Hey, so here’s the thing. I downloaded and installed the EndeavourOS image with KDE Plasma onto an eMMC memory card for a Pinebook Pro. When I was doing the install, it didn’t detect the Wi-Fi card, so I had to tether my smartphone as Ethernet just to finish the installation. Now I can get to the Plasma desktop, but it still doesn’t see the Wi-Fi card. If anyone can help me out, I’d really appreciate it.
^^ some pinebook bros installing arch but many speak of having to manually configure wi-fi during install/post-install.
Thought it might help. never used an ARM distro or an eMMC just surfing.
After you burned the Pinebook Pro image to the eMMD and booted for the first time, the first dialog window should ask if you want to enable WiFi or not,
Use the right arrow to choose Yes. Then a new dialog window comes up, displaying available WiFi channels. You should then choose the desired channel and supply the secret password.
If you did the above during the configuration script WiFi should work.
Pudge
Thanks so much for your replies and for your interest. Just to confirm — I did see that window during the install where it asks if I want to enable Wi-Fi, and I selected “yes,” but the only option that shows up is “lo.” And then Ethernet (my phone) only appears if I’ve connected it beforehand. If I haven’t connected it before, then only “lo” shows up and I can’t finish the installation.
I still have Manjaro ARM 2023 installed on a microSD, and on that setup, the Wi-Fi does get detected and works. I also tried installing EndeavourOS on a microSD, but it doesn’t detect the card — same way it doesn’t detect the microSD I tried to install tow-boot on the SPI from. So the only way I can try to install EOS is from the eMMC.
As it is a AMPAK AP6256 Wifi & Bluetooth card, I guess bluetooth also doesn’t work ?
Other than that, their troubleshooting documentation has a section for the Wifi which addresses that issue and is referring to an repository from reMarkable which provides the firmware for that specific Wifi Card, which is brcmfmac43455
Within the Arch Arm Repositories, I’ve only found firmware-brcm43xx for armv7h, in the AUR there is the package brcmfmac43456-firmware intended for the Raspberry Pi 400.
If I’m not mistaken, both won’t work as the Pinebook Pros Rockchip is a ARMv8 Cortex-A53 SoC.
Therefore, I guess you’ll have to work trough the troubleshooting guide, which not only provides the link to the firmware, but also to an specific patch to the firmware which is hosted via Manjaro.
Anyway, I might be worth to mention that according to their documentation, In case of Arch, they are providing a RootFS which utilizes a Manjaro kernel.
Thanks so much for your interest in helping me.
I should mention that I’m not a computer technician, just a regular Linux user. I bought the Pinebook Pro back in 2020, and I had technical issues with it right from the start. Still, I managed to solve them, partly thanks to forums and the community, and I’ve been using the device ever since — first with Manjaro ARM, and then, when it became clear that distribution was basically abandoned, with EndeavourOS. Everything went fine, with a few minor hiccups, but on April 11th, a routine EndeavourOS update — done through the Welcome app, following the recommended instructions from the distribution’s maintainers — caused the system to fail to boot after rebooting.
I’ve been trying to fix that issue ever since, but I’ve only managed to create more problems. For a few days now, the laptop won’t even boot — the SPI got corrupted when I tried to install Tow-boot following the instructions. I know there are guides out there to fix that too, but… I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just not worth it. The Pinebook Pro’s capabilities are completely outdated by now. The device no longer gets support from the manufacturer, and distros are basically “forgetting” about it. For someone like me, who just uses this device for getting work done and not for tinkering, this whole situation is just totally disheartening.
I’ve bought a new laptop for the same amount I paid for the PBP six years ago, and it gives me four times the power in every way.
What’s the explanation? I think it’s simply because x64 architecture has been way more thoroughly developed than ARM technology in the Linux world. It’s a shame, but in its current state, this technology still isn’t suitable for the average user who wants to support and use Linux. Even software developers are starting to realize this and are quietly moving away from it. Users aren’t to blame for not supporting ARM architecture — they just use what’s available and what has support and reliability. What happened with the PBP will likely happen to more “advanced” devices as well.
Again, thank you so much for your interest in helping me. I’m still sticking with Linux, but I’m going back to conventional x64 technology. From there, I’ll keep supporting the development of free software.
Your issue seems to be resolved with the latest kernel released just today:
commit 800437220807f29220ee91775f291751fab0a655
Author: Heiko Stuebner <heiko@sntech.de>
Date: Tue Feb 10 13:01:42 2026 +0100
Revert "arm64: dts: rockchip: Further describe the WiFi for the Pinebook Pro"
commit 29d1f56c4f3001b7f547123e0a307c009ac717f8 upstream.
This reverts commit 6d54d935062e2d4a7d3f779ceb9eeff108d0535d.
It seems there are different variants of the Wifi chipset in use on the
Pinebook Pro. And according to the reported regression - see Closes
below, the reverted change causes issues with one Wifi chipset.
The original commit message indicates a "further description" only and
does not indicate this would fix an actual problem, so a revert should
not cause further problems.
Fixes: 6d54d935062e ("arm64: dts: rockchip: Further describe the WiFi for the Pinebook Pro")
Cc: Jan Palus <jpalus@fastmail.com>
Cc: Peter Robinson <pbrobinson@gmail.com>
Cc: Thorsten Leemhuis <regressions@leemhuis.info>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/r/aUKOlj-RvTYlrpiS@rock.grzadka/
Tested-by: Jan Palus <jpalus@fastmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Dragan Simic <dsimic@manjaro.org>
Signed-off-by: Heiko Stuebner <heiko@sntech.de>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260210120142.698512-1-heiko@sntech.de
Signed-off-by: Heiko Stuebner <heiko@sntech.de>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>