I suspect that the A64 is using the MIPI Camera Parallel Interface (CPI), but calling it the MIPI Camera Serial Interface (CSI). This is really confusing, but I am simply repeating what the A64 docs say.
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Thanks for the suggestions. I added that info under “Battery” and “External Storage”.
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storage microSD (SDHC, SDXC, max 2 TB), bootable
I would write like that:
storage microSD (SDHC, SDXC, max 2 TB), has first boot priority
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I added Evergreen info and amarok’s Evergreen photos. I included Megous’ info on the PinePhone. I also added an “Included in the box” section to the table, with info on the Power Delivery charger
I left it as “bootable”, but linked to the PinePhone wiki that explains how to make it bootable, which I think will be less confusing.
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Thank you for your valuable contributions to the community!
These instructions do not make the microSD bootable. It’s always bootable by default with the first boot priority. Pinephone always automatically tries to boot from it. If the boot fails, only then the eMMC will be tried. This is a very big distinctions between the two phones. In case eMMC dies, Pinephone will stays almost as useful as in the beginning, not so for Librem 5 (it’s almost like a planned obsolescence for th elatter, but it’s for technical reasons actually AFAIK).
Upd. See also: https://linux-sunxi.org/BROM#A64, https://linux-sunxi.org/Pine64#Boot_sequence.
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It’s a link to instructions how to make a bootable microSD, which is what most people want. Most people aren’t interested in how to change the u-boot configuration files to make the eMMC have first boot priority.
True, but someone who wants to know that level of detail, probably also wants to know that the PinePhone doesn’t have the ability to boot from the USB port like the Librem 5, which makes it much faster to try out different configurations/distros on the Librem 5, because it takes longer to rewrite a microSD card, than altering files on a PC’s SSD/HDD. I think another row in the table is required to explain all these differences.
For that matter, I think it likely that the Kioxia chip on the Librem 5 has better wear leveling and block replacement than the Kimtigo chip whose documentation doesn’t even mention wear leveling or health reporting functions, which makes me question its long-term reliability.
Edit: I rechecked the Kimtigo documentation and see on page 20-21, there is some heath reporting and there is a TRIM command, so maybe it isn’t as bad as I thought.
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Couldn’t there also be security implications of the default booting from the microSD card? Malicious software on eMMC could write it’s own bootloader to the card and get full control of the system. And the “obsolescence” part may also concern the users.
My links above in the update suggest otherwise.
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I wonder why booting from USB OTG isn’t documented for the PinePhone. Is this an issue where PINE64 hasn’t enabled in the PinePhone hardware or is it a simple matter of changing a U-boot configuration file or did nobody document it in the PinePhone wiki? Hard to know, but I can’t list this as a feature until it is documented how to use it. I feel the same way about the Librem 5’s boot via USB. Right now Purism hasn’t documented it, so I’m not going to list it in the table, because it isn’t usable for normal people.
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Every flashing sequence starts by booting u-boot on the phone via USB. The scripts needed to boot are available at https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/librem5-devkit-tools/. There’s even my PoC port of Jumpdrive that boots straight from USB: https://source.puri.sm/sebastian.krzyszkowiak/jumpdrive. I’ve learned how to do that myself all from the publicly available documentation and code 
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Concerning USB-OTG for Librem 5: Not yet
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USB-OTG works fine. That post was specifically about exposing user files over USB.
You can set it up manually if you want to play with it, it’s just not integrated into the distro yet.
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Thank you for the clarification. I had no doubt that it technically works; I just meant that it’s not in the interface yet, which is what users typically want to know.
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I don’t see it discussed here, but does anyone have any thoughts on the upcoming F(x)tec Pro1 X, that they say can ship with Ubuntu Touch installed?
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Actually, I was referring to USB-OTG, wasn’t I? I just want to be able to move files to/from the phone.
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USB-OTG means that the phone is able to work in two roles: as a device connected to a host (like, phone connected to a PC) or a host with a connected device (like, a keyboard connected to the phone). That’s by itself unrelated to moving files.
Most phones use MTP to move files around over USB these days. There’s also USB mass storage, which makes it appear like a regular USB drive. You can set up both by yourself already, but they’re not there by default yet.
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Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification.
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did you get a chance to test the Librem-Drive (usb-type-c-stick) connected to the L5 ? i got a couple of those already and i’d like to have my expectations curbed … or not ?
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