of flawed so I'm hoping PINN has better stuff going on. I already see a lot more variety.

I'm on PINN 3.3.4.2 (Built Jun 17 2020)
I'm trying to install the "raspios64" image under the Testing tab and it won't install.

I get this error in a little window titled "Download error":
=====
Error downloading meta file
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/projec ... spio64.png
[Close]
=====

Maybe that link should be https:// ???

Is there a way for me to change that somehow?

[procount]

It was a small typo. It should be fixed now. Just reboot and retry.

[lukefrenner]

Is there a way that I could install a custom operating system to pinn os . Like twister os or something else?

[PiUser10]

Another vote here for the addition of Twisteros to PINN if it is at all possible.
Don't even mind loading it from the os folder of a flash drive if someone can create the correct files to put on it.
That would complete my setup, at least until something new or better turns up.

[procount]

Instructions for how to create your own can be found on GitHub in my README_PINN.md and on my wiki.
If you want me to consider doing it, it always help to provide a URL to the download. Creating some slideshow installation images and a 40x40 OS icon for it always helps

[PiUser10]

I will study the information you have suggested and see if it falls within my general capabilities,
I am quite technical but not much of an artist so creating icons/images etc is not one of my strengths.
The URL to the distro (which has become quite popular I think) is
https://archive.org/download/twister-os ... 1-2.img.xz
if that is of any help to anyone.

[sakaki]

Hello,

just a quick note that the new v1.6.0 release of my bootable Gentoo image for the RPi4/RPi3 (announce post, with a detailed list of changes, here) is now also available for installation via PINN.

Here's a screenshot of the image running on a dual-display RPi4 B (click to show a higher resolution view):



The full image is called gentoo64 on PINN; the CLI-only version, gentoo64lite.

Images were converted using the pinnify script.

Best,

sakaki

Edit: update screenshot

[Patricia Hill]

Which is a great version, thanks?

[BRX7]

Hi procount,
how does one update the start4* and fixup4* firmware files for pinn? .

Thanks

[procount]

I've already updated them for USB boot. Does it not work for you?

[BRX7]

I've already updated them for USB boot. Does it not work for you?

Its working at the moment, im just thinking regarding recent updates, beyond 17/06/20 firmware

[procount]

PINN has fewer dependencies on the firmware than full distros do, so it doesn't always need to be on the cutting edge. But I will update it when it is necessary. I'm sure I will be nudged if I miss something

[busywait]

Does PINN have any special support for shared data partitions?

I'd like to have a partition with a few GB of data shared between the OSs on my SD card?

Is it clever or wise to share swap files, or home directories to make better use of space on an SD card?

[B.Goode]

Does PINN have any special support for shared data partitions?

Short answer: Yes.


Longer answer: The developer of PINN has been very thorough in documenting it, so the answer to your question can be found here - https://github.com/procount/pinn/blob/m ... ME_PINN.md

[procount]

Under the utility category, you will see an entry for a data partition that you can install to share between OSes. I think it is a fixed 512MB in size, but if you use Matt's webpage (pinn.mjh.nz) you can resize it during installation

Depending on the OSes you install they might automount this partition for you, or you can add an entry to /etc/fstab.

[busywait]

Does PINN have any special support for shared data partitions?

Longer answer: The developer of PINN has been very thorough in documenting it, so the answer to your question can be found here - https://github.com/procount/pinn/blob/m ... ME_PINN.md

Thanks, I have been spending some time reading that fine manual today I hadn't spotted the references to data partitions (or Project Spaces) in the first look through.

Under the utility category, you will see an entry for a data partition that you can install to share between OSes. I think it is a fixed 512MB in size,

Thanks, I've done two PINN installs now, and managed to miss the point of the Utility tab both times. (Even though I had to click through all of the tabs to find Raspbery Pi 64bit option). After creating a data partition, would it be safe (acceptable to PINN) to boot into any of the live OSs and shrink/grow any of the "offline" OS and data partitions?

And to save a little time - could I hack in a data partition retrospectively?

Edit:
I've just worked out how to use the web page you pointed me at - very helpful for the next reinstall!

[procount]

It's not preferred, but yes, you should be able to grow or shrink partitions afterwards.

If you want to add a data partition retrospectively, you need to add it as a logical partition within, but at the end of, the extended partition. This is so that the existing partition numbers are not affected, otherwise you'll have a load of configuration to change.