Custom OS for the FunKey S / Q36 Mini / RG Nano / GBA Mini

Changelog since the previous update

New

• Now supporting the GBA Mini handheld (review here). This device is a homemade FunKey S clone with a miniaturized GBA form factor. While it's not mass produced, more and more people are getting it so I decided to port my OS to it because the stocck OS lacked some important feature (such as 60 Hz support).

• [Commander] Added the ability to show next/previous image with D-Pad in the image viewer (author: glebm).

Update

• [Libretro] Recompiled all cores from the latest sources.
• [RG Nano][Gmu] Changed backlight timeout from 30s to 15s.
• [RG Nano][Gmu] Changed default theme from dbcompo large to default modern large.

Bug fixes

• [GMenu2X] Fixed number of days per month that was not correct in Clock app.
• [GMenu2X] Removed "i" icon that overlapped the clock on the bottom bar.

Known issues

• [GBA Mini] RTC (Reat-time clock) is only kept over a reboot, not a shutdown (same occurs in stock OS though). May be a hardware limitation but will investigate further.
• [GBA Mini] Battery status (L+R+Select) is not very accurate on the GBA Mini for an unknown reason. For instance, mine cannot go above 80% when charging and the device usually shuts down around 15%. May be a hardware limitation too but once again, not sure.
• [GBA Mini] While I adapted quite a lot of things to the 240x160 screen of the GBA Mini (FK menu, RetroFE themes, PicoArch scaling modes, boot logo, low battery icon...) there are still some apps designed for 240px height such as Commander, GMenu2X, which means they will be cropped. Also, the lack of 2 buttons (X and Y) makes it even more difficult to use (therefore I mapped Start+B to Y and Start+A to X).
• [GBA Mini] Due to the missing buttons constraint, favorite system does not work in RetroFE because the frontend does not support key combo unfortunately.

Installation

• FunKey-rootfs-DrUm78.fwu is for the FunKey S and Q36 Mini devices only and should be used to upgrade a previous version of my custom OS or the stock OS. Drop the file at the root of your card then unmount to update.
• FunKey-rootfs-DrUm78_RG_Nano.fwu is for the RG Nano device only and should be used to upgrade a previous version of my custom OS but NOT the stock OS (use FunKey-sdcard-DrUm78_RG_Nano.img file instead, see below).
• FunKey-sdcard-DrUm78.img is for the FunKey S and Q36 Mini devices only for people who want to flash a fresh new SD card (all data will be wiped!). Use this file with an image flash tool like Win32 Disk Imager then put the card in your console and it will finalize the process on startup (partition resizing etc).
• FunKey-sdcard-DrUm78_RG_Nano.img is for the RG Nano device only. Instructions about flashing the SD card are the same as for the FunKey S (see above).
• FunKey-rootfs-DrUm78_GBA_Mini.fwu is for the GBA Mini device only and should be used to upgrade the stock OS or a previous version of my custom OS.
• FunKey-sdcard-DrUm78_GBA_Mini.img is for the GBA Mini device only for people who want to flash a fresh new SD card (all data will be wiped!). Instructions about flashing the SD card are the same as for the FunKey S (see above).

Custom OS for the FunKey S / Q36 Mini / RG Nano

Changelog since the previous update

New

• [Emulation] Default emulators have been replaced by PicoArch with Libretro cores in RetroFE and GMenu2X for better performance, compatibility and accuracy. Please read below before continuing:

  • Save states from the original emulators may not be compatible with the Libretro cores but game saves should (put your .sav files into FunKey/.picoarch/data/CORE_NAME/). So please do NOT install this update if you want to keep using your old save states!!!
  • Put your BIOS (PS1, Mega-CD, PC-Engine CD-ROM, GBA...) in FunKey/.picoarch/system/.
  • The Libretro cores are stored in Libretro/cores/, you should not delete them unless you get a more recent version, otherwise default emulators won't work anymore both in RetroFE and GMenu2X. However, you can add your cores to this folder and use PicoArch to launch them.
  • Libretro core list:
    • Game Boy/Game Boy Color => Gambatte
    • NES => FCEUmm
    • Game Boy Advance => gpSP
    • Super NES => Snes9x2005
    • PCE CD-ROM/SuperGrafX => Beetle PC-Engine SuperGrafX
    • Lynx => Beetle Lynx
    • WonderSwan => Beetle WonderSwan
    • Neo-Geo Pocket => Beetle Neo-Geo Pocket
    • PlayStation => PCSX ReARMed
    • SG/SMS/GG/MD/MCD/32X => PicoDrive

• [Stats] Replaced swap size by CPU temperature in system_stats (L+R+Select).

• [PicoArch] Real-time clock is now supported (Gambatte, gpSP...) thanks to neonloop.

• [RetroFE] Added Artbook-sml theme (author: Sai).

• [RetroFE/GMenu2X] Updated supported file extensions for default emulators (.m3u among others).

Bug fix

• [Commander] Fixed broken image viewing for .jpg and .png (ticket #46).

Installation

• FunKey-rootfs-DrUm78.fwu is for the FunKey S and Q36 Mini devices only and should be used to upgrade a previous version of my custom OS or the stock OS. Drop the file at the root of your card then unmount to update.
• FunKey-rootfs-DrUm78_RG_Nano.fwu is for the RG Nano device only and should be used to upgrade a previous version of my custom OS but NOT the stock OS (use FunKey-sdcard-DrUm78_RG_Nano.img file instead, see below).
• FunKey-sdcard-DrUm78.img is for the FunKey S and Q36 Mini devices only for people who want to flash a fresh new SD card (all data will be wiped!). Use this file with an image flash tool like Win32 Disk Imager then put the card in your console and it will finalize the process on startup (partition resizing etc).
• FunKey-sdcard-DrUm78_RG_Nano.img is for the RG Nano device only. Instructions about flashing the SD card are the same as for the FunKey S (see above).

Custom OS for the FunKey S / Q36 Mini / RG Nano

Credit first goes to the FunKey S team for their amazing work.

Changelog since the official FunKey S 2.3.0 release

New features

• [Refresh] Added 60 Hz support for the FunKey S, yes that's possible! Now all your games should be silky-smooth. Beware, once you try it, you never go back!
• [RetroFE] Enabled favorite support. You can now choose to display only your preferred games and systems. The feature is disabled by default as many people enable it by mistake so you have to press Start to load your playlist but you can force it by default by changing autoFavorites = false to autoFavorites = true in /usr/games/settings.conf with Commander app (use READ-WRITE permission in the FunKey menu). Controls are listed below:

Key	Action
Y	Add a game/system to the favorite playlist
X	Remove a game/system from favorite playlist
L2	Previous playlist
R2	Next playlist
Fn/Select	Select a random game/system
Start	Switch between playlist and default list

• [RetroFE] PicoArch support (14th slot): put your cores into "Libretro/cores" folder (created during OS update) then put your games into "Libretro" folder and launch your core from "Libretro" section in RetroFE. Big kudos to neonloop for his amazing work! PicoArch Git is here.
• [RetroFE] OPK support (15th slot): copy your OPKs in "Native games" folder on your SD card then launch them from "Native games" section in RetroFE. Please note that OPKs that need to open the file browser to pick an external file (emulators for instance) won't work as RetroFE is not designed this way.
• [RetroFE] Added subfolder support for all emulators. You can now store your ROMs into subfolders on your SD card, they will be detected and displayed in RetroFE. /!\ Beware, having thousands ROMs in a folder may seriously slow down your device so please avoid that if possible /!\
• Added UTF-8 support for GMenu2X. You can now display special characters (Chinese for instance) in GMenu2X. RetroFE does not support it unfortunately, it would need a complete rewrite by the author of this part of the code.
• [Stats] Added battery measurement for onscreen system stats (L+R+Fn). You can see now the remaining battery while playing your favorite games. "%" display has been removed to fit all the data on one single line.
• [Debug] Added ADB (Android Debug Bridge) debugger for develoment purpose. Basically, just mount the USB drive on your dev host, create an empty "adb" file at the root directory of this mount, unmount and restart the FunKey. On the host side, just install the Android platform tools, open a text console (bash, cmd or PowerShell), type in "adb shell" and you're in!
• [GMenu2X] Trimming extensions can now be disabled in GMenu2X settings ("Start" button), particularly useful to browse multi-entry games (.cue/.bin for instance).
• [GMenu2X] Now displays the clock on the bottom bar (see screenshots below) and "Clock" app has been added into "Settings" section so you can set time and date.
• [GMenu2X] Added "Power Off" and "Reboot" options in GMenu2X ("Settings" section).
• [GMenu2X] Now includes Unarchiver app (Applications tab) that allows to extract a few archive formats (zip, gz, gtar, tgz, tar.gz, tar, rar, 7z) on your device without the need of a computer. Just pick an archive and it will extract it in the same folder.
• [GMenu2X] Added ST-SDL terminal app in Applications section.
• [RG Nano] Added GMU music player in GMenu2X frontend.
• [RG Nano] Added HID support (keyboards can be used through USB-C with text apps for instance).

Improvements

• [Boot] Updated the splash screen displayed when booting the device and when entering the recovery mode (Fn+Start at boot). Please note that the logo for the recovery mode will only be updated if you flash your SD card with the .img file. Thanks to JohnnyW for the art.
• [Brightness] Set default value to 50% instead of 100%, which will prevent users from being blinded during the boot sequence.
• [GB/GBC] Included new gnuboy v1.2.3. Changelog here.
• [GB/GBC] Increased max sound volume by not forcing mono as it's no more needed with 'etc/asound.conf'.
• [SNES] Included new PocketSNES v1.3. Changelog here.
• [PS1] Included new PCSX ReARMed v1.2.3. Changelog here.
• [PS1] Bios and memory card paths changed to "FunKey/.pcsx/bios" and "FunKey/.pcsx/memcards" (the warning message has been updated accordingly), so please move your files to those new locations.
• [MD] Included new PicoDrive v1.4 compiled from irixxxx's latest sources. Changelog here.
• [GG] Replaced Mednafen by PicoDrive for Game Gear emulation in RetroFE.
• [GMenu2X] 2 extra themes for GMenu2X users (see screenshots below)
  • Default theme "DrUm3x3" now displays 3x3 icons instead of 2x2 previously and has a new background.
  • Added another custom theme "DrUm3x4" that displays 3 lines of 4 icons each with a smaller font.
  • New set of better looking icons and slightly modified descriptions.
  • Game Boy and Game Boy Color have been grouped into one OPK "GB/GBC".
  • Mega Drive, Master System and Game Gear systems have been merged into one OPK "Mega Drive" as well.
• [GMenu2X] Added PicoArch frontend OPK for GMenu2X users in "Games" section (switch sections with L/R).
• [RetroFE] Added "RetroRoomCovers" (now by default), "FunKeyRed" and "FunKeyYellow" RetroFE themes from reno. Please note that you can remove them from "FunKey/.retrofe/layouts" if you already had them.
• [RetroFE] Added Pixxel Plus theme (thanks to reno and Rasha Theta).
• [RetroFE] Added DarkUI and Daijismol themes (thanks to reno and Sai).
• [RG Nano] Added support for headphone plug and unplug during gameplay. Apps won't freeze or close anymore and sound will switch between speaker and headphones (thanks to Shaun Inman for the code).
• [System] Extended /tmp size from default 28MB to 128MB to handle large zipped files (PicoArch + gpSP core for instance).

Bug fixes

• [RTC] Fixed RTC that was previously ahead of time very quickly on the FunKey S and Q36 Mini (ticket #1).
• [gpSP] Fixed frameskip issue in gpSP (ticket #2) thanks to StupidHoroscope.
• [gpSP] Fixed saturated and muffled sound in gpSP (ticket #21). It's now fixed for Instant Play too.
• [GMenu2X] Fixed GMenu2X buzzing sound (ticket #4).
• [GMenu2X] Fixed the brightness setting that was different between GMenu2X and the OS by removing the option from GMenu2X, we don't need several places that change brightness since we have the FK menu and the shortcuts (ticket #5). Also removed "Screen timeout" and "Save last selection" that were inactive.
• [Package] Fixed Jack's VVVVVV game crash by removing libvorbis.
• Fixed emulator exit that was impossible for games with special characters in their name (Korean/Japanese...), nothing happened when trying to close the program. This fix is related to the new UTF-8 support (see "New features" section above).
• [Recovery] Fixed %% in brightness notification.
• [RG Nano] Fixed sound volume adjustment that was not possible with some headphones (thanks to game-de-it).
• [ST-SDL] Fixed terminal width that was previously 320 instead of 240 and adapted the Help screen.

Known issue

• [SDL] Some image formats (.jpg and .png for instance) may not open under Commander since the latest update (ticket #46).

Installation

• FunKey-rootfs-DrUm78.fwu is for the FunKey S and Q36 Mini devices only and should be used to upgrade a previous version of my custom OS or the stock OS. Drop the file at the root of your card then unmount to update.
• FunKey-rootfs-DrUm78_RG_Nano.fwu is for the RG Nano device only and should be used to upgrade a previous version of my custom OS but NOT the stock OS (use FunKey-sdcard-DrUm78_RG_Nano.img file instead, see below).
• FunKey-sdcard-DrUm78.img is for the FunKey S and Q36 Mini devices only for people who want to flash a fresh new SD card (all data will be wiped!). Use this file with an image flash tool like Win32 Disk Imager then put the card in your console and it will finalize the process on startup (partition resizing etc).
• FunKey-sdcard-DrUm78_RG_Nano.img is for the RG Nano device only. Instructions about flashing the SD card are the same as for the FunKey S (see above).

Development

• Toolchain & SDK for the FunKey S, Q36 Mini and RG Nano (unpack the archive then type source <TOOLCHAIN_PATH>/environment-setup command)
  • FunKey-sdk-2.0.0_Ubuntu1804.tar.gz for Ubuntu 18.04.
  • FunKey-sdk-2.3.0.tar.gz for Ubuntu 20.04.
• Documentation about how to build programs for the FunKey OS can be found here. You can also ask for help on the FunKey S Discord.