JumpDrive

JumpDrive is a tiny flashing and rescue SD card image that is available for a few devices. This article explains how to flash postmarketOS to the eMMC of a device after it booted JumpDrive.

Note that this may not be the only way to flash postmarketOS to the eMMC of a device. For example for devices that can boot from SD cards, the installer images will offer to install postmarketOS to the eMMC.

Following these instructions is only recommended if you know what you are doing, it is easy to shoot yourself in the foot here! Consider using other installation methods instead.

Download
Get the latest JumpDrive image for your device from releases.

Follow the instructions in installation to download a pre-built postmarketOS rootfs image, or generate your own one with pmbootstrap.

From SD card
If your device can boot from SD card (PinePhone, PineTab etc.), flash the image to an SD card. Find the name with  first and make sure it is the right one as you will overwrite data on it. Use a path without partition number at the end, such as.

Insert the SD card into your device, connect it via USB to your PC and boot up JumpDrive.

Android
Get your phone into the flash mode (see your device's wiki page for more information). Then boot JumpDrive with fastboot, for example:

Librem 5
Booting JumpDrive on the Librem 5 requires the  application is installed on the host computer. is NXP's image deploy tool, and may be found in some distros in a package named. Additionally, the following udev rules may be required for  to be able to find/access your phone in flash mode:

The rules above assume your user is in the  group, adjust accordingly. You may need to reboot for changes to take effect.

Extract the JumpDrive archive, and you should see something similar:

Place the Librem 5 into flash mode, then use the helper script from the JumpDrive release to flash the Librem 5:

Flashing to eMMC
Locate the block device exposed to the host computer via JumpDrive:

In the example above, the  is the eMMC device on your phone.

Again, make sure you know what you are doing, and verify you picked the right path - overwriting the wrong partition or changing the partition layout on Android by accident may cause data loss or render your device unbootable! If you want to proceed:

Remove the usb cable and power off the phone. Remove the JumpDrive SD card if you used one. Power the phone to boot into postmarketOS.