PinePhone Software Releases

This page contains a list of all available releases for the PinePhone as well as links to other resources.

See PinePhone Installation Instructions on how to install the operating systems.

Note: Some releases may not have a good setup for the backlight at low brightness. If configured too low the backlight shuts down completely, but the screen is still displayed and usable in bright front-light.

Software Releases

This is a list of OSes that specifically support the PinePhone, but as support is included in Mainline Linux, in principle any ARM Linux OS can be used, if possible required patches are included.

Arch Linux ARM

(Unofficial) Arch Linux ARM with choice of Phosh UI or barebones, currently being maintained by the DanctNIX community (GitHub 1 2).

Download location

Get the latest image here: https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Pine64-Arch/releases

username/password

alarm/123456

What works, what does not work

Most of the things now works, there are some minor issues with crust.

How to contribute and report defects

Feel free to send us pull requests and report issues on GitHub.

ExpidusOS

A fork of Void Linux with a custom fork of XFCE as the default desktop environment, developed by Midstall Software.

• ExpidusOS official website
• ExpidusOS Wiki
• Midstall Software Discord server

Download location

Check the download page for that lastest verison, or the image file list for all versions, look for the file name that starts with "pinephone".

username/password

expidus/expidus

What works, what does not work

The ExpidusOS Wiki has a page detailing supported features.

How to contribute and report defects

GitHub: https://github.com/ExpidusOS

Fedora

An (unofficial) vanilla Fedora rawhide build for aarch64 with megi's kernel and some additional packages to tie it all together. It aims to eventually be an upstream part of the Fedora project, rather than a phone-specific distribution.

See this thread in the forum.

Download location

flashable images or build scripts

There is also an FTP server with full a full Fedora 34 workstation build with phosh: ftp://pine.warpspeed.dk/nightly/pinephone/ (Mount this with something like Nautilus)

username/password

pine/123456

What works, what does not work

WiFi, Bluetooth, SMS, Data, Calls all work!

There are still a few bugs though, and some features don't have driver support yet on any PinePhone distribution.

How to contribute and report defects

Please send your bug reports at the project's issue tracker. Be sure to include logs if applicable! Send us merge requests on Github.

Gentoo

There are unofficial Gentoo overlays with ebuilds for the PinePhone. There are no images - you'll be building it yourself, picking which kernel, bootloader and desktop environment you want to use. You will be using the arm64 version of Gentoo.

Documentation

https://stealthgun.tweakblogs.net/blog/19336/gentoo-on-a-pinephone

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Dr41nU/PinePhone

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/PinePhone (incomplete)

Overlay locations

https://gitlab.com/bingch/gentoo-overlay/

https://github.com/stealthgun/gjdwebserver-overlay/

GloDroid

Warning: Available images are outdated and do not reflect the state of the current developments.

A fully open source port of Android to the PinePhone

Download location

https://github.com/GloDroid/glodroid_manifest/releases

What works, what does not work

Works: WiFi, screen dimming, touchscreen and charging work. Don't work: Bluetooth, Telephony, GPS

LuneOS

LuneOS is a open source mobile operating system based on webOS Open Source Edition(GitHub, previously known as Open webOS) by LG, comes with Luna Next UI, currently developed by WebOS Ports community.

• WebOS-Ports Pinephone Wiki page

Download location

LuneOS test image for PinePhone

Tofe recommends using bmaptool, which is way faster than dd, and can decompresses compressed images on-the-fly.

Syntax is:

bmaptool copy [from] [to]

For example:

bmaptool copy http://build.webos-ports.org/luneos-testing/images/pinephone/luneos-dev-image-pinephone-testing-0-140.rootfs.wic.gz /dev/mmcblk0

.wic file can be treated as .img file when flashing. You may rename .wic file to .img when using GUI tools that require .img files.

Maemo Leste

Maemo is a trimmed-down version of Debian for mobile devices, originally a collaboration between Nokia and many open source projects (the Maemo community) before Nokia abandoned it. The community now takes full responsibility in developing fully open source Maemo for a variety of mobile devices.

The new version Maemo 7 "Leste" is an ARM64 port of Devuan (Debian without systemd) and runs the mainline Linux kernel. The default user interface stack is Hildon, Xorg, Matchbox WM, and GTK. The current version is Devuan Ascii (Debian Stretch) and they are working on an upgrade to Devuan Beowulf (Debian Buster) as well as simultaneous support for both Devuan and Debian. In addition to the main repository, they announced a community repository. To keep updated they use automation in their package maintenance with jenkins (similar to debian's buildd). Porting packages to Maemo Leste is basically a simple matter of porting to arm64 version of Debian/Devuan, which benefits both projects.

More detailed information can be found on the Maemo Leste wiki, or follow announcements on their website, and check out Frequently Asked Questions.

Download location

Maemo Leste test builds. There is also an image builder, see their wiki for instructions on how to build a custom image.

username/password

root/toor

You may use "sudo" directly.

What works, what does not work

For current status and workarounds please read their PinePhone wiki page, and update as necessary (make sure to notify them of new issues by leaving a report on the project's Github page, see below).

How to contribute and report defects

Most discussion occurs at #maemo-leste on freenode IRC. The Maemo website also has an ongoing forum thread for feedback about Maemo Leste on the PinePhone Braveheart edition.

All other contact information is listed on the main page of the Maemo wiki. You should submit bug reports on github. To track known issues, you may use these search terms: pinephone, pine64. Learn about development, porting packages, building packages, todo list, and general info on how to package for Debian. Some tasks have funding available.

Manjaro ARM

Manjaro is a user-friendly Linux distribution based on the independently developed Arch operating system with the Plasma Mobile desktop environment.

Download location

• Phosh: Stable / Dev
• Plasma Mobile: Stable / Dev
• Lomiri: Dev

username/password

manjaro/123456

root/root

What works, what does not work

Note: The Phosh image the boot will load at a TTY login prompt for multiple minutes at the first boot.

See Manjaro's release announcements on their forum.

Recent ones: Phosh, Plasma and Lomiri.

How to contribute and report defects

See the end of the announcement.

Mobian

An unofficial Debian build for ARM64 running with the Phosh user interface (developed by Purism, Phosh uses Wayland instead of Xorg). The base system is pure Debian, with only the GUI applications and a few others (ModemManager, WiFi chip firmware) being built from modified sources (as well as the kernel and u-boot). Current version is Debian Bullseye.

Download location

Nightly / Installer / Stable

Don't forget to extract the image before installing:

$ gzip -d Downloads/mobian-pinephone-*.img.gz

See the project page for specific installation instructions.

username/password

mobian/1234

What works, what does not work

See the project's README file or the wikifor most up to date status.

Check bug tracker for known issues. Questions? Ask on our thread.

How to contribute and report defects

It is recommended that you log your bug reports in the project's issue tracker. As a general rule, issues with third-party apps (even the default ones) should be reported upstream. A Mobian issue would be related to getting the hardware to work on the PinePhone, but if unsure where the issue should be reported just open a ticket or ask. Feel free to pick an open issue to work on, or send a merge request on Gitlab.

Notes

See Mobian for PinePhone or the wiki for additional information regarding screen resolution, USB networking, WiFi hotspot, Chatty and the repository.

Multi-boot demo image

Warning: This is an demo image for testing different OSes before installing a regular image. It is highly discouraged attempting to use the image productively. The kernel is shared across the different OSes and is not being updated.

The purpose of this image is for users to easily try many of the above Linux distributions, without having to figure out how to flash them individually and juggle with many microSD cards.

• More information can be found at: https://xnux.eu/p-boot-demo/
• Git repo: https://megous.com/git/pinephone-multi-boot/
• Discussion on the forum

Nemo Mobile

Nemo Mobile is the open source build of Sailfish OS with a open source UI called Glacier (Mer Wiki), now based on Marnjaro. See their website Nemo Mobile UX team and Mer Wiki page.

You can either install Nemo on any device that already runs Sailfish, or flash a prebuilt image to SD card/emmc on the PinePhone to install.

Download location

Note: See their website for the newest release and installation guides.

Prebulit images:

First devel image for Manjaro (April 1, 2021):

• Offical blog post: First devel image for manjaro
• Image locations:
  • devel: https://img.nemomobile.net/devel/
  • ?: https://img.nemomobile.net/2021.05/
• Packages: https://img.nemomobile.net/manjaro/05.2020/stable/

Nemo with Glacier UX v0.8 (April 27, 2020):

• Offical blog post: Nemo for PinePhone v0.8
• rootfs image: https://yadi.sk/d/VAbtKV-Hnql60g
• 2GB sdcard image: https://yadi.sk/d/8oSZp-frGidscw

Install Nemo on Sailfish:

Install Sailfish on your PP first (follow instructions on the Sailfish section on this page).

Enable developer mode. In the terminal, run as root (`devel-su`):

ssu ar nemo-devel-ux http://repo.merproject.org/obs/home:/neochapay:/nemo-ux/sailfish_latest_armv7hl/

then:

pkcon refresh

then install the nemo-specific Glacier packages:

pkcon install lipstick-glacier-home-qt5

If necessary, reboot.

What works, what does not work

For the newer devel image based on Manjaro, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth works.

For the older Nemo with Glacier UX v0.8, voicecalls, sound and cameras do not work by default, see its blog post and GitHub repo readme.

How to contribute and report defects

For the Nemo Mobile UX itself:

• GitHub issues: https://github.com/nemomobile-ux/main/issues

For hardware:

• GitHub issues: https://github.com/neochapay/nemo-device-dont_be_evil/issues

NixOS

NixOS support is handled through the Mobile NixOS project.

• Project home page

• Source code repository

There is no pre-built complete image. For now users are expected to follow the instructions in the Getting Started page, and on the device's page.

What works, what does not work

This information may change, but currently it boots, it's as compatible as the Android-based devices are with Mobile NixOS. It even supports a bit more since it can use WiFi.

Support for all of the hardware will be coming, this project is a breadth-first work, where the work spans multiple devices in parallel.

How to contribute and report defects

On the project's repository. Please specify that you are using a PinePhone when reporting issues. Details about contributions and donations are on the NixOS website.

OpenMandriva Lx

Note: This image is solely for testing purposes.

OpenMandriva Lx with Plasma Mobile as UI.

Download location

The official image can be found here. See here for the announcement.

openSUSE

Our images use the same openSUSE Tumbleweed base as our desktop images, except what needs to be changed for the PinePhone. The images include zypper (RPM) as the default package manager and have access to virtually the same (open source) software as our desktop repositories, thanks to the Factory ports. Using dnf is possible, if preferred.

Download links

• Phosh / SHA-256 / SHA-256 Signature
• Plasma Mobile / SHA-256 / SHA-256 Signature

To verify the images you need to import our GPG key. Keep on mind that the first boot may stay on black screen for about a minute - consequent boots should be faster.

You can find install instructions at this section in the openSUSE Wiki.

Username/Password

The login credentials are pine/1234 and root/linux. Change (or disable) the root password once you are set up.

What works and what does not work

You can find all information about the releases of the project here. Detailed information, tips and troubleshooting suggestions are also provided at the openSUSE Wiki. You will also find information in our wiki on how to report issues (Contributing section).

postmarketOS

postmarketOS extends Alpine Linux to run on smartphones and other mobile devices. It offers various user interfaces (Phosh, Plasma Mobile, Sxmo, Plasma Desktop, Gnome 3, Kodi, XFCE4, ...).

As of writing, official images are provided with Phosh, Plasma Mobile and Sxmo. The official images come in two flavors, either as demo image to try out postmarketOS, or with the installer.

When using the installer images (recommended), it is possible to:

• encrypt your installation
• install from the SD card to eMMC

Power users may also create their own image with the distribution's install and development tool pmbootstrap.

Please read the detailed installation instructions in the wiki.

Download location

• Download page
• Flashing instructions

Username/password

user/147147

This is for demo images only - when using the installer images or building an image with pmbootstrap, you set your own username and password. The Phosh and Plasma Mobile lock screens require your password, but they only present a numeric keyboard, so you should use only numbers in your password.

What works, what does not work

See the issue tracker.

How to contribute and report defects

postmarketOS issue tracker for PinePhone support. See postmarketOS wiki for options to contribute.

PureOS

Warning: This project is no longer under development and has been abandoned.

There is no prebuilt image, you'll need a Linux environment and build the image yourself.

PureOS is a user friendly, secure and freedom respecting GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian Buster and GNOME developed by the Purism community.

• PureOS Wiki, no PinePhone page there
• Mobile-optimized apps list from the Software Center in PureOS and 3rd party repos
• current PinePhone PureOS repo, A script to convert Librem5 PureOS to PinePhone Pure-OS

Download location

Use the convert script to download and build the image from u-boot, PinePhone linux kernel and Librem5 PureOS.

Also see:

• Successful installation of PureOS on PinePhone - PureOS - Purism community
• The PureOS section of PinePhone page on ruff.mobi
• An archived repo for PureOS on PinePhone
• A file list with pureos pinephone build instructions on mozzwald.com

Sailfish OS

Sailfish OS is a Linux-based operating system based on open source projects such as Mer, and a closed source UI based on Lipstick.

• PinePhone Wiki Page on Mer Wiki, for both Nemo Mobile and Sailfish OS.
• Linux kernel config repo
• Sailfish OS repo

Download location

Flashing script

The Sailfish OS image is built on Gitlab CI. The latest image can be installed using the flashing script.

The script downloads the image and bootloader from the CI, extracts everything and burns it onto the SD card. Note: The script will format and erase the SD card!

Instructions:

1. Download the flashing script
2. Insert a microSD card in your device
3. Make the script executable: chmod +x flash-it.sh
4. Verify that you have the bsdtar package installed
5. Execute it: ./flash-it.sh
6. Follow the instructions. Some commands in the script require root permissions (for example: mounting and flashing the SD card).

• When asked where to flash, type 'raw' and it will build the image on your computer. Otherwise define the path /dev/.... to flash to card or internal emmc.

username/password

Set PIN on initialization.

• Sometimes the first run stalls before the tutorial. Reboot and it will start from setting the security pin.
• The homescreen may be locked unless you boot with a sim card inserted. An old expired sim will do. If you do not have a SIM card on hands, do NOT set a security code on first boot.
• When a screen with a loading circle is displayed, just left/right swipe it away.
• If you're not familiar with Sailfish OS, pay attention to the tutorial - the interface works great, but is not immediately obvious. If you are familiar with it, you can skip the tutorial by touching all 4 corners starting top left.

What works, what does not work

See the Hardware Support section on the Mer Wiki's PinePhone Page.

There is a limited selection of apps available from the Jolla store, the vast majority are hosted on openrepos.net. If the Storeman app for openrepos is not preinstalled, download the RPM and click to install.

How to contribute and report defects

See the Installation section on the Mer Wiki's PinePhone Page for compile, build and development.

Git repo links are at the top of this OS section. other repos that may be helpful:

• GitHub project page
• the repo of the flash-it.sh flashing script
• Mer Open Build Service page (Mer is being assimilated into Sailfish OS and OBS is shutting down, also see OpenStack is replacing OBS with another build system based on Jenkins, if it's related, even OBS come back under Sailfish OS, it will be different.)

See the Sailfish OS wiki for links to their forum, as well as info required when reporting an issue. See the Sailfish OS wiki main page for options to contribute to Sailfish OS.

Notes

OTA is supported: zypper refresh && zypper update as root (devel-su to get root access). Things that need reflash are bootloader specific at the moment. If improvements like crust or changes of partition layout are added, then you need to reflash.

SkiffOS

Minimal in-memory cross-compiled OS optimized for hosting multiple in parallel Docker containers.

Provides the reliability of firmware with the ease-of-use of package managers.

Upgrade over-the-air via a simple rsync script, or copying 3 files.

Uses the Buildroot cross-compilation tool for support for all Pine64 boards.

Use configuration packages to configure distro:

• core/pinephone_neon: KDE Neon via Ubuntu repositories
• core/pinephone_nixos: Nixos Mobile
• core/pinephone_gentoo: Gentoo with Link-time Optimization & KDE Mobile or Phosh
• core/pinephone_ubports: Ubuntu Ports for PinePhone
• core/pinephone_manjaro_kde: Manjaro for PinePhone: KDE variant
• core/pinephone_manjaro_phosh: Manjaro for PinePhone: Phosh variant
• core/pinephone_manjaro_lomiri: Manjaro for PinePhone: Lomiri variant

The boot-up OS is upgraded independently from the containers.

Download location

The repository and instructions can be found here.

Sxmo

A collection of Suckless programs to create a mobile UI. Based on postmarketOS

Download location

Sxmo images can be found here (in the /pine64-pinephone/sxmo/ sections respectively).

username/password

user/147147

What works, what does not work

PinePhone's backlight turns off at 2/10 brightness.

How to contribute and report defects

All the contributing information is here.

Ubuntu Touch

A Mobile Version of the Ubuntu Operating System made and maintained by the UBports Community.

Ubuntu touch is a mobile version of Ubuntu developed by the UBports community. Installation instructions can be found on the UBports PinePhone project. There is also a script to download the latest image and flash to your PinePhone. In the future, Ubuntu Touch will be able to be installed onto the PinePhone with the UBports installer GUI tool.

Download location

UBports PinePhone project

username/password

Set up during boot

What works, what does not work

Scroll down to the bottom of this page.

How to contribute and report defects

See UBports gitlab page. See UBports website for how to donate.

Tools

There are software tools, that can be booted on the PinePhone.

JumpDrive

JumpDrive can be used to flash the eMMC (and the microSD card), see PinePhone Installation Instructions#Using JumpDrive.

See https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Jumpdrive/releases for the latest image. Make sure to download the "PinePhone" image and to unpack the archive before flashing.

Factory Test OS

On the Braveheart model there was a postmarketOS based basic Factory Test OS pre-installed on the eMMC. The developer Martijn Braam from postmarketOS has improved the functionality of the image considerably later. Since the 20200501 version, it is able to test all the hardware. It also includes functionality to install a new OS to the eMMC when using with an test image that includes that OS image. The downloadable image just does the hardware tests. Do not flash eMMC to test your device, just dd it to microSD and test from there. New versions are distributed as part of the postmarketOS distribution.

Links: Software Images (download the latest one that is marked pine-pinephone-YYYYMMDD-factorytestX.img.xz) Git repo Documentation

Factory-loaded OS builds

These are different operating system builds that was preloaded in the factory with testing utility.

Download the build, extract the image and dd it to the microSD and then insert it into the phone. Power up the PinePhone, perform and complete the test routine, then apply the build from microSD card to eMMC.

dd the image on a 8 GB micoSD card or larger.

OS	Download	File Size	MD5
Beta Edition	Direct download from pine64.org	1.78GB	f16bce93504a52217540ac886863a418
Mobian	Direct download from pine64.org	1.41GB	015be381ff4e650a7fca6d4eaa90d63d
KDE	Direct download from pine64.org	2.28GB	32979ff17b5ec4d358ce99f1aff0c77c
Manjaro	Direct download from pine64.org	1.04GB	4edfd4dceaefdd32a3417c1727161c29
postmarketOS	Direct download from pine64.org	517MB	244093be2f6d728fcbd1d29114607727
Ubuntu Touch	Direct download from pine64.org	1.05GB	2d7f5271e7a281db8f1b1219bedbe131

Installing other ARM64 distributions

Warning: Distributions not on this page may not even boot after you follow this section. In the best case, they will be barely usable. This is more for fun, or if you would like to port a new distribution to the PinePhone.

Note: This section uses megi's kernel releases, and not the official ones from Pine64. While it is possible to use the official (and in the future, mainline) kernel, megi provides binary releases, which makes it very easy.

If you would like to see specific commands for how to complete these steps, see:

• https://github.com/nikhiljha/pp-fedora-sdsetup (an example for Fedora) or
• https://xnux.eu/howtos/install-arch-linux-arm.html (an example for Arch Linux).

General step:

1. Create a boot (from 4 MB to about 252 MB) and root (from the end of boot to the end of the card) filesystem on the SD card.
2. Format the boot partition with vfat, and the root partition with a supported filesystem like ext4 or f2fs.
3. Extract the root filesystem from your distribution's ARM image into the root filesystem on the SD card. Do not copy the partition, copy the files (in archive mode: like rsync -ar).
4. Edit /etc/fstab to match your partitions.
5. Grab megi's kernel from https://xff.cz/kernels/
6. Follow the README instructions, which involves copying the kernel modules into the SD card rootfs, and writing u-boot and the bootloader.

Other Resources

Community

• Links to the community services

Hardware information

• General PinePhone hardware info in this Pine64 wiki
• Details specific to the Braveheart Edition: PinePhone 1.1 Braveheart hardware details
• Details specific to the Community Edition: PinePhone 1.2 hardware details
• The postmarketOS wiki has a detailed page on the PinePhone hardware here and the preceding devkit here

Other software information

• sunxi community wiki
• megi's feature/driver support matrix
• megi bootUI notes (for dualbooting/multibooting) see demonstration on YouTube
• ayufan boot tools

Other

• Pine64 shop
• Pine64 blog on blobs
• Martijn Braam Librem 5 comparison, especially covering openness/blobs
• Bart Ribbers blog on Linux distributions and desktop environments on mobile devices
• Jeff Geerling on testing microSD cards