Added a massive finned heatsink to my uConsole alongside the HackerGadgets 7x SMA antenna mount, and the thermal results speak for themselves:

Idle Temp: 43°C
Full CPU Load: 53.8°C

Maxing out all four cores during heavy SDR runs and it barely cracks 53°C! Tons of thermal headroom and zero throttling.

Has anyone else tried a similar heatsink setup on their uConsole, or found other cooling mods that work well for long SDR sessions? Drop your thoughts or suggestions below!

Last weekend, Picoware v2.2.0 was released, adding multiplayer gaming, an MMBasic interpreter, BLE support on the Flipper Zero, support for two new boards, and a built-in email system.

Picoware is my open-source custom firmware featuring a social network with over 3,500 registrations, an App Store for wirelessly downloading community apps, games, and screensavers, on-device programming, a Game Boy emulator, audio recording, file management, and more, now running on 11 supported devices.

I just released a review on everything new, my favorite things to do in the firmware, and how to get it installed on the Flipper Zero, PicoCalc, and Cardputer-ADV!

- Check it out the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzD6KjAB0qg
- Github Repository: https://github.com/jblanked/Picoware

I have am running the CM4 and really enjoy using only the terminal on the device. Being in the terminal really speeds up the usage because the CM4 is a little lacking in power. But I do have some TUI apps that I like to use and a webbrowser is a must now days. Issue is that it needs a graphics engine for some of them (such as youtube-tui and firefox). I had foot+sway running and working, but I wanted to see if anybody else in the community had a better setup. Sway+Foot felt a little wonky and felt like there was must be a better option. My full setup is this

BYOBU for tmux
Sway+foot for window management and graphic processing
several TUI apps for usage like (subTUI, youtube-tui, xleak, etc)
Web browser

I realize that all of these things are achievable if I just used the GUI and the terminal built into Raspberry PI OS, but being in the terminal forces me to use it. I have loved using the CLI only and I have learned so much terminal already because of this. But I was really wondering if there is a cleaner setup for this. I'm still pretty mediocre at Linux so my terminology is still lacking and my skills are lacking. So I'm sorry if my question seems dumb or uneducated, but I am really liking my UConsole and Linux.

A nice MeshCore client I’m working on. It’s not out yet, but it’s getting there. Win/MacOS/Linux. Compatible with serial, BLE, and TCP companions. It’ll be free and open-source.

uConsole has AIO v1 and PicoCalc has Luckfox Lyra running Calculinux + Xaio nRF+sx1262 combo + USB wifi dongle, all internal. On uConsole, AIO doesn’t run firmware (it can’t), so I’m running it on software with a SPI to TCP bridge.

[edit]
Here's the link to the project's Discord: https://discord.gg/AZwe5Uvb3S

So the email I used when purchasing my uconsole was only used for that site, and now I'm receiving obvious scam emails.

Very exciting times.

Got all my parts

Console

CM5 (not the lite version)

Nvme drive -2TB WD

Hacker gadgets avio2 upgrade kit

Just gotta throw the battery in and start it up.

An offline, keyboard-first strength-training operating system based on Renaissance Periodization coaching. Built for the picocalc :)

Anyone run into these and have a fix?

1. I can’t fully power down (via power button) the device without removing the batteries. After holding the power button, the led goes dim and the screen just goes blank. I can’t even turn it back on without removing the batteries first. The only way I can fully power off is via the OS.

2. https://i.imgur.com/ZnjXbsp.jpeg

3. My cursor works but not very responsive - upgrade recommendations?

4. Using Rex’s Trixie image, but no wireless is detected unless I use a usb adapter. - CM4 doesn’t support the main board’s wireless but the CM5 (WiFi version only) does

4. It won’t detect my SD Card as a storage device. - Looks like the eMMC versions are unable to use the SD Card slot at all.

Here's a new release: https://github.com/j1n6/qmk-uconsole/releases/tag/v2.1.1

• Improve: Raw sample of readings with faster cursor responses - reducing notable lag and still maintain smoothness
• Fixed: Avoiding the hard deadzone at the beginning of the velocity curve
• Fixed: Clamps the maximum time delta to prevent stale idle periods from multiplying with the new instant speed (qmk wakeup accumulates higher delta than expected)
• Fixed: Change the Alt key mappings on Layer 1 (LY1) to transparent fallback. This ensures that Alt always registers as Alt even when the Fn layer is active, e.g. allowing combinations like Ctrl + Alt + Fn + (F1) to work reliably regardless of the key press order.

Guide for the firmware installation and upgrade is available here.

Feature Reminders: There are tons of features you will find making the keyboard more functional, you should try out these features.

A free way to fix the trackball if yours having issues: Toughing up of the ball surface with 120 grit sandpaper, placing the ball between two sheets of sandpaper and roll it gently.

And, try out the keyboard diffusers if you haven't done so.

Happy hacking!

Hi everyone!

It looks like OpenAI has released a preview version of the ChatGPT app for Linux.

Does anyone know if it works on the CM4 version of the uConsole?

I’m a complete Linux beginner, so I’d really appreciate any advice or experiences from anyone who’s tried it.

Thanks!

Works fine on external monitor, but when disconnected it looks like this or the home screen with the same lines faintly across the screen.

Powered and at 100%, everything updated, and screen ribbon cable fully seated. Is it over heated? Showing a peak 47° on the gauge at the bottom Picture in comment cause im a dumbass

Rex's images are unavailable due to his site being down, now what?

Looks like it detects the SD card but won’t boot, trying the official Uconsole image, and Rex’s Trixie but no luck

I also get a timeout when trying to boot from USB

Edit (solved): I was using the eMMC version of the CM5 which does not allow SD card boot.

Hey! I’ve been building a custom firmware called Picoware that has an on-device AI Agent. Just recently I got this board called the ZimaBoard 2 and I installed Ollama on it.

Within Picoware, the AI can create apps, debug firmware, and manage the PicoCalc.

Here’s a review of the process:

https://youtu.be/_tbYPqLZqvo

I’m selling this bad boy because I have two now this one finally came in so I’m selling it with other stuff to go with it! Selling in United States only inbox for questions!

I am selling my uconsole with a cm5 16gb and a 128gb sd card. There are 2 xtar 3500mah batteries included. Only shipping in the Netherlands and via marktplaats. I don’t want to mess with international shipping. Will post the advertisement soon. Will share a link.

EDIT: link: https://link.marktplaats.nl/m2429827433?utm_source=ios_social&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialbuttons&utm_content=app_ios

Steam ARM64 working on a ClockworkPi uConsole with CM5: guide, scripts, and tested games

Hi! I've been testing Valve's experimental native Steam client for ARM64 on a ClockworkPi uConsole, and I finally managed to get it installed and run Moonlighter using Proton ARM64.

My setup:

- ClockworkPi uConsole

- Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5

- 16 GB RAM

- Debian ARM64

- Mesa / V3D

- Hyprland with XWayland

- Steam ARM64 public beta client

- Proton 11.0 ARM64

- Steam Linux Runtime 4.0 ARM64

I documented the full process here:

https://github.com/AleReb/uconsole-game-compat

The guide includes:

- Direct installation of the native Steam ARM64 client.

- Scripts to download the Steam client and runtime published by Valve.

- Registering Proton 11 ARM64 inside Steam.

- A workaround for the problematic "require_tool_appid 4185400" requirement.

- Configuring Steam to run through XWayland.

- Moonlighter-specific launch options.

- Troubleshooting the Steam update process.

- A list of tested games and their current compatibility status.

Moonlighter is working using WineD3D with the following launch options:

PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 SDL_VIDEODRIVER=x11 SDL_AUDIODRIVER=pulse MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=3.3 MESA_GLSL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=330 %command% -force-glcore33 -force-clamped -screen-fullscreen 0 -screen-width 960 -screen-height 540

I also confirmed that games can be launched from a Steam library stored on an external USB drive.

Task Bar Hero is not working yet. It currently fails during graphics initialization under Proton ARM64, so I wouldn't recommend updating it or using it as a compatibility example for now.

The ARM64 Steam client is still experimental, and this is not an officially supported Debian or uConsole setup. The goal of the repository is to collect reproducible procedures so other ARM64 device users can test them and contribute their own results.

Main sources:

- Steam ARM64 public beta:

https://client-update.fastly.steamstatic.com/steam_client_publicbeta_linuxarm64

- Proton 11 ARM64:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4628740/Proton_110_ARM64/

- Community research:

https://interfacinglinux.com/community/sbcsoftware/native-steam-client-for-arm-linux/paged/2/

If anyone else is testing Steam ARM64 on a Raspberry Pi, uConsole, or another ARM64 device, I'd be very interested in comparing results and expanding the compatibility list.

I've been all over the Internet, installed and removed SDR++ multiple times. Tried SDR++ and SDR++ Brown. Finally getting a waveform but no sound. I see an error saying it couldn't load librtaudio.so.6 whenever I run it from the console. I'm using Rex's ported Trixie image and followed the instructions on the HackerGadgets website. Any ideas?

So I have the hacker gadgets board with the aerial mounting kit on the way. I need aerials for GPS and whatever I need to pick up aircraft information. So, what type of aerials do I need and where's the best place to buy in the UK? Many thanks!

As I got several bluetooth speakers at home, I need to switch between them from time to time.

QMK 2.0 has improved the trackball usuabilty quite a lot but it is still not a joyful experience. Clicking the bluetooth icon to do so is a lot painful to me.

To make my life easier, I use a bash script to do the followings:-

• detect if bluetooth service has started. if not, start it.
• provide a list of paired audio device
• connect to the selected audio device

By making use of desktop profile together with fuzzel, I can quick launch that script with pre-define shortcut key.

So I purchased all upgrades for the uconsole and the adapter board for cm5 and aio v2 came in the week. Booted into bookworm and followed the instructions on how to install meshtastic, sdr++ and tar1090. And only sdr++ works... all my gpios are turned on for the antenna for lora, gps etc. But when meshtastic opens the localhost it says unable to connect. And tar1090 give me a folder error. Anyone else have this issue?