The phone comes with Sailfish OS. I want to use Debian.
Last tested on April 18th, 2025.
Install tow-boot
Download the most recent release of tow-boot:
$ wget https://github.com/Tow-Boot/Tow-Boot/releases/download/release-2023.07-007.pine64-pinetabA64/pine64-pinephonePro-2023.07-007.tar.xz
Verify the checksum:
$ wget https://github.com/Tow-Boot/Tow-Boot/releases/download/release-2023.07-007.pine64-pinetabA64/_checksums.txt
$ shasum --check --ignore-missing _checksums.txt
pine64-pinephonePro-2023.07-007.tar.xz: OK
Extract the files:
$ tar --extract --file pine64-pinephonePro-2023.07-007.tar.xz
Connect an sdcard to the computer.
Flash it with the tow-boot installer:
$ sudo dd if=pine64-pinephonePro-2023.07-007/spi.installer.img of=/dev/<device> bs=16M status=progress oflag=sync
Power-off the phone, remove its battery, and insert the SD card.
Press the ER button, on the back of the phone, accessible when the cover is off. Keep pressing it and press the power button.
The led will flash red and the tow-boot installer will appear. Just follow the instructions to flash it in SPI.
Then remove the SD card.
Debian installation
Download the most recent version of Mobian with phosh and the bmap file:
$ wget https://images.mobian.org/rockchip/weekly/mobian-rockchip-phosh-20250406.img.xz
$ wget https://images.mobian.org/rockchip/weekly/mobian-rockchip-phosh-20250406.img.bmap
Verify the files:
$ wget https://repo.mobian.org/mobian.gpg
$ gpg --import mobian.gpg
$ wget https://images.mobian.org/rockchip/weekly/mobian-rockchip-phosh-20250413.sha256sums.sig
$ wget https://images.mobian.org/rockchip/weekly/mobian-rockchip-phosh-20250413.sha256sums
$ gpg --verify mobian-rockchip-phosh-20250413.sha256sums.sig
$ shasum --check mobian-rockchip-phosh-20250413.sha256sums
mobian-rockchip-phosh-20250413.img.xz: OK
mobian-rockchip-phosh-20250413.img.bmap: OK
Connect the phone to the computer with the USB cable.
Hold the volume up button while powering the phone. The led will become blue, and the device will be connected to the computer in USB storage mode.
The device is sda for me. Triple check with lsblk to be very sure which device is the phone:
$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 1 115,2G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 1 213,6M 0 part
├─sda2 8:2 1 7,4G 0 part
└─sda3 8:3 1 107,6G 0 part
Install bmaptool to flash the image:
$ sudo apt install bmaptool
Copy the image:
sudo bmaptool copy mobian-rockchip-phosh-20250413.img.xz /dev/sda2
Reboot the phone.
Sources: