STICKY: PINN - An enhanced version of NOOBS.

[tc427f]

Since I want to define the partition sizes for each OSes myself, I shouldn't use Rpi Imager since it is automatically done for me? In this case I will have to use http://pinn.mjh.nz.

So to confirm, I will initalize my 500gb SSD to MBR and format it to FAT32 using MiniTool. Then once I define the partition size for each OSes that I want to install, I will copy the files into the SSD and boot up?

No, this is a waste of time.
1. Use Rpi Imager to install PINN & boot it. This will make it MBR and have a small FAT32 partition for PINN. Using MiniTool beforehand will mean you are doing it twice.
2. Decide on your partition sizes using pinn.mjh.nz website and copy recovery.cmdline to PINN.
3. Install your OSes with PINN.

Thank you for clarifying! Appreciate the assist.

[gedorin]

1. am i doing something wrong in the process?
2. can it be some sort of hardware issue?
3. is there any way to speedup the AOSP/Lineage install process? and related to this, is there a tutorial specific to pinn for getting gapps, or should i use the standard tutorials for android?
4. how can i debug an os installation? where are the logs?
5. i've experimented with multiple sizes for partitions as i suspected that this was the issue when i noticed that i can't use the reinstall/replace function of pinn as it fails with an error related tot partition size (can't remember the exact phrase). what's the best practice here?

@gedorin - It sounds like you are having a frustrating time. Let me see if I can answer your questions:

1. No I don't think so.
2. Possibly. It looks like your SSDs are disconnecting during the install process. This could be a power supply issue, so check your power requirements are not not being exceeded and the voltage is sufficient at the Pi. Using a powered USB hub would normally sort this out, but you're already using one.
It might be worth eliminating PINN from the issue by just installing the raw images individually to your SSD using, say, Rpi Imager. Make sure each one can be installed and executed and is compatible with your SSDs.
3. Most of my images are stored on Sourceforge.net which has many mirrors around the world for easy and quick access. It could be it is not selecting the correct mirror for your location. If it is causing a real problem, you could download the images to a local USB or SSD drive using your PC and try installing from there. Details are in https://github.com/procount/pinn/blob/m ... -usb-stick.
Re: GAPPS - once an OS is installed from PINN, it should just work as normal, so follow the usual instructions to install GAPPS.
4. Please read https://github.com/procount/pinn/blob/m ... ME_PINN.md which details all of PINN's features. You can also look on my Wiki for specific tutorials. You might find the https://github.com/procount/pinn/wiki/Troubleshooting page useful. You can find the logs in /tmp/debug. You can open the log window on the screen from the Fixup menu, or view it from the recovery console (ctrl-alt-f2) or by logging in using SSH.
5. Reinstall/replace only works with OSes that have the same number of partitions of sufficient size to install the new OS into (according to the OS meta-data). You might want to try installing the OSes normally without resizing them with Matt's webpage first to make sure they work for you.

If the only reason for using Matt's webpage is to get a data partition of 300GB, then you could create your own 300GB data partition installation.
A data partition is just an empty OS partition defined by some meta-files. You could use PINN to download it to a local USB stick and then modify the appropriate files to fix the size to 300GB, then install it from you rlocal USB drive. See the README_PINN.md on how to download OSes locally.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to give this comprehensive answer.
After many tries, i've succeded in installing after removing raspbian os from the mix. I'm not sure how that changed anything, it might have been a combination of things, but it's ok now and i don't want to mess with it anymore.
I don't think the ssd is disconnecting anymore.. at first it was obviously doing that but after moving to a powerd usb hub, it's all good.
I did try installing individual images using imager without any issues.. it was only with pinn that things went wrong.
Thanks again for your time!

[mickeyj4j]

I have got a RPI 4B 8gb model with one 128GB sd card. I put Pinn on my sd card, (download file extract zip, copy contents to new sd card, booted PINN on the RPI. installed several different OS.
After This was finished I selected an os and set it up but on each boot it only allows me to boot into the one os. How can i boot into the other OS(S) I installed. thanks. how can i access or create a bootloader to do it. I would thing that PINN was a bootloader allowing me to boot it up, select an os to boot and maybe also have the other os I can select and install later..

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide on this.

[B.Goode]

I have got a RPI 4B 8gb model with one 128GB sd card. I put Pinn on my sd card, (download file extract zip, copy contents to new sd card, booted PINN on the RPI. installed several different OS.
After This was finished I selected an os and set it up but on each boot it only allows me to boot into the one os. How can i boot into the other OS(S) I installed. thanks. how can i access or create a bootloader to do it. I would thing that PINN was a bootloader allowing me to boot it up, select an os to boot and maybe also have the other os I can select and install later..

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide on this.

Your expectations appear to be confirmed by the documentation -
https://github.com/procount/pinn/blob/m ... -with-pinn

[procount]

Thanks to B.Goode for pointing you to the correct part of the documentation.

I would thing that PINN was a bootloader allowing me to boot it up, select an os to boot

On first boot you would have a selection dialog to choose which OS to boot.
Thereafter, the selection box should still appear, but only for about 10 secs before it boots into the last OS you used.
I suspect you have ticked the little checkbox next to the OS you first wanted to boot. This makes that OS "sticky" so that it behaves as if there is only 1 OS installed and PINN will boot it each time. If you don't want this, hold the shift key down when you get the coloured wallpaper and the flashing message in the top left of the screen to get back into PINN. Press Esc to get to the selection window and untick any checkboxes. Then you will get the selection box each time.

Setting the `forcetrigger` option will simulate the shift key being pressed on each boot, forcing PINN to be run.

and maybe also have the other os I can select and install later..

PINN is based on NOOBS which was designed to install all the OSes you want at once. It will expand all OSes to fill your SD card so there is no chance to add another OS later. However, PINN allows you to install some ProjectSpaces which are just empty OSes that reserve space on your SD card. These can later be replaced by another OS of a similar partition layout. Currently they are only suitable for standard partition layouts like Raspberry Pi OS, Ubuntu etc whcih have 2 partitions. They are not suitable for OSes that use more than 2 partitions such as Android, Lineage etc. See the above linked documentation for more info.

[mickeyj4j]

On first boot you would have a selection dialog to choose which OS to boot.
Thereafter, the selection box should still appear, but only for about 10 secs before it boots into the last OS you used.
I suspect you have ticked the little checkbox next to the OS you first wanted to boot. This makes that OS "sticky" so that it behaves as if there is only 1 OS installed and PINN will boot it each time. If you don't want this, hold the shift key down when you get the coloured wallpaper and the flashing message in the top left of the screen to get back into PINN. Press Esc to get to the selection window and untick any checkboxes. Then you will get the selection box each time.

Setting the `forcetrigger` option will simulate the shift key being pressed on each boot, forcing PINN to be run.

Finally got the shift key to work, when pressing Esc it boots straight to the OS again, not a diagnostics screen.

This got so frustrating that I reformatted the sd to start again will update how this goes. If all else fails I will follow this tutorial to manually set things up click here

PINN is based on NOOBS which was designed to install all the OSes you want at once. It will expand all OSes to fill your SD card so there is no chance to add another OS later. However, PINN allows you to install some ProjectSpaces which are just empty OSes that reserve space on your SD card. These can later be replaced by another OS of a similar partition layout. Currently they are only suitable for standard partition layouts like Raspberry Pi OS, Ubuntu etc whcih have 2 partitions. They are not suitable for OSes that use more than 2 partitions such as Android, Lineage etc. See the above linked documentation for more info.

Thanks

[procount]

Finally got the shift key to work, when pressing Esc it boots straight to the OS again, not a diagnostics screen.

That suggests you only have 1 OS installed.
You can check what you have installed by going to the maintenance menu. You should see PINN as the first entry. If you only see one other OS, then this is all you have installed.
You must select all your OSes and install them altogether at the same time. If you select one os and install it, then select another and install it , the 2nd will overwrite the first. There are plenty of warnings about this, but it's the only way I can think of at the moment why you don't get the (diagnostic) os selection menu.

Also, I would just stick to a standard installation first, rather than using Matt's pinn.mjh.nz website until you get everything working and understand how everything works. It's easier to debug it that way.

[blueberry333333]

Finally got the shift key to work, when pressing Esc it boots straight to the OS again, not a diagnostics screen.

That suggests you only have 1 OS installed.
You can check what you have installed by going to the maintenance menu. You should see PINN as the first entry. If you only see one other OS, then this is all you have installed.
You must select all your OSes and install them altogether at the same time. If you select one os and install it, then select another and install it , the 2nd will overwrite the first. There are plenty of warnings about this, but it's the only way I can think of at the moment why you don't get the (diagnostic) os selection menu.

Also, I would just stick to a standard installation first, rather than using Matt's pinn.mjh.nz website until you get everything working and understand how everything works. It's easier to debug it that way.

Thanks for that it will help me.

[mickeyj4j]

That suggests you only have 1 OS installed.
You can check what you have installed by going to the maintenance menu. You should see PINN as the first entry. If you only see one other OS, then this is all you have installed.
You must select all your OSes and install them altogether at the same time. If you select one os and install it, then select another and install it , the 2nd will overwrite the first. There are plenty of warnings about this, but it's the only way I can think of at the moment why you don't get the (diagnostic) os selection menu.

I started again using this post click here. I selected several os that would fit on the 128GB sd card, It gave an error saying that some os installed with errors. and co check some log file, which i cant remember or find, so only some of them installed. out of these I have found that the ubuntu Mate version is eol and no updates available, it wouyld be nice if pinn had this information before installing.
also I understand that with the installed os you can replace them by somehow installing a new os to a partition with an os already in it, but the partitions use generic names and its hard to know what os is installed on them.

Also, I would just stick to a standard installation first, rather than using Matt's pinn.mjh.nz website until you get everything working and understand how everything works. It's easier to debug it that way.

By standard installation I assume you mean just use one os without pinn, yes I have been doing this for a few months on my PI already, I want to test out different os and dont want to have to get a new sd card for each, I dont want to loose previously set up os and intend to use Raspbian, RetroPI (or other gaming os), Lineage Android os, a media centre os and possibly Gentoo as it seems like a fast lightweight os from reviews. I have used linux before and have experience running multiboot os on PC and Laptops before. The Pi is just different so I am trying to work this out,
I am getting there but it is frustrating when Pinn gives errors when installing. I just thought Pinn may get me started but its not so simple as i thought.

Thanks for all your help. I need to sit down and read the full Documentation for PINN and absorb it, also will find the error log for the initial install of the os' and find out why there were were errors after Pinn first installed the os.

[procount]

By standard installation I assume you mean just use one os without pinn

No. I meant use PINN to install your OSes, but don't select them from the pinn.mjh.nz website and don't modify your recovery.cmdline as mentioned in your linked tutorial. This just restricts your choice of OSes and is only useful if you need to modify the space used by each OS. It is a nice website, but it is not part of PINN.

You shouldn't be suffering from so many download/installation errors. I have had recent reports of slow installation from Sourceforge where most OSes are hosted, though, so maybe that is the issue...?

check some log file, which i cant remember or find,

Please see the troubleshooting page of my wiki on github to get the logs.

out of these I have found that the ubuntu Mate version is eol and no updates available, it wouyld be nice if pinn had this information before installing.

Sorry, I have over 100 OS versions available and each one has to be converted taking an hour or so each time, so it's difficult to keep track and maintain them all.

also I understand that with the installed os you can replace them by somehow installing a new os to a partition with an os already in it, but the partitions use generic names and its hard to know what os is installed on them.

Yes, but unfortunately, an OS that has failed to install cannot be replaced without some jiggery-pokery as it disappears. I will try to fix that.
But otherwise the method to replace an OS should become apparent after you have read README_PINN.md and it does not require you to know the partition names.
Simply choose the new OS you want to install, go to the maintenance menu, select the installed OS you want to be replaced and press the replace button. Then just match up the new OS with the old OS (in case you do several at once) and your OSes will be replaced.

The gentoo version may be quite old since it was maintained by Sakaki before she left the scene many years ago. I have not followed gentoo's progress since then.

[mickeyj4j]

No. I meant use PINN to install your OSes, but don't select them from the pinn.mjh.nz website and don't modify your recovery.cmdline as mentioned in your linked tutorial. This just restricts your choice of OSes and is only useful if you need to modify the space used by each OS. It is a nice website, but it is not part of PINN.

ok so dont use that other website to build my own pinn setup, as its not part of pinn. So i just download pinn extract and copy it to my sd card and boot it from RPI and I get the where do i get os from the Pinn menu

You shouldn't be suffering from so many download/installation errors. I have had recent reports of slow installation from Sourceforge where most OSes are hosted, though, so maybe that is the issue...?

ok understand

Please see the troubleshooting page of my wiki on github to get the logs.

ok will do

Sorry, I have over 100 OS versions available and each one has to be converted taking an hour or so each time, so it's difficult to keep track and maintain them all.

I understand you cant add when os are EOL or not, or when they expire I understand.

Yes, but unfortunately, an OS that has failed to install cannot be replaced without some jiggery-pokery as it disappears. I will try to fix that.
But otherwise the method to replace an OS should become apparent after you have read README_PINN.md and it does not require you to know the partition names.
Simply choose the new OS you want to install, go to the maintenance menu, select the installed OS you want to be replaced and press the replace button. Then just match up the new OS with the old OS (in case you do several at once) and your OSes will be replaced.

thanks for that

The gentoo version may be quite old since it was maintained by Sakaki before she left the scene many years ago. I have not followed gentoo's progress since then.

ok i understand that will look into things there may be more community development or not.

I get all this now, this is why I said I am going to sit down and read the Documentation from Click Here
Thanks for all the work you do

[procount]

See also https://github.com/procount/pinn/blob/m ... uick-start

Don't get me wrong, Matt's pinn.mjh.nz website does an excellent job, but it is specifically designed to modify the allocation of SD card space to each OS, instead of PINN's equal distribution. This is not necessary for most applications and just adds another layer of complexity to debug when things go wrong. It also gives you a restricted view of the available OSes to what you have selected. By all means use it later if you need to, but get the standard use cases working first.

[daveheart14]

Good evening procount,

Looking forward to seeing your work ported to raspberry pi 5.
Good luck

[procount]

Yes, I need a lot of luck with that!
Already working on it....

[ejolson]

Yes, I need a lot of luck with that!
Already working on it....

Do you already have a Pi 5? Does "reboot N" still boot the Nth partition on the SD card?

[procount]

Do you already have a Pi 5? Does reboot N still boot the Nth partition on the SD card?

Yes & I'm told yes, but haven't explicitly tried it yet.

[ejolson]

Do you already have a Pi 5? Does reboot N still boot the Nth partition on the SD card?

Yes & I'm told yes, but haven't explicitly tried it yet.

Cool! If there is no embargo about releasing performance metrics, I'd be interested to see how the 5 handles the Pi chart computations

viewtopic.php?p=1393365#p1393365

I apologise for being off topic and understand you have many other things to do to get PINN ready for the new hardware. Thanks for your work on PINN.

[mickeyj4j]

Hi i noticed that some of the OS in pinn menu are older versions. Is there an easy way to install them.
Currently have LibreELEC 10.0.4 from pinn installed. (Not sure what partition its on).
Can I replace the install with the current version of LibreELEC 11.0 click here
Having an easy way to replace an os update would be useful.

[procount]

Can I replace the install with the current version of LibreELEC 11.0 click here
Having an easy way to replace an os update would be useful.

For the majority of OSes installed by PINN, they behave as if they have been installed as an image and so they are upgradable in the same way e.g. using apt update/upgrade or similar. For a few of them it is necessary to re-run the partition_setup.sh script after upgrading.

If an OS does not support upgrading and needs a new version to be installed, then the new OS version needs to be converted into PINN format to be installed by PINN, when it can simply be replaced with the latest version. There are instructions on how to convert an OS on my wiki and in README_PINN.md. Or you can wait until I have time to do the conversion.

For advanced users, in some cases, it may be possible to mount an image of the new OS and copy across the new files to your old PINN partitions. You can discover the correct partition numbers from the /settings/installed_os.json file. You would need to re-run the partition_setup.sh script for that OS in order to adapt it to its new partition layout. This is not a supported method, however.

[procount]

I'd be interested to see how the 5 handles the Pi chart computations

This is for the Pi5 with no case or fan with a Pi4 3A PSU. Vcgencmd reported it had throttled, so I guess this is a conservative output.

PiChart.jpg (52.81 KiB) Viewed 1583 times

[ejolson]

I'd be interested to see how the 5 handles the Pi chart computations

This is for the Pi5 with no case or fan with a Pi4 3A PSU. Vcgencmd reported it had throttled, so I guess this is a conservative output.

Thank you!

That's interesting. I had expected the slice of pie for the Pi 5 to be 2 to 3 times larger than the 4B. Here the slice looks 1.5 times bigger. Lorenz 96 is really fast while the others less exciting.

Was the throttling heat related or low voltage? I wonder how much a role that played.

[procount]

Sorry, I only had time to do a quick run under the default conditions. I think the throttled code was E0000, so:
| 17 | Arm frequency capped has occurred |
| 18 | Throttling has occurred |
| 19 | Soft temperature limit has occurred
I repeated it using a hair dryer on cool setting. It didn't throttle, but the result looked very similar, so the previous throttling must have only had a minor impact.
Edit: Repeated again in free air. During the first 3 tests it got up to about 72 degs and only throttled during the Lorenz test when it got up to a max of 86 degs.

[ejolson]

Sorry, I only had time to do a quick run under the default conditions. I think the throttled code was E0000, so:
| 17 | Arm frequency capped has occurred |
| 18 | Throttling has occurred |
| 19 | Soft temperature limit has occurred
I repeated it using a hair dryer on cool setting. It didn't throttle, but the result looked very similar, so the previous throttling must have only had a minor impact.
Edit: Repeated again in free air. During the first 3 tests it got up to about 72 degs and only throttled during the Lorenz test when it got up to a max of 86 degs.

I think the compiler vectorizes the Lorenz test. On the 4B it uses more power than the others so it is natural it runs the hottest on the Pi 5. Since the Fourier transform seems to experience the least speedup, I wonder how random memory access speeds compare.

Again sorry for the off topic.

[mickeyj4j]

For the majority of OSes installed by PINN, they behave as if they have been installed as an image and so they are upgradable in the same way e.g. using apt update/upgrade or similar. For a few of them it is necessary to re-run the partition_setup.sh script after upgrading.

Ok I preferr fresh installs, from my experience with Linux with a rolling release or an internal update/upgrade often not everything gets upgraded so its not 100% the same as a fresh install.

If an OS does not support upgrading and needs a new version to be installed, then the new OS version needs to be converted into PINN format to be installed by PINN, when it can simply be replaced with the latest version. There are instructions on how to convert an OS on my wiki and in README_PINN.md. Or you can wait until I have time to do the conversion.

Ok will look into this

For advanced users, in some cases, it may be possible to mount an image of the new OS and copy across the new files to your old PINN partitions. You can discover the correct partition numbers from the /settings/installed_os.json file. You would need to re-run the partition_setup.sh script for that OS in order to adapt it to its new partition layout. This is not a supported method, however.

Yes I have done this with puppy linux as this is how its designed to run as a frugal install. I agree that in general even with other os that this works for its not recommended.

[BRX7]

I am looking forward to upgrading my pinn lite ssd setup to rpi5
I hope you will get an upgrade route for us!
Mine has arrived so willing to test

Cheers procount