Yeah, I'm afraid that's the case :/ So you'd have to SSH into your pine64 and install a GUI yourself.

Then to enable Mali support (which basically lets the device actually use the GPU to render the screen), you have to add an additional repository:

  - apt-add-repository ppa:ayufan/pine64-ppa -y
  - apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-armsoc-sunxi libmali-sunxi-utgard0-r6p0

then you'd run the script to enable it. Probably need root to run it.

  - exec /usr/local/sbin/pine64_enable_sunxidrm.sh

Then in your GUI's settings, you'd disable software compositing (force it to use the Mali GPU instead of the pine's CPU)

  -  System -> Preferences -> Look and Feel -> Windows and disable Enable software compositing.

If things go awry, or you have more questions, there's a community IRC that's usually pretty active with people willing to help. http://pine64.xyz/