Spent today goofing around on it, and on the RGCubeXX, it's pretty busted.
Waking up from sleep has about a 1/3 chance of success, the other 2/3rds of the time the whole thing just hard-freezes and needs a full reboot, which leads into the two biggest issues I had with it:
1. When booting up on a "dirty" filesystem, there's a prompt to power down or press any key to bypass the integrity check. This has a two minute timeout, which is just a ridiculous amount of time to wait. (Also, pressing buttons doesn't actually seem to work to bypass the integrity check)
2. After a power cycle - regardless of whether the power-down was clean or dirty - you lose everything on the microSD other than the OS itself. All settings, all downloaded themes, all ROMs completely wiped. It's as if it's booting from a recovery partition or something. I tried numerous times (gracefully shutting down via the Start-button menu) and each time, it boots back up all wiped clean. Reimaged and started over from scratch - still the same issue.
Didn't see anything about the "clean" (more like "forcibly-sterilized") slate after power cycling.
Not ready for the big leagues, at least not on the CubeXX.
freeqaz 7 hours ago [-]
This distro seems like a fork of JELOS based on it literally saying "Just Enough Linux Operating System (ROCKNIX)" on the front page. That spells out JELOS, not ROCKNIX lol.
I believe JELOS did die, so this is cool to see. I'll try flashing it to a new SD card and seeing what's up! Does anybody see info on what's difference? Also, is there any indication that this is a fork anywhere?
heavyset_go 7 hours ago [-]
It's a form of JELOS picked up by contributers in the wake of the project getting dropped after Nintendo went after Citra. JELOS shipped with it by default.
Source: I've contributed to Rocknix and was around for the dissolution of JELOS and the fork.
pseudosaid 1 hours ago [-]
devs threw in m8c and its dependencies so you can hook up a teensy 4.1 flashed with Dirtywave’s headless M8 firmware, and make music on the handheld. 8 mono tracks, synths and samplers. it turns any handheld running this into a decent DAW
udia 8 hours ago [-]
Nice to see another alternative to the Linux gaming ecosystem. Bazzite also states handheld device support: https://bazzite.gg/
zozbot234 4 hours ago [-]
Not seeing the point of this, all that much. I'd rather run something like Mobian or pmOS (given the tiny, mobile-like screen on most of these devices) once the hardware support on mainline kernel is up to proper standards. A lightweight environment like sxmo would probably work quite well with the custom HID controls. And it would open up this whole emerging class of low-cost devices for doing a whole lot more than just the emulator-based "gaming" that they're used for out-of-the-box.
(Not all of them are low-cost, either; there's plenty of high-end handhelds with physical buttons and analog controls these days, that could probably be usefully repurposed for productive work.)
Shared404 3 hours ago [-]
The upside of this is I can point my semi-technical but not Linux savvy parent at it and say "Press the install button".
As much as I love pmOS, it's just not there unfortunately.
goosedragons 3 hours ago [-]
Does Mobian work without a touch screen? Most of the kinds of devices Rocknix supports don't have one. Rocknix has a nice emulator front end out of the box, a media player, etc. and it all works with the game pad controls.
lawrencegripper 6 hours ago [-]
I’m running bazzite on amd kit and it’s blown me away how nice it is, everything so far has ”just worked”
kadoban 6 hours ago [-]
Cool!
Is the name inspired by https://www.rockbox.org/ by any chance? That's what it reminded me of, especially given the ~similarities in purpose.
Dwedit 6 hours ago [-]
I think it's because the SoC hardware is made by Rockchip.
c9fc42ad 6 hours ago [-]
Excited to use this on the Retroid Pocket 5. Currently using https://knulli.org/ on an RG35XX-H and found it to be really nice also
suprjami 1 hours ago [-]
I have muOS on my H. I find it's better than Knulli because the wifi works reliably.
I also like the Syncthing integration, I can easily share saves and save states to my computer which is simple but feels very cool.
haunter 4 hours ago [-]
I wish the Nintendo Switch were supported. I have Ubuntu on mine (and Fedora is another option) so could tweak around to achieve something similar but an out of the box solution would be better.
jamiek88 4 hours ago [-]
Hahaha, this is unlikely because the predecessor project was collateral damage from nintendos anti emulator crusade.
haunter 3 hours ago [-]
By that logic Nintendo will go after Ubuntu and Fedora too
jamiek88 3 hours ago [-]
No it’s not ‘my logic’ the same exact project literally shut down before because of this situation.
spookie 2 hours ago [-]
You can never be sure with those guys
ninetyninenine 8 hours ago [-]
Anybody recommend the best (anecdotally) device to run this on?
I have a steam deck but I want something smaller and less power hungry for retro emulation but can run everything.
nfriedly 2 hours ago [-]
The Anbernic RG35XX lineup are all good devices that are fairly budget friendly ($40-80 depending on sales and where you buy from). They all share very similar specs, just different layouts and controls. I'm partial to the RG35XX SP's clam shell form-factor, but other people like the RG35XX Plus that's akin to a gameboy color layout (but smaller) or the RG35XX H that's similar to a nintendo switch lite layout, including joysticks (but smaller). They can handle PS1 and older without any issues, plus some Dreamcast and N64 games.
On the higher end ($300-400), the Ayn Odin 2 is really the device to beat, although it's bigger, somewhere in between a Switch and a Steam Deck. It can handle some PS2, PSP, and even nintendo switch games - see https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XaPYEyTinKk7F2uTfgSD... for a community-sourced list of compatible games.
Retroid also has some nice higher end devices around $200-300. I have a Retroid Pocket 3+ that I really like, and while it's not compatible with Rocknix, some of their newer devices are.
I have an anbernic rg35xx h - it's a great device; totally recommend it. It plays games up to ps1 with easy, it also works good in most psp games, maybe with a little frameskip on more resource intensive games.
Very good controllers and firm design. Great value for its price!
blacksmith_tb 3 hours ago [-]
I have an Anbernic RG35xx too - another cool thing alongside the emulators is that it runs Pico-8, which is pretty cool on a little physical gameboy-esque device.
freeqaz 7 hours ago [-]
I've got a few from PowKiddy. They're all based on the Rockchip RK3566 SoC.
There are some other chips coming out that have decent Linux support too, but the majority of devices will have that one still.
bartvk 4 hours ago [-]
You've got more than one? What's the reason for multiple devices all based on the same generation of SoC?
flylikeabanana 3 hours ago [-]
They're fun little tinker devices, cheap enough that you can get multiple and play around with different form factors or loan out to friends
heavyset_go 7 hours ago [-]
What system do you want to emulate up to?
If most PS2 games and Gamecube games are good enough, you can grab an Odroid Go Ultra cheaply. It's what I used and suited my needs.
First you need to define “everything”. It’s easy to get a device that runs every 2D retro game ever. But, moving up the 3D emulation ladder can move right past the SteamDeck into more power hungry devices.
daneel_w 7 hours ago [-]
Most RK3566-devices are a good bet. I have the Powkiddy RGB10 MAX 3 which runs Rocknix great.
I am personally not familiar with any of the names there.
DevKoala 6 hours ago [-]
Any true benefit benefit of using this over Bazzite or SteamOS coupled with EmuDeck? I am not an expert in the space, but I am about to build a machine and install Bazzite.
flylikeabanana 6 hours ago [-]
I don't believe there's Bazzite or SteamOS available for ARM devices, which make up most of the "portable handheld" market in terms of device variety
joseda-hg 5 hours ago [-]
You're right, but I'll mention there's already work in place for getting some of the Ublue images on ARM, so Bazzite ARM is a future possibility
Waking up from sleep has about a 1/3 chance of success, the other 2/3rds of the time the whole thing just hard-freezes and needs a full reboot, which leads into the two biggest issues I had with it:
1. When booting up on a "dirty" filesystem, there's a prompt to power down or press any key to bypass the integrity check. This has a two minute timeout, which is just a ridiculous amount of time to wait. (Also, pressing buttons doesn't actually seem to work to bypass the integrity check)
2. After a power cycle - regardless of whether the power-down was clean or dirty - you lose everything on the microSD other than the OS itself. All settings, all downloaded themes, all ROMs completely wiped. It's as if it's booting from a recovery partition or something. I tried numerous times (gracefully shutting down via the Start-button menu) and each time, it boots back up all wiped clean. Reimaged and started over from scratch - still the same issue.
The sleep issue seems to be a known thing and newer version will fix this by... removing the ability to sleep (see https://github.com/ROCKNIX/distribution/issues/1609).
Didn't see anything about the "clean" (more like "forcibly-sterilized") slate after power cycling.
Not ready for the big leagues, at least not on the CubeXX.
I believe JELOS did die, so this is cool to see. I'll try flashing it to a new SD card and seeing what's up! Does anybody see info on what's difference? Also, is there any indication that this is a fork anywhere?
Source: I've contributed to Rocknix and was around for the dissolution of JELOS and the fork.
(Not all of them are low-cost, either; there's plenty of high-end handhelds with physical buttons and analog controls these days, that could probably be usefully repurposed for productive work.)
As much as I love pmOS, it's just not there unfortunately.
Is the name inspired by https://www.rockbox.org/ by any chance? That's what it reminded me of, especially given the ~similarities in purpose.
I also like the Syncthing integration, I can easily share saves and save states to my computer which is simple but feels very cool.
I have a steam deck but I want something smaller and less power hungry for retro emulation but can run everything.
On the higher end ($300-400), the Ayn Odin 2 is really the device to beat, although it's bigger, somewhere in between a Switch and a Steam Deck. It can handle some PS2, PSP, and even nintendo switch games - see https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XaPYEyTinKk7F2uTfgSD... for a community-sourced list of compatible games.
Retroid also has some nice higher end devices around $200-300. I have a Retroid Pocket 3+ that I really like, and while it's not compatible with Rocknix, some of their newer devices are.
Before making a purchase, check out the Retro Game Corps, he reviews prettymuch all of these devices and can help you narrow down what you want: https://retrogamecorps.com/ or https://www.youtube.com/c/retrogamecorps
Very good controllers and firm design. Great value for its price!
There are some other chips coming out that have decent Linux support too, but the majority of devices will have that one still.
If most PS2 games and Gamecube games are good enough, you can grab an Odroid Go Ultra cheaply. It's what I used and suited my needs.
First you need to define “everything”. It’s easy to get a device that runs every 2D retro game ever. But, moving up the 3D emulation ladder can move right past the SteamDeck into more power hungry devices.
I am personally not familiar with any of the names there.
https://universal-blue.discourse.group/t/bluefin-lts-alpha-f...
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/1B71-EDF2-EB6D-2B...
If so, how is the performance compared to ArkOS?