PinePhone, Win Max and Projects-In-Wait

Hello again! Just a few little updates as October seems to be progressing along. I have a game streaming post in the pipeline, but need to wait so I can test it on more devices before publishing. Regarding my prior post, I’m waiting on the Pi 4 M.2 case to be shipped as well as am currently troubleshooting an issue where Dell Optiplex 3020s won’t take certain AMD cards, like my RX550 Low Profile, so I may have to opt for a GT 1030 or similar.
I’m also looking into completing a Coursera course from Google so I can boost my resume in job hunts.

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In other news, I’ve been testing postmarketOS and Manjaro images on the PinePhone that I have had for a bit. Seeing if I can find a daily driver happy medium. So far, it appears Ubuntu Touch is the most stable software for this device, as postmarketOS and Manjaro are both still in very rapid and active development. More updates on that when I find a decent daily driver.

I have also gotten Rocket League to run perfectly on my Fedora-running GPD Win Max through extracting this version of Proton (5.9-GE) from GloriousEggroll to my home/(user)/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d/ folder. Well, I extracted it within my Downloads folder, and then moved the Proton-GE folder over to that compatibility tools folder. Maybe if some people are interested, I’ll write up another post on custom version of proton etc in the future.

Note that Rocket League does NOT support Linux anymore due to the Epic Games buyout of their developer (ugh) and that Valve’s newest-at-the-date-of-this-post version of Proton (5.13) does not work with Rocket League.
That’s it for the update so far!

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Lastly, here are some things to note that I have stumbled across recently:

• Pine64 had a huge update to announce, regarding their work one the PinePhone, PineTime watch and other devices

• Scientists have discovered how to build living concrete with bacteria, sand and other easy to obtain materials

• The Compute Module 4 from the Raspberry Pi foundation has been released! Will definitely have to check this out in the future if a cluster board for it will come to fruition

• Wolfgang, a tech-youtuber I follow, tested some games between a tracking-free version of Windows 10 and Linux

• Youtuber ETA Prime has found how to get Zoom running fine on a Raspberry Pi

Upcoming Pi 4 and Gaming-As-An-Appliance Projects

Hello there again! I guess unemployment has finally given me a reason to get back to all my fun little hardware projects.

I recently saw these two videos by youtuber LowSpecGamer (newest, older) and had my interest in the Pi gaming community reinvigorated! Then after seeing the Argon One M.2 case review by ETA Prime on youtube, I also thought that would make a fantastic overclock case for a Pi 4 set-top box that sits under the tv and can play various games via TwisterOS (see more from the LSG vids)

Another project I have in the pipeline…..once I find a power cable… is to setup GamerOS which I mentioned here before, in an old Dell Optiplex 3020 I had laying around from when I worked in my last IT job. I would love to see the recent progress the developer has made on this!

That’s all for now! Look forward to updates in the future!

T440p to a P51

Aren’t upgrades always nice? I ended up having that T440p for about a year and a half before upgrading it when my prior machine died. Then I used that from 2019 till a week or two ago. Now I’m on the Thinkpad P series!

This thing is a bit of a chonker, just like the T440p, however, the expansion is lovely! A Thunderbolt 3 port AND PCI Express Card slot for external GPU upgrades either way! Four slots for RAM upgrades, four storage ports if using M.2s or three if using two M.2s and a 2.5” drive. Also, it appears this is the final P series to use one of the click-in mechanical Thinkpad Advanced Docks…so I will likely be using this for a while, as these mechanical docks have far better Linux compatibility than the Thunderbolt 3 docks that are out these days. I might not have enough experience in using those to make that claim, but that is how I feel currently.

Below is my config

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Clicking on this will enlarge it

Also I’m fairly happy with the aforementioned disk setup. I have yet to use that second M.2 slot, but if I need further storage on this desktop replacement in the future, I know I’ll have space! Currently, as seen below, I have a main Samsung NVMe M.2 for the boot/game drive and then a 2.5” ssd for storing media. This machine came secondhand with the Samsung drive and I slapped the 2.5” drive in it from my prior T440p!

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Made it so you can enlarge this as well. Note the external 8TB backup drive I occasionally use.

That’s all there is to this update! Hopefully in coming months I’ll have more to report on any personal projects I’ve been doing, but I’ve really been enjoying running that GPD Win Max through its paces!

Edit: My Gigabyte Gaming Laptop is now running Fedora as well

Linux-Powered Gaming As An Appliance

Imagine an efficient gaming PC set-top box to sit under your TV. It seamlessly boots into Steam Big Picture mode, all updates are done in the background and applied on reboot. Snapshots of every system image are automatically taken and reverted back to, when issues are faced.

That’s the idea behind GamerOS, an automated Arch-based equivalent to SteamOS, however it installs much fresher drivers for GPUs and has access to the AUR, with all those fantastic newer proton versions.

I now have, in my posession, a GPD Win Max. I could imagine, in a family scenario, a handheld for playing Steam games (namely a GPD device or something homebuilt of similar sorts), a few set-top boxes (example) in the house on various televisions and a powerful custom PC or two for those that are more involved. The GPD-or-similar handhelds could be given to the kids. If they’re more technically-inclined, I could imagine teaching them how to use a Gnome or custom-interface version of Fedora or something stable on those. All the set-top boxes would run GamerOS smoothly, and the gaming PC would run either Windows or Pop!_OS for the more powerful stuff.

All these devices are Linux-powered, sharing various Steam libraries and accounts, and in the future could possibly run Retroarch from Steam Big Picture mode and sync retro games. Retro ROM-syncing isn’t supported by Steam’s cloud services? Not a problem there! Syncthing is available for PC-to-PC syncing of retro games and the save states affiliated with them. Retroarch and all other games could be accessible from Steam. Add in a link in Steam Big Picture mode to Kodi and you have all the streaming/local media via Plex available to the family as well!

Although my current living situation doesn’t allow building all these projects out fully, I can still dream of the day it is possible!

The State of Fedora Linux on GPD Win Max (Contd)

Hello again!

Now it lives!

As you can tell, things are working now! After realizing my prior error

drm.edid_firmware=eDP-1:edid/gpdwinmax.bin: no such file or directory

was due to improper formatting in the grub file, I rewrote it according to this reddit poster's instructions and things are working now! Looks like I'm not the only one running Fedora! I've also learned that Minecraft Java Edition can run at a solid 45-60 fps with fancy settings, and Stardew Valley runs like a dream! I'll do some more game tests and Phoronix benchmarks in the future as the games all install. Thanks for reading!