PinePhone U-Boot Upgrade

Until postmarketOS v22.12 (and around 2022-12 in pmOS edge), we used to upgrade u-boot automatically on the original PinePhone (the PPP uses Tow-Boot) and PineTab. While it worked most of the time, in a few instances it was reported that the upgrade didn't work and resulted in osk-sdl not working on boot for encrypted installations (pmaports#1618).

Therefore we do not upgrade it automatically anymore. When installing postmarketOS, you already get the latest version we have packaged at that time. Initially it was very important to be on a specific version of u-boot with the embedded crust/arm-trusted-firmware. But this was in 2021-05, so through v21.12 and v22.06 where we had the automatic upgrade in place all users should have received the upgrade. In case of doubt, just install a fresh postmarketOS version which has the most recent version.

The long-term plan is to replace u-boot with Tow-Boot on the PinePhone and PineTab as well, and then we should eventually be able to upgrade Tow-Boot safely with fwupd.

Upgrading u-boot manually

If you want to upgrade u-boot manually despite being aware of the risk mentioned above:

$ sudo update-u-boot

Recovering from failed u-boot upgrade

See the Fix U-Boot section of the PinePhone wiki article.

Upgrading u-boot manually

Recovering from failed u-boot upgrade

See also