Lack of SDXC support?
Can you find a lower capacity µSD card to test with i.e. 32 GB or less?
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The card currently in my S III is only 16GB… same behavior in the PCs as the larger cards.
I just ordered a new adapter. This one is both USB-A and USB-C, so I should be able to use it with the PinePhone and the L5 Evergreen – no need to pop the back off.
BTW, I just got the clear TPU case and the hard black plastic case for the PinePhone. They were so inexpensive, I had to buy both to try out. Excellent fit, excellent look for both. I like the black look better, but the grippy TPU better.
I also go the glass screen protector. This is a first for me, so I’m going to be extra-careful not to break it during install. I need to prepare a clean area before I do, though (very dusty environment).
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The first thing I would check is whether a device even appears in /dev - I guess it will when using a USB SD card reader i.e. even when there is no card in the reader.
Next step is sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdx
where x is replaced by the appropriate letter or sdx is replaced by the appropriate device name, and only after you have inserted a card in the reader.
That will (hopefully) tell you how the card is partitioned and the type of each partition.
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there are however other more involved methods to deal with the fstab and UUID so if multiple storage media are inserted repeatedly they would REMAIN unchanged from a /dev/sd(each-storage-medium-assigned-character-here) perspective …
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I got some old 512MB SSDs from some old cameras. I’ll try some of those just to see if they take in my old Dell R720. Thanks for reminding me of a size being too big.
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I took microSD from my Android based navigation device and put it inside my PP. And what happened: GREEN light was ON and nothing else, nothing boots up (Mobian). Long press power button to turn it off. But, as I wanted to take off PP back cover it turned on itself and booted Mobian indeed. I wrote $ sudo reboot and it was back to Mobian OS, all ready for this post.
Now I’m at the point that I wanted to be, same as @kieran already suggested (and provided similar idea to myself) for the usage of external microSD adapter (SD card reader), but with focus on internal usage of PP microSD slot. @Photon, take your PP and under Nemo (Files) you’ll see your microSD card folders but what I actually suggest here to open your Terminal:
$ sudo fdisk -l (main command that shows microSD related output)
You’ll see your microSD card as /dev/mmcblk0pX (formatted under Android: Id: b or c, Type: W95 FAT32) and your PP drive will be /dev/mmcblk2pX (Id: 83, Type: Linux …). Now you can play around with installed microSD up to your needs:
$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/mmcblk0
$ sudo parted /dev/mmcblk0
Erase microSD if you want … and change things with:
$ sudo fdisk -h
$ sudo umount /dev/mmcblk0pX
$ sudo fdisk -u /dev/mmcblk0 (‘q’ for quit and, if and when sure: ‘w’ for yes, make it happen)
I always start with ‘p’ (print)! Anyway be careful with -u option, here is another example: just by typing ‘o’ and ‘w’ someone WILL lose all data on any (particular) microSD card.
Format to:
$ sudo mke2fs -t ext4 -L Photon /dev/mmcblk0p1 (Id: 83) or
$ sudo mkfs.fat -n PHOTON /dev/mmcblk0p1
Hope this was brief enough. Here is Alpine distro link on how to format.
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Ah well the original SD standard only went to 2GB. Then SDHC to 32GB. You need SDXC (or SDUC) to go beyond that.
However @Photon is indicating that this is not an SDXC problem and, given that the intent here is to use the SD card in a PinePhone and the PinePhone has only been engineered in the last year or so, it is very doubtful that the PinePhone would only intend to support the original SD standard.
On my Mint laptop…
–> fdisk: cannot open /dev/sdb: No medium found
First, pmOS is crippled – no Nemo and no way to install that I have (yet) found. So to trusty old Bash…
Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 116.5 GiB, 125080436736 bytes, 244297728 sectors
*Units: sectors of 1 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimal/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/mmcblk0p1 32768 244297727 244264960 116.5G 7 HPFS
Fascinating. That is the 128GB brand new card. “dos” I get, but there is no way it is an HPFS partition (I haven’t used HPFS since I had a machine running OS/2 Warp Server for eBusiness), but I’ve seen Linux report NTFS as HPFS before.
Oh yes, @Quarnero advances the ball! 
Brief? I’m good with verbose, but I could follow you. The card is brand new, so I didn’t bother erasing it, instead going straight to formatting. There was a single primary partition and I formatted as ext4. mke2fs asked if I was sure, because there was an exfat partition, but I pressed on. I can run ls on the path from the bash and it sees it. I tried to save a test text file there using the editor, but I couldn’t find it from root.
Baby steps.
So I knocked out a few more Test Points on the PP pmOS CE.
- I tried a Bluetooth connection to the Pioneer stereo in my truck – would not connect. Tried it in my wife’s Ford Focus – connect!
- The signal strength and battery state did not display, and phone calls were not passed through.
- I used Firefox and YouTube (yeah, I know – ugh!) because I didn’t know of a more convenient way to pass audio. Success! YouTube audio quality varies greatly, but some were very good, so I conclude the PP has at least decent audio. I streamed a long Pere Ubu playlist for over an hour on my commute home this evening. The phone was charging, and had the hard plastic case sold by Pine64 installed. It got a bit hot, but nothing serious.
When I get my SD card issues sorted out, I think I’m going to try a PureOS image.
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Please stop the trend of calling the PinePhone the PP, it makes sentences like this very disturbing…
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Come on, it’s great fun! We can even share the fun with Purism… after all, they are producing a real POS! 
Seriously, I like the PinePhone hardware so far. I can’t wait to try Mobian-Phosh and PureOS on it.
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No, OK, but the partition type is 7 (per your output), which is used by HPFS but is also used by NTFS and exFAT. In other words, the same type value has multiple uses. (I suppose there must be some unambiguous means of discriminating between those file systems once you look at the first data block of the partition but I am not across the details.)
Possibly the particular operating system doesn’t have support out-of-the-box for NTFS or exFAT. I think lack of support for NTFS out-of-the-box is normal for Linux - you have to install it explicitly. I think exFAT is problematic from a patent point of view.
Wikipedia says that exFAT is the default for SDXC cards, which yours must be. (What were they thinking?)
What path would that be?
Probably a newly formatted ext4 file system has no directories that are writable to normal users. So you would need to, for example, as root, create a top level directory /photon and give it ownership by the relevant normal user. But what is the normal user in this environment? echo $USER
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Let it be practical (no steps explanation):
$ sudo umount /dev/mmcblk0p1
$ sudo fdisk -u /dev/mmcblk0
Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.33.1).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 7.4 GiB, 7948206080 bytes, 15523840 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x428dbdfa
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/mmcblk0p1 2048 15523839 15521792 7.4G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
Command (m for help): o
Created a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x2998aef3.
Command (m for help): n
Partition type
p primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
e extended (container for logical partitions)
Select (default p): p
Partition number (1-4, default 1):
First sector (2048-15523839, default 2048):
Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P} (2048-15523839, default 15523839):
Created a new partition 1 of type ‘Linux’ and of size 7.4 GiB.
Partition #1 contains a ntfs signature.
Do you want to remove the signature? [Y]es/[N]o: Y
The signature will be removed by a write command.
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 7.4 GiB, 7948206080 bytes, 15523840 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x2998aef3
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/mmcblk0p1 2048 15523839 15521792 7.4G 83 Linux
Filesystem/RAID signature on partition 1 will be wiped.
Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered.
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
Done, now you can format this microSD to ext4 (Id: 83), here in particular. I think you’ll need to create new folder and:
$ sudo chmod ugo+wx Folder after cd into it, in order to use it as any other user.
Yes, I will, this was childish from my side! Thanks for bringing this issue up (and sorry)!
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Thanks (I didn’t saw your reply on time), this is an important reminder if ext4 or ext2 format used! That’s why I wrote my last sentence:
$ sudo mkdir Photon within /media/$USER path after:
$ cd /media/$USER
$ ls -la
$ cd microSD
$ sudo mkdir Photon
$ sudo chmod ugo+wx Photon
I would use chown rather than chmod - but either is OK just for testing things out.
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Pardon the digression from Photon. What were the effectived dates of SDHC, SDXC, & SDUC? (Just so I can compare vs. when my Dell R720 was built, wikipedia says they came out in 2012.)
Here I’ll help you get your mind out of the gutter:
The BM818 (bowel movement #818) in the L5 (latrine #5) didn’t work well, so we had to change it to the PLS8 (positive lubrication system #8) to get a better stream than the PP!
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get a room already ! 
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Hm, English (neither Linux) language is not my native ground (who cares, I don’t want to be elected), but I still make a big deal of difference when an abbreviation refers to some object (things like PinePhone) or to persons, in general.
And it depends, but abbreviations are used in context or even apostrophized to be used within certain working environments (sometimes just personnel with high level of competence may understand each other just by referring to a particular abbreviation) yet few important ones like GI(s) reaches to be understood even broader (since 1999), and as such indeed needs to be understood. If asked, something in favor of GIs I’d sign per procurationem any time gladly, yet many other ones that are trying to sell something important/better: never.
Your explanation was still helpful, let us hope that the new PLS8 (on M.2, perhaps similar in symbiosis with L5 like within the new Cinterion CL31 SoM) will perform (in some countries) better than the BM818 card. For myself the most important thing is that Cinterion PLS8 module variants are still in production (who knows, I hope so).