For those not in the know, PineNote is a 10.1-inch e-ink display announced in 2021, building on the success of its non-SBC devices like the PinePhone (and later Pro model), the PineTab and PineBook devices

Like most of Pine64's devices, the community tackles software support. However, only a small batch of developer units were ever sold, primarily by enthusiasts within the open-source community who had the knowledge and desire to work on getting a modern Linux OS to run on the hardware and adapt to the e-ink display.

Pine64 said its PineNote was stuck in a chicken-and-egg situation because of the very high cost of manufacturing the device (ePaper screens are sadly still expensive). So, the risk of manufacturing units that didn't have a working Linux OS and would not sell was huge.

It seems that PineNote now has a reliable Debian-based OS developed by Maximilian Weigand. According to the Pine64 blog, this OS is "not only a bare-bones capable OS but a genuinely daily-usable system that 'just works'."

“This moves the target audience from developers to everyday users. You should be able to power on the device and drop into a working Gnome experience," the blog says.

It uses the Gnome desktop plus a handful of extensions to ensure the UI adapts well with an e-ink display. The pre-installed software included Xournal++ for note-taking, Firefox for web browsing, and Foliate for reading ebooks. Like most things, it runs Doom.

Existing PineNote owners can download the new OS image, flash it to their device, and help test it. Touch and stylus input are major selling points of PineNote, positioning it as a libre alternative to leading e-ink note-taking devices like the Remarkable 2, Onyx BOOX, and Amazon Scribe.

There is not a launch date target or a price yet.