Ubuntu on my Switch, Pastel Miyoo Mini, and the Job Hunt continues...

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Greetings, fellow geeks. I’ve recently received an RCMLoader/jig combo kit for my OG Nintendo Switch. I’ll be walking through the process I went through to get Ubuntu 18.04 (the only one NVIDIA supports here) running on my Nintendo Switch on my project page over here if you’re interested.

I’ve also recently received limited edition decals and buttons from SakuraRetroModding to Kirby-ify my Miyoo Mini, so I’ve gone ahead and done that and loaded more PICO-8 cartridges on there.

Here’s a little teaser image of what I’ve been documenting over on my Nintendo Switch Linux project page. Looks like the community contributors have come an awfully far way now! There are some libraries from 20.04 or newer releases that would really help where I’m trying to get with this effort, but I suppose compiling and installing things on the older Ubuntu 18.04 release works just as well. Ubuntu 18.04 seems to be the focus of that Switchroot project due to NVIDIA having drivers for that specific release, but not for newer ones that use a similar ARM/NVIDIA setup as the Switch.

Despite the decal being slightly askew, which I can fix later, here’s an image of my Miyoo mini I’ve recently dazzled up a bit! I acquired a limited run of pastel buttons from SakuraRetroModding on Etsy for this guy, updated OnionOS and added some Kirby games to finish the feel. I’ve mainly been playing through Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland, Megaman Battle Network Blue Moon, Cave Story (Dokutsu Monogatari) and Advance Wars on here. I was happy to learn that most of these ROMs are available if you search the lovely Archive(dot)Org website! Gosh I love the game archiving community.

Here you’ll see that I’ve added a few more PICO-8 carts to this OnionOS install. Turns out there was a newer iteration of PCraft for PICO-8 consoles (or fake8 on OnionOS) that you could actually save your game in and fight a boss in.

That’s about all I have for this last bit of February! My job hunt is ongoing and I’m open to any and all remote opportunities for Linux-friendly companies! I have built up more of a focus in customer support and hardware support in that industry as of late, and am definitely open to anyone wanting to talk or interview!

Here are a few notable things I’ve found in the past two weeks:

eOS on my Pixels and OnionOS on the Miyoo Mini

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Greetings again, fellow Linux lovers and open-sorcerors!

Digging around in my storage, I found that I still have my original Pixel 2 XL and a secondhand Pixel 3 I must’ve got from a friend. I only know this due to tracking the devices in my Google account. Let’s go ahead and wipe them to throw eOS from the E foundation on there!

I’ll add a video below that Nick from The Linux Experiment youtube channel created last year on the state of eOS.

The thought came to me; why not run the most recent builds of eOS on my previous Pixel devices? Perhaps future owners could enjoy these with a privacy-friendly and open-source replacement to Google’s “pixel” vision of Android on there. For now, I’ve just installed it following their documentation here on my Pixel 3. Note that I ran Fedora 37 when following those instructions, and had to make sure I had the android-tools package installed. Note to grab the “Android S” image for your Pixel 3 if your phone has been updated to Android 12. If not, the R images will work fine, but it’s recommended to upgrade to Android 12 before moving forward, as I believe eOS may use that slightly newer kernel.

Looking at the above image, it seems my Pixel 6’s camera decided to fuzz out the background so it could focus on the Pixel 3 running eOS. Either way, this is cool to see! As part of the instructions, you use a few handy dandy terminal commands to temporarily get it booting into a different recovery as you flash eOS which was a fun little adventure. I haven’t done more than poked around the install thus far, but it seems quite lightweight! Let me know, once I wipe her down with some alcohol if anyone would be interested in buying a device with eOS from the E Foundation preinstalled.

In the above little Carousel, you can flick through the different screens I’ve captured while messing with Android-based eOS on the Pixel 3. Note that the battery life on this device, being secondhand even when I received it years ago, has always been iffy. The stated expected battery life is still longer than it was with a stock Android 12 image from Google on there! Now, onto that Miyoo Mini…

I went ahead and upgraded the previously out-of-date firmware on this Miyoo Mini to the April 2022 firmware noted here by the OnionOS install instructions.

After upgrading that, I thought I’d make an image of this MicroSD card and flash that image to a new SanDisk MicroSD card, as I’ve heard a lot of horror stories from the Miyoo reddit about people easily bricking their handhelds with the low quality MicroSD cards they come with. I used Gnome Disks on my Fedora install for this, as the KDE equivalent usually screws permissions somehow.

Then, after backing up an image of that MicroSD card, I flashed it to the 64GB new in box SanDisk MicroSD that I had.

Then, I went ahead and installed OnionOS on it by copying some files over and restarting the device with the MicroSD back in it. Love this little distro!

Love this little device. I think this will become my go-to pocketable game device when I don’t have the space to take out my Steam Deck. Have a great week, everyone!

Cooling the Steam Deck while Docked, tinkering with the Miyoo Mini etc

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Greetings there once again, fine tinkery compatriots. This time I’ve burned some gift cards to try out some accessories for my Steam Deck and incoming Miyoo Mini.

I made a little public-facing Amazon list of nice-to-haves for the Steam Deck if someone is using it as a docked desktop machine, including a cooler that I’ve linked here. Going to take my Killswitch case off my Deck and attach that cooler now to see how it performs in a docked setup.

As you can see, it adds a bit of chonk to the back, but I can definitely still keep the deck sitting in a dock. At some point, I think I’ll put the handhelds I no longer use in a glass case a little nod to the history of handheld PC development over the years. From the VAIO UX380N, to the original GPD WM, to the Deck and beyond. Now, let’s run some benchmarks via PTS and see what the temperatures look like.

This cooler is fairly interesting! Looks to keep the temps slightly cooler when benching the system by taking my rail systems all throughout my Core Keeper server. Usually the Deck will easily be 75c+ across the board. Seems the cooler pulling more air out of the deck is also keeping the Deck’s fan RPMs low too.

I’ve also figured out how to get games on your MicroSD card recognized on the Odroid GO Ultra! Here’s the most recent Ubuntu EmulationStation image available for it. Here’s the tutorial on how to flash it. Also, here’s the Retro Game Corps video timestamp that I went to, to figure out what I needed to do in order to get the game roms to show up on the system. If only there was better upfront documentation or instructions on how to use this device…

Ah, never mind, looks like the current ES image still won’t read the rom directory structure on my unit, even though I’ve heard it’s working for others. Your mileage may vary there, so good luck!

I have a Miyoo Mini on order now, from the official KeepRetro storefront, having been scammed twice on AliExpress and no longer wishing to waste money on Chinese scam storefronts that are taken down the second they get your money. Once I get that, I’ll be checking firmware compatibility and then running through this guide to install OnionOS and check out how it runs!

Update, a few weeks later, the Miyoo Mini came in! Sadly, it is running some outdated firmware, so I’ll have to upgrade it to a version that is compatible with OnionOS soon, then I can tinker further. Once I find my 64gb Sandisk MicroSD card somewhere in my tech drawers I’ll give that shot.

A New Year, A New Outlook

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Greetings once again! Alex here. Going for a more positive outlook on job prospects this year, despite the current state of the Tech economy. I have a few things planned in the beginning this year. I’ll likely be going on more road trips this year, as well.

In case you haven’t seen it, click here to check out my page with dedicated links to spreadsheets detailing the status of my yearly projects! Moving on…

Hope everyone’s enjoying the new calendar year with friends or loved ones! I know I did. Love my parents and my childhood friends to bits, and it was great to see them one last time before I change up my end-of-year plans going forward. Will likely drive to see them when I eventually pick up my Aptera at the end of this coming year or beginning of 2024.

On the topic of projects, soon I may be doing a write-up in a blog post or dedicated project page on the Miyoo Mini after mine arrives. I’ll be doing more Steam Deck write-ups as well. This year I’ll also be building an AM5-based open-air desktop in the Streacom DA6 XL as well, and that might be my last desktop build for quite a while. Soon I’ll have an Ayn Loki 8 GB model with a 6600U on the way that I scored for cheap, and I’ll test out running HoloISO on there, after configuring BIOS options to be efficient with battery life.

In the last bit of news for this new year, check out my Linux Gaming reflection that I posted on Medium as a follow-up to my 2020 reflection. Things have changed quite a bit since the Deck was released! Above you’ll see me continuing to relive my childhood as I play through Pikmin 2 on my Deck. OS 3.4 is quite smooth, by the way. Love the initiative Valve is taking to support this machine.

Also, as always, here are some cool things I’ve read around the internet recently:

Finishing up the T440p repairs, attempting to fix Risk of Rain 2 modding this holiday

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Hello there again everyone! Hope you’re having some happy holidays, for those that celebrate. This week I’ve mainly been working on finishing up the fixing of that T440p I mentioned previously, and attempting to get the r2modman mod manager working again for Risk of Rain 2. On my Nobara and Fedora Linux installs, r2modman previously opened up Risk of Rain 2 with my mods perfectly fine when hitting “Play Modded” however now that is far from the case.

That all said, first let’s take a look at those T440p repairs!

As you can see, I finally got that back panel fastened down with some screws I own!

Next, here we are replacing the LCD since the last one was bad…

…and good to go…nope! Now I’ll put this up on my Projects for Sale page once I replace the screen again. That said, I’ll likely be disabling the store while I’m out of town, then re-enabling it with all the machines I have fixed up and ready for sale when I return the first or second weekend of January. Expect another blog post out around then. I’ll be gone from the 16th of December until the 6th or 7th of January, so I’ll re-enable the store after then, with some new entries from machines I’ve fixed etc.

In other game news, here’s a screenshot of my Core Keeper server’s map! This game is my cozy place, and it’s nice that I have a dedicated server for it now. If you’ve been previously added to my Discord, I’ve pinned the game ID for the server there. Now, on to Risk of Rain 2 modding…

Recently I’ve run into some issues being able to play my favorite game in the way that I wish on Fedora and Nobara, and per my Github bug I made here, I’m experiencing some issues with the r2modman utility I’ve long been using to run Risk of Rain 2 with mods. Going to do further testing these next few days and make another blog post to see if there’s a fix for r2modman running on Linux as an appimage/rpm/deb install so we can get the game running modded again. Going to follow along with troubleshooting r2modman as I get time while I’m with my family. Above is the same video from that Github bug.

Long live my Oryx Pro. The above is a shot of my fourth gen model Oryx Pro, the oryp4 model, running Nobara Linux. Runs fine and graphics switching runs well too. This machine is going to replace the Guest Gaming Xeon machine I was using previously, as a guest gaming setup. As the battery on this doesn’t last longer than 10 minutes, and as parts are becoming harder to find for this machine, it’ll have a place next to the workbench for anyone that comes over who wants to game.

In one last little nugget of info, I’ve acquired an ODROID GO Ultra and I’ll be testing some games on there as well as possibly another tiny handheld that it has been hinted at me being gifted this holiday once I arrive in that part of the country. On the ODROID GO Ultra I flashed the most recent emulationstation image (oddly ubuntu 18.04 based) and if I end up getting a that other little chad handheld, I’ll see about flashing OnionOS on it as I’m told it may be one of the ones to support that. For now though, with the ODROID, we check to see if it can run my n64 and ps1 games from eras past!

To add some cool other things I’ve read about or found recently: