[HN Gopher] Rocknix is an immutable Linux distribution for handh...
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Rocknix is an immutable Linux distribution for handheld gaming
devices
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 123 points
Date : 2025-06-20 14:44 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (rocknix.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (rocknix.org)
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| 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.
| freeqaz wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| You've got more than one? What's the reason for multiple
| devices all based on the same generation of SoC?
| flylikeabanana wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| corysama wrote:
| Keep SteamOS on your SteamDeck and come join the SBC debate and
| in https://old.reddit.com/r/SBCGaming/
|
| 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 wrote:
| Most RK3566-devices are a good bet. I have the Powkiddy RGB10
| MAX 3 which runs Rocknix great.
| spapas82 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| dartharva wrote:
| The website has a page listing supported devices:
| https://rocknix.org/devices/
|
| I am personally not familiar with any of the names there.
| nfriedly wrote:
| 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.
|
| 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
| udia wrote:
| Nice to see another alternative to the Linux gaming ecosystem.
| Bazzite also states handheld device support: https://bazzite.gg/
| lawrencegripper wrote:
| I'm running bazzite on amd kit and it's blown me away how nice
| it is, everything so far has "just worked"
| zozbot234 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| freeqaz wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
| kadoban wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| I think it's because the SoC hardware is made by Rockchip.
| progmetaldev wrote:
| I totally forgot about RockBox until I saw this headline, like
| yourself. That kept my first-generation iPod Video running far
| longer than I would have expected.
| DevKoala wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
|
| https://universal-blue.discourse.group/t/bluefin-lts-
| alpha-f...
| HelloUsername wrote:
| Installing SteamOS on other devices:
|
| https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/1B71-EDF2-EB6D-2
| B...
| flylikeabanana wrote:
| You'll note it specifies AMD devices, i.e. x86-64
| architecture
| HelloUsername wrote:
| Right! Sorry. Hopefully soon: https://gitlab.steamos.clou
| d/steamrt/steamrt/-/commit/5833fa...
| DevKoala wrote:
| Gotcha, I missed that. Thank you.
| dartharva wrote:
| It's meant to work with a limited niche set of devices:
| https://rocknix.org/devices/
| c9fc42ad wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Hahaha, this is unlikely because the predecessor project was
| collateral damage from nintendos anti emulator crusade.
| haunter wrote:
| By that logic Nintendo will go after Ubuntu and Fedora too
| jamiek88 wrote:
| No it's not 'my logic' the same exact project _literally
| shut down before because of this situation_.
| spookie wrote:
| You can never be sure with those guys
| BizarroLand wrote:
| I see that it works for the cheapie R36s's you see all over temu
| and aliexpress. Has anyone installed it on one of them?
|
| If so, how is the performance compared to ArkOS?
| LaurensBER wrote:
| Performance is better in some cases but worse in others (mostly
| Dreamcast and other 3D sfuff).
|
| In general Rockchip does offer a more modern and streamlined
| experience though, the software is generally more up-to-date
| and it has some nice quality of life features such as a theme
| and bezel downloader. If you have a spare microSD card
| definitely give it a try ;)
| MyPasswordSucks wrote:
| 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.
|
| 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.
| LaurensBER wrote:
| Different devices have different levels of support. Support for
| the H700 (the chipset in the CubeXX) has been added a few
| months ago and the project is still working out the kinks.
|
| Unfortunately we're often limited by whatever blobs the
| manufacturer provides and whatever is supported by the mainline
| kernel, as you can imagine there's not a whole lot of people
| experimenting with the latest and the greatest on these devices
| so the project often runs into regressions when upgrading. I
| wish the situation was better but given the prices these
| devices are going for it's a small wonder they work as well as
| they do ;) Having (some) mainline support does mean that we'll
| see updates for years and years so with a bit of luck the
| situation will improve over time!
|
| For reference the Rockchip devices (RK3266 and RK3566) have
| been supported for longer and offer a general smooth
| experience. I've had pretty good luck with my Powkiddy X55!
|
| With regards to 2, just like bazzite and some other distros
| Rocknix uses a read-only filesystem, you can use mounts to
| allow certain paths to be overwritten. The default
| configuration strives to find a balance between allowing some
| customization and stability.
|
| What you're describing does sound like a bug, it might be that
| some flag is set incorrectly. I would recommend dropping in at
| the Discord.
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(page generated 2025-06-23 23:00 UTC)