A couple weeks with the uConsole

uConsole
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Thanks to some very helpful replies from my last post, I’m starting to get a better idea about how to use this thing.

My main takeaway is that the stock OS is better off replaced, and most programs made “for linux” aren’t necessarily compatible with the uConsole.

I’m thinking of giving Rex’s Bookworm 6.6 a try. I think I can find some info on it somewhere else on these forums but my big question is: Instead of using the included 32gb SD card I wanted to use a 128 gb one I had in my drawer. How do I make that happen?

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Update: Actually having some trouble. I was hoping there would be a step-bystep beginner-friendly guide on how to install the new O.S. Do I just get the files from github and put them on an SD card? Is it more involved than that? Can’t find any straight answers.

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Are you wanting to roll your current distro over to the new SD card. Or do you want a new distro on the SD?

You can use raspberry Pi imager for both ways.
To keep your current distro you want to use the program to backup the SD card then pick custom distro then pick the backed up image to flash to the SD card.
A fresh distro, download the image you want. Then with raspberry Pi imager pick custom distro then pick the downloaded image to flash to the SD card. Don’t use any custom settings for the image won’t boot.

You can find images on both GitHub and in the forum.

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I’m not sure what a distro is entirely. At least not in this context.
But if it helps your understanding of my situation, I don’t really care about saving any files and I’m fine with a clean install. Nothing I’m particularly dead-set on carrying over. So maybe “New Distro” would be what I would choose?

That said your reply did give me a new thread to follow. Tell me more about this raspberry Pi imager. Is there a trusted link to it somewhere?

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But for more context, I just downloaded the image from here, and I got it from Google Drive since Mega wants me to pay money.

So from the google drive, I downloaded the one for “Pi-CM4”, and now have a file called “ClockworkPi-CM4-Bookworm-6.6.41.img.xz”

So that’s where I am right now. Is using the imager my next step?

Also just to clarify this would be my first time using anything but the stock OS that came with the uConsole.

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do you have a USB card reader or one builtin to your computer?
on windows you can download it from here.
Or you can install it on the uConsole, run in the console sudo apt install rpi-imager to install raspberry pi imager.

Once installed on a OS flash the new image to the sd card.

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Yup. Just use plug your new SD card into your Windows PC and run RPi Imager. Use custom image to point it at the image you downloaded. Don’t use any custom settings in RPi Imager (I think the thread you linked mentions this). And make sure you pick the right destination, triple check that you have selected the right SD card. Overwriting the wrong device is not something you can undo!

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Thanks to you and Rex I think I’m mostly good on how to do this. My last question: the .xz file I downloaded from Rex’s google drive: Is that what I’m flashing or does it need to be extracted? Asking because it has the winrar icon which seems to mean .xz is a compressed file format.

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you do not need to decompress

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Update: (Ignore this post: Extract it. Use winrar or 7zip or whatever. There are a bunch of these compression formats now and it’s confusing (.gz, .bz2, .xz, .Z, etc))

RPi Imager’s website says “All files format are supported, you don’t even need to extract the file if the system image is compressed.” … I’ve been doing it the hard way for YEARS.

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you don’t need to decompress xz compressed files to flash them.

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So the OS flashed no problem, and the first boot was a success. However, I turned my uConsole back on and now none of the keys or the trackball work.

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are you still having problem or is it working? try rebooting make, and sure the pogo pins have a good connection.

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Rebooting seemed to work. So about retropie, Gaming wasn’t really the main focus when I bought the uConsole, but I wanted to put at least a few games on there. The only issue is that retropie seems to be its own OS, so I’m not sure if I should flash it to a different SD card or if there’s a way to have retropie and still access my other apps, like pico 8, or sunvox.

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use another card, it’s a separate image. flash it, setup a user, then put the card back in your computer and load the roms in ~/RetroPie/roms/ and you should be all set.

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perhaps i spoke too soon. Now it shuts down any time I run a search on the web browser

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are you plugged in when this happens or on battery? If battery what kind of batteries do you have and is your battery tray seated correctly?

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Here’s what I can gather:

It’s not just when using the web browser. The next couple times I booted it up it shut down right after the clockwork logo.

The battery compartment should be seated correctly. I opened the uconsole up and made sure the screws were tight, and the batteries should be fine as I have run the device unplugged up to this point and they were at 56 percent.

The device starts up if plugged in. The odd part is that once I’m up and running, unplugging the charging cable does not shut down the device. The batteries seem to be fine at this point.

I’m reading further into this and I’m seeing that at least on the Gameshell, this problem necessitates a new main board. I’m really hoping I can get one hassle free and without any extra cost.

And to answer your question on the batteries, I got some Imrens from a vape shop. They’re somewhat of a placeholder until I can get some good Samsung batteries.

So maybe the strategy should be to get the samsung batteries, see how they fare, and if necessary request the new main board, but if anyone has had this problem and knows a better fix lmk

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You mind posting a picture of the battery tray connectors.

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